Reviews by declaniom

Being hyper-critical there's a couple of songs that could be swapped out of John, I'm Only Dancing (Again), but difficult not to give it a 5.

OK it's not the debut or Hatful of Hollow but the Smith downward curve was practically flat.

Mid level country album.

I’ve known this album for years but bought the vinyl a week before this came up on the randomiser.

Special band, consistent throughout the eighties and into the nineties. I find myself listening to the more than ever this decade. The guitar is a bit more strident on this one and it’s the lp that is a precursor to Shoegaze.

Good songs. You really picture the characters and situations. Shit recording. Bruce must have been so jealous that the Attractions worked with Costello

Nice swing to the music and Snopp is quite self-deprecating but the songs aren’t really about anything.

This is a good album. Many John Cale records are good. Not sure theres a great one in his discograpy. But this is as good as any.

Middling album. Mostly half arsed covers of novelty songs like Tutti Fruiti and Lawdy Miss Clawdy. Bland.

Probably the best of Bowie’s pre Berlin apprenticeship albums.

I’m rather mind boggled by all the reviews complaining that Feargal Sharkey ripped off Jello Biafra. Apart from the fact that the Kennedys had released one single before the release of this The Undertones’s second album, Feargal Sharkey sings with a Northern Irish accent!

The subject matter is very different Dead Kennedys are angry and political whilst the Undertones tell story’s of teenage life. That’s a very important function of rock bands - youngsters singing about the teenage experience. There’s only a short window of opportunity for that The Undertones are masters at that (see also early Ash - is it a Northern Ireland thing?).

It feels like revisionists are trying to exclude the cannon of great rock because they were better singles bands than album bands. Calling them pop punk like they’re Green Day or Busted. But there’s more to life than the earnestness of the Clash. And documenting people’s lives is a function of art.

Ironically, Feargal has turned out to be a more effective political campaigner than Jello or Joe.

Jools Holland shit.

I’m rather fascinated by how songs mutate and change as move through the zeitgeist or popular culture or the folk tradition.

There’s a few songs on here that at time of conception were destined for a life far from a major label release or an MTV special. For a start could the band that made Bleach and then went on tour with Tad have dreamt 5 years later they’d be playing About A Girl?

The Meat Puppets added Americana to Hardcore for their second indie album and three of those songs ended up here?

The journey of Where Did You Sleep Last Night from Appalachian folk ballad via Leadbelly and Bill Monroe to Mark Lanegan and onto Kurt is well documented. What’s less well known is the songs life before it arrived on American shores.

There’s a Manx Gaelic lullaby called
Ushteg veg Ruy. With a suspiciously similar melody which goes …

“Ushag veg ruy ny moanee doo,
Ny moanee doo, ny moanee doo,
Ushag veg ruy ny moanee doo,
C'raad chaddil oo riyr 'syn oie?”

Which translates into our colonial master’s tongue as…

“Little Red bird, of the cold black ground
Cold black ground, Cold black ground
Little Red bird, of the cold black ground
Where did you sleep last night.“

This is an extract of a poem/song I wrote that explains the myth that inspired the song …

“The Lon Dhoo - the blackbird
Use to live up the tops
And the Usteg veg ruy-
the golden plover
dwelt on a plain
But the Lon Dhoo grew tried of his lot
So they agreed
- temporarily- to swap
But the Lon Dhoo so liked his new crib
He reneged on the plover
Forcing it to find cover
In the cold dark hills

And the Manx turned that into a lullaby”

Which goes

“I slept last night tween two leaves
Between two leaves
Between two leaves
Like a baby tween two sheets
Oh what a lovely sleep”

The tune was first collected in 1882 but is likely to date from earlier. During that century many Manxies left the Island for opportunities in the New World and took Usteg Veg Ruy with them. But in the new environment it changed. One Mann’s lullaby is another’s murder ballad!

But on the Island it’s sung by kindergarten school choirs. However when I was a little kid, before the Galaeg revival we sung songs in English. In fact we sung Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam. Although I did not feel much like a sunbeam.

I guess the “old Christian song” was also sung across the Irish Sea in Scotland. And met with similar feelings. Because the Scottish indie band The Vaselines reinterpolated the song.

The Vaselines were part of a great generation of Scottish indie music, they traded members with BMX Bandits, Soup Dragons, and Teenage Fanclub. I don’t remember there being much of a buzz around them on Radio 1 or the U.K. music press certainly not MTV but somehow it reached Seattle and Kurt loved them. Maybe he didn’t feel like a sunbeam either.

