Rhino (2026, Reissue)
In 1996, I really liked Ween. They were recommended to me by my friend Pat when I started to take an interest in Beck in 1994. I started off with Pure Guava and Chocolate and Cheese. I think I picked them both up the same day for whatever reason. I guess I was pretty confident that I would like them even though I had never heard a single thing of theirs. Turns out I did like them quite a bit. While I wasn't as thrilled with The Pod when I backtracked, I was still really excited for some new Ween tunes by the time 1996 rolled around.
I definitely don't remember what I was expecting, but a full blown country record was not it. At first, I thought the cover was just a joke and that it would be a "normal" Ween album inside (you must remember this was a time where you didn't know every record in existence the second it was farted out onto the internet). But there it was, country song after country song, and I loved it. Sure, they were mostly wacky, as most Ween is, but there was a genuine affection for this music coming through. Gene and Dean were sincere in their insincerity if nothing else.
I saw them play at Tramps in New York when they toured this album with a full country band and it was incredible. In addition to playing many of the songs from this album, they countrified several of the staples from previous albums and it was one of the shows from that era I remember very fondly.
30 years later and we have a super fancy, triple LP version of this record. It has the standard album, an album full of demos and an LP that contains the few B sides that came out during this time along with bunch of outtakes that were never released before. The demos LP is fun enough. it's interesting to hear these songs as they were taking shape, but I can't say it's the sort of thing I expect to go back to a repeatedly listen to. The outtakes LP, on the other hand, is essentially like getting a brand new, second country album from Ween. So many great songs and it's just wild to know they all ended up on the cutting room floor for the original release.
I get that the world probably wasn't clamoring for a Ween double country album in 1996, but thank goodness these have been saved and released for the 30th anniversary of the album. I will happily place this right next to my triple vinyl version of Chocolate and Cheese in the 'W' section of my collection and can only hope that we'll get a loving, triple vinyl reissue for Pure Guava one of these days.
Ween - 12 Golden Country Greats 30th Anniversary:
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