Material Issue-Freak City Soundtrack (1994)


 

Artist: Material Issue

Title: Freak City Soundtrack

Label: Mercury

Format: CD

Cat #: 314 518 894-2

Year of Release:1994

Country and Year of Edition Issue:US 1994 DADC pressing

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date:6/26/21

Sell Price: $3.99

Discogs Last Sold: 4/1/21

Low: $3.00

Median: $4.99

Average: $6.32

High: $11.62

Current low price: $2.99

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 15

Have/Want: 235/29

Where Sold: Pittsburgh, PA

Time it took to sell:10 years

Where and When Bought: mail order early aughts used probably 75 cents plus shipping

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B

Sad To See It Go: No

Commerical modern rock from Chicago got on my radar from my Rubric years because they covered The Green Pajamas "Kim The Waitress" from an earlier point in their epic discography.  That the song was a Billboard #20 Modern Rock hit was irrelevant, I managed to ignore them completely in it's day until Rubric cohort Kenny alerted me to the cover.  In 1999 I had no idea.

With a 90's commercial veneer, this is something that isn't going to be something I'm going to listen to alot if ever, but overall getting a couple passes in,  you could do a hell of a lot worse in terms of rock credibility in that realm.  

Leader Jim Ellison committed suicide with carbon monoxide a couple years after this record, which had some heavy hitter guest stars like Rick Nielson from Cheap Trick and Gilby Clarke from post Izzy G 'n R.  

You can hear the ELO "Do Ya" nick on "A Very Good Thing." It must be said that the opener "Goin' Through Your Purse" was not a cover of The Mentors.  It was clear Material Issue had taste, even if it probably was the success of the Goo Goo Dolls that softened the commercial landscape for a band like this in the first half of the 90's.  It just didn't soften it enough for the band to be massive, so they were subsequently dropped by a major even with some level of commercial success.  It just wasn't enough for the mass market scale.  Not cool enough to be the Green Pajamas, not arena scale like Cheap Trick once were or stadium scale like Guns 'n Roses.  Had they stayed together, it would've been corporate clubs, state fairs and the occasional opening slot for a heavy hitter ad infinitum trotting out their radio hits of the early 90's.   Who knows what Ellison's aspirations were before 1996.  Clearly something was missing for him that he couldn't reconcile to soldier on beyond age 31.

His legacy was decent enough,  if a bit anonymous.


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