Customer Reviews

Brown Bag

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Citizen King is a great hybrid band from WI, that blends an array of types of music to make a clean easy listening sound. With excellent record scratiching throughout, this album makes a good collection to anyone who really enjoys Mobile Estates. While the lead singer's voice is very different in this early CD, it still has the very unique, very catchy, and very easy to listen to sound of Citizen King.

I remember the first time that I saw Citizen King. It was a Friday night, and they were playing with another local Milwaukee band, Little Blue Crunchy Things, at the Grand Opening celebration of a Boston Store. I was so taken by the music. The fusion of different styles; the unadulterated funk, soul, rock, hip-hop, blues, and jazz, all coming together to form this sound unlike any other. I purchased their CD that very day, and was treated to that same style, that same excitement that their live music possesses. It was an incredible feeling to know that this was out there. It was obvious from the beginning of the group that they were going far, for they brought something to the table that no one else had or could. Brown Bag LP is a collection of this excitement, and the best thing to ever come out of Milwaukee's music scene.

This band is one of the most underrated of the late '90s. I started listening to them about the time of the release of this album and was already a big fan. Most people who know of this band have backpeddeled to this album and may be surprised by the sound of it. My response to that is, yes, these guys have style and sound and it wasn't always the status quo sound of mobile estates. Hurray for Citizen King! Their sound is really diverse and entertaining. Enjoy!

Sadly, Citizen King is no more. Even worse, I don't care. Mobile Estates showed what a big record company could do to a great band.

When the guys from Citizen King were in high school, I used to go see them all the time, since their high school was 10 minutes away from mine. The sound they had back then was simply amazing. A mix of funk, hip-hop and rock that I've never heard duplicated.

Brown Bag LP was The King at their finest. If you have a chance to get you hands on this album, you will throw away your Mobile Estates album. All Estates is, is a ground down overmixed dulled down Citizen King.

I thought this album would be the roots from which mobile estates grew, but was I wrong! The singer sounds NOTHING like he does on mobile estates.Neither does the music. I really can't see how they came from this to mobile estates. It is very accurate to say his voice has matured GREATLY over the years. When I first played this cd, I thought maybe the first track was sung by one of the other band memebers.His voice on this Lp in my opinion is very nasaly and adolescent. The whole album sounds like a watered-down early chili peppers album with keyboards and little to no melody. I HATE the chili peppers!! The only good thing about this album is it seems to have some pretty descent lyrics. I listeneed to the whole cd and I can't even distinctly remember 1 song, that's how bad it is. Not one single melody. Oh well. Damn it this album sucks..

I have NO idea how this album has such high ratings. I think that people are just rating it high so another naive Mobile Estates fan will come and buy their trash.

I hate to sound like that "top 40" prick, but man... this album is horrible. I'm well aware of the damage that good record deals can do to bands, but this time it helped. Of course, I didn't expect Brown Bag to be as good as Mobile Estates, but I didn't expect this. The lyrics are less than good, the verses are bad, the hooks are worse, and the vocals are the worst. The only potential savior would that there are decent scratches every now and then, but absolutely nothing could save this album. I'm listening to it now... I hear David Lee Roth and Faith No More (from their worse years) influences. I'm not kidding... DLR from Van Halen. Too bad they didn't put out another good album before they broke up, because fans of Mobile Estates only get the one. To those of you grassroots snobs who claim that you were there first... YOU CAN HAVE THEM.