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Pure Guava

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Pure Guava
Studio album by
Ween
ReleasedNovember 10, 1992[1]
Recorded1992
Genre
Length55:27
LabelElektra
ProducerWeen
Ween chronology
The Pod
(1991) 		Pure Guava
(1992) 		Chocolate and Cheese
(1994)
Singles from Pure Guava
  1. "Push th' Little Daisies"
    Released: 1993

Pure Guava is the third studio album and major label debut by American rock band Ween, released on November 10, 1992, by Elektra Records. The record contains the US radio hit "Push th' Little Daisies".

Background

[edit]

The album features one of Ween's most well-known songs, "Push th' Little Daisies." The song was also released as a single on August Records in 1993, including both the album and radio edit versions of the song (the latter replacing the word "shit" with a sample of Prince squealing from "Alphabet St."), as well as the tracks "Ode to Rene", "I Smoke Some Grass (Really Really High)" and "Mango Woman"; "Puerto Rican Power" replaces "I Smoke Some Grass" on some editions.

Many of the songs on this album come from at least two tapes that the band made for friends, including ones titled Springstuff and The Caprice Classic Tape, as stated by Dean Ween on JJJ radio in 1993.[2]

The song "Big Jilm" was inspired by a car dealer named James A. Lemons, who worked at the dealership owned by Dean Ween's father.[3]

The song "Poop Ship Destroyer" would become a live staple for the band, although the live performances traditionally bear little resemblance to the album version and are instead played as a protracted improvised jam, either to punish or reward an audience.[4]

Reception

[edit]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[5]
Christgau's Consumer GuideC+[6]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[7]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[10]
MusicHound Rock[8]
OndaRock7/10[9]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[11]
Spin Alternative Record Guide6/10[12]

AllMusic editor Heather Phares called the album "more polished and concise" than their previous albums The Pod and GodWeenSatan: The Oneness and stated that "Considering Elektra released it, it's just as uncompromising as their previous work, but it hints at just how much further they could go with their music."[5] Bill Wyman in Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+, noting that it was "Very, very weird, but I can't stop playing [it]".[13] Robert Christgau was more negative in his Village Voice consumer guide, finding that the band wrote their "fucked-up" songs "without thinking (and how)". He went on to disparagingly call them "the kind of rec-room gigglefritzes who enjoy a good nigger joke when they're sure their audience is sophisticated enough to enjoy it. And to be perfectly honest, I don't hear one of those here."[6]

Pure Guava was described as a modest commercial success. In its first 6 months of release it sold 65,000 copies. [14]

Legacy

[edit]

In 1999, Ned Raggett, writing for the website Freaky Trigger, named Pure Guava the 53rd best album of the '90s, hailing it as "the greatest 'major label debut after an indie career' record of the decade. Not least because it was recorded in the same exact conditions and from the same exact sessions as most of said earlier indie career, so that means that Ween hit the big time with a record compiled from the outtakes that weren't good enough for their previous album, and it's still one of the best records ever made."[15] The same year, German magazine Spex included the album on their list of the 100 best albums of the 20th century.[16] Aphex Twin named it one of his 10 favorite albums of all time (making it one of two Ween albums on the list, the other being The Pod).[17]

In 2013, Andrew Earles of Spin ranked Pure Guava at number 7 in their list of the "40 Weirdest Post-Nevermind Major Label Albums".[18] He noted the presence of "psychotically ill-tuned guitars, drum machines at their fartiest, sage advice not to 'caress the weasel,' ballads that ignored rhythm and reason, a five-minute power-electronics suite, a few dubious sing-a-longs centered around offensive accents, and, of course, a ride on the 'Poop Ship Destroyer.'"[18] In 2014, Earles listed the album in his book Gimme Indie Rock: 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981–1996, in which he describes Pure Guava as "one of the strangest albums ever to carry the logo of a major label". He also credits it as the second ever album released on a major label to be recorded wholly on an analog four-track recorder, following Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska (1982).[19]

Track listing

[edit]

All tracks written by Ween, except "Flies on My Dick," by Ween and Guy Heller.

