Freak Show | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released | 1990 | |||
Recorded | 1989 | |||
Length | 52:53 (Special Edition) | |||
Label | The Voyager Company (CD-ROM) Mute/EMI | |||
The Residents chronology | ||||
|
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [2] |
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide | [3] |
Spin Alternative Record Guide | 4/10[4] |
Freak Show is a studio album by American art rock band The Residents, released in 1990.[5] It marked the beginning of The Residents' obsession with emerging computer technology in the 1990s, and much of the music was made with various MIDI devices.
The interactive Freak Show CD-ROM was released in 1994.[6] A Freak Show stage performance by a theater company at the Archa Theater in Prague premiered on November 1, 1995. Kyle Baker worked on a graphic novel, The Residents: Freak Show, which was released in 1992 by Dark Horse.[7]
Several of the songs were also performed live during the 1997 25th anniversary concerts at the Fillmore in San Francisco. After the CD-ROM's success, the album was re-released as The Freak Show Soundtrack with a different cover. A limited edition, The Freak Show Special Edition, was released in 2002 to mark the band's 30th anniversary.
Trouser Press called the album "relatively accessible" as well as "often unnerving," writing that "there are more than enough lyrical twists and turns to avoid mere gross-out overkill, and the music shifts textures and tempos ... to follow suit."[6]
Disc 1
Disc 2 aka Freak Show Live (Prague 1995)