NRBQ is an album by the American band NRBQ, released in 1999.[1][2] According to NRBQ, the album is untitled, with just the band's name on the cover.[3] It was NRBQ's final studio album for Rounder Records.[4]
The album coincided with NRBQ's 30th anniversary and a period of renewed interest in the band, during which they appeared in The Simpsons and the film 28 Days.[5][6] The band supported the album with a North American tour that included a 30th anniversary celebration with the Shaggs.[7][8]
Production
The album was recorded between January and May of 1999.[9] It was the first regular studio album with Johnny Spampinato on lead guitar; he wrote some of the album's songs with his brother.[10][11] "Housekeeping" was inspired by decades of being awakened by hotel maids while on tour.[12] "Tired of Your Permanent" was influenced by rockabilly music.[3] "Birdman" was originally intended for Space Ghost Coast to Coast.[13]
The Hartford Courant noted that "I Want My Mommy" "may well be the most annoying NRBQ song of all time."[17] The Orlando Sentinel determined that the "gorgeous 'Blame It on the World' ... sounds like a long-lost McCartney-Gilberto Gil collaboration."[14] The Courier News concluded that, "for the first time in many years, an NRBQ studio album fails to contain at least one truly memorable song."[18]
The Telegram & Gazette stated that the album is "rocking, jazzy, bluesy, ballady, cartoony stuff pulled together with a patented NRBQ sense of logic."[19]The New York Times wrote that NRBQ "still loves the same basic rock ingredients: the ingratiating melodies of 1960's pop, the twang and two-beat of rockabilly and the splashy, rowdy piano playing that links Jerry Lee Lewis to Sun Ra."[20]The Morning Call listed NRBQ among the worst albums of 1999.[21] The Winston-Salem Journal opined that "the aging band's air of childlike innocence, once charming, now seems creepy."[16]
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