''Audio'' is the debut album by

Blue Man Group Blue Man Group is an American performance art company formed in 1987. It was purchased in July 2017 by the Canadian company Cirque du Soleil. Blue Man Group is known for its stage productions, which incorporate many kinds of music and art, bot ...

, released on December 7, 1999, through

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

. The album was nominated for the

Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album The Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album (previously: Best Pop Instrumental Album) is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording arti ...

. This album was released in two versions: The

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

had 5.1-channel versions of the music in both

DVD-Video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-r ...

(using

Dolby Digital Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for what has now become a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Formerly named Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, the audio compression is lossy ...

) and

DVD-Audio DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format. The sta ...

formats (one on each side) and a CD that had a 2-channel

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

mix Mix, mixes or mixing may refer to: Persons & places * Mix (surname) ** Tom Mix (1880-1940), American film star * nickname of Mix Diskerud (born Mikkel, 1990), Norwegian-American soccer player * Mix camp, an informal settlement in Namibia * Mix ...

of each track. A behind-the-scenes video of the album is viewable on a promotional 2000 VHS known as ''Audio Video''. This video is also included as a bonus on the Audio 5.1 Surround Sound DVD.

Reception

Heather Phares of Allmusic.com rated ''Audio'' three out of five stars. She explained that it "reflects over a decade's worth of musical and theatrical innovation." Although she stated that "the spectacle of the group playing its sculptural, surreal-looking instruments is absent from the album," she concluded her review by calling it "an album that proves the Blue Man Group is as innovative in the studio as it is onstage."

Track listing

Personnel

*Producer - Todd Perlmutter *Engineer - Andrew Schneider *Mastered By -

Bob Ludwig Robert C. Ludwig (born c. 1945) is an American mastering engineer. He has mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Qu ...

*Mixed By - Mike Fraser

Blue Man Group

*Phil Stanton - Performer ir Poles, Extension Cord Bull Roarer, Ribbon Crasher Percussion rumbone, Tubulum, Mid-octave PVC, Backpack Tubulum, Dumpster Drums tne, Drum Wall, Phil Drum Cimbalom, Timpani *Matt Goldman - Performer ir Poles, Ribbon Crasher Percussion ow Octave PVC, Drumbone, Backpack PVC, Dumpster Cimbalom, Bass pside Down Gong haker Drums tne*Chris Wink - Performer ir Poles Percussion oppler Toms, Tubulum, Drumbone, High-octave PVC, Dumpster, Backpack Tubulum, Piano Smasher Cimbalom, Shaker tne Drums

rum Wall Rum is a liquor made by fermentation (food), fermenting and then distillation, distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing reg ...

Cuica *Larry Heinemann - Chapman Stick, Bass, Guitar aritone Cuica *Ian Pai - Drums

rum Wall, Phil Drum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Phili ...

Percussion ronophonic, Quellum Grill*Christian Dyas - Zither, Bass, Guitar 2 String Electronics lectric Dog Toy*Todd Perlmutter - Percussion, Drums

rum Kit, Left Side Double Drum Kit, Drum Wall, Toy Drum, Phil Drum Rum is a liquor made by fermentation (food), fermenting and then distillation, distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing reg ...

Additional musicians

*Jamie Edwards - Performer ir Poles(tracks: 1, 4, 14) *Chris Bowen - Drums

(track: 7) *Clem Waldman - Drums

(track: 5) *Cräg Rodriguez - Drums

(track: 7), Percussion (Dumpster) (track: 12) *Jeff Quay - Drums ight Side Double Drum Kit(tracks: 2, 4, 7, 8, 12 to 14) &

(tracks: 5 & 13) *Byron Estep - Guitar (tracks: 5, 7 & 9) *John Kimbrough - Guitar (track: 7) *

Bradford Reed Bradford Reed is an American multi-instrumentalist, experimental luthier, and member of the avant-garde band King Missile III. In the 1980s he invented the pencilina, a custom made string instrument. Pencilina The pencilina is a custom-made str ...

- Zither (tracks: 2, 4, 8, 13 & 14) *David Corter - Zither (tracks: 8, 9, 12, 13) *Elvis Lederer - Zither (track: 1) & Zither ressaphonictrack: 5) *Jens Fischer - Zither (tracks: 2, 4, 6, 11, 13 & 14)

References

External links

''Audio''
at BlueMan.com * {{Authority control Blue Man Group albums 1999 debut albums