Splendor in the Grass

what a treat
These guys are amazing. My girl and never miss them when they tour our area. what can i say about this album,"simply amazing". well done Pink Martini.

And I Was So Excited!
I am a HUGE fan of Pink Martini - I can sing all their songs from the first 3 albums by heart - I've nearly worn OUT my CDs. This CD, however, is an enormous disappointment. New writer? There's no enthusiasm, no 'fun'. China Forbes sounds like she's just seeing the music for the first time - or she's as bored as the listener. The songs do not take advantage of her beautiful voice - they seem to stay close in range, and are ... well, boring, and truthfully? A little 'off'. I'll keep listening to my first 3 CD's (and buying them for gifts) but THIS one's going out in the trash. Really, listen to the first three, and you'll never believe this one is by the same people.

Good, but not their best effort
I heard about this CD the day before it came out. I eagerly sampled the tracks on Amazon and came away thinking maybe Pink Martini had jumped the shark with this one. But then I remembered that I almost didn't buy Hey Eugene based on listening to the samples, so I bought it a couple of days later. I don't want to go through it track by track, but my general impressions are: The first two tracks were what I have come to expect from Pink Martini. The musicianship is excellent and the music is innovative and fun. Then "Splendor in the Grass" came on and I thought, "Whoa! Here's where we part company." The lyrics are weak and the melody is bland. Midway through, they break into my favorite piece by Tschaikovsky and suddenly I was back on board, at least part way. After several more listenings, though, this one is a definite miss. It is puzzling that a band the caliber of Pink Martini would choose to record such a mediocre track. It was evident what "And Then You're Gone" and "But Now I'm Back" were going to be just from reading the titles. This is a musical cliche that has been done to death in pop music at least since the sixties. But I found myself chuckling in places the first time through, so I guess they pull it off. "But Now I'm Back" nearly crosses the line into a novelty song, so the jury is still out on how it will hold up to repeated listening. They lost me again at "Sing". They do this song as well as anyone I have ever heard, but some songs are so bad even Pink Martini can't fix them. Out of their four CD's, this is only the second of their tracks that won't take up space on my Zune. "New Amsterdam" is a strange little song. Fortunately, I like strange little songs. Sometimes. The lyrics might make sense to one of the relatively few people in the world who think New York City is the center of the universe. For the other six billion or so of us, not so much. But they don't really detract from the song over all, and this track will likely be one of my favorites. Except for two tracks noted above that would have been better left off, this is a pretty solid effort. There are a couple more tracks that are okay for background music, but don't reach out and grab your attention the way I had come to expect from this band. It was a tough call between three stars and four, but hey, this IS Pink Martini. This CD has a legitimate place in my collection but will not get listened to as much as the other three.

Pink MAartini Turns Into Pink Chablis
I have been a huge fan of Pink Martini for nearly a decade now, and each album has been wonderful - until this one. I don't know what (or if) they were thinking when they recorded this, but while previous releases conjured up images of sophisticated cinematic ballrooms, this one seems best-suited for a Holiday Inn lounge act, somewhere in Indiana. It is that bad, sorry to say.

Is it Live or??
Was at the Pink Martini concert in San Diego in September and they played most of all these songs on the new CD and I can honestly state it's like being back at Humphreys by the bay. Simply put, Pink Martini is phenomenal. They have more fun on stage than any group or single artist I've ever seen!