In the days of my youth, I was one of those demented little music-fan kiddies who was willing to shell out $14 for a CD and then listen only to one song on repeat for several days before growing tired of it and tossing it aside. As I’ve matured, I’ve seen the error in my ways. Not only have I gone back and discovered songs that I missed on the first time around, but I’ve also grown to absolutely despise those people who do the same thing I once did. I still have a friend who buys 80s heavy metal cock rock and then listens to their hit single over and over again, ad nauseam. And it’s bad enough that he’s buying eighties hair metal in the first place; it’s much worse that he’s dishing out his cash to just listen to one song on repeat. I mean, seriously, just listen to the entire album all the way through. It’s not going to kill you, and you may just discover exactly why hair metal is the laughing stock of music. Ahem…. Anyways…

That’s why I have become a person who will try anything at least once. I want to further myself, to experience more than just what is normal. And that’s how I first got into Phish, to put it in a vague and non-descript manner. My first exposure to the group came as a result of my brother, who recommended that I burn a couple of his records. I had a blank CD left after I had already finished pilfering the rest of his CD collection, so I burned Billy Breathes and crammed it into my CD carrying case assuming that I probably wouldn’t ever give it a second look. Time passed, however, and I eventually ended up giving the disc a listen.

Phish is one of those bands that many people have heard of, but much fewer have actually heard. Formed in the early 1980s at the University of Vermont, the group gradually developed into what it is today, a jam band in the same vein of the Grateful Dead that relies on a variety of influences ranging from rock to jazz to country to pop music. Rather than finding fans in a more traditional way through recording, Phish focused on their live show and extended their fan base through word-of-mouth. Today, they have an enormous core of followers, made up primarily of college students the world over, among the most dedicated in music today.

Relying on incredible musical talent, a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, and a penchant for improvisation, Phish have made their mark on music in America. While the group’s album sales are rarely anything to write home about, they are notorious for filling even the largest of arenas and stadiums. And it’s rather understandable that they have become an icon for college students the world over. Their free form, intricate, and sometimes just plain nerdy style lends itself rather well to the student lifestyle. It provides (or so I’ve been told) excellent background music for “trips” (and I’m not talking about cars), and is a voice for college politics. The band itself is made up of Trey Anastasio, a self-admitted geek who bears a remarkable resemblance to Chuck Norris (which would become fodder for a gag on Saturday Night Live), Jon Fishman, Jeff Holdsworth and Mike Gordon, a line-up that has essentially stayed the same for twenty years.

Released in the fall of 1996, Billy Breathes was Phish’s fifth studio LP and marked the first time that the group used an outside producer to help with the album. As a result, the album, produced by Steve Lillywhite, is a departure from the Phish norm. Lillywhite had the group cut out the majority of jams and improvisational pieces, and had the band focus more closely on their song writing chops. The result was an album that was more concise, tighter, more commercially viable, and absolutely despised by the majority of the group’s fans - disenchanted fans who believed that the band had finally turned it’s back on it’s audience in order to achieve mainstream success.

I however, feel vastly different on the subject because…. Well… I’m not a particularly rabid fan of Phish. In fact, I generally don't care for the majority of Phish material I’ve heard that didn’t come from Billy Breathes. While I enjoy a good jam session, some of the group’s extended performances dip into the realm of tedious and excruciating to listen to. I even went so far as to buy their new record Round Room (well, burned it, at least) to get a sign otherwise, but I just couldn’t. Regardless of what thousands of college students say, Billy Breathes is Phish’s best album, an absolutely amazing recording which far surpasses anything else I’ve heard from the band (save for the singles Heavy Things and Down With Disease from Farmhouse and Hoist respectively). The record is tight, concise, and commercially viable in a way that’s just enough to make it accessible without overdoing it. Essentially, I love the album for the exact same reasons that most Phishheads hate it.

