12 Golden Country Greats

12 Golden Country Greats is Ween's fifth album, and third on Elektra Records.

This album marked the first time Ween limited themselves to a specific genre of music. Bringing in a wide variety of seasoned (and sometimes legendary) Nashville musicians (including Charlie McCoy, Buddy Spicher, Bobby Ogdin and The Jordanaires), the album sought to recreate the sound of golden-age country music with a great amount of success, while also combining this sound with classic Ween on such tracks as "Piss Up a Rope." The legendary Bradley's Barn was chosen for recording the album. Later, Ween would assemble some of the session musicians again into a touring band dubbed The Shit Creek Boys.

There are three theories regarding the title of the album. The first claim is that it refers to the dozen veteran musicians, known as The Shit Creek Boys, who played on the album. The second claim refers to the fact that the band did indeed record twelve songs during the demo sessions for the album. When it came time to record the actual album, the band chose not to use two of the songs but also decided not to change the album title. The two removed songs were titled "I Got No Darkside" and "So Long, Jerry". "So Long, Jerry", a tribute to the recently deceased Jerry Garcia, did wind up as a B-Side on the "Piss Up a Rope" single. The third claim is that the album is adversely titled merely as a tongue-in-cheek gesture. The style of the album title might also be a homage to Throbbing Gristle's 1979 "20 Jazz Funk Greats", an album with only 13 tracks and is a pioneering album of industrial music.