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WeenAlbums ReviewedThe Pod (1991)Chocolate and Cheese (1994) 12 Golden Country Greats (1996) The Mollusk (1997) White Pepper (2000) Quebec (2003) Godweensatan: The Oneness(1990)I have this - review sometime soon. I find these early Ween albums hard to get through, but I do like both this and Pure Guava better than The Pod. The Pod(1991)The sophomore slump is a noted phenomenon among recording artists, but Pennsylvanian post-modern duo Ween take a novel approach to this conundrum by not bothering to try to make a good album in the conventional sense. Instead they retired to "The Pod", a small apartment in the middle of a horse farm, in Solebury Township Pennsylvania, mucking around with a four track recorder, an extremely tinny drum machine and a large supply of Scotchguard powered bongs. If you're wondering how the Scotchguard powered bongs work, Ween have thoughtfully provided Leonard Cohen spoofing album art as an illustration. The Pod is the result of these sessions, a determinedly low fi collection. The cliché is to say that a double album would have made a great single album, but in this case it's more accurate to say that if this long single album had been recorded with a full band and all the toss-offs like 'The Stallion (pt. 1)', 'She F**ks Me', 'Laura', and 'The Stallion (pt. 2)' were disposed of, it could have made a great moderately-sized single album. Of course, this would miss the point entirely; Ween are far too smart to make an album this substandard by accident, and there is a certain spontaneous charm to this album that allows them to get away with ideas that wouldn't work on a proper recording. Case in point is 'Molly', with a weird stop/start arrangement, weirder vocal harmonies and o-o-o-o-o hook; here it works fine, but there's no way that it would stand being normalised. Due to the budget recording standards and the fact that a lot of the songs are half-assed, it's not always the easiest album to listen through, but it's not without ideas. Plenty of 1990s bands have been accused of being detached and derivative; Ween get around the first complaint by not taking themselves seriously 95% of the time, then turning around and writing something heartfelt like 'Mononucleosis' (at least Mark Prindle puts forward an argument for this) or White Pepper's 'Stay Forever'. They get around the second complaint by stealing from so many different places that it's mind-boggling, and proving their credibility by writing substantial songs in almost every genre imaginable. While the songs here don't seem particularly disparate due to the uniformly lo fi sound, they cover huge amounts of musical territory from melodic pop ('Pork Roll Egg and Cheese'), hard rock ('Sketches of Winkle', with a hilarious "Rip Van Winkle....Rip Rip Rip Van Winkle" refrain interspersed with some outlandish guitar work), country ('Sorry Charlie') and pompous acoustic prog rock ('Right To The Ways And The Rules Of The World'). My favourite is glam rocker 'Captain Fantasy', which is irresistible with over the top lyrics and catchy riffs as well a humorously superfluous acoustic intro and outro. The skit 'Polly Asado', with an incompetent cashier in a fast food restaurant, is another winner with incongruously cheesy guitar work in the background. Some of the ideas are funnier on paper than they are on record, like the opening 'Strap On That Jammy Pac', which keeps threatening to take off but never actually goes anywhere, and the "hit me" interaction with the drum machine in the infectiously simple 'Awesome Sound'. There are some really good songs on The Pod, and it's full of enough personality for fans to lap up, but I think three stars is a fair grade for it, because of the distractingly messy sound and all the filler. But just so you know, Ween did it that way on purpose. 
