Mollys Yes - Wonderworld

You know what? We've covered over 700 albums from my personal collection in the past couple years. I still have hundreds more, but it's all random stuff that i don't really have an angle to talk about. Let's make that the angle. 

Hey, Bottle, you got any randomly obscure 90s Alternative Rock that leads off with Bagpipes? 

Funny you should ask, as a matter of fact i do. Here's Wonderworld from Molly's Yes. They came from the Tulsa scene and this album is from the same year All American Rejects formed a few miles away in Stillwater, 1999. Tulsa, Tulsa, other bands from around Tulsa you might know. Hanson. Some of my actual friends disagree with me when i say Hanson is a national treasure, but you know who does? Todd in the Shadows. Yeah, Bottle the Curmudgeon says if you can't bring it like Hanson, then maybe Pop Rock isn't your game. Tons of famous bands and musicians in all genres from all around Oklahoma, but that's about it as far as any kind of Rock from Tulsa breaking into the mainstream. There's Hinder, but they're from OKC. Molly's Yes formed in 1991 and changed their name a few times, but 1999 was their actual shot at going bigger. That did not happen and they only made 2 albums. I paid 3 dollars for a used copy in the early 2000s, and tonight we'll find out if my couple decades of "meh" are justified. 

If memory serves, this is the Toad the Wet Sprocket, REM Automatic, Cranberries deep-cuts, Tonic side of heavily produced Popternative, but you asked for anachronistic bagpipes, so here we go.

Yeah, Fall Down has a nice groove. Oof, that leap to falsetto. I just don't like it. An actual chorus for the chorus, though? My goodness, it's refreshingly quaint, to be honest. Ellipse through the rest of the album and whaddya know, it's still meh. 

The songs are good, these guys were good, this album blows. Why? Well, i mean, we already had Better Than Ezra, but that's not why. This album is not in any way peppy or exciting, but again that's not a reason why it's bad. Part of it is that this sounds too Pop Radio for Alternative Rock, the Industrial undertones and Electronica adjacency are strangely counterproductive, and every single song is clearly intended to be the sleepy, rock tinged, breath of ennui sleeper hit type song that was the drudgery-est part of the late 90s. Every song is the cool-down to an energetic string of head bobbing rock songs that aren't anywhere on this album. It is, to be brutally honest, an entire album of intentional playlist filler. Can you like Molly's Yes? Absolutely, there's tons of stuff to like (except the falsetto punctuation to phrases, that just shouldn't exist outside of proper Soul or the terrible type of Emo). Can you like this album? Maybe, but compared to what? Sheryl Crow? Jewell? Dishwalla? The Wallflowers? 

This album is exactly like Sevendust's Next, or The Cars' Heartbeat City, or Fever Tree's Creation, every single track is enjoyable in isolation, please don't make me listen to them all together in a single sitting. As always, feel free to disagree, if you actually disagree.