I've wanted to see a thread for this band for awhile now. I searched topics but I wasn't able to find any here, and I got a shitload of Residents merchandise in the mail today, sooo, I guess this is as good a time as any.
I knew about the Residents a few years before I actually got one of their albums (first read about them in All Music's rock book). They sounded like a band I woul;d really enjoy, but their discography was so daunting (due to the fact they've been around over 30 years and have released a score of albums, live albums, videos, books, DVDs, even video games) I kept putting them off, much like I did with Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, two other prolific avant-gardists. Like many people, the first thing that drew me to them was their look: Generally they usually dress in tuxedos and wear these odd-looking eyeball-head masks with top hats... I love eyeballs and I thought they had to be the coolest looking band ever (and I liked how no one knew their identities). Finally, last year I started collecting their albums and I really regret waiting so long: They're easily in my top ten favorite groups of all time.
They have so many good moments it's almost impossible to list them all (and I'm still missing quite a few of their major releases, many of which are sadly out of print now): Their noisy cover of the Stones' "Satisfaction", one of the first punk singles: The warped "Commercial Album", featuring 60 (originally 40 ) one minute "pop" songs, the Residents atempt to create their own "Top 40": "Wormwood", their epic album about the seedier aspects of the Bible (one of their greatest albums IMO): "Eskimo",the band's tribute to the arctic life of the Eskimo: and of course the "Mole Trilogy", a bombastic three album saga about the struggle between two tribes, the moles and the chubbs, which was accompanied by an even more epic stage show and further live albums (they even released an album of the intermission music from the live shows!)
However, by far my favorite Residents album is "Third Reich & Roll", originally released in 1976 (their third album). With a cover depicting Dick Clark dressed like a nazi and holding a carrot, it features 2 epic 18+ minute songs that take american rock & roll oldies and twists them into something truly bizarre (the album opens with one of the singers shouting in a germanic voice to do the "mashed potato" over a tribal beat). This album sounds so far ahead of it's time, and seems constantly on the verge of total collapse, an insane mix of noise, electronics, sound effects (mostly cars crashing, machine guns, and so on), yet at the same time it totally rocks hard and never gets dull. Easily one of my favorite experimental albums of all time, and definetly one of my top 10 favorite records. I highly recommend it.
As good as their music is, it's important not to forget their contribution to the art of the music video. Their first video, "Third Reich & Roll", done in 1976, was one of the first music videos added to the New York Museum of Arts permanent collection (also in there is "One Minute Movies", which received heavy airplay from MTV back when it was just starting out). A lot of thse incredible videos can be found in their DVD "Icky Flix", and you can watch them with the original music or with all-new music created especially for the DVD. The "Eskimo" album and the "Commercial album" were also released as DVDs, along with a few others.
Recently the Residents released a new album on Mute, called "Animal Lover", and like many of their releases it includes a massive 40+ page booklet complete with lyrics & text (oh yeah, it sounds great too). Mute also rereleased the "Commercial Album" as a CD and the aforementioned DVD, both of which are worth checking out.
The Residents world can seem very cryptic, hermetic and hard to get intgo, but once one does, the treasures one uncovers are mind-boggling. Seriously, if you've never heard one of their albums check 'em out, but what makes them tough to get into is that all their albums sound different then the last one, but I like variety. They really do capture a perfect mix of both pop and avant-garde experimentation. And they look really, really cool, too. |
