Million Seller | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1993 | |||
Genre | Alternative rock, pop | |||
Label | Zoo Entertainment/BMG [1] | |||
Producer | Steve Gregory | |||
The Pooh Sticks chronology | ||||
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Million Seller is an album by the Welsh band the Pooh Sticks, released in 1993. [2] [3] The album was a commercial disappointment, and the band was dropped by Zoo Entertainment after its release. [4] [5]
The album's first single was "The World Is Turning On". [6]
Million Seller was produced by Steve Gregory, with some assistance from Jim Rondinelli. [7] [8] The album cover depicts frontman Hue Williams floating on a 45 of Elvis Costello's "Accidents Will Happen". [9] As on previous albums, the Pooh Sticks incorporated titles, lyrics, and melodies to popular songs in to Million Seller's 13 tracks. [10] [11]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [12] |
Chicago Tribune | [9] |
Robert Christgau | [13] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [4] |
The Indianapolis Star | [1] |
Spin Alternative Record Guide | 9/10 [8] |
The Washington Post deemed the album "hopelessly arch, impossibly infectious pop-punk." [14] Trouser Press wrote that, "with [Amelia] Fletcher’s voice sweetly balancing Hue’s, 'Let the Good Times Roll' and 'The World Is Turning On' are fabulous confections, candy-pop mountains of ABBA-rock production and witty/silly lyrics." [15] Robert Christgau considered the album to be "irony-pop gone hermeneutic—with nothing to say." [13] The State likened it to "a '90s version of Sgt. Pepper or Atom Heart Mother." [16]
Spin called the album "a desperately hummable, anxiously erotic masterpiece from a band with enough heart to make your head spin." [17] Stereo Review noted that "these Brit youngsters—rigorous pop formalists with a cutesy streak more than a mile wide—apparently see themselves as the missing link between Neil Young and Edison Lighthouse... Few less auspicious concepts have ever been digitally preserved." [18] The Village Voice labeled Million Seller "Carole King's Tapestry done by self-conscious sugarpop punks trying to rock and roll their way out of self-consciousness." [19]
AllMusic called it "truly a classic pop record," writing: "Too polished and produced to garner alternative credibility, yet not the kind of record destined to get any mainstream exposure, Million Seller slipped between the cracks." [12]
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Million Seller" | |
2. | "Let the Good Times Roll" | |
3. | "The World Is Turning On" | |
4. | "Sugar Baby" | |
5. | "I Saw the Light" | |
6. | "Susan Sleepwalking" | |
7. | "When the Girl Wants to Be Free" | |
8. | "Baby Wanna Go Round with Me" | |
9. | "Sugar Mello" | |
10. | "Rainbow Rider" | |
11. | "Goodbye Don't Mean I'm Gone" | |
12. | "Jelly on a Plate" | |
13. | "That Was the Greatest Song" |
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