Albums by this artist

Cereal Killers (1990)

Too Much Joy

Cereal Killers

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» BEN FRENCH | CO-DIRECTOR

Too Much Joy Cereal Killers Giant, 1990 RiYL: They Might Be Giants, Camper Van Beethoven, Jonathan Richman.

Allegedly recorded at Steve Vai's house, Too Much Joy's Cereal Killers is the ultimate guilty pleasure in 1990s college rock. Ridiculously fun lyrics and blatantly cliched chord changes keep this album in your collection and out of view of your new girlfriend and snobby friends at the same time.

Cereal Killers is the type of CD found in glove compartments and locked desk drawers of guilty critics all across America. These people are too proud to admit they scream the (very clever) lyrics of "William Holden Caulfield" alone in their car on the way home from a shitty day at work.

But not me, no sir-ee.

No, I love these songs openly. And very personally. For whatever reason, "Crush Story" and "Nothing on My Mind" still get me singing. I know Too Much Joy is cheesy. But it's that intelligent, tongue-in-cheek cheese that makes these guys so enjoyable. It's the kind of cheese that makes other groups like They Might Be Giants and B-52s fun.

"Gonna feel like hell tomorrow, so I won't go to sleep tonight," the band proclaims at the opening of the classic "King of Beers." Honestly, it's not just a perfect statement for a carful of semi-geeky, semi-intelligent teenagers, looking for a party they will most surely be thrown out of. But any attempt to explain the song's higher implications will surely involve me admitting a bunch of stuff I'd rather not divulge right now.

So I will hold myself back...

I'm not certain every one will enjoy the lyrical wit or savor the three-chord movements of this pop mini-masterpiece nearly as much as I do. I started listening to this the same time my friends were getting into the likes of Vanilla Ice's To the Extreme and Bon Jovi's Living In Sin. But unlike those records, which few today would admit are in their possession, Cereal Killers remains vital to my listening experience, almost as much as it did when I first listened to it ten years ago.

BEN FRENCH | Ben founded NATN in the winter of 1998-1999 with fellow IU alums Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen. During the day time, he's working for Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Billboard. Ben's favorite acts include Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.