The Mr. T Experience - Road to Ruin LP - Yellow Vinyl (/300)

 

Sounds Rad (2023, Reissue)

I'm a much bigger fan of The Mr. T Experience than I am of the Ramones.  I know the Ramones' hits and they range from 'fine' to 'pretty great,' but they aren't a band that I ever connected with and I think part of that is just because of my age.  They were an older band and I was more focused on what was going on around me during my formative years than I was about what was going on in the past.  And on top of that, they weren't old enough for my parents to care about them, so I didn't hear them growing up like I did The Beatles, Electric Light Orchestra, Tom Petty and that sort of thing.  The Ramones were just in that sweet spot where they were somewhat invisible to me.

The Mr. T Experience, on the other hand, was front and center in my life, particularly in 1998 when I was twenty-one and the original version of this album was released.  Clearview Records was doing a gimmick where they were having bands cover entire Ramones albums and when Road To Ruin was up, The Mr. T Experience stepped to the plate.  I have the original version of this from when it first came out.  It had a felt cover and was on split color vinyl.  I remember being psyched that I had gotten my hands on the limited, fancy-pants version, though I don't actually remember listening to it very much.

Now that I have this newly re-released and revitalized version, I'm still not sure it's going to be an album that I revisit with a ton of frequency.  It is better than I remember it being and I think a lot of that is because of how they spruced up the way everything sounds.  It's much fuller where it needs to be and brighter in the other spots.  MTX does a perfectly serviceable job on these songs, though I can't pretend to be super familiar with several of the originals.  "I Wanna Be Sedated" is still a lot of fun, no matter what band is playing it.

It's a little perplexing to me why this album was prioritized so high on the list in the Sounds Rad reissue series.  It certainly should be reissued, of course, but if you were to ask me, there are other albums I would have put in line before it.  Regardless, it's important to own and I'm happy to still be getting the 'dibs' versions of these albums.  I am eagerly awaiting the earlier Mr. T Experience albums, in particular, and am hopeful that Making Things With Light is coming very soon.

The Mr. T Experience - Road to Ruin:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nbhaCiozW08Qk06GzudRNQd8bQ0Hg6xP8