Sex & Violins

Rednex

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 25, 1995)
• Original Release Date: 1995
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Jive
• ASIN: B00000057K
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #112,603 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Cotton Eye Joe

2. Hittin' the Hay

3. Riding Alone

4. Wish You Were Here

5. Mary Lou

6. Old Pop in an Oak

7. Nowhere in Idaho

8. Sad but True Story of Ray Mingus...That Could Be Derived From ...

9. Fat Sally Lee

10. Shooter

11. McKenzie Brothers

12. Rolling Home

13. Wild and Free

14. Cotton Eye Joe [Slide to the Side Mix][*]

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Leave it to the Swedes to feed us back only the best of American kitsch. The gimmick: Techno as made by country bumpkins, bluegrass house music. Utterly dumb, but thoroughly enjoyable. Even a little subversive, perhaps, given the international smash hit "Cotton-Eye Joe," a helplessly catchy disco reworking of an age-old traditional folk tune, slyly coded, and implying what? "Had it not been for Cotton-Eye Joe / I'd been married long time ago." Maybe a botched abortion, maybe venereal disease; either way, a hot-button still today. But don't be mistaken, any political sentiment is almost certainly unintentional. Rednex is all joke, from the banjos and fiddles to the sequencers and drum loops. On a level with the Village People (anyone say subversive?), the Rednex were concocted by producer Pat Reiniz, recorded with a cast of studio musicians, and fronted by five hillbilly role players. Though Rednex fails when it deviates from the formula, it more often works on the knowledge that bluegrass and techno share a fast and steady beat, and can thus stand fusion. It also succeeds simply because it's never been done before (not unless you count Malcolm McLaren or Big Audio Dynamite). Besides, wasn't it obvious that square dance and rave were on a cultural collision course from the start? --Roni Sarig

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If yer neck ain't red from this, then yer dead. YEEEEEHAWWW, August 14, 2001

By	Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

What do you get when you inject a lethal dose of techno into Hee-haw style country music? You'd probably get something like Rednex's Sex & Violins, the same way Bond injected a new sound into classical music.

The female vocalist sounds a bit like Cyndi Lauper on helium, while the male vocalist sounds at home on Hee Haw or the Red Green Show. Rednex don't stop at fiddles, techno beats, and country rhythms--the music is filled with barnyard noises like cows, chickens, and horses. Oh yes, and yeeehaws!

This is a treat for anyone's CD. Heck, put the CD on random, excluding tracks #4, #7, #11, #12, and party away! However, of those four, "Rolling Home" is actually a sweet ballad with a harmony chorus. "Nowhere In Idaho" is a lazy ballad with a forlorn steel guitar, which is interrupted in the middle by a cowboy's monologue saying that the "song is about a man and a woman, what else?" and the sound of a whinnying horse. Tweaked!

"Cotton-Eye Joe," the single, opens the album and sets the stage for the entire album. A different mix of it also closes the album. For those not in the know, the song is also on the Malcolm In The Middle soundtrack.

Song No. 8 has got to have a record for longest song title. (I think Fiona Apple's clinched the one for longest album title. It also happens to be the shortest song on here, clocking in at 2:20.

"Shooter" is yet another machismo-laced song about a man and his best friend, his gun, except this time he's singing the verses, while his girl's doing the chorus.

"The McKenzie Brothers," no, not Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, but considering the rest of the album, it is still a strange brew. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) Anyway, it's a wild west tale done in monologue over a lazy steel guitar.

"Wild And Free" has the swiftest tempo of the 14 songs. If you play this in your brand new Ferrari while hightailing it down the interstate, don't be surprised if A) you get a speeding ticket, B) your engine overheats and smashes through the hood of your car, or C) both.

"Fat Sally Lee" comes in second in terms of tempo, and in the bridge, the Cyndi-ish vocalist dementedly squeaks, "Step one, step two. Step too and shake your boots!"

A one-off effort by a bunch of crazy Swedes. Pity--we could have used a second album, called More Explicit Sex & Violins maybe?

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE REDNEX ROCK!, November 10, 1999

By A Customer

I'm proud to have a copy of the Rednex' only album--SEX & VIOLINS--which I bought in May 1996. The first song I heard from that album was COTTON-EYE JOE, which I heard on the radio, in 1994.

The Rednex--from Stockholm, Sweden, by the way--were successful in combining country music and techno to form a unique sound that only the Rednex (as far as I know) could produce: high-tech country!

I'm not a country music fan; but, I still recommend SEX & VIOLINS to everyone.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great, Fun Mix of Country and Techno, January 4, 2001

By	"d-moonshadow" (MA, United States) - See all my reviews

I am PROUD to own my ONLY Techno-Country CD: Rednex's "Sex & Violins". This CD will have you dancing for hours on end (well, if you hit the repeat button on your CD player). It contains all their world wide hits, from the dance floor stompers "Cotton-Eye Joe", "Old Pop In An Oak" and "Wild'N'Free" to the sweet ballad "Wish You Were Here", produced by Max Martin and Denniz PoP, the masterminds behind Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and Ms. Spears. Also featured on this CD are some sterling album cuts, such as the hilarious "The Sad But True Story...", which features the chorus lyric "I'll be harder than your husband, I'll be harder than your man; I'll hit you with my twenty-gauge until you cannot stand". "Shooter" features perhaps the best use of female vocals on the CD, with the vocalist reaching into what could almost be called ethereal territory on the bridge. "Mckenzie Brothers" features spoken word narrative over an R&B light funk beat with cheesy "the bad guy's comin'!" guitar riffs. "Rolling Home" is another ballad winner, with more tempo than "Wish You Were Here", and the Slide to the Side Mix of "Cotton-Eye Joe" is almost as good as the original. Definitely an energetic CD to add to your collection.