| Our Finest Flowers | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | the Residents |
| Cover: | Resdidents finest flowers cover.jpg |
| Released: | 1992 |
| Length: | 49:02 |
| Prev Title: | Freak Show |
| Prev Year: | 1990 |
| Next Title: | Gingerbread Man |
| Next Year: | 1994 |
Our Finest Flowers is an album by American art rock group the Residents, released in 1992. For their 20th anniversary, instead of releasing a greatest hits compilation, they decided to release an album of new songs created by combining various components of different past songs. The Residents borrowed from not only their own past original songs, but some of their known cover songs and songs by frequent collaborators Snakefinger and Renaldo and the Loaf. The liner notes refer to the album as "Celebrating Twenty Long Dreary Years of Obscure Stardom".
The liner notes from the original album explain the album as follows:
What's a group to do when its twentieth birthday rolls around; when the only comparable lasting musical units are the Grateful Dead or The Rolling Stones, and they both have had members die, for christsake. Some people thought a nice collection of "greatest hits" would be a suitable observance. So The Residents tried to write down their "greatest hits" until suddenly one of the guys got a stomach ache and threw up on the song listing. The guy that made the mess had to wash the list off and in the process pretty well smeared the ink all around the paper. Everybody thought it was funny so they started reading the words, or at least what the words looked like. "Perfect Goat," one said. "I think we should put that on our album"
They knew the vomit was no accident, it was an omen. They tore the paper into little pieces and dropped them onto the floor. It was still wet. Some of the pieces you couldn't read anymore, but they didn't seem to care. Somehow, ideas came from those torn slips. And sure enough, "Perfect Goat" did make it on the album, along with fifteen other tracks that Dr. Frankenstein would have surely been proud to have stitched together. Yes, these are new songs. Just like all good pop music, there is something familiar about them, something friendly. But as you listen, never forget that vomit is at their core: twenty long years of painful regurgitation.[1]