Why: Love Regurgitator. Buy all the Regurgitator things.
MORE!: It's been a while since I've given "...Art" a spin. Heath and I used to jam on "I Wanna Be A Nudist" because it's perfect, but not much else from this album stuck in my musical memory over the years.
Happiness, and Freshmint!, are both nothing pop songs. The Happiness chorus is monotonous, and yes that's the point ("rotting my brain once again...") but it's not much fun.
I still like "Ghost" but Heath always hated it, until he decided it was a Foo Fighters parody.
"Strange Human Being" is a nice surprise to the memory. I love the rediculous "BREAK!" bit, the "breaking CD" effects at the end, the NO REALLY THIS BE A BEAT beat, Quan's almost speaking slow rap, and the deliberately awful backing vocal nah-nah loops,
"I Like Repetitive Music" outlives its joke very quickly. Quan's probably deliberately sounding bored in his rap, but it just sounds sloppy and rushed.
"Art" is another "Unit", silly noises, silly keyboards. On hearing this I start to form a theory they just tried to recreate "Unit" with this album. The rap songs, the 80s sounds, the epic sound scape last song...
"Feels Alright!" (two exclamation marks on this album!) is unashamed disco, and I love the Ween like effects on the vocals. "I Love Tommy Mottola" is probably rather clever in it's mocking of the music label boss, but I never quite pick it up. It's 50's reverb vibe and catchy chorus are fun though.
I always hated the "R U Being Served" theme remix. Still do.
I'd completely forgotten about "Obtusian", because it's pretty average. I notice it's the only writing credit for Martin Lee, so I feel a little guilty for not thinking much of it.
The album ends with it's two best songs (ignoring "Nudist"). Firstly, "Lonely Guy" is the precursor to Quan's solo career, the 80s feel of later albums and solo tracks. The keyboard riff and backward drum snap are perfect, as are the bubblegum chorus, and of course it ends with a key change.
"Virtual Life" is reverb drenched, echoy, epic. It's not quite "Another Beautiful Story" but it's very close. Love it.
The album is capped off with a hidden track, a stupid metal song, made up of obviously pasted together looped riffs, full-on hair metal solos and a very bored sounding "yay" for a chorus. Fun stuff.
6/10: I sounded pretty negative, but fan-boy, so it's hard to give "...Art" a 5. "Nudist" really is perfect Ben-song-Regurgitator, and I adore some of the songs. A lot of "...Art" does feel a bit lazy though, and it says much that Regurgitator don't play any of this album any more... except "Nudist".