Chocolate and Cheese is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Ween, originally released by Elektra Records in 1994. It was the first Ween album to be recorded in a professional studio, in contrast to the four-track home recordings of The Pod and Pure Guava. However, most of the instruments were still played by Dean and Gene Ween, including their drum machine.
Background
Ween's previous two albums The Pod (1991) and Pure Guava (1992) had been recorded in a very lo-fi setting – the band only had access to their guitars and a four-track cassette TASCAMPortastudio; the albums were recorded in their apartment (nicknamed "The Pod", hence the name of their second album). Having signed to major labelElektra Records, Ween now had access to better resources to record. In addition, drummer Claude Coleman Jr. joined the band, meaning they had live instrumentation as opposed to relying on a drum machine.
As a result, Chocolate and Cheese ended up sounding more hi-fi than Ween's prior works. The sound is clearer due to having been recorded digitally as opposed to the tapes that the first three albums were done on, and the resources the band now had meant they could experiment more than they did in the previous lo-fi set up.
The album is dedicated to comedian John Candy, who died while Ween was putting the album together. "A Tear for Eddie" was dedicated to Parliament-Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel, who died in 1992. In a 2011 interview, Gene Ween credited a Spanish lesson on Sesame Street with inspiring "Buenas Tardes Amigo".[2] The album's title is phonetically similar to the British saying "chalk and cheese", a way of saying that two items have nothing in common.
Album cover
In an interview with Hank Shteamer during the writing of the 33⅓ book about Chocolate and Cheese, Dean Ween said that the original idea for the album art was to "get a sailor, like a gay sailor, in red, white and blue wearing the belt",[3] but the studio rejected this idea, thinking it was inappropriate.
Gene Ween claims to have come up with the idea for the album art that ended up being made, saying "I had it sketched out... I remember telling Mickey how the top of the [shirt] would cut out right below the nipple line and so it was very important to have big breasts with a large 'under portion'". The creative director of Reiner Design Consultants, Roger Gorman, stated that they were given the direction to make it look like an album cover by the Ohio Players.[4]
The model for the album art was Ashley Savage, and photography was done by John Kuczala. In the early 2000s, the cover was voted "sexiest album cover of all time" by readers of Playboy.com.[5]
In her review of Chocolate and Cheese for Spin, Terri Sutton observed that Ween "seems to have potty-trained its predilection for lengthy funk deconstructions", limiting their "Prince/Brothers Johnson fixation" to "a prized few taut, sexy saunters" and elsewhere exploring new musical territory by taking influence from Southern rock, Philadelphia soul, and disco, among other styles.[15] "Certifiably insane and dangerously insidious," Paul Rees wrote in Select, "Chocolate and Cheese is the finest argument for dropping out and tuning in to Ween's parallel universe."[12]
Entertainment Weekly's Dimitri Ehrlich was more reserved in his praise, likening Ween to "someone so impossibly weird it almost gives you a headache – yet you think about the things that person said for weeks".[7] Mark Sutherland of NME called Chocolate and Cheese "more like a trip round a very odd compilation than a proper, coherent album", advising listeners "to tape the best bits and ponder on why Ween don't just stop mucking about and record an entire album's worth of similar gems."[8]Robert Christgau selected "Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)" as the sole "choice cut" from the album in The Village Voice.[16]
Retrospectively, AllMusic critic Heather Phares lauded Chocolate and Cheese as "a brilliant fusion of pop and gonzo humor" and "arguably Ween's finest moment", which "proved for once and all that along with their twisted sense of humor and wide musical vocabulary, Dean and Gene are also impressive songwriters."[1] Similarly, Pitchfork reviewer Stuart Berman wrote that it showed "that when you scraped away the cruddy production and pitch-shifting chicanery that defined their previous records, Ween were undeniable pop songwriters."[9] Rob Hughes of Uncut found that despite Ween's many "audacious stylistic turns" throughout Chocolate and Cheese, "the songs are so good they transcend notions of pastiche", concluding that the album, while sometimes crossing "the limits of acceptable taste", documents the band's "sheer verve, ideas and invention".[14]
In 2014, Guitar World included Chocolate and Cheese on its list of "50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994".[17] The entire album was played live as part of the group's setlist at the Desert Daze festival in California on October 12, 2019.[18]
Related releases
"I Can't Put My Finger on It" served as the title track of an EP released by Elektra in 1994, which also included the tracks "A Tear for Eddie", "Now I'm Freaking Out", and "Bakersfield". The same year, "Voodoo Lady" was released by the New Zealand label Flying Nun Records as a 7" single, with "Buenas Tardes Amigo" on the B-side; both songs were also issued on the Voodoo Lady EP in CD format, along with the tracks "There's a Pig" and "Vallejo". "Freedom of '76" was the title track of an EP released by Flying Nun in 1995, which included two versions of the title track plus "Now I'm Freaking Out" and "Pollo Asado".
