Customer Reviews

Plugged

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album was the Bobs answer to the "unplugged" craze of the 1990s. The Bobs "plugged in" and used various electronic effects to distort their voices on some of the songs here. For example, Joe Bob used feedback to make his voice sound like an electric guitar on several songs here. They also used toy drums and cardboard boxes for percussion on a few songs. The resulting album is my personal favorite Bobs album. It has their trademark vocal harmonies and humorous songs. Songs about singing, tattoos, bumper sticker slogans, hungry astronauts, obituaries, coffee, love, smoke, neo-beatniks, outlet malls and Andy Kaufman. What more can you ask for? There is also an unlisted bonus track, which is a brief clip of producer Scott Mathews practicing on the toy drums for "Meat on the Moon". Buy this CD!

I own 3 of the Best Of Breed 's (the BOB'S) albums/cd's since 1988. I listen to them for their vocal harmony and carefree inflection, ...and because they make me giggle or smile; This one makes me chuckle, with their treatment of American (pop) culture; A common subject w/ most of their work. You can despise doctor demento and still be a fan of the BOBS. If you've ever made a joke at the expense of your public image or have "interesting" observations about daily american life and culture (i.e. The Simpsons), you will probably appreciate more then half the songs on this CD. I plan to send it to my brother in Japan, so he can hear what he has been missing the last ten years. Hopefully making him so homesick that he comes back to the states.

Partly the problem is they made so many awesome songs on their first 4 albums (s/t, My I'm Large, Songs for Tomorrow, Sing the Songs of) that just having 4 nice songs and 11 that don't hit the mark, well, it's disappointing by comparison.

Those good songs are 'When We Start To Sing', 'Kill Your Television' a certified hit, 'Elwood Decker' and 'Andy Always..'.

'Kill..' is a marvelous song simply singing a number of different bumper stickers. Interestingly, times have changed and you rarely see a 10th of the striking bumper stickers today that you used to in the 70's and 80's. Not sure what's up with that. Maybe people don't wanna enflame any road ragers. So this song is also a cultural artifact reminding us of what was on the backs of many cars. Very high quality song. But, the only one on this album.

The other three songs are nice, good, but not superior, nothing of the caliber of the 10 or so amazing songs each on their first four albums.

The other 14 songs just seem like the band was unable to be inspired to write something significant, particularly musically. Some of the lyrics are fun but even those don't match up to the first four albums, not even close. That's life. It's worth having the album for a low used price to get 'Kill..' and the other three are cool. chrisbct@hotmail.com

Overall, this cd released by The Bobs is great. This is the only cd that has accompaniment by drums / percussion. That factor makes the songs all the more interesting. This is definately a must have for any Bobs fan. However, I found some of the songs bland, and downright boring. Buy it: yes.