Excerpts From a Love Circus [Extra tracks, Original recording reissued]

Lisa Germano | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 8, 1999)
• Original Release Date: 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued
• Label: 4ad / Ada
• ASIN: B00000IAHD
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #273,709 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Baby on the Plane

2. A Beautiful Schizophrenic "Where's Miamo-Tutti?" [By Dorothy]

3. Bruises

4. I Love a Snot

5. Forget It, It's a Mystery

6. Victoria's Secret "Just a Bad Dream" [By Miamo-Tutti]

7. Small Heads

8. We Suck

9. Lovesick

10. Singing to the Birds

11. Messages from Sophia "There's More Kitties in the World Than Just ..."

12. Big Big World

13. Fun, Fun for Everyone

14. Tom, Dick and Harry

15. Messages from Sophia [Instrumental]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Operatic Psychodrama of Love, March 31, 2001

By 

"waldglyde" (Sydney, New South Wales Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excerpts From a Love Circus (Audio CD)

The second of Germano's brilliant song cycles, 'Excerpts From a Love Circus' is a moving, if disturbing, meditation on love and pain that is, by turns, Sylvia Plath and Sylvie Vartan. It is the tension between such polarities that makes Germano's music so haunting. A self-indulgent adolescent sense of teen-weltschmerz mixed with a brilliant gift for morbid tunefulness, mordant turns-of-phrase, and a voice that is one part wounded child, three parts arch-ironist. Just as no other contemporary artist combines the pop-form and confessional lyric quite as scathingly and - and this adds to her strength - wilfully selfindulgently, no one else manages her unnerving combination of gypsy rhythms, tacky pop, muted-thrash, and folk-tinged melodicism. Comparisons are unreliable, though useful, but for complexity of rhythms, and sheer herky-jerky dynamism in juxtaposing ideas, this is somewhere between the first Throwing Muses album and Lydia Lunch's Queen of Siam'. Vocally, the voice has enough wounded innocence to it to remind of Anita Lane, Nick Cave's ex, while, lyrically, the comparison to Plath is apposite. There is a strong degree of theatricalising of the self here, projecting a persona of pained, but bored, selfconsciousness, though enlivened by a nice line in self-deprecation.

My favourite aspect of this album, and of 'Geek the Girl' that preceded it, is the wilfull determination to turn what could have been quite catchy little commercial tunes into something perversely other. The wonderful 'Lovesick', and the charming, if nasty, 'I Love A Snot', are deliberately rescued from the threat of serious unit-shifting by alienating instrumentation and, in the case of the former, a wonderful middle-eight tribute to Yoko Ono. The loveliest song on the album is catchily titled 'We Suck' and extols the utter suckiness of true love. This album is perhaps not as disturbing as 'Geek the Girl', lacking the tape of domestic violence playing under a meditation on her own psychotic stalker, but, part-soap opera, part operatic psychodrama, it is still the perfect distillate of the society that produced, or poisoned, her.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All her albums deserve 5 stars, November 27, 2000

By 

Rick Hellman (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excerpts From a Love Circus (Audio CD)

As a fan of Ms. Germano's for several years I decided to write a review of this album since reviews here were so scarce. While not my overall favorite album of hers, this one contains my favorite two songs (back to back no less) of hers to date. To say that her work is self-deprecating is an understatement. A self proclaimed alcoholic and repeat relationship failure Lisa is able to vocalize so much pain and suffering in the most candy coated way. Her music may drag a bit, but the melodies are so haunting and perfect. The two times I've seen her live were pure joy. She is so open and earnest, and while she may be nervous at each performance she gives, the audience she draws is more than forgiving. Listen to Singing to the Birds and Messages from Sophia, they are my faves.

"So what if your heroes changed their minds? And all you thought was right flew out the window? And all you based your life on wasn't real?" -Lisa Germano on Singing to the Birds

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great album, great lyrics...., March 27, 2003

By 

wbr "wbr" (Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excerpts From a Love Circus (Audio CD)

This 1996 release was the first Lisa Germano album I bought, and I must say, it took some getting used to. But after a while, I got addicted to her music, and now I own all of her stuff. "Geek the Girl" is still my favourite album by her, but this one is brilliant as well. This album includes various "styles", and sounds "happier" than her previous work, and what she has done since. Her lyrics, though, still sound as depressed as ever. My favourite Lisa song, "Small Heads" is included on this album, plus the ultimate love song for the cynical, "I Love A Snot". Other stand-out tracks are "Forget It It's A Mystery", "Victoria's Secret", "We Suck" and "Baby On A Plane", which all make this a Cd worth buying.