Jellyfish – Spilt Milk (1993/2023) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

Jellyfish – Spilt Milk (1993/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:17 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Virgin Records

When Jellyfish released their second album, Spilt Milk, in February 1993, critics didn’t know what comparison to make of the band. The band had released their first album, Bellybutton, to rave reviews and even had a Top 40 hit with the catchy “Baby’s Coming Back,” which wasn’t even one of the better tracks. The melodies flowed, and the harmonies shook you down to your core.

The duo was celebrated for their defiance in the grunge era, crafting deliriously sunny pop jams. In a Newsweek feature highlighting the Best Summer Albums from 1985-1997, Zach Schonfeld wrote a blurb on Spilt Milk, saying, “God bless Jellyfish for releasing this lost power-pop masterwork at the height of the grunge explosion. With angst on the airwaves, Andy Sturmer and Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. (with help from soon-to-be-star-producer Jon Brion) crafted 12 unfashionably sunny and remarkably well-built pop gems.

“It’s the colorfulness of it all that makes it such a great summer record; nods to peak Queen, 80s metal, and The Beatles at their sugariest abound, but Spilt Milk couldn’t have been made by anyone but Jellyfish. Shame they didn’t copyright the title ‘Bye Bye Bye’ before NSYNC nabbed it.”

The history of Spilt Milk is legendary in Jellyfish circles. When they began writing in 1992, Brian Wilson paid them a visit to the studio, having been impressed by their debut Bellybutton. The duo showed off their electric harpsichords and clavinet, which left Wilson unimpressed. He wanted to see something new. This sparked an idea in the duo.Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning created a striking prototype of their musical world-view on Jellyfish’s debut album, 1990’s Bellybutton, but while that disc’s cross-pollination of power pop touchstones and big rock attack sounded truly ambitious, the band upped the ante considerably on 1993’s Spilt Milk, which could be roughly described as Jellyfish’s SMiLE (or perhaps their Heaven Tonight). After the departure of Jason Falkner and Chris Manning following the long tour in support of Bellybutton, Sturmer and Manning were essentially left alone in the studio to conjure the sounds in their heads, with the generous help of producers Albhy Galuten and Jack Joseph Puig and a few studio musicians (including Jon Brion on guitar). From the striking Beach Boys-influenced vocal arrangements on the opener “Hush” and the pastoral tone poem “Russian Hill” to the fuzz-powered chaos of “All Is Forgiven” and the Queen-meets-Pixies guitar theatrics of “Fan Club,” everything on Spilt Milk is conceived and executed on a grand scale, and there’s no question that Sturmer and Manning sound like joyous kids left in a toy shop and making splendid use of every plaything at their disposal. If Spilt Milk has a flaw (beyond its drab afterthought of a cover), it’s that the album sometimes seems too big for its own good, with every nook and cranny filled with some overdubbed bit of business, occasionally making it hard to hear the songs for the baroque layers of production. But Spilt Milk is 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. – Mark Deming

Tracklist:

1-1. Jellyfish – Hush (02:10)
1-2. Jellyfish – Joining A Fan Club (04:03)
1-3. Jellyfish – Sebrina, Paste And Plato (02:23)
1-4. Jellyfish – New Mistake (04:03)
1-5. Jellyfish – The Glutton Of Sympathy (03:49)
1-6. Jellyfish – The Ghost At Number One (03:36)
1-7. Jellyfish – Bye, Bye, Bye (04:03)
1-8. Jellyfish – All Is Forgiven (04:09)
1-9. Jellyfish – Russian Hill (04:46)
1-10. Jellyfish – He’s My Best Friend (03:44)
1-11. Jellyfish – Too Much, Too Little, Too Late (03:14)
1-12. Jellyfish – Brighter Day (06:11)

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