TODAY'S CAJUN SPICE
(released on MCA in November 1992)
It took Plaastik a mere two weeks to decide on a new label; MCA paid them handsomely for a six-album contract. Entering the studio just three months after the release of FORTUNATE SMILES, the band made a decision to get a new record out quickly and painlessly. Hiring no-holds-barred production talent in the form of Rick Rubin, they made a conscious decision to create a loud, FM radio-friendly rock & roll record with very few instances of studio doctoring or indulgence (feedback and such) and with no outside musicians. In fact, while Christina Singleton played piano, Nick the bass and Kevin Keys the drums, all other band members picked up guitars for each song here, excluding the country-rock tune "The Playground." It was Plaastik's most simplistic record since NO PARKING ANYTIME, and indeed the album harkens back to the band's debut LP, something they acknowledge in the package, which is an updated mirror of the NO PARKING ANYTIME artwork.
It took a mere two weeks to record and release the album, something that the band's old label undoubtedly resented. As a result of the unadorned debt in the music to metal and thrash, it was embraced immediately by many radio formats, helped along by the slight hip-hop edge of the first single, "Everything You Are." In fact, in an unprecedented feat, all three of the singles from TODAY'S CAJUN SPICE reached the top ten, and although the album peaked at #5, two positions lower than FORTUNATE SMILES (SODAS IN HELL had only managed #41), it stayed in the top ten for months, whereas SMILES had been out of the top forty within three weeks of its release.
Plaastik was immediately a beloved artist for MCA, despite the band's continued refusal to tour... five years after the end of the Information goround. An album recorded at almost no cost became the label's biggest hit of the decade so far. Plaastik, at the end of it all, was bigger than ever -- despite being less public than ever, refusing to give interviews or even play talk shows.
tracklist:
1. Everything You Are (single 1)
2. Drive
3. Touch Me (single 3)
4. Porn Star (single 2)
5. The Playground
6. Sometimes
7. Special
8. Copper Wire
9. Idol
10. Lust
11. Nighty-Night
Everything You Are b-sides
Sick Happenings
Copper Wire [demo]
Porn Star b-sides
The Explosion of Full-Dimensional Stereo Sound
Zero
Touch Me b-sides
New Toys I
New Toys II