Give a Monkey a Brain... And He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe by Fishbone

Give a Monkey a Brain... And He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe, Fishbone's fourth studio album, came out on Columbia in 1993, and the title, lifted from the Discordian text Principia Discordia, is about as subtle as the music. With Terry Date producing, the Los Angeles band made their heaviest record, a full-bore metal assault that keeps their trademark horns locked away until the fourth track, the ska-kicked "Unyielding Conditioning". Branford Marsalis blows through the manic "Drunk Skitzo", and "Swim" winds down on snippets of a Damon Wayans stand-up bit about going to a Fishbone show.

It was the end of an era: the last album with all six founders, Angelo Moore, John Norwood Fisher, his brother Philip "Fish" Fisher, Kendall Jones, Walter A. Kibby II and Christopher Dowd. Jones quit a few months after release and Dowd followed the next year. Right after release they hit the road on the third Lollapalooza, and the year after that Sony dropped them.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.