Category: Pop music

During my first year at university I became infatuated by what I knew at the time as (but now am not so sure) the debut album by The House of Love…the one with Christine on it rather than the one with Shine On on it. Whatever, for a while (until the disappointing 2nd/3rd album was released) I, perhaps unwisely in some respects, hung on every word Guy Chadwick offered and I couldn’t help but notice his obsession with Peter Perrett and his band The Only Ones. It seemed that pretty much every issue of Melody Maker had some reference to The Only Ones by Chadwick and before long my record store browsing priorities had shifted from ‘H’ to ‘O’. Eventually I found myself a copy of The Only Ones’ final album, Baby’s Got A Gun and, although I need to remind myself of it in light of my recent full conversion to the first two albums, my initial impression was that it wasn’t very good…at all. So I stopped looking for Only Ones albums and moved onto something else – to be honest, I had probably given up on The House of Love by then as well.

But, as is so often the case, I chanced upon The Only Ones first two albums when they weren’t on my radar, bought them (thinking that at the very least I would now have a copy of Another Girl, Another Planet) and then played them for while, enjoying them well enough but still not really falling under their spell. I dug out the debut a few months back thinking it could be interesting DRC fodder, gave it a cursory listen and dismissed it as not good enough. However, a second (crucially?) LOUD listen brought it to life and since then I have listened to little else, alternating between The Only Ones and Even Serpents Shine both in terms of what’s on the turntable and in terms of which one I prefer.

Having given it much more thought than is necessary (or healthy) I have come to the conclusion (in contrast to most internet blogs I have seen) that there is nothing to choose between these two fine, scuzzy, exciting and spontaneous sounding records. After all, internet preferences seem to split the vote between those who favour the punkier immediacy of the debut or the more consistent uniformity of the sophomore offering. For me, they’re both great records and, the deeper I delve, the closer I get to seeing what Chadwick was on about all those years ago. Fabulous song-writing, excellent musicianship, messy production and over all, Perrett’s whiny, note imperfect and definitely acquired taste of a voice. I love Perrett’s guts to have a go with such limited vocal chords (although, after all, many of the biggest names in rock’s pantheon – Dylan, Reed, Young, Cohen – could hardly hold a tune) but I have a feeling there are those (I include Nick in this list) for whom his voice will prove too difficult to see past. It really is their loss as, by (proper and loud) listen three or four, you will not even notice those flat and warbled tones as you anticipate the complexities of what is coming next, reveling in the fine melodies on offer and wonderful interactions of the band.

The Only Ones kicks off with a red herring. The Whole of The Law is as gentle a song as Perrett ever wrote and, sweet and melodious as it is in its own right, it doubles up as the ideal appetite whetter for what comes next – only the best intro in modern music bar none! Another Girl, Another Planet is a true classic but to my mind the intro is so good that the rest of the song doesn’t quite compete and I enjoy the other punk rockers on the album (City of Fun, Language Problem, The Immortal Story) just as much. Interspersed between these energy fueled anthems to doomed youth are longer, brooding exercises such as Breaking Down and The Beast, in which Perrett’s voice is really put through its paces. He just about holds onto those long notes as if heroically highlighting his own shortcomings and laying himself bare just as much through his singing as through his lyrics. Either Perrett had very little self-awareness, supreme and mis-placed self-confidence or (most likely) wanted to really challenge himself and play to his weaknesses as his voice on these tracks is far less conventionally effective than on the faster numbers, if no less affecting.

So whilst The Only Ones may well be an acquired taste (and Even Serpents Shine perhaps even more so – the songs twist and turn more unpredictably even though the singing is stronger), with the benefit of volume, openness of mind and an acceptance of that voice, you will be able to welcome another couple of classics into your home, classics that will keep on smouldering away, giving pleasure long after the latest flavour of the month has burnt itself out.

Nick listened: Tom’s right, of course, that PP’s voice is… rubbish. To be frank. But, I reckon I could get used to it, because musically this record was great – intricate, tuneful, exciting, varied, and great fun. I was aware of the name The Only Ones, and Another Girl, Another Planet, but knew nothing of the context at all. A really good choice.

Rob listened: The Fall are my favourite band. Perrett sounded like Pavarotti as far as i’m concerned, so no problems there. No real problems at all, in fact. Having only known ‘Another Girl…’ previously, this was a real surprise, rich and deep where I had expected scratchy surface. For a band who could, and in the minds of millions may well, have stopped after just one track, The Only Ones certainly seem to have taken their chance to make something much more substantial then your average one hit wonders.

