In the Grass

Splendora | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 19, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Koch Records
• ASIN: B000001SM0
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,589 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Bee Stung Lips

2. Rat Fink

3. Breeze

4. Rocker

5. Beautiful

6. Pollyanna

7. Reanimator

8. Shirt On

9. Sever

10. Rattle

11. Cover The River

12. No Place

13. It's Great

14. Busted

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why couldnt i hear this sooner, January 23, 2004

By 

Graham Tate "GingerSnapsFan" (Halifax,England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Grass (Audio CD)

I heard the soundtrack to mtvs 'Daria' and liked it, found out it was written by Janet Wygal and performed by 'Splendora' so i bought this CD (their first and only CD) and was amazed,it offers everything to people who like pop/rock or rock alt.This is an album which doesnt just have a couple of good songs that you can listen to before you change the cd, IT IS EXCELLENT IN ITS FULL 14 TRACK GREATNESS. From start to finish all you can think is 'Why didnt i find this sooner!'this CD will certainly find its way to a permanent place in your cd player.Its a bit one sided of me to say this but i dont care "ITS IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO LIKE THIS CD"
If you manage to get a copy of this it will intise you to research on the band members, so let me save you a little time-
The Individuals,
The Wygals,
ZuZu's Petals,
Steve Wynn,
these are all artists assosiated with the band and are all worth giving a try. You will find it hard to comeby some of these(wygals,individuals), but 'The wygals-Honyocks in the withersoever' comes up occasionaly(odd time) on Ebay, a little tip for you,and also that other cd on amazon 'Splendora vs Fluffy' is nothing to do with this album, its a completley different artist(Tess Wiley who wrote the album 'Rainy Day Assembly')
To Sum Up This Review' BUY THIS ALBUM!!!!!!!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a tragedy, March 16, 2007

By 

Ross Alford (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Grass (Audio CD)

It's a tragedy that this is the only album Splendora produced, and that none of the artists involved seems to have done much else in music that I can find. Found this because I like the Daria theme song, and really love it. The style varies but it is all hard hitting, with interesting lyrics. Other artists you may like if you like this are Throwing Muses, 50 Foot Wave, The Breeders, Belly (at least I do).

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unexpected, Excellent, Awesome, March 14, 2010

By 

Robert - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Grass (Audio CD)

I highly doubt anybody is reading a review of this rare album, unless they heard about the band from MTV's cartoon Daria. Just in case, Splendora is a short-lived, all-female grunge/punk band that almost defies genre, and released only one full-length album.

In the Grass does a lot of things for me that no other album I know does. This is something truly different. First, it is quite hard to fit into a single genre. It's a little faster than grunge and slower than punk, but has a lot of the elements common to both: loud distorted guitars, angry-sounding vocals, interesting chord changes. I guess you could call it alternative. Sure.

The fact that this is an all-female band, playing genres where you don't typically find many female musicians at all, gives this album a very interesting perspective. Grunge and punk are so male-dominated, so we typically find lyrics criticizing society, but rarely are women mentioned except as love interest. In this album, however, many of the songs criticize society from a woman's perspective, so they lyrics are refreshingly unique. For example, "Beautiful" is a criticism of girls that try to succeed based on their looks: "Are you a super waif?/Do you think you have something we all crave?/When we get hungry, we eat" The song hints at a depth you'd never find in a song sung by a dude: it acknowledges that society encourages women to focus on their looks, and criticizes those who do; not because they are shallow but because they have bent to this encouragement. "Shirt On" is another great perspective; as far as I can make out, its told from the point of view of a woman who is on hard times, but snubs the opportunity to sell her body, and lose her dignity, to make ends meet: "I keep my shirt on/cuz it won't hurt long/I'm waiting for a lucky day" When do men ever have to grapple with this sort of issue? The rest of the album continues the theme of world-weariness from the eyes of a woman, and speaking as a man, I find it fascinating to see this side of life.

The lyrics tend to be cynical and bitter on this album, aside from this. They are sung with a lot of emotion, and seem very believable. How can you compete with such intelligent, sardonic lines as, "Santa Claus must die/Superman won't fly/Polyanna blows my mind" or "I will call the ambulance/cuz honey, I still have some sense"? These songs are actually a perfect compliment to the attitude that keeps Daria fans coming back for more; Splendora was an excellent choice to provide the music for that show.

The music is pretty unique on this album as well. The sonic texture is interesting; cranky guitars resemble in harshness something out of a garage band's demo tape, while a cello and violin unexpectedly fill out most of the arrangements. They're used in a really great way, too- I've heard punk and grunge bands incorporate these instruments into their soft, slow parts, only to have them immediately cut out when the loud guitars come back in. However, the strings section in Splendora is always hanging around, basically just making things interesting and being creative. You wouldn't think it would work so well, but it does, giving the sound an almost sickly, exasperated quality that compliments the lyrics perfectly.

The chord progressions are extremely interesting on this album (I'm a chord geek so that's one of my favorite parts.) This is a far cry from 4-chord punk and one of the ways in which this music resembles grunge more. Splendora seem very fond of using all major chords, but frequently in places where one would expect the minor chords to go, so it's unexpected, energetic and catchy. For example, Breeze (one of my favorite tracks) kicks off with a powerful E7, to get things started... but then a D7 chord somehow provides the passing chord to the next section, which has these 4 chords: FM, AM, CM, BbM. It doesnt really make any sense, by traditional music theory, but it sounds great.

I'd warn people that this music is far from perfect, and isn't for everyone. It's loud and rough, so anybody who prefers a mellower sound probably won't dig it. Also, it gets a little repetitive from time to time (after a while, the songs all sound the same in some ways.) But in terms of artistic creativity and originality, its hard to find better in music these days. This was a band that really did its own thing, and told stories from an interesting perspective. If you liked the Daria theme song, you'll love this album.