{"id":20870,"date":"2021-04-17T05:30:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-17T09:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20870"},"modified":"2022-10-28T08:34:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T12:34:35","slug":"album-review-too-much-joy-mistakes-were-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/17\/album-review-too-much-joy-mistakes-were-made\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Too Much Joy &#8212; Mistakes Were Made"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-20871\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/too_much_joy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/too_much_joy.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/too_much_joy-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/too_much_joy-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>I\u2019m long past the point of being surprised when I discover a new (now to me, that is) group that\u2019s been making great music for years. But I\u2019m certainly still pleased when it happens. I had somehow never heard of Too Much Joy until this CD arrived in my mailbox. As I soon came to discover, the band had already released eight albums (starting with <i>Green Eggs and Crack<\/i>, way back in 1987 when I was just out of college) and an EP. So 2021\u2019s <em>Mistakes Were Made<\/em> is my decades-belated introduction to the band.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s a corker. \u201cBlinding Light of Love\u201d has a vibe not unlike prime-era Cheap Trick, but that\u2019s merely one of several musical personalities that Too Much Joy displays. \u201cUncle Watson Wants to Think\u201d reminds me a bit of Dada or Cracker, which is to say that there\u2019s a \u201890s alternarock vibe to some of this music. But just when you think you\u2019ve got a bead on them, they crank out \u201cOliver Plunkett\u2019s Head, \u201cwhich sounds like Green Day with Weird Al on vocals. \u201cHairshirt\u201d is vaguely electronica-folk flavored; it sounds like a cross between Violent Femmes and Hayseed Dixie.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPong\u201d reminds me a bit of Material Issue. \u201cSomething to Drink About\u201d has hints of Matthew Sweet and Rain Parade. \u201cTranq it Up\u201d recalls Fountains of Wayne. The speedy \u201cSnow Day\u201d swings for the fences, arena-rock style. When I hear \u201cFlux Capacitor,\u201d I think of Velvet Crush\u2019s countrified forays.<\/p>\n<p>All of those name-checks might suggest to you that <i>Mistakes Were Made<\/i> is a multiple personalty kinda band. And yeah, that\u2019s the case. If you want a bunch of songs that sound like they were all cut at the same session using the same instruments and setting, go buy an Oasis album. If you want ecelcticism and cleverness in your rock diet, heave a heaping helping of Too Much Joy\u2019s latest album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m long past the point of being surprised when I discover a new (now to me, that is) group that\u2019s been making great music for years. But I\u2019m certainly still [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[4498],"class_list":["post-20870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-too-much-joy","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24157,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20870\/revisions\/24157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}