The Residents - Commercial Album

Formed in the early 1970s, The Residents have now been charting a unique path through the musical landscape for 50 years. In celebration of that remarkable and unlikely anniversary, we present an expanded vinyl edition of the classic 1980 LP ‘Commercial Album’.

Following almost a decade spent attempting to redefine what pop music could be, but with zero hit singles to show for it, The Residents finally caved and produced their own pop music album as the 80s dawned. But rather than have each song repeat the same minute of music three times as per the traditional pop format, The Residents produced no less than 40 one-minute pop masterpieces and invited the listener to do the repeating bit themselves if they felt the need.

The resulting ‘Commercial Album’ both showcased the incredible depth of the group’s musical palette and proved definitively that they could easily be as big as The Beatles if they wanted to. Probably bigger, actually.

Featuring a breathless collage of toe-tappers, memorable melodies, instrumental experiments and guest performers (Fred Frith, Chris Cutler and XTC’s Andy Partridge among them), the record has since acquired legendary status among both fans and confused onlookers alike.

Alongside the original album, this 2LP edition presents the ‘COMS 1-3 RDX Suite’ – a brand new interpretation of (almost) the entire album, produced by the group using the original multi-track tapes – and a brand new sleevenote essay shedding new light on the album’s production.

THE LEGENDARY 1980 ALBUM REMASTERED FROM THE ORIGINAL TAPES.

2LP SET WITH 12” X 12” BOOKLET.

Tracklist:
Side A
1 Easter Woman
2 Perfect Love
3 Picnic Boy
4 End Of Home
5 Amber
6 Japanese Watercolor
7 Secrets
8 Die In Terror
9 Red Rider
10 My Second Wife
11 Floyd
12 Suburban Bathers
13 Dimples And Toes
14 The Nameless Souls
15 Love Leaks Out
16 Act Of Being Polite
17 Medicine Man
18 Tragic Bells
19 Loss Of Innocence
20 The Simple Song
Side B
1 Ups And Downs
2 Possessions
3 Give It To Someone Else
4 Phantom
5 Less Not More
6 My Work Is So Behind
7 Birds In The Trees
8 Handfull Of Desire
9 Moisture
10 Love Is…
11 Troubled Man
12 La La
13 Loneliness
14 Nice Old Man
15 The Talk Of Creatures
16 Fingertips
17 In Between Dreams
18 Margaret Freeman
19 The Coming Of The Crow
20 When We Were Young
Side C
1 COMS 1-3 RDX SUITE Pt 1
(The ‘Commercial Album’ multi-track tapes)
Side D
1 COMS 1-3 RDX SUITE Pt 2
(The ‘Commercial Album’ multi-track tapes)