Million Seller is an album by the Welsh alternative rock band the Pooh Sticks, released in 1993.[2][3] The album was a commercial disappointment, and the band was dropped by Zoo Entertainment after its release.[4][5]

The album's first single was "The World Is Turning On".[6]

Production

Million Seller was produced by Steve Gregory, with some assistance from Jim Rondinelli.[7][8] The album cover depicts frontman Hue Williams floating on a 45 of Elvis Costello's "Accidents Will Happen".[9] As on previous albums, the Pooh Sticks incorporated titles, lyrics, and melodies to popular songs in to Million Seller's 13 tracks.[10][11]

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[12]
Chicago Tribune	[9]
Robert Christgau	[13]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[4]
The Indianapolis Star	[1]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[8]

The Washington Post deemed the album "hopelessly arch, impossibly infectious pop-punk."[14] Trouser Press wrote that "with [Amelia] Fletcher’s voice sweetly balancing Hue’s, 'Let the Good Times Roll' and 'The World Is Turning On' are fabulous confections, candy-pop mountains of ABBA-rock production and witty/silly lyrics."[15] Robert Christgau considered the album to be "irony-pop gone hermeneutic—with nothing to say."[13] The State likened it to "a '90s version of Sgt. Pepper or Atom Heart Mother."[16]

Spin called the album "a desperately hummable, anxiously erotic masterpiece from a band with enough heart to make your head spin."[17] Stereo Review noted that "these Brit youngsters—rigorous pop formalists with a cutesy streak more than a mile wide—apparently see themselves as the missing link between Neil Young and Edison Lighthouse ... Few less auspicious concepts have ever been digitally preserved."[18] The Village Voice labeled Million Seller "Carole King's Tapestry done by self-conscious sugarpop punks trying to rock and roll their way out of self-consciousness."[19]

AllMusic called it "truly a classic pop record," writing: "Too polished and produced to garner alternative credibility, yet not the kind of record destined to get any mainstream exposure, Million Seller slipped between the cracks."[12]

Track listing

References