New Miserable Experience

Gin Blossoms | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 4, 1992)
• Original Release Date: August 4, 1992
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: A&M
• ASIN: B000002GKJ
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,094 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute rock 'n' roll masterpiece!, April 15, 2002

By 

"babble1252" (California

Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Miserable Experience (Audio CD)

In 1992, I was the pop music editor at a Southern California newspaper when I received a promotional cassette of "New Miserable Experience." That night I popped the tape into my stereo and listened in awe as the glorious opening strains of "Lost Horizons" pealed from the speakers. With its bittersweet lyrics about hard drinking and misspent youth, "Lost Horizons" raged like some woebegone Irish shanty. To wit: "I'll drink enough of anything to make this world look new again ... I'm drunk, drunk, drunk in the gardens and the graves ..."

And I remember thinking that these weren't the trivial musings of some spoiled rock star. No, this was honest-to-God poetry composed by a genuinely tortured soul. "New Miserable Experience" devastated me so completely, I phoned my girlfriend Kathy and commanded her to come to my place IMMEDIATELY. That night we cruised the Sunset Strip with the tape blasting from the stereo. We talked about the record, and how we knew that whoever wrote the songs wasn't faking his pain. The Gin Blossoms articulated the doubt and uncertainty Kathy and I felt about our own lives, our own futures. The album became the soundtrack to our brief but unforgettable fling.

It's been nearly 10 years since that memorable drive and "New Miserable Experience" now strikes me as both an unsung masterpiece and a symbol of pop music's bygone glory. The album is part of a '90s musical explosion that spawned acclaimed recordings by Nirvana, Massive Attack, Jeff Buckley, Tool, Alice In Chains, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dr. Dre, The Black Crowes, Soundgarden, Sarah McLachlan, Pearl Jam, Tupac, Stone Temple Pilots, The Offspring, Billy Joe Shaver, Counting Crows, Rosanne Cash, Sting, The Devlins and others. For some inexplicable reason, established acts and new artists alike had plugged into the same electric muse, and life seemed so much better for it.

Though most of the records from that era have retained their mystique and complexity, "New Miserable Experience" ranks among the heaviest. If you're a misfit, outcast or just an exceptionally sensitive human being, then you MUST experience this album. If you're a party animal seeking the musical equivalent of a Schwartzenegger movie, then "New Miserable Experience" probably isn't for you. Its subtle charms and vulnerable lyricism will soar over your head like a cruise missile.

NME's success is due largely to the Blossoms' star-crossed resident genius, the late guitarist-songwriter Douglas Hopkins. By the time the band recorded "New Miserable Experience," Hopkins was already in the grip of a crushing, alcohol-aggravated depression. Endearingly honest and self-effacing, "New Miserable Experience" chronicles Hopkins' descent into a booze-induced hell. Don't let the Blossoms' choirboy vocals, glimmering country-rock guitars and hummable pop melodies deceive you. As its title suggests, "New Miserable Experience" is veritably saturated in luxuriant sadness.

Indeed, as other reviewers have suggested, listening to this record could bring you face-to-face with your own slumbering demons. Consider the review submitted by John J. Ronald of Texas. As a painfully shy young adult with substance abuse problems, he listened to this record "religiously." Having since matured into responsible adulthood, Ronald now views "New Miserable Experience" as almost unbearably sad. His review bears testament to the emotional depth of this record. In a modern rock 'n' roll world where blowhards like Korn and Linkin Park are considered standard-bearers, "New Miserable Experience" decimates listeners without once resorting to vocal histrionics or guitar overkill. Just powerful performances and earnest lyricism. Where I come from, that's called "soul."

Considering the piteous current state of popular music, NME's soulfulness now inspires wistful sadness. Mergers and consolidation have resulted in a profiteering music industry trafficking lowest-common-denominator pop. Sadder still, many of my '90s musical heroes are dead including Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Tupac, Eddie Shaver and the Blossoms' own Doug Hopkins. Did these troubled artists take the last vestiges of rock 'n' roll emotionalism to their graves?

Though that question remains to be answered, one thing seems certain to me: "New Miserable Experience" ranks as one of the finest rock albums EVER, and I defy anyone to cite another record that's more honest, passionate or brutally introspective.

