Mellow Gold
Released
How many young weirdos heard “Loser,” clicked with its ramshackle hip-hop abstractions, and were then thoroughly waylaid when they heard the rest of the album? Those who weren’t cynically disappointed got to experience an epiphany wedged somewhere between Beefheart’s Safe As Milk plastic-factory blues and early Butthole Surfers acid nightmares. The lyrics’ evocative absurdity in these burnout folk and scuzz-noise punk songs make the art-damaged whims of a transient Fluxus heir feel like a banana wedged in alt-rock’s self-serious tailpipe.