Perennial Favorites Music Cd

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Perennial Favorites

See Larger Image

Perennial Favorites      Artist : Squirrel Nut Zippers      List Price : $10.98 USD        ProductGroup: Music      Release Date : 1998-08-04      Studio : Mammoth / Pgd      Label : Mammoth / Pgd      Avg. Customer Rating : (76 reviews)

Reviews Customer Reviews for Perennial Favorites      The Zippers' swan song      Rating:      Perennial Favorites, in my book, is the best album to begin with for a potential fan of the NC-based hot-jazz-jump-blues-dixieland-funk outfit. It's got classic '20s-style jazz (Suits Are Picking..., Pallin'), spooky 2-step cabaret (Stephen Foster, My Drag), more calypso in the vein of "Hell" (Trou Macacq), and the occasional avant-garde-leaning delight (Kraken). It's the most stylistically diverse and satisfying album. It's the last full-length one to feature Tom Maxwell, and Jimbo and Katharine shine as always. A veritable collector's item.     Customer Reviews for Perennial Favorites Cd      Truly a blast from start to finish!!!      Rating:      I have been a fan of the Zippers since I first saw the video for "Hell" on MTV...back when they still played videos! It is very sad to know that they have disbanded and we will never hear another album from these fine performers. It was never fair that they got lumped into the same category as some of the "swing revival" bands that came about in the mid to late 90's because not only were they better than any of those bands, in my opinion, but they were also so much more than a "swing band". I always felt they covered the whole gambit of popular music (even if they did it with help form their Granddaddies record collection!), while at the same time adding just enough of the peculiar and absurd to make the music sound fresh. In other words, their music sounds very familiar, yet you've never quite heard anything like it before...if that makes any sense! But one things for sure, if you're ever having a party, even if it's just a family gathering, pop in one of their CD's and you will have people tapping their feet and asking you for the name of the group in no time! I own all of their albums, including the spectacular "Christmas Caravan", and listen to all of them frequently (especially once the summer BBQ's start happening!), but I find myself coming back to Perennial Favorites the most often. Each of their albums would get 5 stars from me, hands down (even Bedlam Ballroom grew on me after a few listens), but there is something about this one that makes me want to pop it in the stereo and blast my speakers on a more regular basis! My favorite track has got to be "The Ghost Of Stephen Foster"! With the bands frantic playing, Jimbo's possessed vocals, and the great Andrew Bird's goosebump inducing fiddle playing, this track is one of my all-time favorites by the band. It's in fact Jimbo Mathus who leaves the biggest impression on me with this album. His inspired and raucous vocals, as well as his clever lyrics, (although I'm still unsure what, "If we were made of cellophane, we'd all get stinking drunk much faster!" is supposed to mean...but I love it anyway!), are at the helm of many of my favorite songs on this album. Including the drunken late night wail of "That Fascinating Thing"...I'm telling you, give your friends a few cocktails and blast that song, I promise they'll all be swaying to the music in no time...a band has to be really good to sound that sloppy! Katherine is exquisite as always, and Tom Maxwell's sense of humor and peculiar lyrics, as well as his unique voice, are yet another highlight of this wonderful album...his screaming proclamation, "If you draw a bow draw the strongest. Yes!!! And if you use and arrow use the longest!", is my favorite moment of the great track "Soon". And "Trou Macacq" is a fantastic song about the trials and tribulations of becoming a successful band..."We became the monkeys riding the race." By the time the album comes to it's end, with the aptly titled "It's Over", I find myself exhausted because I inevitably have been dancing around the house throughout the whole thing...yet I don't want the music to end! But alas, like the band says, "Just when you think the parties starting, it's over...." Editorial Reviews for Perennial Favorites Audio Cd      Amazon.com      Recorded over a year before its release and put on hold thanks to the phenomenal ride of 1996's Hot, their third release is where the jazz-hoppin' Squirrel Nut Zippers separate from the rest of the nostalgic Voodoo Cherry Daddy pack. Perennial Favorites covers a lot of ground: aching balladry ("Low Down Man," complete with pedal steel and intoned lovingly by chanteuse Katharine Whalen), hilarious show-tune homages ("Ghost of Stephen Foster"), romping props to the past ("Pallin' with Al," a nod to guitarist Al Casey). Thanks to imaginative arrangements, "The Kraken" and "My Drag" transcend retro hipness to forge unique sonic paths. "Suits Are Picking Up the Bill," a zingy diatribe on capitalism, may not turn out to be a smash hit like the earlier "Hell," but these Favorites should endure. --Don Harrison