Butthole Surfers - what is their best 80's studio record?

tough call

Brown Reason to Live is about the only Surfers recording that I could listen to front to back without either skipping or programming out a track on a CD player.

the answer is probably Psychic, it has the perfect balance between the insane anarchy experiments of Locust and Rembrandt and the more melodic stuff from Hairway and the ep's.

though still, a tough call

if you're including EP's it is a crime to omit Brown Reason To Live.

oh shit, never mind, it's there, but out of chronological order.

Psychic ftw

Locust (partly b/c I know it best).

psychic has my favourite songs but rembrandt is my favourite to listen to it all.

Psychic ... Powerless = best record any of the Touch & Go Central Standard Time bands put out in the 80s except maybe Songs About Fucking

Rembrandt Pussyhorse, even though nothing on it is quite as good as Cherub/Lady Sniff/Moving To Florida, etc. As a whole, it hangs together best.

always been a big fan of rembrandt... but I had the cassette version with cream corn tacked on at the end and I still have a hard time thinking of the album without those tracks. agree that it's more low-key but also a more consistent listen than any of the others, it really works as an album.

I anticipate a pretty even spread between psychic/rembrandt/locust, and assume locust is going to take it.

My CD of Psychic... has Cream Corn EP tacked on the end, so I'm used to it being on that one! They renamed a couple of the songs as well so I'm used to To Parter being called Two Part. Which is one of my favourite songs of theirs. If I could vote for that CD combo I probably would, otherwise I guess Locust Abortion Technician takes it.

The first EP. But their funniest is definitely Locust Abortion Technician - "Sweat Loaf," "Kuntz." Major lolz.

All of these are great! Could vote for any one of these, thought about Widowermaker but went with Hairway in the end.

I don't think there's a bad song on any of these. Hell of an impressive run.

I went with the initial EP because my introduction to the Surfers was PCPPEP, and my love for those songs is strong. I'd take the live versions over the studio ones, but it is such a minor quibble.

Really amazing run, as dad a said.

Well, at least one vote in for Hairway -- not necessarily because I'm 100% convinced it's the best, but because I strongly believe that any album with a song about seeing an X-ray of a girl passing gas deserves to win SOMETHING. This may not be the best rationale, I admit.

Ah, I see Stan beat me to it. Strength in numbers. Hairway is gonna be the sleeper fave.

"Locust" just ahead of "Psychic"

Why is this limited to the '80s? It's not like there's an unmanageable quantity of albums/EPs up there...

Oh well, makes no difference: P...P...AMC is my 6th favourite record of that entire '80s. Not a bad song in the bunch, and none of 'em sound alike, really. I love how the flanging and fly's-ear vocals and bodily-fluid FX are employed as instruments in their own right.

Really, though, I don't think these guys (and girl) released a bad cut through the entirety of the '80s.

"Why is this limited to the '80s? "

from pioghed and on, it's a total decline

Independent Worm Saloon had its moments...

Hairway

but LAT close second

i agree, but in any case, non of those 90's-00's records would win and it's tougher and tighter contest between the 80's records, which are all great more or less.
xpost

hairway - my problem with this record is mainly side b - which is good but not as good as the remarkeble side a.

Come on, it contains songs like

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Butthole_Hairway_7.jpg

Locust Abortion Technician by some margin for me, and it's the only one I can see me digging out, though Psychic . . has some good stuff on it.

1. Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac (1985)
2. Butthole Surfers (brown reason to live) ep (1983)
3. Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis ep (1986)

I could easily switch # 1 and #2. (Live PCPPEP would be up there too.) Cream Corn is a distant third (or fourth, if you'd included that first live EP); the stuff after that never seemed all that great to me.

Went with Psychic...Powerless as it contains several of my all-time favorite BHS tracks (Concubine, Cherub, Dum Dum, Cowboy Bob) as well as a couple of the most iconic (Lady Sniff, Butthole Surfer). And 'cuz that's where I came in.

Locust Abortion Technician seems more interesting and "important", somehow (maybe just 'cuz it's so damn hard to deal with), but it's got fewer stand-alone GREAT songs. So it comes in second. Third place probably winds up a tie between Brown Reason, Cream Corn and Hairway.

Psychic Powerless. It was the first thing I heard - it did my head in!

Contenderizer(xpost) sums it up perfectly but i would add Mexican Caravan - that was almost a standard punk rock tune

hi! i have the old blast first version of Locust Abortion and was wondering if the new remastered version is really good, or just sound the same and there is no need of replace it. thanks

Between Psychic and Locust.
Psychic, because "Concubine" personifies the band for me

PSYCHIC! Not a bad song on it. For you people who didn't vote Psychic, what is your reasoning? Just wondering. I think their others are pretty spotty (Hairway possibly excluded) but still undeniably great. One of my favorite bands (this period, at least).

Rembrandt is just a weird weird album, and in very weird ways. I can kind of understand how someone would come to write, say, "Lady Sniff," but have no idea how you wake up in the middle of the night with the idea for "Perry." Just different shades of weirdness, I guess, and Rembrandt has always struck me as stranger. I can think of stuff that sounds vaguely like Psychic, but I don't think I've ever heard another album that sounds like any part of Rembrandt.

what is your reasoning?

my reasoning is that i prefer listening to "rembrandt pussy horse". if someone were to ask me which buttholes album to buy i would recommend "psychic.." in a second. it contains my favourite song by them, one of my favourite songs by anyone in fact in "cherub", but the album is slightly let own by the production which makes it a hard album to listen to all the way through. the production on "rembrandt" was a giant leap forward (the drums on "american woman"!!!) and overall it's an easier album to enjoy in one sitting. perhaps it's their MOR album?

I can think of stuff that sounds vaguely like Psychic,

Which ones, for instance? Genuine question, by the way

i think dlp9001 is right. there is stuff on psychic that wouldn't sound out of place on a flipper or savage republic album bur rembrandt is pretty much out there on its own.

Chrome?
xpost

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

YES YES YES FUCKIN LEAPING AROUND THE ROOM TO THE VICTORY, FIRES BURNING, BABIES SCREAMING, SURGERY GONE TITS UP
I HATE MY FUCKING JOB

I missed out on this poll, but the results are exactly how I would have rated them.

22 Going on 23 was the first song I heard by them, on some public radio show in Houston when I was a kid. It's still one of my favorite songs to throw into noisy mix tapes, since it doesn't automatically seem like the Buttholes.