Spilt Milk is the second and final studio album by American rock band Jellyfish, released on February 9, 1993, by Charisma Records. It features a harsher and more ornate sound than their previous, Bellybutton (1990). As with Bellybutton, Spilt Milk was written and co-produced by founding members Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning. Albhy Galuten and Jack Joseph Puig also returned as producers.
Named for the hard work and turmoil surrounding its making, Spilt Milk was recorded after the departure of bassist Chris Manning (who was replaced by Tim Smith) and lead guitarist Jason Falkner. Guitar duties were instead handled by session musicians Jon Brion and Lyle Workman. Production lasted several months due to the record's complicated orchestrations, and ultimately ran over-budget.
The album was supported with a yearlong tour that introduced guitarist Eric Dover into the band's line-up. Spilt Milk performed below commercial expectations, peaking at number 164 on the Billboard 200 and number 21 on the UK Albums Chart. Singles "The Ghost at Number One" and "New Mistake" charted at numbers 43 and 55 in the UK, respectively. An expanded deluxe edition of the album was released by Omnivore Recordings in 2015.
Background
During the yearlong promotional tour for the band's debut Bellybutton, tensions arose amongst the band members. The band's bassist Chris Manning left the group at the end of the tour to pursue a quieter life as a producer. The band's lead guitarist Jason Falkner had grown increasingly frustrated with having his songwriting contributions ignored by Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning. He left the group after the tour. In regards to his departure, Falkner recalled being diagnosed with an ulcer due to his deteriorating relationship with Sturmer.
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The songs were written in Cotati, CA between October 1991 and March 1992. Manning would go over to Sturmer's home to work on the album for eight hours a day, six days a week. Production lasted from April to September 1992; recording sessions used massed choirs, strings, brass, flutes, wind chimes, harpsichords and other instruments. The album was produced by the same producers as their debut, Albhy Galuten (of Bee Gees fame) and Jack Joseph Puig alongside Manning and Sturmer themselves. Sturmer remembered: "Once I literally passed out doing a vocal and woke up in the next room. Making this record was like that Army commercial: 'The toughest job you'll ever love.'" Referencing comparisons to the Beach Boys on "The Ghost at Number One", Manning stated: "The Beach Boys would never have done it that way, with really hard verses surrounding it and a banjo at the end of the song. We really take pride in exploring the arrangements. Our strength is in incorporating a lot of different things and twisting them in a way that they haven't been twisted before. Music critic Jon Pareles offered that the band distinguished itself from their influences by adding "a fondness for excess: more sudden shifts, pushier drums and guitars, more bursts of vocal harmony. ... The idea is to cram the music with ideas, turning each song into a Rube Goldberg contraption of pop, daring to incorporate the information overload that pop used to hold at bay."
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The title was chosen in reference to the record going over-budget and behind schedule and the group turmoil that followed Bellybutton.
Release
Spilt Milk was released on February 9, 1993, on Charisma Records and later peaked at No. 164 on the Billboard 200. Its poor sales were attributed to being released during the height of the popularity of grunge. and "New Mistake" (which reached No. 55 on the UK Official Singles Chart).
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In his review for Rocky Mountain News, Justin Mitchell called Spilt Milk a "lavishly produced album that begs comparisons to the best of Queen, Supertramp, Squeeze and Paul McCartney, remixed through Jellyfish's '90s sensibilities." He wrote that "what pulls the whole CD together is an unerring sense of superb melodies, harmonies and a lush wall of instruments ranging from basic guitars, bass and drums to the occasional banjo or woodwind section flying through the mix. ... symphonic but never pretentious, sweet but not cloying and crafted throughout with a sly, lyrical sense of humor." OffBeats Pete Ficht wrote that the production was "superb, full of clever flourishes and turnarounds" and that "the songs themselves are great, full of memorable melodies, hooks and lyrics". Although he believed the album was less immediately accessible than Bellybutton, "the more complex arrangements hold promise for future endeavors."
Bruce Bitt of the San Jose Mercury News described Spilt Milk as being "as compelling a homage to the Beatles and the Beach Boys as there is", but one that is "so heavy on production sleight-of-hand that the melodies sometimes collapse beneath the weight of the sound." Though he criticized the album for being "frustratingly derivative", he praised its "sprawling production and loving performances".
David Barton of The Sacramento Bee wrote that the album "stoops beneath the Beatles to borrow from Supertramp and Queen at its most bombastic, which may be fascinating listening at first, but quickly grows irritating." He also criticized the lackluster songs and the band for failing to define their own "style and personality".
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Writing in Far Out magazine in 2015, Tony Curran wrote that Spilt Milk had improved with age and said it was a "wonderfully unpretentious homage to pop music in its essential form: catchiness and melody are the keynotes here. From the soaring 'Joining A Fan Club' ... to the psychedelic pop doodlings of 'Sebrina, Paste and Plato' the band explore a range of possibilities within the pop format—and well beyond." Jon Meyers of The Vinyl District said the album was "sharper and far more vibrant than its predecessor, with clever hooks galore." Reviewing the album's 2015 remaster, Alan Sculley of Florida Weekly wrote: "Spilt Milk was an excellent follow-up to the debut, rocking a bit harder without losing any hookiness." Also reviewing the remaster, John Borack of Goldmine opined that "Jellyfish [took] a great leap forward in songwriting, arranging and sonic sheen."
AllMusic's Mark Deming gave Spilt Milk a positive review, describing it as "conceived and executed on a grand scale". He noted that "Sturmer and Manning sound like joyous kids left in a toy shop and making splendid use of every plaything at their disposal." While Deming criticized the production for being "too big for its own good", he concluded that the album was a "a massive balancing act that Jellyfish miraculously pull off; it might seem like a power pop Spruce Goose, but in this case it not only takes off, it flies high as a remarkable experiment in pop-minded rock on the grandest scale." It also appeared in a similar 2015 list by Newsweek of the "best summer albums (released between 1985 and 1997)". Contributor Zach Schonfeld decreed that Spilt Milk was a "lost power-pop masterwork" containing "12 unfashionably sunny and remarkably well-built pop gems about fan clubs, kindergarten classrooms and—in one less-than-subtle instance—the singer's penis. It's the colorfulness of it all that makes it such a great summer record." McFly took influence from Spilt Milk when recording their third album Motion in the Ocean (2006), having been introduced to it by Matt Willis of Busted. Tom Fletcher of McFly described Jellyfish's album as a "masterpiece".
Track listing
2015 Omnivore bonus tracks
Personnel
Jellyfish
- Andy Sturmer – vocals, drums, guitar, keyboards, producer
- Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. – keyboards, piano, vocals, producer
- Tim Smith – bass, vocals
Additional personnel
- Lyle Workman – guitar
- Jon Brion – guitar
- Tom "T-Bone" Wolk – bass
- Jay Bennett – guitar (track 11 - verses, track 12 - outro power chord)
- John Patitucci – upright bass (Russian Hill)
- Bruce Kaphan – pedal steel (Russian Hill)
- Los Angeles Union Session Musicians – orchestrations and additional instrumentation
Charts
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! scope="col"| Chart (1993)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
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!scope="row"| Japanese Albums (Oricon)
|align="center"| 100
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References
Further reading
External links
- The Jellyfish homepage: fansite with complete discography, photos, chords, information