Come Find Yourself

Better than Coldplay

This was fun. Quite enjoyable all the way through.

I’ve never heard of these guys before and I wish I never had.
This is not good.
Please remove from this list immediately!
Must make way for more deserving albums!

Still fun.

In 1997, my beloved FM station WDRE-FM went off the air, closing out their last night with a live concert headlined by Philly legends G. Love and Special Sauce, with support from Fun Lovin' Criminals. I taped this concert off the radio and would revisit it periodically until such time as I no longer owned a cassette player. Anyways, I don't like this band all that much and this album is, in most spots, incredibly corny. But here's the thing, these guys can actually play. I don't need to hear the "hits" from this record ever again, but I really liked the cool funk of "I Can't Get With That" (complete with a solo that pretty directly evokes Ernie Isley), as well as the cover of "We Have All the Time in the World." Most of this isn't really my thing, but I enjoyed learning that these guys have had a really long and prolific career. Good for them.

I used to love Come Find Yourself by Fun Lovin' Criminals when I was a kid, so revisiting it all these years later felt like it should’ve been a 5/5.

Sadly… it really isn’t. Strip away the hits they are known for and there’s a surprising amount of filler here, with some painfully weak lyrics and tracks that just drift by without doing very much at all. What once felt cool and laid-back now comes across as a slightly cringey attempt at hip-hop, blues rock, and indie swagger that doesn’t quite land. Listening to it 25 years on, the charm has worn thin and I can’t see myself listening to it again.

Favourite tracks: Scooby Snacks is still a classic and perfectly captures its moment. I also enjoyed Fun Lovin’ Criminal and King of New York, which at least have some energy and attitude.
Least favourite tracks: A lot of the album just feels very “meh.” Tracks like Smoke ’Em and Passive Aggressive are dull, undercooked, and go absolutely nowhere.
Album artwork: Pure nostalgia. The artwork is straight out of my youth and, to be fair, it still suits the album.

4.5

Fav track: The Fun Lovin' Criminal

Least fav: Bombin' the L

It's like the Beastie Boys had a drunken one night stand with Beck. Very on trend for the mid 90s, for sure, but... it's not aging well. Not at all.

Om de bandnaam maar eens te benadrukken benadrukt het heel fijne openingsnummer met het statement dat je de heren niet te serieus moet nemen. Humor kan zelden rekenen op bonuspunten van mij. Maar zo'n Scooby Snacks, dat is toch gewoon erg vermakelijk? De samples zijn geniaal gebruikt. Het doet met wat denken aan het latere Oceans '11 van Seeed. Maar die zullen ook wel niet voor niets aanhalen dat ze in een film van Quentin leven. De associatie komt natuurlijk ook door de zeer relaxte vibe van het nummer. En die vibe kunnen we goed doortrekken naar de rest van het album. Zelfs wat gitaargeweld kunnen de heren vrij relaxt brengen.

Ja, er zijn minpunten. Als er gezongen wordt wil ik snel doorzappen en er zou een internationaal verbod moeten komen om enkel de eerste drie tonen van de riff van Smoke on the Water te gebruiken. En ja, als ik ik mijn stemgedrag enigszins doortrek, zou dit nooit 5 sterren mogen krijgen. Maar, zoals al duidelijk, dit maal pas ik een flinke compensatie toe omdat ik hier gewoon heel vrolijk van word.

Fun album with good beats and melodies.

3.5/5.0: Very Good

fun album that only started to drag toward the end. minus one point for the song where he whispered at me

Ooh I didn't know some of these songs were from this band and album but knew them! :) Good music, fun :)

Was apprehensive but it grew on me, better than most of the hip-hop I've encountered through the list. 3.5/5. Raising to 4.

Irgend ein R&B Murks. Ein wenig Musik und viel Gemeckere.

At times it feels like they're trying to emulate Beck, other times it feels like they're trying to emulate the Beastie Boys, and they have some underlying attempts at being gangster and hard. There were elements of this album I enjoyed like the solid production and the smooth and funky band/backing tracks, but not enough of them to ever want to hear this again.

I feel like the pitch meeting went something like this:

“Imagine Beastie Boys, but we’ll only have one vocalist.”

“Will he have a distinct, interesting voice, like Ad Rock?”

“Nah, we’ll get someone to just mumble through everything - think a more boring Everlast.”

“Oh, um, OK. Shall we call Rick Rubin?”

“Nah, we’ll just let them produce themselves.”

“Right. Ok. So this is for the hip hop community?”

“Nah, this is for suburban white kids and Europeans who want hip hop-ish music but without...you know.”

This kind of reminded me of Soul Coughing if Soul Coughing was bad.

Another album that feels thoroughly inessential. Not unpleasant to listen to, and I remember a few of these from the radio of 1996, but doesn't need to be on this list.

