12 Golden Country Greats (Elektra, 1996)

Ween has made a fair living writing nasty, brutish and short pop songs -"Don'tShit Where You Eat" is typical-catering to the Beavis & Butthead generation. The duo's work has never shown interest in country music. But Ween can smell atrend, and so down to Nashville to record with Charlie McCoy, Russ Hicks, and Pig Robbins.

The results sometimes sound fabulous, a clinic of adventurous honky tonk, though like a clinic, the sound can be sterile, especially given Ween's juvenile lyrical obsessions. This cd is an infuriating disaster: for its slattern, gimmicky tone and for its occasional charm. "You Were the Fool," with the lines "Bless the father, bless the son, cross your heart 'cause you're the one, collecting moonbeans in the morning," is so quietly wise it belongs on another cd. The single, "Piss Up a Rope" is bratty, pointless misogyny, and like the whole CD, is powerful like a busted sewer main.

Call it "scatalogical country" if you like, and perhaps it will play well to thesneering audience at the local tatoo parlour, but with any luck, nowhere else.