Written by Nathan Evans

Oh, to be in the midst of a global pandemic. Self-isolation has afforded me, and I’m sure others, the time to worm around indulging oneself with day-long nostalgia trips to the things I was fascinated by way back when. Guitar Hero, the old CD collection and long-gone cartoons from the glory era of Nickelodeon - a special time when animation and sitcoms co-existed in what seemed like perfect harmony, if you ignored the crap. One show I didn’t have to re-introduce myself to, however, is Spongebob Squarepants, which has such an unrelenting positive energy that its classic episodes will never escape me, as it does millions of others. It’s also a show that owes a great debt to one of the late 90s’ best concept records - Ween’s The Mollusk.

The show’s late, great creator Stephen Hillenburg’s love of the alternative music of the time bled through into the original version of the series, as later episodes without Hillenburg’s input would lose this touch. His love of weirdo underground rock was most prevalent during the credits sequence of the first feature film, which had original songs from the Flaming Lips and Wilco. Unless he somehow managed to find and license a song titled “SpongeBob & Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy”.

Other creators of animation giants during this time were similarly cut from the same musical cloth. The Simpsons’ classic ‘Homerpalooza’ episode woke a generation up to bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Cypress Hill and Sonic Youth, plus let’s not neglect that South Park tapped up none other than Primus to write their theme song. But for Hillenburg, music, and in particular Ween’s music, had a much greater impact on his works.

Spongebob’s Musical Origins

In a Facebook post written shortly after the death of Hillenburg in late 2018, band members Gene and Dean Ween told the story of how they were contacted by him, saying that “he wanted to start a cartoon inspired by The Mollusk”, bringing to light what was a truth hidden in plain sight for many years. The Pennsylvania duo was asked to write a song teaching kids how to tie their shoes, which became “Loop De Loop” from one of the show’s most heartwarmingly innocent moments. You could even be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t the same band who wrote “Piss Up a Rope”, but that was part of the Ween magic. In tribute to The Mollusk, the record’s penultimate track “Ocean Man” plays as the 2004 movie’s credits roll. Later on, this exposure led to it being lovingly memed, as a generation of kids suddenly remembered a song that they never forgot. While beyond the meme (and I know that sounds excruciatingly fucking corny), “Ocean Man” is a sublime track, its encasing full-length is a nautical odyssey that unfolds in every unexpected way one could imagine.

Through their rise from rough 4-track recordings to professional studio output, the band became known for their incredible dexterity. Though their songwriting is simple, earlier records showcase how they quantum leaped from a myriad of styles on the scale of song-to-song. After all, this is the same band that placed a sombre mariachi ballad right before an experimental rock track about HIV (on their ‘94 album Chocolate and Cheese, a fitting title). Gene and Dean are that college band of kooky best friends who don’t really know what they want to be, so instead they just played every style and genre, and that comradery and jestering shines through. Their genre-bounding means there’s no such thing as taking a risk to them; instead they love to take the piss.

However, The Mollusk is a more honed-down effort, focusing their vast sonic wingspan into a singular concept. It's their maritime masterpiece, one that still manages to celebrate their diversity - diverse vocals, diverse lyrics, diverse sounds.

Creating Character: The Mollusk’s Vocal Diversity

Renowned for hardly ever singing in their natural voices, the duo would rather create their own cast of caricatures to exaggerate their stories with. The foul-mouthed jabberwocky spouted on ‘The Blarney Stone’ makes for a downright hilarious pub-choir sea shanty, made only more comical considering that track’s accredited landmark has the power to give the gift of eloquent speech (according to legend, anyway). Not only can one hear how much merriment is being had in the recording, as the band is almost breaking out of character and into laughter, but the singing style is a dead ringer for Mr. Krabs. Spongebob’s work boss is often impersonated with a gruff pirate voice, which clearly originated right here (of course with more expletives, but probably the same amount of sexual references).

