Cereal Killers

Too Much Joy | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 12, 1991)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000008LMX
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,694 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far Too Much Too Much Joy, July 1, 2003

By 

Brian Stork "Famous Boxer" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cereal Killers (Audio CD)

This is your best TMJ bang for your buck. Once familiar with TMJ's style, this CD offers a cornucopia of musical goodness. "Susquehanna Hat Company" starts you off with an explosion and may just become your favorite song on the CD (important enough to the band to name their official band page after it). The songs on this CD are delightful: you listen and enjoy, then think about them and realize to your delight, you didn't get it the first time.

You can't mention this CD without mentioning "Crush Story" - such a great, pop song with fantastic vocal work all around. Personally, I prefer the feel of "Long Haired Guys From England" - a must in my motorcycle juke box. Who am I kidding? They're all great. Ounce for ounce, this is the most joy from a single CD I've ever experienced.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sure thing that I don't doubt (I know that's a reference off Son of Sam I Am. Shut up.), June 3, 2006

By 

epsteinsmutha "epsteinsmutha" (At the bottom of Juan Epstein's excuse note) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cereal Killers (Audio CD)

Cut-out bin classic, this one. Further proof that the nature of life is chaos. The nerd never gets the girl and great music ends up remaindered like this third platter from Scarsdale's finest.

I talked about Son of Sam I Am elsewhere and really haven't much to add to what others have said about how great this band is and how great this album is.

Is this a brilliant album? Yes. From "Susquehanah Hat Co." to "Theme Song," there's not a bad one here. Too Much Joy didn't turn out junk. And maybe I'm just the pirate Tim and the boys sing about, who everyone thinks is crazy (everyone is right).

Everyone should sleep with everyone tonight! Whoa-ho-ho!
Signed,
epsteinsmutha

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Too Much Joy Masterpiece, September 3, 2005

By 

Bill Wikstrom (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cereal Killers (Audio CD)

The first time I heard this record I thought it was one of the worst things I ever heard. Man how a few listens can reveal so much of an album. That's the mark of a great record. The songs on this record seem to be in some loose cycle of : confusion, rage and resignation. Lots of irony, insecurity and alienation in the lyrics. "Susquehanna Hat Company" (named after an Abbott & Costello routine) is a perfect post-breakup song. "Good Kill" is slightly written from a serial killer's perspective and features some rhyming from KRS-One (oddly enough R.E.M.'s "Radio Song" also featuring KRS-One on Automatic For The People was released the same day as Cereal Killers).
"Pirate", "William Holden Caulfield" and "Goodbye Ohio" are almost textbook examples of the aliention rock song.
"King Of Beers" has frat-house written all over it but somehow rises above standard frat-house fare. "Crush Story" is the quintessential power pop love (or crush as it were) song. "Nothing On My Mind" is a mini-anthemic ode to the joy of nothing. "Gramatan" is a powerful song with slight Andy Partridge-esque lyrical leanings about the capitalization of the American Indian's land and the commonplaceness (yes it's a word) acceptance of it.
"Long Haired Guys From England" is a classic four chord rave-up. "Thanksgiving In Reno" is a sad true story and contains the classic line "I dreamt that I was Evil Knievel".
"Theme Song" (possibily the best theme song a band ever wrote) was once described by Newt Gingrinch as the "entire essence of the Republican campaign" strangely enough.
The band call themselves a "hip Good Humor truck that
all the kids come out to greet".
Loud, funny, sad, poignant, hyper and youthful.

Hearing an album like this today leaves me baffled as to why the same people who consider mid-90's albums like Weezers' Blue Album and Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish to be classics haven't even heard this album. Unlike say, Nirvana, the rage and angst here is well-articulated, controlled even more alienated. This album is like a candy-coated bitter pill.
It's as sweet at it is sour and as energetic as it is resigned.

There's no reason this album should not go down in
history as one of the classic guitar-based pop punk classics
(and one of the first of it's kind).