| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [2] |
| Christgau's Consumer Guide |  [6] |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+[3] |
| Los Angeles Times | [4] |
| NME | 7/10[5] |
| Spin | 7/10[7] |
Irresistible Bliss was Soul Coughing's second studio album, released in 1996. The band initially planned for Tchad Blake, producer of their first album Ruby Vroom, to produce the album, but the death of a family member in a car accident caused Blake to take a hiatus. Over the objections of his bandmates and his record label, Slash Records/Warner Bros., frontman Mike Doughty (then billed as "M. Doughty") hired producer David Kahne (Fishbone, The Bangles, Sublime, Tony Bennett, Sugar Ray, The Strokes); he was intent on following up the wild sonics of Ruby Vroom with a tightly wound, trembly, New Wave–inspired record.
The tracking, at Manhattan's Power Station recording studio, was complete in eleven days, and Doughty was jubilant at the results. Doughty tapped Steve Fisk to produce the tune "Unmarked Helicopters" for The X-Files soundtrack Songs in the Key of X.
All of Irresistible Bliss's songs were produced by Kahne, except tracks 2 and 6 (by Fisk) and track 12 by the band themselves.[8] The mixing process split the tracks between three mixers: Kahne, Chris Shaw, and Ruby producer Tchad Blake, who intervened when bass player Sebastian Steinberg briefly quit the band.
Irresistible Bliss yielded a hit single for Soul Coughing, "Super Bon Bon." "Soft Serve" and "Soundtrack to Mary" also received some selective radio airplay.
Track listing
All songs by Doughty/Soul Coughing.
- "Super Bon Bon" – 3:31
- "Soft Serve" – 3:12
- "White Girl" – 2:37
- "Soundtrack to Mary" – 3:06
- "Lazybones" – 4:48
- "4 Out of 5" – 3:12
- "Paint" – 2:55
- "Disseminated" – 2:41
- "Collapse" – 3:06
- "Sleepless" – 4:50
- "The Idiot Kings" – 3:57
- "How Many Cans?" – 4:24
- "Lemon Lime" (Japanese release bonus track)
- "Blow My Only" (Japanese release bonus track)
Additional CD with Japanese release
- "Super Bon Bon" (Propellerheads Mezzanine Remix)
- "Mr. Bitterness" (live)
- "White Girl" (live)
- "Lazybones" (live)
- "Super Bon Bon" (Kick Dub Mix)
Personnel
- Mike Doughty (billed as "M. Doughty") – vocals, guitar
- Sebastian Steinberg – bass, upright bass, backing vocals, fiddle
- Mark de Gli Antoni – keyboards, turntables, programming
- Yuval Gabay – drums, programming
Appearances in other media
- "Super Bon Bon" appeared in the racing video game Gran Turismo 2 in 1999. Subsequently it was used in a car theft scene in the fifth-season finale of Homicide: Life on the Street. It was played in season 4 episode 8 of ABC's Castle, and season 6 episode 2 of NBC's The Blacklist.
- "Disseminated" was used in a late summer 2006 ad campaign for the Ford Transit. The song notably opens with the unflattering lines "The goat chewed up, once a tin can / The goat shat out, was a Ford sedan."[9][10]
References
- ^ https://www.allmusic.com/album/r237383
- ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Irresistible Bliss". AllMusic.
- ^ Sinclair, Tom (1996-07-19). "Irresistible Bliss". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
- ^ Hochman, Steve (1996-09-01). "In Brief". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2018-02-14.
- ^ "Soul Coughing: Irresistible Bliss". NME. Archived from the original on 2000-08-17.
- ^ Christgau, Robert (2000-10-15). "Soul Coughing". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. Macmillan Publishing. ISBN 9780312245603.
- ^ Christgau, Robert (June 1996). "Records". Spin. SPIN Media LLC. pp. 112–3.
- ^ "Irresistible Bliss credits/track listing". Retrieved 2008-05-24.
- ^ "Ford Transit 'In the Van' UK advert (August 2006) - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
- ^ Soul Coughing – Disseminated, retrieved 2021-01-20