I was 13 in 1993 when Ween’s gently deranged ‘Push th’ Little Daisies’ fell, alien-like, into the Australian pop charts (peaking at number 18). The vocals are pitched up and it sounds very drug damaged, per their lifestyle at the time, recorded on a cheap four-track machine in a rented Pennsylvanian farmhouse they called The Pod. A sort of trashy jingle with helium vocals and a filmclip that alluded to death and tripping on mushrooms, it flat out confused and amused me. Its weirdness was put into relief when programmed next to stuff like Bryan Adams and Inner Circle on the radio or Saturday morning music video show, Rage.
This was a bit over a year after Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ (which went to number 5 here, but number 1 in the USA), frequently framed as when grunge became mainstream. Nirvana’s impact in Australia was not really on the sound of popular music (we continued to get a mix classic rock, the more female-oriented aspects of r’n’b, and occasional novelty singles, like this Ween track). But after Nirvana’s enormous success, major labels started signing and promoting formerly indie bands like Ween en masse.
This didn’t lead to more interesting chart music: for every Nirvana or Ween on the radio, there was way more junk like Spin Doctors (‘Two Princes’ went to number 3), Green Jellö (‘Three Little Pigs’ went to number 6), and Ugly Kid Joe (‘Cats In The Cradle’ went to number 1, and yes, I taped and obsessed over that one as well). But hearing and seeing Ween in the charts, when they sounded like they might be taking the piss, was memorable and even a little encouraging, with its do-it-yourself production values.
