Glee [Import]

Bran Van 3000 | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 10, 1998)
• Original Release Date: March 10, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Emd Int'l
• ASIN: B00000634L
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,949 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #100 in Music > Imports > Alternative Rock

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Sometimes Canadian pop music is virtually indistinguishable from the flavor made in the U.S., while at other times it seems like it could just as easily be the latest sound emanating from Poland's hit parade. Bran Van 3000, a Montréal-based (and largely anglophone, thank you) musical collective whose 1997 debut album Glee has already gone gold up north, fluctuates between those two sensibilities. Led by filmmaker/video director James Di Salvio, Bran Van 3000 have just the combination of innocence and contrivance, knowing indulgence and dumb charm to make the U.S. release of Glee into a very hip (relatively speaking) afterschool special.

The key selling point here is light-hearted eclecticism, and there's plenty of it: Bran Van have their way with hip-hop and reggae, metal, pop, and soul, and--perhaps most self-consciously--country as well as techno (try the drum & bass/country song "Willard," or the trip hop & western "Supermodel").

While Glee nods to '80s artists as predictably disparate as Quiet Riot and The The, its most interesting reference points draw from more recent history. "Couch Surfer," an ode to being a penniless moocher, and "Drinking in L.A.," about wasting time in southern California, take us back to the glorious slackerific days of "I'm a loser baby...," complete with white rapping and a sampler/live instrument concoction. In at least one way, Glee is truly a work of prescience: It's undoubtedly the first recorded document of the inevitable Early '90s revival. --Roni Sarig

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Super fun!, June 7, 2001

By 

giovanni (Greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glee (Audio CD)

Bran Van's Glee sounded like no other 1998 album.It mixed different kinds of music styles like rock , pop , hip hop , soul and funk all done with an extra-cool attitude which was impossible to resist. "Drinking In LA" was one of the best singles of that year , relaxing and highly enjoyable . Then there was goofy yet lovable lazy-boy DiSalvio on "Couch Surfer" , sensitive female touches on "Everywhere" , Beastie Boys-like rapping on "Forest" and ofcourse that amazing cover of Slade's "Come on feel the noise" . This is a record which can make you smile and feel good everytime you listen to it and , in addition to all that it will certaintly take you a long time before you get bore with it (it includes 16-17 songs , you know... ) . Bran Van 3000 are the friends we would all want to have to cheer us up.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly entertaining patchwork of musical styles, February 6, 2001

By 

Tweek (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glee (Audio CD)

As seems to be the case everywhere else (from reading the reviews), Drinking in Hell-A was the only song that achieved any airplay in Ireland. I finally got around to getting this album about a year later. And while I still think Drinking's simple yet poinyant lyrics on the waster lifestyle (I know exactly what they mean) is by far the best song, this isn't to say that the rest of the album is weak. It consists of a (quite large) number of top-rate songs, with (perhaps too many) filler tracks, and the odd gem that is just so daft as to be genius ("Couch surfer" - an accurate description of my friend's flatmates and a highlight of the album, "Exactly like me", "Old School"). The filler ranges from the tragically underdeveloped (listen to the rockin' beat and smooth vocal delivery in "Problems", which disappointingly finishes after only a bare minute,) to the utterly bizarre and/or pointless (Gimme Sheldon, Highway to Heck, Lucknow, Oblonging). However, it's when the band allow a track to open up properly that you find gold. Cases in point: "Forest"'s dark lyrics but singalong chorus, with some French thrown in for good measure, "Supermodel"'s tuneful jangly guitar and silly Southern-accent lyrics about a diner waitress and her sweetheart, "Afrodiziak" and "Carry On"'s Carribean flavour (which I initially wasn't into but now like) and "Mama don't smoke"'s simplicity and lovely harmonies, offset by bizarre lyrics (compare Eminem "I just found out my mom does more dope than I do.") Sometimes, though, the genre crossovers are just a bit over the top, e.g. Willard's country opening suddenly launches into heavy drum'n'bass(!), Old School jumps disconcertingly from metal to Seventies bouncy hip hop. But despite all this, the band pratically always demonstrate at least a competent understanding of the style they're using. It is here that the band's great strength lies. The real question is what their follow-up would/will be like - we could see what they're capable of now that their large number of experimental tracks are presumably out of the way. However, "collectives" like these have a habit of kind of dissolving without trace, and it's been about 4 years since this was released so I can only hope that they are, in fact, still around and are working on Glee part 2 as I write.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How often does music make you laugh?, April 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Glee (Audio CD)

I have had this album for 2 years and I still can't get enough of it. Any time a friend hears it they are always amazed and they end up buying it for themselves. Basically its impossible to get sick of an album with such a wide variety of styles. But beyond that, the band truly demostrates a profound understanding of these styles, as they twist them around slightly, egaggerating them a bit. Combine this with the fact that the lyrics are just comedy, its simply impossible to not have fun listening to this cd. But at the end of the day its the pervasive and rich talent that keeps this album from being campy or cliche. Definitely goes with the desert island cd's.