Marcy Playground

Bottle's favorites, part 1 

It's true, i love albums. Look, if you took the time to deal with the hassles of practice and corporate executives and studio time, then someone needs to appreciate that effort. I do. Still, i can't help but have nuanced preferences. I have a very cultured and diverse palette. I'm an aficionado. So, here are some of my genuine favorites. I guess if i were like your little league record listening coach, these are the ringers i'd invite to teach you something. No particular order, though. 

Parts & Labor - Mapmaker

Mastodon - Crack the Skye or Laviathan

Spirit - Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

Supertramp - Breakfast in America

The Cars - The Cars

MCR - Black Parade

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon 

And, believe it or not, the self-titled debut from Marcy Playground. Sadly, my copy is no longer with us, we'll have to youtube it today. 


Sex and Candy was their biggest hit, but i'm happy to tell you that it just sits here as the unobtrusive track 2 it really is. It's not even in the top half as far as songs on this album go. The important thing is that all John Wozniak has is an acoustic guitar with a soundhole pickup and some generic effects pedals, and that is a very distinct post-grunge sound even though grunge is an adjective not a genre. 

No critic likes this album, and that's because they hate how not a facade it is. This is the 90s, and this album is straight out of the loser side of town. The point i'm trying to make is that they don't care about the album at all, they are criticizing the people who made it, the people who like it, and intentionally ignoring the fact that they themselves are part of the establishment that created the disenfranchised generation in the first place. I understand Christgau's point of view, but he and i have opposite taste in music. He likes the sound of the machine filtering out all humanity of an artist or band. 

Chuck Eddy called it "icky" and "callow." I mean, it's named after his alternative elementary school. It's an attempt to depict being a child in a world full of drugs, depression, loneliness, and suicide. This is one of those "how dare you hate all this marvelous garbage i shoved down your throat" situations. I bet i know what set them off. I bet it was Vampires of New York. 

Now, you can hate all the same things the critics hated (his emotionally flat-line delivery, "sloppy" playing in the cautionary-est of quotation marks, the overt opioid references, the sarcasm even Bob Newhart might feel is a tad heavy-handed), but it's tough to argue that this isn't an amazing album. If i had to give the concept a one sentence synopsis, here it is: 

The kings and queens hand you both literal and metaphorical opiates, they get richer while us plebes ironically languish and die defending it, and that's New York City; gee isn't that swell [baaaarf]. 

But can you see the difference? John's saying look at what we've created; it's garbage. The critics respond, no you're garbage. 

Who's being callow?

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