Bunny Gets Paid

Red Red Meat | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 10, 1995)
• Original Release Date: October 13, 1995
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sub Pop
• ASIN: B0000035HE
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #431,603 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Precursor to Califone and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, January 28, 2011

By 

G. Locke "Ze Catalist Dot Com" (Fort Wayne, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bunny Gets Paid (Deluxe Edition) (Audio CD)

The sound of guitars being punched. Amps humming. Bottles breaking everywhere. Strange currencies rising and dropping, creating a soundscape that suggests so much. Bunny gets paid? What?

Red Red Meat's third and best release, Bunny Gets Paid, a record released in 1995 on Sub Pop records and out of print for almost a decade, is secretly one of the 90s' most experimental rock albums. It's an album that Sub Pop's owners have said is "easily one of the high points of the entire Sub Pop catalog." And they're right. Meat's key member, singer/guitarist Tim Rutili, went on to form Califone, a band Jeff Tweedy claimed inspired Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I never personally heard too much of a Tweedy/Rutili connection until Bunny hit my ears. Now I get it. Bunny Gets Paid is a younger, drunker, meaner version of Yankee. There's a danger to this sound. Now, after years of talk, Sub Pop has finally made good on their promise to remaster and reissue this wild - and largely unknown - gem. They've added a disc of extras, some nice packaging and a slightly tweaked sound, but that's not the draw here. The initial set is all you need.

The first time I heard Bunny I was nightwalking through a bustling area of a big city, headphones loud. So many strange things happening - both in my ears and in front of my eyes - over a solid palate of fuzzy guitars, sonic humming and shouldn't-be-singing-but-am post-Stipeian mumbles. At one point I heard an opera singer lingering in the background, only to later realize that I'd walked by an opera house with an intercom. Still, it wouldn't have surprised me to hear this. There's so much sound everywhere on this expertly produced (though still pretty lo-fi) indie rock classic; so much so that each listen promises a new detail to warm your hands to on those cold, lonely indie rock nights. Keyboards falling out of the sky while an out-of-tune acoustic guitar gets assaulted and Rutili lets words happen out of his marble mouth. Don't clear your throat, Tim, keep on going. And don't candle your ears, listener, it's supposed to sound this way.

Opener "Carpet of Horses" could easily be a Wilco b-side from 2002. The song, broken and beautiful, is so subtle in its detail that it comes off as one of the best-executed audible messes you'll find. Strange sonic humming swells and drops while distant percussion holds everything together. Rutili sings words that seem hardly connected while his bands empties bottles on tape. By the time "Rosewood, Stax, Volts and Glitter" kicks in the listener has no idea what to expect. A post-grunge band arrives, now breaking bottles with every note, playing as if the end result matters no more than their current buzz. Matters only to them at that moment. And that's why it works: Red Red Meat weren't "going for broke" on Bunny, they were broke. Poor and fractured. Talking about bunnies getting paid, or something.

Sure, people cared about the Chicago band that would be Califone in 1995, but the promise of a Nirvana-like breakthrough had passed for these guys. Music was already changing and - once touted as an up-and-coming grunge outfit - the Meat was being left behind. So what did they do? They made a classic that I'm sure they figured very few folks would care to hear. This is extreme music - an extreme collection of ideas that feels too loose to actually work. But it does work. One of the true cult classic records of the 90s, Bunny Gets Paid is a must-hear. You may not dig Rutili's vocals or the seemingly disorganized nature of the band's compositions, but hang in there, ears. If you can listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - or recent Sonic Youth, even - then you can listen to - and enjoy - Bunny's madness. Four listens in and you'll feel like someone just kicked you in the ears. If you're lucky, you'll never hear the same again. Any record that can do that to you is worth hearing.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Opiate Blues for a Post Rock lulluby., June 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bunny Gets Paid (Audio CD)

With their previous "Jimmywine" it looked as if the Meat was gonna get them heads a bobbin' in unison. What an amazing departure this album is from their earlier work but at the same time expanding on musical themes previously hinted at. Beautiful songs, great production and guitar tones to melt away to. Too bad they broke up, but then again maybe not.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Deluxe Edition, January 18, 2010

By 

R. Bellows (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bunny Gets Paid (Deluxe Edition) (Audio CD)

If you didn't happen to buy most of their albums as you grew up (and I didn't# - and for some reason only really found out about Red Red Meat #as I did) - then this album is re-release is awesome. I went to iTunes and checked out the preview: Loved the acoustic guitar on Carpet of Horses. Chain x3 is a powerful standard rock formula. Solid harmonics and melody. Buttered - lovely ballad. Love the "unplugged" sound. Gauze and Idiot Son - solid - very Lou Reed sound going on here. The songs Rosewood and Variations on Nadias Theme - have a feedback thing that remends me of the Jesus Mary Chain Sad Cadillac - nice keyboards. I keep discovinging bands that that everyone seems to already know about, but at least it keeps life interesting. So I give this a solid thumbs up, and now I'm going to go buy it on Amazon.