El Oso
Studio album by
Soul Coughing
ReleasedSeptember 29, 1998
Recorded1998
Genre
Length56:54
LabelSlash/Warner Bros. Records
Producer
Soul Coughing chronology
Irresistible Bliss
(1996)		 El Oso
(1998)		 Lust In Phaze
(2002)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]
Christgau's Consumer GuideA−[2]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[3]
NME[4]
Pitchfork4.6/10[5]
Rolling Stone[6]
Spin5/10[7]

El Oso (Spanish for The Bear) is the third and final studio album by the New York City band Soul Coughing, released on September 29, 1998 by Slash Records and Warner Bros. Records. The album received generally positive critical reception upon release.

El Oso made it to #1 on KTUH's charts on the week of January 25, 1999.[8]

Background

The album's style takes heavy inspiration from the electronic music style drum and bass, which followed after the band toured with supporting DJs Krust and Die prior to the album's conceptualization; drum and bass DJ and producer Optical was enlisted to co-produce the album. Artist Jim Woodring (Frank) drew the cartoon "monkey-bear" on the disc's cover. The chorus of the song "$300" is a sample of a Chris Rock joke; singer Mike Doughty heard the joke which is backmasked on Rock's live standup album Roll with the New. Curious, Doughty recorded it into his ASR-10 sampler with the intention of simply reversing it and seeing what the joke was, and wrote the song around what he found there.

The album contains their biggest hit single, "Circles". Cartoon Network aired a music video in which a Flintstones cartoon was synched to the song as part of their Groovies interstitial.[9] The music video features Fred, Barney and other Hanna-Barbera characters walking in front of the same repeating background, with subtitles showing existential dialogue. The video for the song "Rolling" was also produced, which was synced with a scene from a Betty Boop cartoon. The song was used in the 2004 remake of Walking Tall. "$300" was used in the House episode "The Softer Side" in 2009.

Track listing

All music by Soul Coughing. All lyrics written by Mike Doughty unless otherwise noted.

  1. "Rolling" – 3:36
  2. "Misinformed" – 3:25
  3. "Circles" – 3:07
  4. "Blame" – 5:01
  5. "St. Louise Is Listening" – 4:29
  6. "Maybe I'll Come Down" – 4:32
  7. "Houston" – 4:04
  8. "$300" – 3:08
  9. "Fully Retractable" – 3:26
  10. "Monster Man" – 4:16
  11. "Pensacola" (Doughty/Ava Chin) – 4:16
  12. "I Miss the Girl" – 4:03
  13. "So Far I Have Not Found the Science" – 2:53
  14. "The Incumbent" (Doughty/Mark De Gil Antoni) – 6:46
  15. "212" (Japanese release bonus track)
  16. "Rare Star Ball" (Japanese release bonus track)

Personnel

Soul Coughing

Other personnel

References

  1. 1 2 El Oso at AllMusic
  2. ↑ Christgau, Robert (2000-10-15). "Soul Coughing". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. Macmillan Publishing. ISBN 9780312245603.
  3. ↑ Brunner, Rob (1998-10-02). "El Oso". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
  4. ↑ "El Oso". NME. Retrieved 2018-07-04.
  5. ↑ DiCrescenzo, Brent. "Soul Coughing: El Oso". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 2005-12-31. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  6. ↑ Diehl, Matt (1998-11-12). "Soul Coughing: El Oso". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2007-12-01.
  7. ↑ Eddy, Chuck (November 1998). "Cake: Prolonging the Magic/Soul Coughing: El Oso". Spin. SPIN Media LLC. Retrieved 2018-07-04.
  8. ↑ Archived October 25, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ "Cartoon Network Groovies video for "Circles"". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12.
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