Search - Residents :: Have a Bad Day

Bad Day Indeed

M. McNeil | oak park, IL | 06/14/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These wonderfully creepy songs also appear as the soundtrack to the award-winnning BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY interactive cd-rom "game" that The Residents helped create. Going along with the seedy carnival sideshow theme, the music is at first listen just like cheerful machine muzak one might hear as they plunk down a dollar and step into a gallery of oddities. With repeated listenings, the tunes turn on themselves insidiously and end up grinding away in your brain at 3 in the morning. Demonically entertaining, but maybe not for the faint of heart. All in all, top drawer stuff."

Grotesque and surreal

S. A DUNN | Chehalis, WA United States | 11/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These are the disturbing songs that conjure up all the disturbing images seen, heard, and experienced in the Residents epic CD-Rom Art "Game", Bad Day on the Midway! If you were fortunate enough to obtain and spend hours in that disturbing world, this album makes the experience "portable!"



It will thrust you into that frightening world, and you will experience all the characters dark thoughts and deeds. Much like "Gingerbread Man" by The Residents, it is very dark. Only little Timmy is clean, innocent and remains unscathed as he visits this Midway of Horrors!"

Speaking as a fan only of the game..

Lowlight | SC USA | 01/13/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"..I was dissapointed. Granted, any longtime Residents fan probably loves this album and would get it regardless, but I only have the experience of the CD-ROM from ages ago.



I loved the game music and was pleasantly suprised to find that a soundtrack had been released. I was especially looking forward to being able to hear the brilliant and haunting tracks from the more memorable moments in the game by themselves...



Unfortunately the soundtrack suffers from some poor choices in my opinion. For starters, a lot of tracks which appear in seperate sections of the game are blended into one single track. (Biggest example is in dixie/Ike's track. These are some of the best and most memorable moments in the game, but here they are introduced with Dixie's tone-deaf warbling of 'God's Teardrops' before getting to a short clip of the great track that plays during Ike's flashback sequence. This mismash ruins the power of the song.)



The use of sound clips from the game seems appropriate, but due to it's poor execution, it does not do what is intended. A Residents fan who has not played the game will find the clips confusing, while a fan of the game will wonder why the seemingly most obscure and weak quotes are used, and often at parts of the song where their power is severely diluded. This is even the case of great clips like Ted's pre-murder rant. In the game this is a horrifying moment puctuated by the confusion of the player as he slowly realizes what's happening. on the soundtrack, the quote seems like a tossed in afterthough with the volume turned down.



The biggest dissapointment of all though is "daddy's poems." Players of the game will remember the beautiful track that plays in the background as the player sorts through Dixie's father's poems and ultimately his suicide note. This track, one of the sole reasons I shelled out sixteen bucks for a very short and ultimately forgettable album, is not here. Instead a droning voice quotes the poems in a matter that robs them of all emotional impact. In fact, it sounds like a drunk biker reading T.S. Eliot as a tired dirge plays in the background. The actual suicide note is read whisper quiet, but not for effect... it sounds almost like the singer is embarrassed by what he is saying... and then he continues to quote other poems, losing the finality of the suicide pact.



It's not all bad.. and certainly you'll recognize and love some of the great game music that is here. It may be that I just don't "get" the Residents, but then again the point of the review is that of a person who loved the music in the game and wanted just that. Instead it feels like the Residents tossed in a collage/clip show that just doesn't let the work speak for itself. It tries to be too much and actually becomes far, far too little..



Just try and give this one a pre-buy listen before you shell out. And if anyone knows where I can find the song playing during the poem reading in the game, let me know.



"