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Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe

Fishbone - Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe Audio CD

A fair review of the Fishbone "Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Fishbone reviews here, or go back to the Fishbone tabs.

Band: Fishbone
Title: Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe
Rating:

Release Date: 1993-05-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Swim 2: Servitude 3: Black Flowers 4: Unyielding Condition 5: Properties of Propaganda (Fuk This Shit on Up) 6: Warmth of Your Breath 7: Lemon Meringue 8: They All Have Abandoned Their Hopes 9: End the Reign 10: Drunk Skitzo 11: No Fear 12: Nutt Megalomaniac

What an album!

My take: The highs are high, and the lows are just kind of blah. GAMAB is one of those discs that (along with its successor "Chim Chim") to this day still roils and boils the 'Bone familyhood -- some thought it was too metal, some thought that it was too inconsistent, some thought the overall mood was too dark, and others just went along for the exciting ride. The lows? "Black Flowers," "No Fear," and "They All Have Abandoned Their Hopes. " Highs? I'd rather try to get your ear buds poppin' with "Lemon Meringue," one of the VERY BEST Fishbone tunes ever conceived and recorded. A very skewed and tangy take on 90's radio with the most beautiful backing vox, delicious melodies, and booty-shaking bottom, a tune to laugh, cry, and rage with.

Speaking of rage, there's no shortage of that with "Swim," a kind of neanderthalic tribute to mosh pits, "Servitude," a jeremiad against religious demagoguery in 6/8, and "The Warmth Of Your Breath," a skapunkfunkmetalwhatsis hilariously profane crooked cop broadside. "End The Reign" is delightfully metallic, if a bit heavy-handed. Not to be forgotten is yet another piece of ear candy, the ska tour de force "Unyielding Conditioning. "

In the middle and the end are "Properties of Propaganda" and "Nuttmegalomaniac," some of that good, good funky stuff that Fishbone, at their best, made sound both utterly classic and cutting edge.

I'm tearing up just thinking about this album. Don't believe the naysayers. . . well, maybe a little. There are some low points here, just not the ones that they blab about. Mostly. . . ! .

Musically tight and wildly inconsistent
Give a Monkey a Brain. . is one of the most wildly inconsistent albums that you'll ever hear. Their previous two releases, Truth and Soul and The Reality of My Surroundings respectively, were modern classics with their blend of funk and rock and a lot of great songs to boot. Give a Monkey A Brain. . . is more eclectic than both and musically tight. But the songs are all over the place as far as quality. When it works, it's awesome. "Servitude" is easily the best of their heavy tracks and it's performed with venom and conviction. "Unyielding Conditioning" is a great ska workout with a cool jam at the end while "Lemon Meringue" is a catchy R&B track with a great horn line and chorus. So there are the great tracks. After this, it's a hodgepodge affair. The opening "Swim" and "Black Flowers" are very sluggish and it still amazes me that these were two of the most pushed songs on the album. "Properties of Propaganda" is an okay attempt at replicating the Funkadelic/Parliament sound while "Drunk Skitzo" starts out as very beyond bad before going into this cool free jazz/psychedelic thing at the end. "The Warmth of Your Breath" is pure chaos (the speed at which they play here is impressive) and is definitely an acquired taste. "End The Reign" and "No Fear" are more straightforward and are pretty good. The remaining tracks ("They All Have Abandoned Their Hopes" and "Nutt Megalomaniac") are decent. All told, Give a Monkey a Brain. . . has its moments but it's frustrating even after several listens. The three great tracks are killer though.
.

This great band's hardest rocking album may have been a mistake for them
I just got into Fishbone in 1992 with TRUTH AND SOUL and THE REALITY OF MY SURROUNDINGS. I found this CD in a bargin bin at a record store when it first came out. I snatched up the CD quick. Didn't know what I was in for, as the track listing was not catching my eye at the time of purchasing this CD. Why is Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) printed on the back cover and inner sleeve?

