Listen to Shaking, Hitting the Wall, and One O'Clock High over and over and over and over again. Then smash the beige cube to bits & bits, give your boss the large and leave for good like you've been dreaming my friend. Download the rest and enjoy your new life.
The Cows were always great and had one of the scuzziest messiest sounds around. Had the privilege to see them live twice in the early 90s, once by chance in the Rough Trade record shop in London with God Bullies - a tiny venue with an audience of about 20 people. Highly recommended, but just don't expect a nice clean sound!
Makes me crazy laugh and bang my head. What?
Many people claim "Cunning Stunts" is the greatest Cows album, but I personally think "Sorry in Pig Minor" is their best. Check it out first. Speaking of this album, "Hitting the Wall" is one of the greatest punk ditties ever.
the cows are certainly a shock to the system. unlike the previous reviewer, i did not delete all the tracks but then i knew what i was getting into before hand. while compilation albums are a good place to start with some unfamiliar bands, that's probably not the case with the cows' "old gold." try "orphan's tragedy" for a more accesible initiation. but a cows fan should be wonderfully pleased to find "old gold" here, because it is pretty hard to find (and expensive) elsewhere.
The cows are noisy and messy, there's no doubt about that. From a couple other reviewers, on albums compiled in "Old Gold": Of Daddy Has A Tail!, one reviewer wrote, "I have no doubt that the Cows know how to play their instruments. What I don't understand is why they refuse to tune them." Another critic proclaimed that Effete And Impudent Snobs "couldn't have sounded worse had it been recorded underwater." But, as mentioned, they can certainly play their instruments. This early in their career, sometimes the noise unfortunately overwhelms the song itself and it's just a racket. Other times (such as the truly wonderful "Whitey in the Woodpile") it truly works, and is better than the "new song, same as the old song" problem that infects a lot of Punk Rock. With this being a compilation, there are enough of those songs that they outweigh the crappy ones.
This band sucks. The Cows are not in any way punk rock. It's noise, feedback, and random screaming. The "music" is unlistenable. They aren't even a real band, it's just a noise joke. If you download any songs by The Cows, you are just going to delete them and waste your downloads.
At the end of 1984, 240 American rock critics voted in the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll. Writing about the results, Robert Christgau noted, "You got three Top 10 bands from Minneapolis" - Prince's Purple Rain (No. 2), the Replacements' Let It Be (No. 4), and Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade (No. 8) - "and try to make a 'sound' out of that, Mr. Bizzer." Indeed: In the Twin Cities' mid-'80s rock scene, the… more »
