The group viewed Spilt Milk as their "masterpiece" and the fulfillment of their original grandiose vision for the band, emphasizing bombasticity, vocal harmonies, orchestration, and studio experimentation.

During their five-year existence, Jellyfish attracted critical acclaim and a devoted cult following, but struggled against prevailing rock trends (hair metal and grunge).

Jellyfish broke up in 1994 due to poor record sales, Sturmer's discomfort with his role as frontman, and artistic conflicts between the two songwriters.

Sturmer worked with the Japanese pop duo Puffy AmiYumi and continues to compose music for animated television programs.

While attending Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, California in the early 1980s, Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning met and bonded over their love for jazz.

[8] As a side gig, the two also briefly wrote commercial jingles for companies such as Montana Hawk Shooting Range and Shutterbug Camera Store.

[9] In August 1989, a year after Atlantic Records released Beatnik Beatch's eponymous debut album,[8] Manning and Sturmer left the group to continue songwriting with one another.

Jellyfish recorded their first album Bellybutton at Schnee Studios in Hollywood with producer Albhy Galuten, best known for his work with the Bee Gees on Saturday Night Fever, and engineer Jack Joseph Puig.

Manning explained that the group took extra care in writing and arranging material due to the stresses of hourly studio costs, as they wanted to use the time to experiment musically, and because "Andy and I had to believe 100 per cent, 'Okay, this [song] is working.

[20] Redd Kross bassist Steve McDonald, who played on the album, said that Manning intended the record to sound "somewhere between Queen and Partridge Family".

"[13] The album peaked at number 124 on the Billboard 200 and was well received by contemporary music critics[7] with singles "The King Is Half-Undressed" and "Baby's Coming Back" enjoying moderate radio play.

"[3] He denied the assumption that the label forced the group into their Willy Wonka-style image: "There is no record company on the planet that would make people dress like that.

[27] Jellyfish recruited Roger's younger brother Chris on bass guitar and spent 12 weeks rehearsing for their 50-minute live show.

[7] Their stage show featured an assortment of props, including a white picket fence, a bubble machine, Lite-Brite, and an eight-foot tall standee of Gavin MacLeod.

[32] As Jellyfish gathered prestige among industry insiders, many began soliciting the band for collaboration, including actress/singer Kim Basinger and Tears for Fears' Curt Smith.

[7] One of the two songs they worked on, "Wish it Would Rain",[34] later appeared on Manning's solo album Solid State Warrior (2005), albeit with Wilson's contributions omitted.

[10] [T]he band upped the ante considerably on 1993's Spilt Milk [...] there's no question that Sturmer and Manning sound like joyous kids left in a toy shop and making splendid use of every plaything at their disposal.

[7] Recorded from April to September 1992[19] on a budget of $300,000 (equivalent to $650,000 in 2023),[37] the album's music was more aggressive, bombastic, and reliant on vocal harmonies and studio experimentation than Bellybutton.

[40] This tour included guitarist Eric Dover, who Sturmer said was "not really a full-fledged member [of the group]",[32] with stops in Australia, Europe and Japan (the latter's dates were completely sold out).

[7] Manning remembered that, prior, they would bond over albums such as Paul McCartney's Ram or the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle; however, "it was clear that none of that was happening anymore.

[24][33] Sturmer resented his role as leader and frontman, especially when it came to business matters, and his wish for Manning to take more initiative in the band's leadership had become a source of rancor.

'"[13] In January 2012, Omnivore Recordings reissued Bellybutton and Spilt Milk on limited-edition colored vinyl; the pressings sold out within days.

In June, they followed with Live At Bogart's, a complete 1991 performance that originally aired on Westwood One, then the Record Store Day release Stack-a-Tracks, containing the backing tracks of Bellybutton and Spilt Milk.

Reviewing the book for PopMatters, Eric Rovie wrote that it was a "balanced" and "well-researched" work that presents the principal members "in conflicting but complementary lights: brilliant, driven, and talented on the one hand, but also selfish, overly-introspective, and obnoxiously perfectionist in others.

[3] Sturmer and Manning shared an admiration for punk, progressive rock, reggae, fusion[66] and for artists that included the Beatles, the Beach Boys,[67] Harry Nilsson,[10] Talking Heads, Cheap Trick, Peter Gabriel, Queen, and the Damned,[13] in addition to jazz musicians such as Art Blakey, John Coltrane, the Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, and Bill Evans.

"[13] He stated that, even though their music was not often associated with jazz, their shared enthusiasm for the genre was significant, as "it opens your ear to so many different kinds of harmony and so many arrangers and composers.

"[13] Manning's original concept for the group was akin to the early multimedia crossovers of bands that turned into TV shows or vice versa: the Monkees, the Archies, the Partridge Family, and the Banana Splits.

"[70] Washington Post contributor Eric Bruce opined in 1990: "It's impossible not to hear Beatles and Beach Boys, especially, in the band's music, with nods to Supertramp, Cheap Trick, Gilbert O'Sullivan, 10cc, the Hollies, the Monkees, the Raspberries, Crowded House -- heck, just about every pop purveyor of above-average intelligence in the past 25 years".

[71] Similarly, Andy Edelstein of Newsday felt that their "greatest influence seems to be the '70s groups who themselves were derivative of the mid-'60s British Invasion bands".

[24] AllMusic's James Christopher Morgan wrote that their influence extends to the Merrymakers, the Hutchinsons, the Excentrics, and Ben Folds Five, and added that the band "secure[d] for themselves the same kind of cult status bestowed upon so many of their heroes.