Up until recently this album has been harmlessly gathering dust in a forgotten pile (the almost prefect cue for fellow members to suggest it should go back there!). I still have no recollection of where it came from, but apart from the last few weeks, it hasn’t seen a turntable in around 30 years.

For most people, I guess Graham Parker has been resting in the equivalent of the “where are they now and who were they in the first place category”, for around 30 years now. However last few months has seen him receiving a sudden flood (in Parker terms) of coverage  via an appearance in the movie, ‘This is Forty’, along with a BBC4 documentary,  featuring a reunion with ‘the Rumour’ after 30 years apart.

In the ‘Don’t ask me questions’ (last and best track from this album) film, people like Springsteen and Black Francis queue up to sing his praises and bemoan the wider public for not recognising his talent. Moreover, Parker comes over as a genuinely nice guy, quite happy with his lot. If you can imagine Derek Smalls (the Lord of the Bass) filming a documentary of his post ‘Spinal Tap’ career, you get fairly close. Bad career moves, timing and record deals seemed to have all conspired against Parker.

Watching early footage of his performances, the tracks from this album come over as edgy, acerbic and positively dangerous for a 1976 ‘pub rocker’. Finally inspired, I dusted off the album and tried it again.

The album itself feels much mellower than his live performances and it seems the cover could be of a completely different artist than the image he seemed to project on his early ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ performances. To take an angry young man in his mid-20s and make the album cover look like the final album by washed up 50 year old country music star, takes quite a skill. To be honest, cover art seems to have been a weakness through Parker’s career, including such low points as ‘Carp fishing on Valium’, along with his recent reunion with ‘the Rumour’, on ‘Three Chords Good’ (I think Bungle and Zippy should consult a lawyer).

As for the album itself  listening properly was a bit of a revelation. Simply 12 good songs lumped together and trying to do nothing more than achieve that. He benefited from having an experienced band assembled for him and giving him an energetic but pretty loose, bar room sound from the off.  Some of side one borders on the thin line between joyful and twee, but side 2 signals the type of Parker sound I had been expecting from his live footage. Sounding like Costello before he had arrived on the scene, there are touches of Van Morrison along the way. In addition to ‘….Questions’, the title track and‚ ‘You got to be kidding’ stand out for me.

I’m now on to  his second album and still enjoying it after a few listens. I’ll not sure if I’ll go any further, but I’m glad I gave him a chance after all these years.

Tom Listened: Once again sacrificing his record for the dreaded ‘take away slot’, Grahams Parker and Pollock suffered a little from dinner chatter and monosodium glutamate blues. It was also about two years ago that we listened to it! Dredging the memory banks, I seem to recall an album of two halves – the angrier Elvis Costello type compositions sounding much better (punchy and vibrant) to the more workmanlike filler (?) that populated the centre of the album. I too had caught some footage of Graham Parker on one of those BBC retrospectives recently and thought he sounded worth checking out…and I guess I have now, and liking about half of what I heard I think that’s probably enough for the time being.

Mind you, if the album had a reasonable cover, one that made you think that the people releasing it cared at all about the product, I would probably be feeling differently about it – which is stupid but (sadly) true.

Nick listened: I’m gonna have to be honest and say that I can’t remember a thing about this apart from the… ahem… artwork. It was on during takeaway, and it was months ago. It did sound a bit like Elvis Costello, I suppose. I seem to remember saying on the night that if this guy had been around 15 years before he’d probably have been a behind-the-scenes dude rather than an on-the-sleeve dude.

As I recall, my first exposure to the phenomenon that is Grace Jones was the car crash TV experience of her infamous appearance on the Russell Harty chat show in the mid 80s. I guess that at the time she was out promoting Island Life (her Best Of compilation) and Slave to the Rhythm was vamping its way up the charts. Settling down to an undemanding 30 minutes of light celebrity chat I was confronted by the sight of Jones pummeling Harty (in hilarious flappy hands fashion) on live TV because he had the gall to slightly turn his back on her as he tried to interview one of his other guests. It was all way too much for my sensitive teenage self and I ran away, cowering, to hide behind the sofa. And that was that….

…until, that is, I was given a copy of the wonderful compilation Funky Nassau: The Compass Point Story. Amongst its sunny grooves and extended funk work outs is My Jamaican Guy (or My Usain Bolt Guy as my 8 year old son likes to sing) an infectious number that, although far from Jones’ finest song, was enough to pique my interest in her back catalogue and, following some internet research, it wasn’t long before Nightclubbing had risen to the top of my ‘most wanted’ list.

