2022 marks the 25th anniversary of Revenge Is Sweet and So Are You, a record whose title alone captures the MTX tone perfectly. In recognition of the milestone, the band will soon release a reissue of the album on vinyl, cd, and cassette on August 12 courtesy of Sounds Rad.
Dr. Frank, vocalist, recalls:
I doubt anyone who heard this record at the time (or hears it now) could have guessed the ridiculously grandiose plan it had to be scaled down from. It was to be a grandly ironic exploration of romantic bitterness, a seamless meld of Bubblegum and punk rock, the "text" informed by Tin Pan Alley, Country and Western, with Brill Building singer-songwriter pretensions, and even a bit of musical theatre -- all featuring era-appropriate sounds on the production side, and each song altogether unlike any other sonically but thematically linked in a vague narrative.
In the event these things all got in the way of each other, plus we couldn't really afford them, and the result was something very different than planned, an unintended minimalism with the rather complex songs still intact but largely hidden underneath the wall of loudness. I spent the following decades slightly dispirited about this, like any pretentious frustrated artist, which is a tale as old as time. But when the album's enduring popularity and the MTX tape rescue project occasioned another look at it as an artifact, I had to admit there was something there. Some are minimalist by choice, others have minimalism thrust upon them. And here the latter resulted in a consistent and (it turns out) unique sound and feel, which is not something to take for granted. And the songs, which for me was always the main point, are still there regardless.
Revenge Is Sweet and So Are You is the third Mr. T Experience getting the remaster/reissue treatment from Sounds Rad, as much of the band's catalog went out of print with the demise of Lookout Records.
