Pain Makes You Beautiful | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1993 | |||
Recorded | Long View Farm Studios, North Brookfield, Massachusetts[1] | |||
Genre | Pop, rock, alternative rock | |||
Length | 44:06 | |||
Label | Sire/Warner Bros. | |||
Producer | Kevin Moloney | |||
The Judybats chronology | ||||
|
Pain Makes You Beautiful is the third album by the American band the Judybats, released in 1993 by Sire Records.[2][3] The album contains the band's most successful single, "Being Simple", which peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart.[4] The band supported the album with a North American tour.[5]
Pain Makes You Beautiful saw a significant lineup change for the band, with the departure of keyboardist Peggy Hambright and bassist Timothy Stutz and the arrival of bassist Paul Noe and drummer Dave Kenkins.[6][7] Recorded live in the studio, the album was produced by Kevin Moloney,[8][9] who helped the band to shorten and rearrange their songs.[10] The recording studio, Long View Farm Studios, was a country barn, built above horse stables.[11] Many of the songs' lyrics were inspired by the lives of frontman Jeff Heiskell and his friends.[12]
In 2023, Heiskell stated that he loved Moloney's production on the album, which introduced more "organic sounds", and added that he felt the band's earlier records had been overproduced by comparison.[11]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [6] |
Chicago Tribune | [13] |
The Republican | [14] |
Trouser Press stated that "the musicianship is at a consistently high caliber, and the songwriting is tremendously diverse."[7] The Chicago Tribune concluded that "Heiskell, a dominant vocal presence live, is still too mannered on record; he's like a drawling male Annie Lennox, with every intonation sounding studied and self-conscious."[13] The Republican wrote: "Flying in the face of grunge trends, they pack a rippling batch of melodies into crisp pop tracks like the exhilarating 'Ugly on the Outside'."[14] The Washington Post determined that "the Judybats slip loose of their New South neo-folk-rock mold, though not singer/lyricist Jeff Heiskell's sometimes annoying conceits."[15] The Associated Press deemed the album "lightweight pop ... overloaded with ponderous pretensions."[16]
In a retrospective review, Stewart Mason of AllMusic thought the album traded the band's "folky eccentricities" for "a more identifiably alternative rock groove that's considerably less unique", and that Moloney "steers things a little too far to adult album alternative territory at times".[6]
All music by the Judybats, lyrics by Jeff Heiskell.
The Judybats
Technical