The 11 Best Song By Tripping Daisy

The career of Tripping Daisy can be summed up in two words:  Polyphonic Spree.  During Daisy's '90s career, it was difficult to gauge their musical style because I'm not even sure the band knew what their sound was supposed to be.  They changed their style more frequently than Lady Gaga in a supermarket. Their first couple albums sounded like a combination of the summertime rolls of Jane's Addiction's psychedelic ripple and the metallic transmissions from whatever planet The Flaming Lips were living on.  Their one radio hit "I Got A Girl" sounded like it was made in a lab in the basement of a record label's A&R department where bands like Sponge, Eve 6, and Local H were created.  Tripping Daisy fought back.  On their third album, Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb, they dove head first into the sonic boom of what would later define the pop sugaryness of lead singer Tim Delaughter's '00s band, The Polyphonic Spree.  It was a trippy journey with the band embracing their inner Coyne.  The problem was the album was unmarketable.  How unmarketable?  The album is currently unavailable...anywhere.  The label buried it, even though it's considered to be the band's creative peak.  Then on the final album, when they aimed to expand on their newly invented sound...the lead guitarist died.  Probably from exhaustion of having to play "I Got a Girl" a billion times.

Thus, the Polyphonic Spree was born.  It wasn't Tripping Daisy re-invented.  It was a whole new level of tripping out.

The 11 Best Song By Tripping Daisy:

1. Blown Away (Bill)
2. Your Socks Have No Name (Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb)
3. Sonic Bloom (Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb)
4. Drama Day Weekend (Tripping Daisy)
5. One Through Four (Bill)
6. Kids Are Calling (Tripping Daisy)
7. Raindrop (I Am An Elastic Firecracker)
8. My Umbrella (Bill)
9. Field Day Jitters (Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb)
10. Piranha (I Am An Elastic Firecracker) 
11. The Sudden Shift Worried Him (Tripping Daisy)

Buy The Polyphonic Spree's new album, Yes, It's True...now!!!

The 11 Best Songs By The Polyphonic Spree

This is a crazy release week...and if I wasn't far enough behind already, this week has and will definitely set me back too many months to count.  I'm going to be blogging about 2012 releases deep into 2013.  That will set me back into 2014 than 2015...I might as well skip 2016 just catch up.  Of course, 2016 is the year Dr. Dre's Detox is going to finally come out.

There are at least 11 releases (get it) coming out today that are all blog worthy.  From long-awaited comebacks from PiL and Ultravox to some highly anticipated releases from Sigur Ros and Regina Spector.  Sigur Ros was the obvious kickoff choice but since I just did their "best of" back in the November there's no reason not to let someone else grab a piece of the GBU limelight.

For this week, I'm kicking off with a celebration of the new band by Tim DeLaughter...Preteen Zenith.  I love what this guy is doing.  This is his third band in so many decades.  It's hard enough to launch band with any sort of success.  But Tim's trying to do it three times.  It's like he knows when one band has run it's course and it's time to re-invent the wheel.  I have to respect that.

But before we move onto the decade of the Zenith...let's say goodbye to the Spree.

Here are the 11 Best Songs By the Polyphonic Spree:

1. Mental Caberet - Section 27 (The Fragile Army)
2. Hold Me Now - Section 12 (Together We're Heavy)
3. Light and Day / Reach For The Sun - Section 9 (The Beginning Stages Of...)  
4. Running Away - Section 22 (The Fragile Army)
5. We Crawl - Section 26  (The Fragile Army)
6. Love My Way (Wait EP)
7. Soldier Girl UK Version - Section 8 (The Beginning Stages Of...)
8. Get Up and Go - Section 23 (The Fragile Army)  
9. When A Fool Becomes A King - Section 19 (Together We're Heavy)
10. It's The Sun - Section 2 (The Beginning Stages Of...)
11. Sonic Bloom (Wait EP)

Buy Preteen Zenith's debut album, Rubble Guts and BB Eye...now!!!