Pure Guava(1992)Coming soon! Chocolate and Cheese(1994)Judging from other reports, this is the first Ween album that's really accessible to those who aren't fans of low-fi hi-jinks or members of the Boognish fanclub. I'd hesitate to quite nominate this as the point where Ween matured (the one finger salute on the CD artwork certainly suggests otherwise), but it has more of a full band feel, using more outside musicians and generally sounding more professional. Their sense of humour is still intact, and songs like 'Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony' are genuinely funny, although it's still more of a bratty humour than the sophisticated genre parodies that fill their later albums. I still prefer the later, more developed albums, as the band has enough personality that a more professional production job doesn't hurt them but helps to highlight their musical skills, and I'm not enamoured by the school of thought that regards this as their best record. It's also hurt by the fact that it does tail off at the end; none of the last five songs are particularly essential. Chocolate and Cheese is full of good songs, but few great ones - the kiss-off of 'Baby Bitch' and the Caribbean groove of 'Voodoo Lady' come closest. Yet this album is more than the sum of its parts, careening through a myriad of styles. The Pod might have been diverse but it's hard to tell with the low fi production making everything run together, while Chocolate and Cheese is dazzlingly eclectic, throwing in everything from Philly Soul ('Freedom of '76'), a Mexican/western shaggy dog story ('Buenas Tardes Amigo'), indulgent guitar soloing ('A Tear For Eddie'), twee pop ('Roses Are Free'), and closing advice ('Don't Shit Where You Eat'). While Ween didn't quite peak here, it's still a terrifically entertaining record, and if you're a fan you're going to need to hear this sooner or later.
12 Golden Country Greats(1996)According to Wikipedia "the Jordanaires have been one of country music's premier backup vocal groups, working with artists such as Patsy Cline, Johnny Horton, Ferlin Husky, Tammy Wynette, Kenny Rogers, Ween, Red Foley, Jim Reeves, and George Jones." If Dean and Gene Ween look slightly out of place among the above list of country greats, they do have a country legacy, of precisely one album, 1996's 12 Golden Country Greats. Mildly controversially, the album consists of only ten songs; this has either been explained by the fact that two songs were dropped between the time the album was recorded and when it was released, or that it refers to the dozen country session musicians who contributed to the album. Either way, 12 Golden Country Greats stands up as a surprisingly satisfying foray into country for Ween - there's obviously an implicit humour in hearing dirty Ween lyrics juxtaposed with straight faced country ("You can wash my balls/With a warm, wet rag"), but some of these songs play the country genre surprisingly straight and surprisingly sincerely, and perhaps it's the mixture of parody and affection that makes 12 Golden Country Greats an entertaining, likeable foray into country music. On the parody side of the album, 'Piss Up A Rope' marries over the top misogynistic lyrics to a perky country beat (I have no idea to describe the admittedly quite diverse country styles found on this record), and probably comes out as the most memorable song on the record, while 'Mister Richard Smoker' marries over the top homophobic lyrics with a swinging country beat. It's not surprising that Ween are able to perform satirical songs like these successfully, as it's pretty much what they do on all their other albums, and it's the serious stuff like the opening ballad 'I'm Holding You' and the melodic 'You Were The Fool' that's even more impressive. The low-fi cat elegy 'Fluffy' doesn't resemble GodWeenSatan so much as it does a sincere roots singer-songwriter, and it's a satisfying closer. Pretty much every song on 12 Golden Country Greats is great, and it's only the relatively short length (32 minutes) that means this isn't quite in the top tier of Ween albums with The Mollusk and White Pepper.
The Mollusk(1997)The Mollusk isn't as blatantly a guise album as the country record, but in its own way it has a very distinct identity, as a flavour of nautical themes and progressive rock permeates through most of these tracks. It's another step forward in professionalism from Chocolate and Cheese, with strong production and rich vibrant mixes that show off Ween's musical abilities. Indeed, there are moments on this record that could fuel an argument for Ween as the greatest song-writing duo since Lennon-McCartney; The Mollusk is somewhat inconsistent, but at its best it's dazzlingly creative, adventurous and musically intelligent. Surely no other band is capable of jumping from Irish pub sing-along to progressive rock epic, from show tune to parting sea shanty, and have such strong song-writing underpinning each effort. Strangely, this album's let down by its less ambitious material; most of the more extreme genre efforts are flat out brilliant, and it's the safer stuff that's not as interesting. 'I'm Dancing In The Show Tonight' sets the tone with an irresistibly simplistic show-tune, giving the album an almost fairy-tale and pantomime atmosphere. The saltier tracks include the brilliant pub anthem 'The Blarney Stone', with a convincing octogenarian Irish vocal, the breezy 'Ocean Man' and the closing shanty 'She Wanted To Leave', which packs in a lot of emotion behind a fake Irish accent. The progressive rock parodies include the ridiculous lyrics and flute riff of the title track, 'Mutilated Lips' and the guitar histrionics of 'Buckingham Green'. There's also an ace cover of a Chinese folk song, 'Cold Blows The Wind', and another venture into Ween's seventies AOR goldmine with 'It's Gonna Be Alright'. As wonderful as a lot of this record is, there are a few too many duds to warrant the full five stars; they forget to write melodies for the monotonous 'Polka Dot Tail' and 'Golden Eel', and, fun as they are, 'I'll Be Your Jonny On The Spot' and 'Waving My Dick In The Wind' are virtually interchangeable. Still, it says a lot about The Mollusk that I feel compelled to cite almost every track in this review, and its explosion of musical colour makes it a great left-field candidate for the best rock album of its decade.