That’s what’s so special about this album it’s a celebration of bands and music that was hundreds million miles away from the perma-grinning sprey tan frauds of the 80s. Bands that made music for a small audience, bands like Nirvana were supposed to be before the shock success of Nevermind. And put those songs on heavy rotation on MTV.

So this is an album with a vast musical hinterland but it’s also one that looks to the future. A future we never got. This may be the last music Nirvana ever made but it hints at records they would have made had Kurt not died. And it’s not the fucking Foo Fighters.

TLDR like Freddie and the Dreamers, I like it. Five Stars.

There are three distinct Scritti Politti periods...

Late 70's and Early 80's Post Punk living in a squat in Notting Hill.

Mid 80's Major label sophisto-pop stars.

2000's Dalston bedroom producer chamber pop superstars.

The post punk stuff is collected on a fantastic compilation called Early - you should check it out. The 2000's saw a brilliant album called White Bread Black Beer. Somehow they moved from hip west London in the seventies to hip east London in the 00's by touring the world.

The successful period, from which Cupid and Psyche comes from is their worst and the 80's production and electronic crashes from the drums don't help when the singer is as understated as Green. But look at what their contempories made around this time - the wretched George Michael solo albums, True by Spandau Ballet, 7 and the Ragged Tiger! This is clearly better.

I do like this album, think their debut's better. This has a bit more 70s in approach, and I'm a bit bored of 70s classic rock tropes. Maybe its just that this list is so stuffed with early 70s American cheese (Creedence, Fleetwood Mac etc) or English acts churning out disposable pap for the US market (Floyd, Zep, Cream etc) that even the good artists like Spirit seem tame. Still it's not dross like Rumours or Green River and Spirit are a fine band with a great guitarist and they raise themselves above the malaise of the time.

Not a bad album, I suppose. But it’s all - the cover, vocals, lyrics, guitars - a bit juvenile.

The beats are a bit middle of the road and consequently it’s hard not to drift off. Still a worthwhile lp though.

This was released the day after my tenth birthday and it’s the first lp I bought.

Therefore on playing it again it’s almost impossible to approach it with a fresh mind. Except, I realise that I now dress like a fatter version of the boys on the cover.

250 records in and only Pet Sounds has topped this so far. They’re very similar albums in that the depth sonic ideas is overwhelming. You need to lose yourself in it.

In fact I think new listeners probably do get overwhelmed by the length, the number of songs and the density of the instrumentation and dismiss it as weird.

I was lucky in that my introduction was song by song. In the 90’s John Peel would play a song a week on his radio show. I used to edit his shows into mixtapes and songs from Trout Mask Replica became strange interludes from another world amongst the indie and electronica of the era.

When I bought the Capt’s work on cd I preferred his other albums at first. It’s been a slow process over the years to spot the intricacies and now sometimes I’ll be in the mood for Beefheart but not in the right head place for Trout Mask Replica.

So give it thirty years and it’ll grow. If you don’t have time for that listen in chunks (say the four sides of the lp) with breaks in between.

Its nice to hear on headphones a mid 60’s attempt at stereo mixing.

I woke up this morning. Pulled on a random tshirt. A blue one with the initials mbv written on it. Then the aggregator randomiser generator thing chose an album chose an album with a blue cover and the letters mbv on the cover. The forces of synchronicity have turned me into a full kit wanker.

I’m not sure why this is on the list. But the fact that it is gives me the chance to dig it out possibly for the first time since its release year. The thing is. You know how it goes I get a craving to hear My Bloody Valentine I go to the Shoegaze section of my collection, find the bit where the m’s are about to turn into the n’s and I pull out Isn’t Anything or Loveless or The Glider ep or Tremelo but not this.

Listening again it’s a perfectly enjoyable listen but if you want a triumphant 2010’s Shoegaze return you’re better listening to Slowdive. If this was mbv’s tenth album of the millennium then I think we’d be saying they’ve still got it but we waited so long it feels like more of a letdown.

The embarrassing thing is I’ve worn the t shirt all day, found the album on my shelf, listened to it, read the wiki, wrote my review and it’s only at bedtime that I realise that I’m wearing the t-shirt of the selected album. That’s Shoegaze for ya!