Electriclarryland
These Austin punks spent a decade playing underground clubs and sleeping on floors next to the cat-litter box before scoring an unlikely commercial breakthrough with this 1996 album. The key to the highway was the modern-rock radio hit "Pepper," a novelty rap tune that reinvents Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" from the perspective of postpunk nihilism, Texas-style. Another rock-rap track, "The Lord Is a Monkey," grafts a lyrical nod to Snoop Dogg over a mutilated Jimi Hendrix guitar lick. The rest of the album alternates pop-punk rave-ups ("Ulcer Breakout," "Ah Ha") with noisy acid freak-outs ("My Brother's Wife," "Space"). The Buttholes have not released an album since Electric Larryland. But it's all right, Ma, they're only bleeding.--Rick Mitchell