Miss Happiness

Walt Mink | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 5, 1992)
• Original Release Date: June 15, 1992
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Caroline
• ASIN: B000000HW1
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,480 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Miss Happiness

2. Chowder Town

3. Love You Better

4. Showers Down

5. Quiet Time

6. Pink Moon

7. Smoothing the Ride

8. Croton-Harmon (Local)

9. Twinkle and Shine

10. Factory

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a '90s gem-- get this!, January 17, 2004

By 

Chris Stolz (canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Miss Happiness (Audio CD)

Walt Mink were a kind of Big Star of the '90s. Massively talented, incredible songwriters, superb live players, and screwed over by two major labels. This is their debut disc, and it rocks in a way most '90s music doesn't.

The album is Beatlesque pop in places, screaming (yet groovy) metal in others ("Croton Harmon," their take on train communting), and elsewhere we have rip-roaring psychedelia in the form of a Nick Dake cover. This is an album that gets better and better with age.

John Kimbrough is a masterful guitarist, something like a funkier Bob Mould, with both serious technical chops and an amazing ear for rhythmic counterpoint. Bassist Candice Belanoff is a girl player who can actually PLAY, not just look good and play three-note punk lines, and drummer Waronker is like a groovier John Bonham. He would later work with Beck on "Mellow Gold". The three make an awesomely tight yet supple unit-- this is heavy but funky and groovy music that really breathes. If you can imagine the Beatles, Motorhead and Sly and the Family Stone playing in the same room, you are getting the idea.

This is superb indie rock form te '90s-- buy it!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Too Cool ! !, June 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Miss Happiness (Audio CD)

This band is pure SAVAGE CHAOS ! I saw them in concert here in Chicago , and their bass player (a CHICK)is one of the best you will ever see. If you like Nirvana AND the Beatles , you will love Walt Mink. Be careful playing this in your car, you could easily get lots of speeding tickets !

5.0 out of 5 stars Never A Rip-Off, And Always Rips, December 24, 2011

By 

kabalabonga - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Miss Happiness (Audio CD)

Sounding a lot like Jane's Addiction but with raw, churning, aggressively paced power chords polished to a higher gloss and with a more well-rounded tone, the guitar work on Walt Mink is neither homage nor rip-off - John Kimbrough and Walt Mink are contemporaneous with Dave Navarro and Jane's Addiction, with Kimbrough's vocal delivery, though somewhere in the very general range of Perry Farrell's, is much clearer and easier on the ear, and Walt Mink's tracks have a less heavier edge. Seriously rippling explosive lead lines trade off with punchy, aggressive rhythmic chops to make Kimbrough's guitar the band's accelerative force, and when combined with the enormous lockstep groove established by Candace Bellanoff's heavily burbling basslines and Joey Waronker's aggressively flickering snare-work, I guess it wasn't difficult for me to make that connection, though I think Walt Mink have the better technical players, and craft much suppler material. While they may not have the metallic oversheen of Jane's Addiction, their brand of post-punk power pop still delivers a heavyweight punch, overlayered with gorgeous melodic arrangements, and if possible are capable of working much more deeply in the funky vein that Jane's mined to such commercial success.

I don't know why "Miss Happinesss" remained largely overlooked outside of the Indie community after its release; I was always perplexed at its perceived lack of commercial appeal when it was not only DIY daring, but also loaded with tremendously catchy choruses, callouts, and hooks. I guess that's because most radio stations, and especially the ones categorized as "modern rock" (the one place the music contained on this CD should've thrived) were being programmed by supercomputer. Songs that are especially tuneful and heavily gripping were "Love You Better", "Showers Down", "Shooting The Ride", the title track, and "Factory", but really, from beginning to end, the tracks each have some distinctive wrinkle while still retaining a remarkable sense of cohesion. I recently replaced my original CD; and can't recommend it enough; you should make an effort to snag one.