One of the big differences between this and some of Phish’s more accepted works is the nature of the music. While before the record, they were known for their silly tongue-in-cheek lyrics, wild antics (drummer Jon Fishman was known for vacuuming whilst onstage, although I’m not quite sure how that’s supposed to work), and generally all-around nerdy approach, Billy Breathes is a step-up lyrically in that the record is more fleshed out, more mature, and more emotionally relevant to the real world. The record is also more dynamic, with some softer tracks to go along with the conventional hard rockers and unorthodox pieces.

The biggest difference, though, and the area where many Phish fans felt betrayed the most, was in album and song length. Whereas many of the group’s previous works offered some extended jamming on a number of songs, Billy Breathes rarely has a passage that wasn’t obviously fleshed-out in advance (although towards the end, the entire sound of the album takes on a more informal tone and includes a couple of excursions). Like I briefly mentioned above, this is a result of the band working with producer Steve Lillywhite. Lillywhite attempted to take some of the free-form jam element out of the group, instead concentrating on developing shorter, more structurally consistent numbers that appeal to a larger audience. In this reviewer’s opinion, that effort was largely successful, as only two tracks on Billy Breathes clock in at over five minutes, while the whole record maintains the indescribable Phish “aura” that makes it so unique and individualistic. The songwriting improvements are obviously more noticeable here. While the band retains it’s silly personality on numbers like Prince Caspian, there is also an ode to the hippie ethic on Free and a story of love on Waste. The argument of commercialism is a moot point here, because, all things considered, Billy Breathes is a great album, marketability notwithstanding.

Free is the album opener, a positive reinforcement of the hippy ethic with a wandering piano and some hard-rock guitar. The cowbell clicks in the background on the track, perhaps Phish’s biggest hit, and a song notorious for its live incarnations. The band is known for oftentimes stretching Free out to over forty-five minutes in improvisational jams. The song’s upbeat nature and a dense layer of instruments create an excellent song with beautiful lyrical imagery.

Character Zero starts with a funky bass riff and whispered lyrics, before it breaks out into a hard number not unlike the previous track. Waste is a slow ballad with a haunting musical arrangement. Trey’s guitar softly strums as he sings, with the other members of the group occasionally repeating a line. The piano joins in as the song reaches a crescendo in a song that’s just plain pretty.

Don't want to be an actor pretending on the stage
Don't want to be a writer with my thoughts out on the page
Don't want to be a painter 'cause everyone comes to look
Don't want to be anything where my life's an open book

A dream it's true
But I'd see it through
If I could be
Wasting my time with you

Taste is a much-faster track with a bit of a rambling musical accompaniment. Cars Trucks Buses is really the only song on the album where the band gets to fully stretch out their musical talent. The track, which clocks in at just over two minutes, is an instrumental that is fluid and jazzy, perhaps like the album’s interlude. The organ is featured prominently, as the band starts off slow before building to a frenetic and high energy level.

Train Song is sung by bassist Mike Gordan. While his voice is far from the ideal musically speaking (not that Trey’s is either), it is very high and almost childlike. The track itself is very bluegrassy, with what I believe to be a xylophone stuck in there somewhere in the middle. Bliss is another seeming interlude, this time just a solo acoustic guitar piece of about the same length. The title track builds from a slow strumming guitar and gradually grows to a beautiful and fluid guitar solo passage that is absolutely amazing in it’s intricacy and sheer gorgeousness.

The final track is Prince Caspian, the most tongue-in-cheek of the songs on Billy Breathes. It begins with a weird swishing noise of sorts that sounds, like another reviewer said, “Like a stomach filled with Kool-Aid swishing around.” Gradually, the guitar overtakes the mystery swishing noise, eventually building to a slow distorted guitar riff. The lyrics are rather nonsensical (at least I think they are), but the song has such a catchy sing-a-long nature that’s it hard to resist.

Billy Breathes is an amazing record, an album that is cohesive, aurally pleasing, and intelligently written. While some may want to argue the band’s intentions, Billy Breathes is undeniably a great album with loads of catchy melodies and dense layers instrumentation. If you’re not generally a fan of jam band rock, this is the only Phish album you need. If however, you are, then you’d be best advised to go for one of their many live records, where their roots and progressive nature are most apparent.

Great Music To Play While: Taking hits from your homemade bong.

Recommended: Yes