Searching for the Young Soul Rebels

I didn't expect to hear a brass section in an album like this. Very good and catchy instrumentals, but the vocals kinda put me off. Aside from the vocals, it was pretty fun.

Es ist ein leidenschaftliches Debüt voller Energie, Soul und Haltung. Dexys Midnight Runners liefern hier ein Statement – roh, aufrichtig und musikalisch eigenwillig. Besonders Tracks wie „Geno“ oder „There, There, My Dear“ zeigen, wie viel Kraft in Bläsern und Überzeugung stecken kann.

Trotzdem: So sehr das Album auch beeindruckt, es erreicht für mich nicht ganz die emotionale Wucht und Eingängigkeit von „Come On Eileen“. Vielleicht liegt’s am Fehlen dieses einen magischen Moments, der alles überstrahlt. Stark, aber nicht überragend.

Ja joh? Drie albums? Omdat er wat toeters bijzitten? Goed de sound en zeker de zang is herkenbaar. En het is makkelijk te verteren. Maar de kwaliteit is over het algemeen te matig voor een vergeetbare 3. Op dit album staat welgeteld 1 fatsoenlijk minuut: het eind van The Team that meets in Caffs.

Ey!! Ok Dexys! I had only ever heard Come On Eileen by this band. But I was pleasantly surprised by this album.

This was fine. Not very memorable. 3/5

'I've been spat on and shat on / And made to eat soap / I've been working and shirking / For what, I don't know.' Tho they sound completely different, and one would be wont to compare Dexys Midnight Runners to The Clash, Elvis Costello, or The Specials, there's really one band that's comparable to this group, and that would be The Smiths. Kevin Rowland and Morrissey appreciated that anti-establishment music would have to be undergirded by an 'I,' even or especially if that 'I' couldn't help but lament bookishly. So, w/ this said, this is a band and a record theoretically right up my alley: the horns, the soul, the punk, the roaring, the poised and blaring right-side-of-history-adventure. But I think it's overestimated: any great, great song?

love the sound on this one - miss the 80s sound sometimes 4/5

Did you know that the come on Eileen band was a ska band, me neither.

Interesting album today, absolutely never heard of this band before in my life. I am neither super opposed nor attracted to this soul infusion with rock. It's quite fun, energetic, but feels a bit uninspired to me. Probably 3 stars all in all, we'll see.

I don't mind most of what's happening here musically, but Rowland is very, *very* hard for me to tolerate. This might not bode well for their other two masterpieces that appear in this book.

2/5

Such a great lp! And it’s their debut.

This album does for Northern Soul what the first Specials record did for Ska. Lyrically it is intelligent with street culture and literature combining in a dazzling hotpotch. There isn’t really another lp quite like it because Dexys went into their Come on Eileen phase after this.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I was going to. They should be known for more than come on Eileen.

A melting pot of different styles and influences but all in all an enjoyable listen.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4, but I did like this a lot.

There’s only one truly bad track here to my ears, and that’s “I Couldn’t Help It If I Tried”, and it’s mostly because the track goes nowhere for its entire runtime, & because I Couldn’t Understand Him If I Tried, and believe me; I tried. That’s the biggest sin of the album; I cannot understand Kevin Rowland on a number of these tracks unless I have the lyrics in front of me, and what makes it worse / annoying is that the vast majority of these tracks have incomplete / incorrectly structured lyrics online, leaving me partially in the dark on just what the hell some of these tracks are talking about while I can’t understand his talking.

You would think that a lead vocalist being mostly incomprehensible would lead to an actively bad album, but the neat trick of Dexys Midnight Runners is that, for most of these tracks, the band themselves just have a weirdly infectious energy that somehow works in their favor. This is a ska-ish soundscape, relying on a lot of horns & percussion to do the heavy lifting. Thankfully, they pull it off, and even though a lot of this album ends up sounding the same, I can’t say it’s that big of an issue since they just generally sound that good. Their instrumentals are all strong, save for the nothingburger of “I Couldn’t Help It If I Tried”, and even then, I think it’s just poor execution of a well-intentioned vibe / atmosphere that they just don’t maintain very well.

It also helps that even with Kevin Rowland having absolutely no enunciation in his voice whatsoever, his melodic enough voice still maintains a pretty strong structure, to the point where the lines that do come clearly out of his voice paint a decent enough picture towards the intent of each track. His vocals being incomprehensible is a sin, yes, but he balances it out well by just earnestly fucking trying to keep a melody regardless, and I’d say he generally succeeded. Past that, it also helps that for the tracks that do have mostly complete lyrics to follow along to, I’d say a good chunk of them are pretty well-written. This album’s other big sin is just lingering around; I’d say there’s at least 4 or 5 tracks here that go about a minute too long.

Overall, it’s an album with flaws, and it’s one that should probably fall flat on its face because of those flaws; however, there’s something still weirdly infectious about the energy this album brings, and even after a dud track or a long outro, the intro to the next track usually lifts up the mood in a way that just feels kinda bright. I wish I had a better sense of an overarching theme / inspiration for the album, but I do feel like part of it is just picking yourself up after the tough times, and they certainly nailed that vibe from the instrumentals alone. His vocals being incomprehensible is dragging this down to a 3.5, along with the lingering tracks, but I think it’s worth a bump up to a 4 because it still ends up as a pretty fun listen despite itself. Definitely looking forward to their other two on the list now.

P.S.: If nothing else, “Geno” & “Seven Days Too Long” are rad as hell.

This album is fine. Nothing too special in my opinion, but some good tunes. I like the instrumental tracks. The vocals aren't amazing, but it's fine.

The soul elements are just not good and very skippable, but the rest of the album is actually pretty good and definitely better than the other Dexys album on this list.

3.0/5.0: Good

better than the last dexys album but not by much.

My last (hopefully) of 3 Decys’ records and it’s their earliest one. I guess it’s slightly less annoying than the later ones but not by much. I like some of the horn playing anyway.

While the lyrics are interesting (the ones I can understand, anyway) and the actual music is good, I can’t get past how grating and whiny the vocals are. The horns were an interesting touch and it was fun to listen to (for the most part), but I doubt I’ll listen much again.

Чесно скажу цей гурт пройшов повз мене й от зараз слухав вперше. Хороший приклад британської музики 80х, приємна секція духових, соул, мені таке подобається.