The first music video for the album was "I Can't Put My Finger on It", followed by "Voodoo Lady", and "Freedom of '76", filmed circa March 1995.[19]CKY guitarist (and dedicated Ween fan) Chad Ginsburg appeared in the "Freedom of '76" promo video as an extra shouting at Gene and Dean after they stole the Liberty Bell.
"Voodoo Lady" can be heard in the films Road Trip and Dude, Where's My Car?, as well as the original version of "In the Bathroom", a skit from the sketch comedy show The State, while the album track "Buenas Tardes Amigo" was featured in the German films Lammbock and Herr Lehmann.
On top of the Elektra Records release (Elektra 61639-2 US 1994), Chocolate and Cheese was pressed and distributed by the label Grand Royal in the US in 1994 as a 2 LP non-gatefold version (Grand Royal GR 010 US 1994). Flying Nun released two different versions in 1994, one of which came with a bonus 7" single (Flying Nun Records FN314 Europe 1994, no 7") and (Flying Nun Records FNSP314 UK 1994, with 7").
Note that there is a catalog number for the vinyl issue by Elektra Records, but there is no confirmation it was pressed on vinyl at this time, possibly only in promo edition.
Covers
A number of songs on Chocolate and Cheese have been covered by a variety of other artists in the years since its release.
"Roses Are Free" has been covered by the band Phish 51 times between 12-11-1997 and 7-16-2022.[20] Official releases of their version appear on Phish's live concert albums Hampton Comes Alive (1999) and Live Phish 04.03.98 (2005). The 2000 documentary Bittersweet Motel features the band learning the track backstage at the Rochester War Memorial in Rochester, NY and then transitions into their first onstage interpretation. In an interview from 2015, Melchiondo observed that Ween began playing "Roses Are Free" regularly in concert after Phish began covering it, and credited Phish for boosting the song's popularity.[21]Phish's guitarist, Trey Anastasio, commented to the crowd after their 8-7-2015 cover, suggesting that Mickey and Aaron should play together again,[22] which was followed by Ween's first comeback show at the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, CO on 2-12-2016[vague] where the song was played among 32 others.[23]
Ash recorded a version of "What Deaner Was Talkin' About", released as a B-side on their 1997 single "A Life Less Ordinary". This track also features on their limited edition live album, Live at the Wireless.
Amos Lee performed "Buenas Tardes Amigo" on an iTunes exclusive live album entitled iTunes Live from SoHo.
Folk punk musician Sunny War covered "Baby Bitch" on her 2023 album Anarchist Gospel.[24]
Deluxe edition
On June 7, 2024, Ween announced they would be releasing a deluxe edition of Chocolate and Cheese to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary, with a release date of August 2, 2024.[25] The deluxe edition features both remasters of the original tracks done by Bernie Grundman,[26] as well as 15 previously unreleased tracks.[27] One of these tracks, "Junkie Boy", was released as a single the same day as the announcement. On July 19, a second single was released for the 30th anniversary edition, a demo version of "Voodoo Lady".
The deluxe edition came packaged with a booklet written by Dean Ween giving more details about the album's production, revealing alternate track lists that were considered, giving stories of the album's making, and showing exclusive photos and production notes.[28]
The deluxe edition was a commercial success. Forbes reported that it had sold 5,300 copies in its first week, with sales being strong enough for the deluxe edition to hit number 15 on Billboard's Top Album Sales chart and number 3 on the magazine's Vinyl Albums chart.[29]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Ween, except where noted
Sean Heydorff, Lisa Glines, Rory Wilson, Amelia Halverson, Steve Woolard, Patrick Milligan, Molly Dolan, Brigid McNally, Mark Ramsey, Dave Kapp, Danny Berman, Trestan Matel, Allison Boron, and Sam Stone – project assistance
2024 management by Patrick Jordan and Brad Sands with Lindsay Fitzgerald
Charts
1994–1995 chart performance for Chocolate and Cheese
