OK, the Residents. I remeber I saw one of their videos (It's a mans mans mans mans world) when I was still a kid, and it totally blew me away - for a long time I drew "residents men" (in white suits and with eyeball heads) without even knowing who they were. I didn't catch their name with that video, so finally stumbling upon them in the local music library several years later was a total revelation. The fact that their music was as great as (if different from) what I had imagined from what I remebered from the video was just amazing. I don't agree that the residents lack quality control, really, I'm amazed that so much of their music succed so brilliantly. Even though I wouldn't say all they've done is essential, I can't remember a sigle Residents record that isn't at least interesting, and more than half of their stuff is absolutely blinding. And they're always so true to themselves, always instantly recognizeable as the Residents.
Ahem. Well, my favorites:
Meet the Residents
Already by their debut they had a completely unique and consistent style. This is a magic record in many ways - an almost chaotic stream of consciousness-collage, that nevertheless is full of melodic warmth, with a strange "folk"-like quality, even though it's not like any folk music known. The compositions seem to follow a kind of dream logic, and the overall mood is really "dreamy" too - that is, dreamy as in unreal, blurred and very enigmatic.
Duck Stab
Probably the closest they got to "post punk". More dream-like songs, but here built much more minimalistic and straightforward, even though everything's still totally idiosyncratic, full of strange twists and turns, ideas that no one else could come up with. It's very typical residents in that it's simultaniously dark and naive, creepy and childish, disturbing like old Max Fleischer cartoons.
Commercial Album
The problem with this is that as great as the concept is, you really would like these tunes to be developed further (a bit like with Enos Music for Films in that way), there's so many great ideas here that only just start before they disappear again. Nevertheless, so much being restrained to such discreet miniatures is a marvel to behold.
Mark of the Mole / The Tunes of Two Cities
The two greatest parts of the odd conceptual "Mole Trilogy" (part three never materialized, but there was an "Intermission" part, the "Mole Show" and even a part four), being everything great concept albums should be: catalysts of creative ideas that wouldn't have come around without the concepts. There's odd elements of proto-electronica on Mark of the Mole, while Two Cities present the music of two invented clashing cultures, brilliantly oscillating between a kind of bizarre, twisted pseudo-lounge jazz (somewhere between Felix Kubin and the Lounge Lizards) and scary, dissonant, noisy industrial music (not really sounding like "industrial" though - even if titles like "God of Darkness", "Praise for the Curse" and "Mourning the Undead" make me wonder if it is meant as some kind of parody of this style - the "moles" as Throbbing Gristles "industrial people"?).
Stars and Hank Forever
Volume two of the "american composers series" (volume one, based on George Gershwin and James Brown, happen to be one of the weaker moments in the residents history IMO), with two highly contrasting sides, each equally brilliant. The almost gothic treatment of Hank Williams is as "unauthentic" as possible, and all the better for it, while the Sousa medley turn into the kind of disorienting mayhem that Charles Ives sometimes reaches. A shame the Residents never got around Ives in their tributes, but then, in many ways they were so much his heirs that maybe they didn't had (or wanted) to.
13th Aniversary Show
Well, this is not really here as a residents album - most of all this is Snakefingers record, singlehandedly making him my favorite guitarist. There's no great concepts here, just a bunch of great residents tracks, delivered brilliantly, with Snakefingers nerve shredding guitar making everything even more dark and intense. The closest they ever got to a rock record. Both a good and a bad place to start.
God in 3 Persons
One of their greatest achievements, being absolutely unlike anything else ever made and still sounding like something always meant to exist. Musically it's a beautyful integration af electronics and wind instruments, totally odd and unique and at the same time alluringly melodic. Conceptually its spoken-word story is as straightforward as it is strange, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes touching, sometimes disturbing.
Freak Show
As there have alway been a big side show element in the residents, this is a very obvious concept album, but brilliantly realized. It contains some of their most catchy tunes (a kind of electro-gothic circus music), as well as some of their cruelest lyrics.
As for Eskimo and Third Reich'n'Roll, both are classics, and conceptual/methodical masterpieces, but I've somehow alway felt that here the concepts just slightly seem to owershadow the music, making them a bit less enjoyable. They're great, but I don't really feel them as strongly as the above ones. In any case, if you really get into the residents, you'll probably end up wanting most of it. If you don't get into them, there isn't really a few essential classics that you still need - they're far too hermetic and consistent for that.
