White Pepper is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Ween, and the last album they would release on Elektra Records. It was released on May 2, 2000.
Musical style
The album incorporates elements of genres such as
acoustic pop,
Caribbean music,
country music,
electronica,
grunge,
jazz,
progressive rock,
psychedelia,
soft rock,
speed metal,
stoner rock and
Britpop.
"Bananas and Blow" has elements of Caribbean/
calypso music and is lyrically about a drug mule.
"Stroker Ace" is a speed metal track, and one of the band's heaviest songs,
while "The Grobe" has been called a grunge/stoner rock-style song.
Among the other songs on the album, "Pandy Fackler" is a jazz-influenced track,
the instrumental "Ice Castles" draws from electronica, "Falling Out" has elements of country music and the single "Stay Forever" is an acoustic pop number.
AllMusic describe the lead single "Even If You Don't" as being a Britpop-styled track, and "Back to Basom" as a "psych-prog-tinged soft-rock epic".
"Stay Forever" was written for cellist
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Promotion and commercial performance
The band helped promote the album by performing "Exactly Where I'm At" on the
Late Show with David Letterman. The track "Even If You Don't" was made into a music video and directed by
Trey Parker and
Matt Stone of
South Park fame. According to
Dean Ween (Mickey Melchiondo), he and
Gene Ween (Aaron Freeman) are good friends of Parker and Stone, and Freeman has referred to them as "kindred spirits."
[ "Watch Ween's 'Even If You Don't' Music Video Directed By The Creators Of South Park". Live For Live Music. Retrieved 2016-4-16]
In November 2002, two and a half years after the album was released, Billboard magazine reported that White Pepper had sold 72,000 copies in the US alone.
Singles
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"Even If You Don't" was released as a single on Mushroom Records with the B-side "Cornbread Red".
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"Stay Forever" was released as a single on Mushroom Records with "The Grobe" and "Who Dat?". "Who Dat?" was also included in the Japanese version of the album.
Legacy
White Pepper was included on
Creative Loafings list of the 101 best albums of the 2000s,
while
Glide magazine named it the 12th best album of the decade.
included it at No. 15 on their list of the 60 best albums released between 1993 and 2003.
Jake Shears of
Scissor Sisters named it one of his favorite albums of all time, stating: "I love the stew of what they do – they can be whimsical, they can be heavy – they're just incredible musicians and songwriters. To me,
White Pepper is an amazing snapshot and a great collection of songs. They're kind of like
Beck – they've always delivered – and also some of it is just so fucking juvenile."
In 2020, Stereogums Nate Rogers wrote a piece on the album for its 20th anniversary. He attributed the initial lukewarm reception of the album to its lack of profanity and increased accessibility, suggesting that it may have alienated much of the band's hardcore fans. "It's much easier to appreciate White Pepper now that we know it did not lead to a final form in which Ween were just edge-less and overglossed" he wrote, "The band never gave in to the powers that be. They never stopped being artists who deferred to the playful will of their mighty Demon God Boognish while also writing frequently — if not perpetually — fantastic music."
Track listing
All songs written by Ween. Published by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp./Ver Music/Browndog Music, BMI.
Personnel
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Chris Shaw – producer, engineer, mixer
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Danny Madorsky – assistant engineer
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Phil Painson – assistant engineer
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Damian Shannon – assistant engineer
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Kirk Miller – live sound engineer
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Ween – producer
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Howie Weinberg – mastering
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Jon Weiss – cover art illustration
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Gregory Burke – art direction
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Danny Clinch – photography
Charts
