Phish: Billy Breathes

I assume we've reached the point where most music fans fall squarely into three buckets: (1) those who love Phish; (2) those who hate Phish; and (3) those who don't know anything about Phish and are pretty ok with that.

Whichever bucket you fall into, it's probably based on their live shows (or, for buckets 2 and 3, what you imagine their live shows to sound like). Which is fair; I'm firmly among those who love Phish, and it's based largely on their live performances.

But I also find their studio work deeply underrated. Or at least some of it. Their early records were decent enough; their more recent records are a little iffier, but still have some winning songs. But for a brief period in the 90s, they released a string of records which are quite excellent, and hold up well completely independent of the band's live reputation and their impenetrable in-crowd idiosyncrasies. 

I've talked previously about 1998's The Story Of The Ghost, my personal favorite (based largely on the music, though undoubtedly influenced by it being the current release when I first got into the band). But 1996's Billy Breathes is probably even better, or at least more likely to appeal to classic rock fans willing to set aside any preconceptions about the band. It's full of great songs, and it sounds great (courtesy of superstar producer Steve Lillywhite, better known for his work with Talking Heads, XTC, Peter Gabriel, etc.). Ok, dock it a few points for the cover art--that frightening extreme close-up of bassist Mike Gordon--but otherwise, total banger.

Opener "Free" is the sort of thing that would've been all over the FM dial if it had come out in the 70s, a booming arena-ready rocker; while concert mainstays like "Character Zero" and album closing "Prince Caspian" are similarly anthemic. At the other end of the spectrum, there are some lovely quiet numbers, like the title cut, the mixtape-friendly "Waste" (an unabashedly sappy ballad), and a couple stripped-down acoustic numbers ("Talk" and "Train Song"). "Theme From The Bottom" is one of the band's finest moments, a gentle bass/piano-dominated number that builds into a rousing epic. Only "Taste" looks back at their early days (and live sound), the offbeat proggy syncopation that shows off their virtuosity and the influence of artists like Zappa and Genesis--though even here, it's concisely-enough presented to work within the confines of the album.

Anyway, if you've been steering clear of Phish, this is a user-friendly pathway.

"Free":

"Theme From The Bottom":