 White Pepper(2000)After several guise albums - 1996's 12 Golden Country Greats and 1997's progressive rock The Mollusk - Ween returned to eclecticism for White Pepper. The less explicit theme here is The Beatles; the title itself could be taken as a reference to Beatles' album titles, while 'Even If You Don't' in particular has a bouncy Paul McCartney flavour. The Beatles are hardly the only reference point - Dean and Gene Ween demonstrate their knowledge of popular music with a wide range of styles, including unrespectful tributes to seventies icons Jimmy Buffett (the preposterously decadent 'Bananas and Blow') and Steely Dan ('Pandy Fackler', which fuses Becker and Fagen's jazz stylings and undercurrent of dark humour onto an initially innocent lyric akin to The Beatles' 'Honey Pie'). Aside from those two songs, the album has a more serious facade; previous icons like the Boognish and the Stallion are long behind, making the duo's songwriting skills more obvious. Some of the songs could even be described as heartfelt, like the touching 'Stay Forever'. Ween are credited as a five piece on White Pepper, and the musicianship is often superb; there are some great guitar solos while the rhythm section is fluid and creative, although the drum sound is sometimes a little too synthetic. If there's something missing, there's no truly great song that's capable of transcending the boundaries of the album and taking on its own life. But apart from the brief tomfoolery with wobbly tape in the instrumental 'Ice Castles', White Pepper is full of well written material, whether Ween are taking on punk ('Stroker Ace'), country ('Falling Out') or pastoral psychedelia ('Flutes of Chi'). Much more than a series of genre exercises though, this a cohesive and well executed album. With White Pepper there's a feeling that Ween have stopped trying to shock and it's a little of a holding pattern, but are content to continue to create great music in the same manner as the bands who inspired them to make music in the first place.
Quebec(2003)After relatively focused and even conceptual albums for their previous records, Ween returned to more eclectic territory for Quebec. It's close in tone to Chocolate and Cheese, but with better production and less consistency; the best songs here are among the group's finest, but there are also pieces of meandering novelty that fail to go anywhere. Ween describe Quebec as a "brown" album, which means that at times it showcases facets of Ween that I'm not so impressed by; I'd rather hear slick seventies parodies than drugged out dirges like 'So Many People In The Neighbourhood'. The "brown" songs are easily outnumbered by the full fledged songs, but they are enough to make this record less enjoyable than its two immediate predecessors. It's difficult to make too many generalisations about this record as it has little pattern and mostly seems like a collection of whatever Ween had on hand at the time. Fortunately, what Ween had on the hand at the time is mostly strong. Highlights include the Motorhead inspired 'It's Gonna Be A Long Night', the bouncy 'Hey There Fancypants', the seventies AOR of 'I Don't Want It', the silly instrumental 'The F**ked Jam', and most of all the prog rock masterpiece 'The Argus', which would have fitted perfectly into the nautical The Mollusk and which climaxes with some beautifully melodic guitar lines. A couple of the "brown" pieces also work well; the dreamy 'Zoloft' and the trippy 'Happy Coloured Marbles' are both keepers. 'If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)' is a somewhat hollow closer, even though it's a surprising accurate recreation of a bile-filled Roger Waters piano ballad circa The Wall. Ween's previous two records clocked in at around forty minutes; at fifty five Quebec could stand some trimming, but there's still enough top drawer Ween here to satisfy any fan.
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Written 2001-2007, Graham Fyfe
