Residents – The Commercial Album

After spending a couple of years creating the 1979 album, Eskimo, The Residents wanted a break from the long form abstract approach. They had written a lot of melody lines and thought it would be fun to use them all instead of selecting a few to develop. Short-attention-span ideas in music was new. Initially people didn’t know what to make of it. Now it is recognized as one of their best.

In public, the group appears silent and costumed, often wearing eyeball helmets, top hats and tuxedos — a long-lasting costume now recognized as its signature iconography. The group is noted for surrealistic lyrics and sound, disregard for conventional music composition, and the over the top, theatrical spectacle of their live performances.

TRACKLISTING
1.    Easter Woman
2.    Perfect Love
3.    Picnic Boy
4.    End of Home
5.    Amber
6.    Japanese Watercolor
7.    Secrets
8.    Die in Terror
9.    Red Rider
10.    My Second Wife
11.    Floyd
12.    Suburban Bathers
13.    Dimples and Toes
14.    The Nameless Souls
15.    Love Leaks Out
16.    Act of Being Polite
17.    Medicine Man
18.    Tragic Bells
19.    Loss of Innocence
20.    The Simple Song
21.    Ups and Downs
22.    Possessions
23.    Give It to Someone Else
24.    Phantom
25.    Less Not More
26.    My Work Is So Behind
27.    Birds in the Trees
28.    Handful of Desire
29.    Moisture
30.    Love Is…
31.    Troubled Man
32.    La La
33.    Loneliness
34.    Nice Old Man
35.    The Talk of Creatures
36.    Fingertips
37.    In Between Dreams
38.    Margaret Freeman
39.    The Coming of the Crow
40.    When We Were Young