Pure Guava
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
1."Little Birdy"Melchiondo and Chris Williams3:30
2."Tender Situation"Melchiondo3:40
3."The Stallion Pt. 3"Freeman3:30
4."Big Jilm"Freeman and Melchiondo2:10
5."Push th' Little Daisies"Freeman2:48
6."The Goin' Gets Tough from the Getgo"Freeman and Melchiondo2:08
7."Reggaejunkiejew"Melchiondo4:51
8."I Play It Off Legit"Freeman and Melchiondo3:20
9."Pumpin' 4 the Man"Freeman and Melchiondo1:30
10."Sarah"Freeman2:09
11."Springtheme"Freeman3:00
12."Flies on My Dick"Freeman and Guy Heller3:26
13."I Saw Gener Cryin' in His Sleep"Melchiondo1:48
14."Touch My Tooter"Freeman2:23
15."Mourning Glory"Freeman5:14
16."Loving U thru It All"Freeman and Melchiondo2:28
17."Hey Fat Boy (Asshole)"Freeman1:53
18."Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)"Freeman3:23
19."Poop Ship Destroyer"Freeman2:16
Total length:55:27

Personnel

[edit]

Ween

Additional musicians

  • Mean Ween (Chris Williams[citation needed]) – second vocal on "Little Birdy"
  • Guy Heller – vocals on "Flies on My Dick"
  • Larry Curtin – backing vocals and whistling solo on "I Saw Gener Cryin' in His Sleep"
  • Scott Lowe – second vocal and whistling solo on "Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)"

Technical

  • Dean Ween – producer, engineer
  • Gene Ween – producer, engineer
  • Andrew Weiss – mixing
  • Patricia Frey – digital editing
  • Howie Weinberg – mastering
  • Tom Nichols – photography
  • Reiner Design Consultants – design
  • Stephan Said – additional instrumentation[citation needed]

Charts

[edit]
Chart performance for Pure Guava
Chart (1993) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[20] 93

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Ween Discography at MTV". mtv.com. Archived from the original on December 27, 2013. Retrieved December 25, 2013.
  2. ^ "Ween - JJJ Melbourne Interview 10/7/1993". YouTube. Epizootics. October 7, 1993 [September 19, 2014]. Event occurs at 0m 51. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
  3. ^ "Ween". Facebook.com. Archived from the original on February 26, 2022. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
  4. ^ "In Praise of Ween's "Poop Ship Destroyer," a/k/a The Penalty Song". The Village Voice. September 17, 2010.
  5. ^ a b Phares, Heather. "Pure Guava – Ween". AllMusic. Retrieved December 25, 2013.
  6. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (2000). "Ween: Pure Guava". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 0-312-24560-2. Retrieved March 18, 2017.
  7. ^ Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
  8. ^ Gary Graff, ed. (1996). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (1st ed.). London: Visible Ink Press. ISBN 978-0-7876-1037-1.
  9. ^ Stefano Ferreri. "Ween". OndaRock (in Italian).
  10. ^ Wyman, Bill (December 18, 1992). "Pure Guava". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on May 21, 2007. Retrieved December 26, 2012.
  11. ^ Sarig, Roni (2004). "Ween". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 864–65. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  12. ^ Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  13. ^ Wyman, Bill (December 18, 1992). "Pure Guava". Entertainment Weekly. NYC. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  14. ^ "The Ween Machine Wants It All : They look like a classic case of basement-genius novelty, but the real joke is they may turn out to be the second coming of Billy Joel--and not another Frank Zappa". The LA Times. May 23, 1993.
  15. ^ "Ned's Nineties: 53". www.netcomuk.co.uk. Archived from the original on April 21, 2001. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  16. ^ "Spex (1999|2000) die 100 Alben des Jahrhunderts - Kritiker–Rock Pop Musik Bestenlisten".
  17. ^ "Perfect Sound Forever- interviewee's favorite music". www.furious.com. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  18. ^ a b Earles, Andrew (January 8, 2013). "Blame Nirvana: The 40 Weirdest Post-'Nevermind' Major-Label Albums". Spin. p. 34. Archived from the original on January 11, 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
  19. ^ Earles, Andrew (September 15, 2014). Gimme Indie Rock: 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981-1996. Voyageur. p. 357. ISBN 978-0760346488. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  20. ^ Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (PDF ed.). Mt Martha, Victoria, Australia: Moonlight Publishing. p. 298.
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