The Fun Lovin’Criminals. I don’t think so. Their only crime was this album. It was terrible - like a bad Sublime cover band playing musical Scatergories at an adult contemporary party.

But all is not lost! I’ve decided to take this opportunity to rank my Top 10 Real Life Fun Loving Criminals. While their public lives were defined by violence, many notorious criminals pursued surprisingly mundane or strange hobbies in their downtime and I’d like to rank those. To be clear, I’m ranking the uniqueness of the fun activity they used to relieve the stresses of murder, embezzlement, theft or whatever. The criminal and the crime bear no weight in the rankings. Here we go!

Numbet 10. Country Music Video Mogul
Joe Exotic “The "Tiger King" loved to make country music videos. He saw himself as a serious country music star. He released several albums and filmed dozens of music videos (often featuring his tigers and body doubles). Although it was later revealed that he lip-synced most of his songs, his dedication to the persona of a video country star was a full-time hobby.

Number 9. Die-Hard Sports Fan
John Dillinger, the infamous robber of 24 banks in the 1930s, was a talented baseball player and a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan. He famously attended Cubs games at Wrigley Field, even after breaking out of prison (twice) and while he was on the FBI’s "Most Wanted" list, trusting that his disguises, his sunglasses and the other die-hard fans in the crowd would hide him. He was never captured at a game.

Number 8. Painting Clowns.
John Wayne Gacy: The infamous serial killer, while on death row, took up painting. He was prolific, creating thousands of pieces. His most infamous works were self-portraits of his alter ego, "Pogo the Clown," but he also painted Disney characters and landscapes. Seriously, a painting of Goofy by John Wayne Gacy? Creepy AF.

Number 7. Making Jewelry.
Another serial killer, Albert DeSalvo, better known as the "Boston Strangler", had a surprisingly delicate hobby while incarcerated for killing 13 women. He became skilled at making necklaces and costume jewelry. He even sold his handmade jewelry from prison, and this is one absolutely true fact: his most popular style of necklaces were “chokers”. Sick people, those consumers.

Number 6. Impersonating Elvis.
Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced former Governor of Illinois who went to prison for trying sell Barack Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder, was a die-hard Elvis Presley fan. This went beyond casual listening; he was known for performing full Elvis impersonations. While in prison, he even fronted a band called "The Jailhouse Rockers," performing hits for fellow inmates.

Number 5. Banjo Picker.
While incarcerated at Alcatraz, the infamous mob boss Al Capone fought boredom by joining the prison band, the "Rock Islanders." He learned to play the banjo and the mandolin and wrote many sappy ballads and a love songs. Quite a change of heart from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that got him sent to prison. Turns out, he loved to pick that banjo.🪕

Number 4. Hot Chocolate Magnate.
Bernie Madoff, the man behind the largest Ponzi scheme in history, didn't stop wheeling and dealing once he got to federal prison. He just switched commodities. Madoff reportedly cornered the market on Swiss Miss hot chocolate packets in the prison commissary. He bought every single packet available and sold them to other inmates at a markup for a profit. Even behind bars, he couldn't resist running a monopoly.

Number 3. (Tie) Private Soccer and Volleyball Games.
Pablo Escobar and Osama bin Laden: The Colombian drug lord was a huge soccer fan. He built soccer fields in impoverished neighborhoods and frequently flew in professional players for private matches at his estate. It’s a safe bet you always let Pablo win this one!
Bin Laden, the founder of Al-Qaeda, was known to be an avid volleyball player. Being 6'5", he was a formidable presence at the net and frequently organized games with his followers. That is something I want infrared video of. Osama in his beard, wearing his tunic (or even better, short shorts) going up for a spike!

Number 2. Pigeonry
A true criminal after serving time for rape, Mike Tyson is primarily known as a violent boxer and a casual cannibal. His lifelong passion, however, was raising pigeons. He has owned thousands of birds throughout his life and claims that his first ever fight happened when a bully killed one of his pigeons. He finds the hobby deeply therapeutic and maintains a pigeon coop to this day.

And the Number 1 Fun Lovin’ Criminal pursuit- Writing Romance Novels. Saddam Hussein loved to write romance novels. Not shitting you. The Iraqi dictator, who was convicted of International Crimes Against Humanity and used poison gas on at least 10,000 of his own people, wrote multiple love stories, including a romance novel titled Zabibah and the King. He also had a passion for gardening and especially loved to grow sunflowers. Who knew the vicious dictator was such a big softee?

These are the true fun lovin’ criminals.

I'm really beginning to hate this list. What the hell was this? I don't know the metrics of what makes this a good album. It's definitely not good. It's not culturally relavent and there's better versions of this type of rap. Just terrible in every sense. I used to think 1000 albums is a lot of slots to fill there's going to be some that has a lapse of judgement but man. I'm beginning to think it's just a crappy list...