Waving My Dick in the Wind: The Best of Ween

So there's a Ween compilation out now.

Greatest Hits albums used to be a big deal.  (Just ask the Eagles.)  Nowadays, though, you can compile your own and listen away.

I could describe the shit sandwich that the record company issued as a Ween best-of, but someone else has already done that better.  On the Rate Your Music site for this release, a reviewer named "Tornadoes" writes:

Haphazard and half-assed digital-only sampler that was assembled without Ween's participation. It's ostensibly a collection of the Elektra/Warner years but it contains nothing from their major label debut Pure Guava (since the rights to that have since returned to the band) nor does it have anything from the preceding album The Pod (Elektra reissued that for a time but that licensing arrangement later expired). It does have GodWeenSatan since Warner now controls that outright (since they bought Rykodisc, who had bought Restless, who had bought original releasing label Twin\Tone – but yeah, you don't care about that chain of title runthrough) but this compilation goes overboard and inexplicably makes that release the centerpiece of this compilation. Don't get me wrong at all, GodWeenSatan is my favorite Ween album, but it's idiotic that 12 of the 20 tracks were taken from there, and several of the selections are HIGHLY questionable. ("Nicole"? "Old Man Thunder"? "Puffy Cloud"? Why?) There's also zilch from 12 Golden Country Greats, even though Warner still owns the rights to it, and the absence of "Ocean Man" is unforgivable. Whoever assembled this has a lot of explaining to do. My mom would also like to mention that this lacks her favorite Ween song ("Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?") and I agree with her that extra demerits are in order for that omission.

I recall when Ween's record deal with Warner originally ended, it was mentioned on the band's website that Rhino Records had the option to make a best-of and that the group might record a few new songs for it or allow some rarities to be used. That collection never came to be but now we have this useless release that was created without Ween's input, since Warner is allowing the obscure X5 Music Group company to raid their archives and assemble "professionally curated music products and playlists customized for a global, digital music market." That's corporate-speak for "we have the legal right to repackage and put out unnecessary horseshit just to scam out a few extra Spotify clicks," by the way.

Ween's demon god The Boognish

I love the venom.  And Tornadoes is right.  This is terrible.  Spotty and incomplete, like Pete Klam's drawers circa 1992.  Poorly conceived at best.

To paraphrase, I offer a comment to Warner Bros that simply takes the name of the first song on Ween's first album: You Fucked Up.

So what are we gonna do about it?  Replace it with a playlist, natch.  Warner used 20 songs, so shall we.

Here goes.

Ween 20-Pack

Vitals
Where: New Hope, PA
When: 1984–2012; 2015–present
Who: Dean Ween, Gene Ween, others eventually

Here's the deal.  Two friends who met in 8th grade liked to get hammered and make music.  Then they started recording it.  4-track lo-fi.  Super stupid but very funny songs about genitals and food and girls.

Then they started touring.  Then they got better at this.  And made better songs.  And recorded in a studio. And filled out a real band. And still liked to get hammered and make music.  Super stupid but very funny songs about genitals and food and girls.

Along the way they had MTV success and live albums and a prog-rock album and a friggin' country album with Nashville session guys and the friggin' Jordanaires and almost a Pizza Hut commercial and a soft-rock song with David Sanborn.  And an absolute ton of fun.

Then Gener got too far gone and cleaned up and quit Ween and Deaner said it's a life sentence so I'll leave the light on and eventually Gener came back a few years later and now they are living happily ever after back together.

I love Ween, and not because they are Random Idiots but way better.  Not just that.

Here's my stab a best-of album. Okay... so I made the standard 20-song GH, and then I made one for the Next 30 Ween songs. Too much great stuff to tickle your fancy, Mr. Fancypants.

The second set is more fun.  Bookended with juvenilia stalwarts, it's chock full of jokes like "Pollo Asado," even more offensive material (a la"The HIV Song"), the best live cover song ever if you listen until the end, and amusing crap like "The F**cked Jam," which drove our buddy Tinsley so insane at the OBFT that he threw the CD into the dunes in a fit of madness.  Both are chronological, so you can hear the progression from idiots to refined idiots.

And let me type this in bold: NOT SAFE FOR WORK.  Lord, no. Not nearly.

Enjoy.