The Verve Pipe (album)

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The Verve Pipe chronology
The Verve Pipe

Studio album by The Verve Pipe
Released	July 27, 1999
Genre	Grunge, Pop
Label	RCA Records
Producer(s)	Michael Beinhorn
Villains (1996)	The Verve Pipe (1999)	Underneath (2001)

The Verve Pipe is the self-titled album by Michigan rock band The Verve Pipe, released on July 27, 1999. The band's second release for RCA Records, the album followed the platinum-selling Villains and its mammoth single, "The Freshmen". The band worked with Soundgarden producer Michael Beinhorn and created a generally dark, sonically textured grunge-pop album. The lead single "Hero" received sporadic airplay on Alternative rock radio and its video was in rotation on MTV2 in late summer 1999.

Throughout the album, primary songwriter and singer Brian Vander Ark comments on the fleeting nature of fame with tracks such as "Supergig" and "Headlines". The song "The F-Word" serves as a bittersweet response to the band's success with "The Freshmen", containing the lyric, "Another song, it all went wrong/The radio refused to play it/I'm not afraid to serenade/The F-Word saved and sucked the life from me".

The album's cover features a diagram for frog dissection, with the song titles used as references to various body parts.

[edit] Radio and Touring

The Verve Pipe mounted a major nationwide tour in support of "The Verve Pipe" and lead single "Hero", headlining mid-size venues and playing numerous radio festivals throughout 1999 and into 2000. With the Nu metal stylings of Limp Bizkit and Korn dominating rock radio airwaves, "Hero" failed to connect with a mass audience. The band responded by releasing the album's sonically heaviest track, "Television" as a follow-up single. With no music video and little radio support, "Television" sputtered out quickly, along with record sales.

[edit] Press Reviews

The album saw mixed reviews from the music press. Neva Chonin of Rolling Stone said,

Unfortunately, lush production can't disguise The Verve Pipe's lack of heart. Vander Ark may feign self-revelation on the slick "Hero" ("I'm just a jerk / But a hero's what I wanna be / Yeah oh yeah"), but his words, like their derivative midtempo accompaniment, are too unoriginal to be convincing. They form a tidy, disposable sentiment that basks in its trendy content; beneath its moody sheepskin, The Verve Pipe is a decent, disposable album that does the same.

Katherine Turman, reviewer for Amazon.com, said,

While their self-titled sophomore album boasts songs not nearly as memorable as its predecessor, the Verve Pipe still deliver an impressive-sounding LP with songs both elaborate and unadorned. On "Supergig," singer Brian Vander Ark infuses the tune's jangly yet driving psychedelia with Richard Butler-like vocal inflections, while the more straightforward and peppy "Hero" finds a happy medium among dense, melodramatic pop-rock tunes and several sweet if nondescript ballads. With a few exceptions (the edgy and devil-may-care "The F Word" and "Hero") the dozen tracks populating The Verve Pipe are forgettable if adroit efforts.