Blown away, Fishbone abandons the punk, almost the funk, for hard rock/heavy metaling. I guess with the successful singles "Fight The Youth" and "Sunless Saturday" from REALITY, they probably thought they could get a piece of that platinum, Grammy-winning pie like their friends, rival black rock band Living Colour. Didn't work that way. New producer, 2 members leaving the band after the albums release, fans confused. "Swim", "Servitude", "Black Flowers", "The Warmth Of Your Breath", "End The Reign", "No Fear" and "Drunk Skitzo" are those heavy rockers. While songs like "Drunk Skitzo" appear to be fuuny by dissing family members, Branford Marsalis lend a sax solo to this headbangin' turned jazz psycho-disaster. It ain't all fun and games here either. "They All Have Abandoned Their Hopes" and "Unyielding Conditioning" gives you that sad reality life stories over trademark reggae and ska jams. Where the funk? It's here too. Not much tho'. While Fishbone have found a name for their blending music (nearly 10 years on the label, Columbia Records), Nuttmeg, meet "Nutt Megalomaniac", sweet to the tooth "Lemon Meringue" and the funk-rock ignorance of "Properties Of Propaganda (P. O. P. )" all three written by Norwood.

GIVE A MONKEY A BRAIN. . . is full of surprises. It's far from your average Fishbone album, BUT it is not that bad of an album either. Some very smart and thinkable songs "Servitude" and some just. . . dumb "P. O. P". Did Columbia Records find reason to drop this great band for lack of effort of what they started in 1985 or did the Caveat Emptor do it to them? Let's "Swim", 'stroke it like this y'all'.

Fishbone for the SOAD fan.
This one is probably the Hardest, heaviest, angriest, album out of thier columbia albums, and thier most directly to the point out of all of them. Out Of all the fishbone albums. Where all of the other kinda toyed around with you for awhile amoungst the message, this one is a full-on brutal assault, while still remaining far more eclectic, than most hard rock out there, and still maintaining traces of the funk, and ska they have been carrying with them. Though it is slightly more straitforward than Reality of my surroundings.

"Who do YOU Serve?"
. . First of all, I am a huge fan of Fishbone. . . or at least I WAS until Kendall Jones and Chris Dowd left and the band started releasing sub-par material left and right ("Give a Monkey a Brain" was their last great album, in my opinion). If you are not familiar with Fishbone, you may want to first purchase "Truth and Soul" and/or "In Your Face" (which are both fantastic albums and more "commercial" sounding than this one) before you dive into the heavy-duty nuttmeg of "Give a Monkey. . . "
I think this album along with "Reality of My Surroundings" are Fishbone's greatest. . . This one is their heaviest, featuring a few "metal" songs ("Swim", "Servitude", and "End the Reign"). These songs are some of the greatest on the album but I think some fans couldn't hang with that. . . "Unyielding Conditioning" (ska) and "Lemon Meringue" (soul/funk) are two of the most well written songs ever by Fishbone. "Nutt Megalomaniac" is funky as hell. "They All Have Abandoned Their Hopes" is a hauntingly apocalyptic song. . . one of my favorites. "Warmth of Your Breath" is definitely NOT a love song. It's a funky little speed metal ditty directed at certain police officers. . .
The entire cd is awesome, no weak songs. The musicianship is outstanding. . . Norwood's bass lines are as funky as ever (especially on "Lemon Meringue"). . . Kendall Jones and John Bigham lay down some great guitar and Angelo Moore and Chris Dowd's vocals are some of their best work ever. This album sounds fresh to this day. . . Fishbone WAS one of the most underrated bands ever and they never got the success a group of this magnitude deserved. This was the last album they did with Kendall Jones and Chris Dowd and, for me at least, their departure marked the end of Fishbone as we knew it. I have the albums that followed and while they have some good songs here and there they don't come close to matching Fishbone when they were in their heyday. Kendall Jones' songwriting skills are sorely missed on all the albums that followed.
"Give A Monkey. . . " is a like an all-you-can-eat buffet for the ears but it will take most people several listens to uncover all the sonic nuggets that are hidden.

You can see a complete list of all Fishbone discography, or go back to the Fishbone tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.