Lest anyone accuse me of mincing words, consider this: I'm a freelance music writer and critic by trade. The thought of writing a record review without being compensated is downright repulsive to me. "New Miserable Experience" is so pure, so beautiful, so transcendently profound, I simply had to pay my respects here.

Rest in peace Doug, you beautiful drunken angel. And goodnight Kathy, wherever you are. God, I miss you ...

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The watershed album of an ill-fated band, April 3, 2000

By 

Matthew Parks (DURHAM, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: New Miserable Experience (Audio CD)

The story of the Gin Blossoms' watershed 2nd record, (their 1st, an EP recorded a year earlier called Up and Crumbling, features early versions of NME tracks "Mrs. Rita" and "Allison Road") New Miserable Experience, is really the sad story of founder/guitarist/songwriter Doug Hopkins. Though it was Hopkins who was ultimately responsible for the album's success (he wrote or co-wrote six of the songs, including the hit singles "Hey Jealousy," and "Found Out About You"), he was fired from the band soon after recording was completed because of an out-of-control drinking problem and severe episodes of depression. As the album began to take off, the remaining band members and the band's label A&M made a concerted effort to distance themselves from Hopkins, going so far as to change the albums cover art after it was released. While the band toured in support of the album, Hopkins tried to put together another band, but near the end of 1993, still suffering from severe alcoholism and depression, Hopkins shot and killed himself at his home in Tempe, Arizona. He was 32 years old. The Blossoms tried to carry on with the follow up to NME Congratulations . . .I'm Sorry, released in 1996, but without Hopkins' songwriting and after 4 years away from the studio, the band had lost its touch. Though it has some pretty good (though pretty bubble gum) songs on it, the new album was a disappointment. . .a disappointment from which the band apparently could not recover. A greatest hits package was released after the band broke up.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Drunken self-pity -- raised to an art form., November 1, 2005

By 

M. G Watson "Miles Watson" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: New Miserable Experience (Audio CD)

Anyone who has ever tried to cope with their emotional problems via cases of cheap beer and knock-off Jack Daniel's will immediately relate to "New Miserable Experience", the high-water mark of the fine but tragically short-lived early-mid 90s rock band the Gin Blossoms.

It would be easy to dismiss the Blossoms as just another self-piteous rock-pop band, but the atmosphere of factory town blues, heartache, hopeless obsession with ex-girlfriends, and general drunken misery is alleviated by liberal doses of humor and self-mockery as well as some clever and even brilliant lyrics. Some of my favorites, from the lesser-known songs on the album:

"So she filled up her sails/With my wasted breath/Each one's more wasted than the other/You can bet." -- Allison Road

"When you're in the company of strangers/or some strangers you call friends...." -- Hold Me Down

"If you don't expect too much from me/You might not be let down" -- Hey Jealousy (okay, this is not a lesser known song, but I like the lyric)

"They say you can't miss/Something that you never had/so tell me why/why I should feel so bad" -- Cajun Song

"Ginmill/Rainfall/What do you remember/if at all?/Only pieces/Of the night" -- Pieces of the Night

This album was best known for producing AOR radio hits like "Hey Jealousy", "Until I Fall Away" and "I Found Out About You." They are most definetly representative of the album, but not, in my opinion, the album's best songs. Unlike most pop-rock efforts, there is virtually no filler to be found here, and the tracks that didn't make radio are every bit as good as the ones that did -- or better.

George Orwell once wrote that good literature spoke to the reader on a one-on-one level -- it made the reader feel like the writer was writing about him, personally: experiences, feelings, moods, attitudes. This album has the exact same effect on me, but musically. If you've ever felt stuck by inertia in a dead-end town, that's "Lost Horizons." If you ever put your life ruinously on hold for a woman you knew would never stay with you, that's "Mrs. Rita." If you ever found yourself acting like a psycho over an ex-girlfriend, "Found Out About You" will make you feel even more like a tool. If you ever felt completely adrift, you were probably living on "Allison Road." And if you ever tried to deal with that that $--t by drinking yourself into utter oblivion, "Pieces of the Night" will be as familiar as your alcohol-soaked brain can remember.

That's "New Miserable Experience." An excellent piece of music from a band that lived up to its tragic expectations for itself, and left us with the eternal piece of lover's wisdom: "It can't be cheatin' -- she reminds me of you."