World Wide Wouter

Some info on Ween

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ween is an American rock band from New Hope, Pennsylvania, formed in 1984 by Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo, better known by their respective stage names, Gene Ween and Dean Ween. Generally categorized as an alternative rock band, the band are known for their irreverent, highly eclectic catalog of songs inspired by funk, psychedelia, soul, country, gospel, prog, R&B, heavy metal, and punk rock.

Ween self-released several cassette albums from their formation until 1989. Afterward, they put out three officially-released lo-fi albums: GodWeenSatan: The Oneness (1990); The Pod (1991); and Pure Guava (1992). For Pure Guava, the band signed with major label Elektra Records. The album spawned the single "Push th' Little Daisies", which was a chart hit in Australia and the United States. Under Elektra, the band released four professionally-recorded albums: Chocolate and Cheese (1994); 12 Golden Country Greats (1996); The Mollusk (1997); and White Pepper (2000). They later returned to independent labels for their albums Quebec (2003) and La Cucaracha (2007). After a 28-year run, Freeman quit the band in 2012, citing the need to focus on his alcohol and drug addiction issues. Ween reformed in late 2015 and toured extensively without plans to record new material, but later entered an indefinite hiatus in 2024 citing Melchiondo's mental health as a reason.

For their first ten years of existence, Ween performed live as a duo backed by a Digital Audio Tape, sometimes playing with on and off bassist Chris Williams, better known by his stage name Mean Ween. With the release of Chocolate and Cheese, they stopped playing with Williams, and expanded to a four-piece act for every show, later adding a fifth member as well. Their live members include Claude Coleman Jr., Dave Dreiwitz, and Glenn McClelland. Ween also collaborated extensively with Andrew Weiss, who joined the band as a bassist in 1989 and also produced five of their nine studio albums. Despite never receiving much mainstream recognition, Ween developed a large, devoted cult following and garnered critical acclaim.

#12 The great Ween reviews

Ween has been my favorite band in the world for about a year now, since I've discovered them through this youtube video by It's Boundo. Yesterday I saw another youtube video by the great Ween historian on the site, kainehero, where he ranken every Ween album. If you're even a little bit of a Ween fan, you should totally check out his videos on the entire history of the band. His idea of reviewing all their albums just sounded like so much fun, that I wanted to give it a try. He goes through every project from worse to best, but I want to kind of work on this project over time, so I am just going to list them in the order that they came out.

Number 1: GodWeenSatan (1990)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 2: The Pod (1991)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 3: Pure Guava (1992)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 4: Chocolate and Cheese (1994)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 5: 12 Golden Country Greats (1996)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 6: The Mollusk (1997)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 7: Paintin' the Town Brown (Ween Live '90-'98) (1999)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 8: White Pepper (2000)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 9: Quebec (2003)
I have a hard time deciding between this and Chocolate and Cheese what my favorite Ween album is. They feel a bit more mature and fully formed here, more sincere and emotional than they did in 1994, which makes a lot of sense. This feels like the last grandiose project they did, with Shinola being more of a compilation.

I don't think there's anything negative I could say about the album. The production is amazing, listening to this album with headphones on is one of my favorite musical experiences. Although this album loses some of the dirtiness you would find on their first four or five albums - this feels more in line with White Pepper production-wise - I don't think that's too much of a bad thing. There still are a lot of funny and silly songs, they just feel less like they were written by stoned seventeen year olds. The slow, atmospheric and emotional tracks on here are some of the greatest songs Ween has ever made in my opinion: Captain, If You Could Save Us All and especially I Don't Want It are amazing, with that last one being my contender for the greatest Ween track of all time. For some reason I've always mentally linked Transdermal Celebration here with Buckingham Green on the Mollusk, although they do feel like very different songs in the vibes they convey. Stuff like The F**ked Jam is obviously less great than the other tracks, but that makes it in a way hilarious, so I can't really be angry at it - all of it's annoyence feels very intentional.

I find it very difficult to talk about this album. It's full-fledged Ween in the second half of their career, and I think this comes closest to being a perfect album. Even though Chocolate and Cheese feels to me like it has a bit more charisma, this is basically a perfect album and probably should be the first one in their discography you should listen to.

Rating: 10/10 | Best Song: I Don't Want It | Worst Song: The F**ked Jam
Number 10: Live in Chicago (2004)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 11: Shinola, Vol. 1 (2005)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 12: La Cucaracha (2007)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X
Number 13: The Friends EP (2007)
The review:

Rating: X | Best Song: X | Worst Song: X

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