In the same vein, on ‘Mutilated Lips’, they intone with a nasal squeak that brilliantly connects typical cartoon voice acting with the whiny tone of psychedelic rock singers. The variety of vocal styles is the first aspect that becomes apparent upon first listen. Instead of following a single protagonist like many other albums, each side of the disc presents new characters to meet, like a TV show on the scale of Spongebob. This does a bountiful job of fleshing out the world Ween have in their minds, physically mapping out the census as we hear their theatrical accents and vocal nuances.

Power in the Absurd

These sock puppet-like characters feed into the adorably childish comedy of the record, as does their simple Limerick style of songwriting. The very on-the-nose title ‘Waving My Dick in the Wind’ doesn’t hold back Gene and Dean’s silly side, and neither does some of the lines within the cut - though many reviewers have used the word “masturbatory” to describe music, “you should have seen old Jimmy Wilson dance” really is so.

But that nerdiness too lends itself to another aspect of the lyrics on here, namely with their casual use of head-turning references rooted in the obscure. Throughout, they are constantly sneaking in gentle religious subtext (‘The Mollusk’) or a reference to a Rastafarian deity (‘Mutilated Lips’) into an otherwise simple affair. Leaving these scraps of scholarly knowledge in a place one would least expect causes an emergent feeling of surrealism, mirroring how Hillenburg and co. nodded to the likes of metal band Pantera, literary macabrist Edgar Allen Poe, and German horror legend Nosferatu. Into a bloody children’s show.

Ween’s relationship with psychedelics also matches the aforementioned college-band stereotype, as ‘Polka Dot Tail’ and ‘Mutilated Lips’ document these - again, surrealistic - sightings witnessed only through pills, smoke and crystal. Twisted images of flying puppies, malformed human hands and wormlike tentacles lodged inside the brain. Although out of context these lines would appear completely demented, it’s inverted by the tongue-in-cheek sonics behind them. The former is one of several children’s showtunes on the album, and as we all know, there’s a very blurred line between hallucinogenic visions and children’s entertainment.

Nonetheless, these stand in stark contrast to the truly heartfelt moments of the LP. Just like in Spongebob or any good kids show, these more serious sections are points of empathy that show the band’s earnestness despite the fray they’ve led you into. “It’s Gonna Be Alright” is a warm hand on a bruised shoulder, while ‘Cold Blows the Wind’ is a centuries-old folk song given a new shell, evoking the feeling of being locked in a bitter windstorm.

None of these images would be conjured if not for the simple-but-effective sonic palette on display. Tracks like ‘Polka Dot Tail’, with its rumbling analogue electronics and trudging beat, morph into a beautiful concoction similar to that on the Storm Thorgerson-made artwork. Scurried punk-ish ditties like ‘I’ll Be Your Jonny On the Spot’ and ‘...Dick in the Wind’ spend a brief moment in the driver’s seat, but keep the record operating in high gear. The acid-treated psych-rock of ‘Pink Eye (On My Leg)’ carries an excellent solo section, as do the composite experimentations ‘Buckingham Green’ and ‘She Wanted to Leave’, both anchored in the British prog of the 70s. And gluing it all together is that indescribably dirty tarnish that washed over every piece of music in 1997, that made drums chunkier, guitars more texture, and gave synths much-needed grit. Like many albums in that time period, Ween joined the party in cooking up awe-inspiring combinations of electronic and rock music.

Above all, the success in Ween’s and Hillenburg’s masterworks is how each comes to a conclusion that realises the power in the absurd. The song that overlaps this is the magnificent beast of ‘Ocean Man’, the most carefree moment on the entire album. A sunburnt, Mandolin-strummed ditty that borrows heavily from the breeziness of American bluegrass, the band still keeps things freaky with heavily processed vocals and mystifying yet impenetrable verses. It typifies the album as a whole, setting a standard for flippant ideas in the alternative and art rock space. Unlike Spongebob, who has spawned innumerable imitators (of varying quality), there really isn’t anything else like Ween’s sixth studio album. Then again, there are few bands pre-Internet that found the substance in being infectiously weird.

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