Tu-Plang

Tu-Plang (ตู้เพลง Thai for Jukebox) is the debut studio album released by Australian rock band Regurgitator. It was released in Australia in May 1996, where it sold well despite receiving little radio airplay.<ref name="bill">Template:Cite web</ref> It was later released in the United States on April 22, 1997.<ref name="am"/><ref name="pigcity"/>

At the ARIA Music Awards of 1996, the album won two awards; Best Alternative Album and Breakthrough Artist - Album. In 2012, Regurgitator performed the entire album along with Unit on the Australian RetroTech tour.

Background and recording

After making two EPs, the band chose to record the album in Bangkok, Thailand, to the quandary of its label, Warner Music, which was uncertain as to what terms A&R executive Michael Parisi had contracted.<ref name="pigcity">"Pig City: From the Saints to Savage Garden" by Andrew Stafford, Published by University of Queensland Press, 2004, p.280 [1]</ref> Ely later said, "We didn't want to do it in just any old place, so we had a tour in Europe and Japan booked and our drummer Martin said, 'let's stop in Thailand on the way and check out some studios,' so we did and we found this place."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Producer Magoo later said the studio, "was [owned by] this guy [who was in the band] Carabao. He was described to us as the local, Thai, Bruce Springsteen. He had this compound in outer Bangkok. We'd drive there and it's in the middle of all these slums. There were wild chickens running around everywhere. There were open sewers and stuff like that."<ref name="jj">Template:Cite web</ref>

Lyrics and musical style

In a September 1997 review of Tu-Plang, Alex Steininger of American site In Music We Trust described Regurgitator as being Australia's answer to the Bloodhound Gang, who are known for their comedy rap rock style.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He said, "from offensive lyrics to funny lyrics, it's all covered here". Others have also compared the album to the band Ween, due to its variety of styles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The album has elements of funk metal/rap metal, cocktail music, dance, dub, Indigenous Thai music, industrial music, hip hop, Muzak, pop rock, punk, surf rock, turntablism and spaghetti western music.<ref name="am"/><ref name="bill"/>

Song information

• "G7 Dick Electro Boogie" contains samples of street sounds in Bangkok. Yeomans later said, "I think this song[']s small claim to fame is attributed to the 'gang-rape a cripple' line nicely taken out of context by a few bored conservative factions floating around at the time."<ref name="mm">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Track 4 is a Muzak version of "Couldn't Do It" off the band's first self-titled EP.
• "Blubber Boy" is an up-tempo version of "Blubber Boy" off the band's second EP, New.

Touring and promotion

They toured with a wide range of bands around the album's release, including thrash metal bands and indie bands.<ref name="bill"/> During 1996, they also opened in Australia for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, where bassist Benjamin Ely comically wore a dress.<ref name="bill"/> They followed the Red Hot Chili Peppers shows by touring with Japanese avant-garde band Boredoms.<ref name="net">Template:Cite web</ref> They then did their first U.S. tour as guests of God Lives Underwater, followed by a Japan/Australian tour with New York band CIV.<ref name="net"/> Frontman Quan Yeomans refused to tour the United States more than three weeks at a time, which led their American distributor Reprise to quickly lose interest in Tu-Plang following its April 1997 U.S. release.<ref name="pigcity"/> In addition to being released in the U.S., the album was also released in Japan around this time.<ref name="net"/>

Reception

Template:Album ratings In 1997, The Sydney Morning Herald described the album as, "an album that leapt from rock to rap, from fun to funk, from thrash to surf rock (a la Dick Dale), and it did nothing less than announce the arrival of the most significant band in Australia today. More successfully than any of their peers, Regurgitator showed they were committed to pushing the boundaries of contemporary music through their marriage of technology and pop."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Age said in 1996 that the album "at times resembles a net surfer's wet dream, skipping from one style to another, sometimes mid-song," and noted Yeomans' sardonic lyrics.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> They later voted Tu-Plang as one of the greatest albums from the first 50 years of Australian music.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2018, Australia's ABC referred to Tu-Plang as "the peak of weird in Australian music".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Less flatteringly, AllMusic said the album was, "an utterly misbegotten funk-rap-metal fusion which, much as the band's name implies, offers merely another rehash of the usual genre fare." The song "Pop Porn" was singled out for being, "so overboard in attacking rap misogyny that it reaches levels of offensiveness beyond anything actually in the true hip-hop canon."<ref name="am">Template:Cite news</ref>

Track listing

1. "I Sucked a Lot of Cock to Get Where I Am" (Q. Yeomans)
2. "Kong Foo Sing" (Q. Yeomans)
3. "G7 Dick Electro Boogie" (Q. Yeomans)
4. "Couldn't Do It" (Happy Shopper Mix)" (B. Ely)
5. "Miffy's Simplicity" (Q. Yeomans)
6. "Social Disaster" (Q. Yeomans)
7. "Music is Sport" (Q. Yeomans)
8. "348 Hz" (B. Ely)
9. "Mañana" (B. Ely)
10. "F.S.O." (Q. Yeomans)
11. "Pop Porn" (Q. Yeomans)
12. "Young Bodies Heal Quickly" (Q. Yeomans)
13. "Blubber Boy" (Riding the Wave of Fashion Mix) (Q. Yeomans)
14. "Doorselfin" (B. Ely)

Charts

Weekly charts

Template:Album chartTemplate:Album chart

Chart (1996/97)	Peak position

Year-end charts

Chart (1996)	Position
Australian Albums Chart<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>	59

Release history

Region	Date	Format	Label	Catalogue
Australia	6 May 1996	Template:Flat list	EastWest Records	063014895
United States of America	1997	Template:Flat list	Reprise Records	946509-2
Australia	2013	Template:Flat list	Valve Records	V130V