Track Listing

1. How It Should Be (Sha Sha)
2. Wasted & Ready
3. Family Tree
4. Commerce, TX
5. In Other Words
6. Walk On Me
7. Make It Up
8. No Reason
9. Lizzy
10. Harriet's Got A Song
11. Falling

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67929 in Music
• Released on: 2002-07-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Sha Sha might be the first solo album from twenty-year-old Texas-born songsmith Ben Kweller, but it’s far from his debut musical statement. As the front man of precocious grunge tykes Radish, Kweller was one of rock music’s youngest ever child stars--and what’s more, he had a few cracking tunes in him that put his kiddie peers in the likes of Silverchair to shame. After Radish disintegrated, Kweller spent the late 90s hanging out with artists like Juliana Hatfield and Evan Dando, and began work on a new set of songs that owed nothing to the ugly end of the grunge explosion and everything to the sun-kissed pop melodies and geeky emotional confessionals of mid-period Pavement, Weezer and The Lemonheads.

Kweller has no need to hang off the coattails of any of his famous friends, though--his grasp of guitar pop is totally instinctive, and sweetly accessible. Check the likes of "How It Should Be (Sha Sha)", featuring a cooing Kimya Dawson of NYC anti-folksters Moldy Peaches, or the splendidly naive emo crunch of "Commerce, TX", both of which demonstrate an impressive grasp of quiet-loud dynamics and the occasional tantrum-like flurry of raw emotion that would put the excellent Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes to shame. This is highly recommended.--Louis Pattison

CD Description
After spending his teenage years fronting the somewhat successful grunge act Radish, Aussie Ben Kweller roared into his20s, changing tack with an understated brand of jangly rock. Songs range from Weezer-style lo-fi-amped-to-11 sound of "Wasted & Ready" and "Commerce, Tx" to the prog-rock-meets-country balladry of "In Other Words". The record ends on one of the more perfect slices of piano pop of the 1990s, the BenFolds-esque "Falling", a sweetly neurotic love song, a blend of confidence and utter vulnerability that sums up Kweller's appeal.

Customer Reviews

music that sounds as good as it makes you feel
It's pretty impressive when a 20-year-old singer-songwriter manages to make a major label debut. But what's really amazing is this is the second time around for Kweller, who formed a band called Radish in his teens and toured the world after releasing their first album when he was 15.
Kweller's new solo project is more fully realized and varied than many artists ever manage. Kweller alternates between piano and guitar, and occasionally sounds vaguely reminiscient of another Ben – Ben Folds – when he sits at the piano and drops quietly humorous lyrics about the young generation.

In "Wasted & Ready," he rocks out with some solid guitar riffing about "the slacker lifestyle," while in "How It Should Be (sha-sha)" he twists words over "Heart and Soul" piano chording like a game, singing: "nothing isn't nothing, nothing's something that's important to me" and "when I was an astronaut I bought a fancy charm/I thought you'd like it but you called it 'cheap'/and at my feet it fell."

Rather than just dropping a dozen derivative, alternative radio-friendly rock songs on his debut in hopes of competing with the likes of Blink 182, Kweller offers a range of styles and colors on Sha Sha.

very nice debut
i'll be honest, i picked this up because evan dando's last record reminded me how good he was/is and the comparisons to the lemonheads drew me to ben kweller.

im not sure i would say that kweller is particularly similar to dando to listen to, nor even that the style is all that similar to the lemonheads, but there is something pop-ish and cheerful and wake me up with the sun on a sunday morning and set my feet to dancing because i love the world and cant get enough of this. its almost infectious its so cute.

it doesnt have the 'sing-along and sway with everyone' quality that dando sometimes generates, it is much more upbeat and none the worse for it. a very strong way to go solo and super music to cheer you up or keep you up or make you feel like the sun is on your back even though its raining outside. sounds a bit like badly drawn boy, the more i think about it, and thats not a bad thing either.

the sentiment is lemonhead-ish, thats what im trying to say.

i can only hope that there is a lot more to come because i suspect this is the first in a series of seriously cherished and overplayed albums (on my cd player anyway!).

giddy pop genius
Ben Kwellers work in radish was unremarkable except for a couple of tunes. This is hardly suprising considering he was only 16 when they existed. However this his first solo offering completely redresses the balance- it is 11 songs of giddy pop genius. The guitar assults ben launches into are reminicent of radish- only much stronger,but the real suprise of the album are the songs on which kweller switches to piano-namely closing track falling,a beautiful power pop gem reminiscent of ben folds at his best. The production,mucianshipand vocals are all first class with some weird instrumentastion thrown in for good mesure and i really suggest you buy this album if you are fans of pavement, dinosaur jr or weezer. The most satisfing thing about this release is that kweller is only 20 and will probably get better. i've only had the album two days so picking my favourtite song is impossible but at the moment i am rocking out to track 4. Buy it now.