Nightclubbing is no way near as scary as my 14 year old self would have feared – listening to it, it seems as though Jones had yet to develop that terrifying yet cartoonish (if you’re reading this Grace, please don’t be angry) diva thing – on Nightclubbing she comes across as ominous and otherworldly but, crucially, genuine and real; more ‘Alien’ than ‘Godzilla’ if you see what I mean. Consistently excellent throughout and surprisingly accessible, I suppose Nightclubbing’s most well known track is Pull Up to The Bumper; a song so crammed full of innuendo that it is incredible that Mike Read (or any of his virtuous, upstanding chums at Radio 1 at the time) didn’t choke on their (hairy) cornflakes and immediately ban it from the airwaves, hence saving our delicate sensibilities from its possibly prurient content whilst they could carry on….doing all that fine work for charity!

But Pull Up To The Bumper is by no means the standout in the set, just one of the many highs. It is preceded by Walking in the Rain, a song that sounds like it could have been written for a James Bond film and a hell of a lot better than A View to a Kill it is too (not hard admittedly). Following it is Jones’ radical reinterpretation of Bill Withers’ Use Me which is transformed from a soulful strumalong into a gargantuan slab of reggae/funk that crawls along like some slithery, hungry jungle-based animal for its riveting five minutes or so – listen to it and tell me you don’t think of a crocodile or python or something.

One thing that speaks volumes about the quality of Nightclubbing are the cover versions – as well as the ones already mentioned, Jones also has a stab at Iggy’s Nightclubbing (unsurprisingly, given the album’s title) and somehow makes it her own, whilst sounding unmistakably Iggyish in the process. Jones also covers Sting’s Demolition Man (from Ghost in the Machine) and, whilst it’s easy to forget that Sting used to write good songs every now and again, next to this The Police sound decidedly safe (I like both versions and, to me, neither sound like filler – still not sure about what constitutes ‘filler’, despite Nick and Rob’s best efforts to educate me – but Jones’ version is surely less fillery than The Police’s).

And there we have it – Nightclubbing: exciting, vital, as fresh as it ever was and no where near as scary as one might expect.

Rating: PG

Rob listened: I had the same introduction to Tom, and the same reaction. Growing up I had no idea what Grace Jones was. Singer? Model? Robot? Insurrectionist? Mental case? A prim 10-year old, I rejected her. Way too scary. Despite the fact that less than 5 tears later I’d be dragging Public Image Limited and The Fall into the house, I retained a subconcious view of Jones as a dangerously transgressive figure best avoided, a Ballardian anti-hero.

Of course, throughout that time her music was seeping in via the radio and TV, but really it was only seeing her astonishing performance at last year’s Diamond Jubilee concert that the penny dropped and I began to think of her as an International Treasure.

‘Nightclubbing’ was great, although credit to Graham for observing that ‘having Sly and Robbie as your rhythm section helps’. I’ve since bought ‘Warm Leatherette’ which on early inspection sounds equally alluring and distinctive. I like Grace.

Nick listened: I know this pretty well, having got acquainted with it a decade or or so ago when I worked in the library – we had a copy on 12″ and there was a period when it got a battering on Friday afternoons. As intimated by Tom and Rob, Grace is an amazing, ageless, alien presence in our culture; I think my first encounter with her was in the film Vamp, which was… influential… to my pre-adolescent self. As I said on the night, I hope the new Daft Punk album sounds like, and is almost as good, as this. A brilliant record. I should probably buy my own copy now.

Graham listened: For all the reasons the others have mentioned, I never understood, or liked, Grace Jones. She seemed to emerge from a gratuitous New York nightclub/fashion/modelling scene which I completely despised in the late 70’s/early 80’s. I was convinced she only got the breaks because of her physical attributes and that there were others more deserving of the support from record companies. Her image and diva-like behaviour left me cold. This album felt cold and detached with her image being as important as the sound. Annoyingly, it is very good.

Had illness not prevented my attendance at the previous round, this would have been my selection for that week. However, the motivation on that occasion would have been more around, “get one in by this lot, before anyone else does”.

When Nick set his ‘turning point’ theme, I looked around for records which marked a moment of  personal or listening significance and found a few turning points that led to equivalent of “no through roads”, as far as DRC is concerned. For example, the moment when you realise that it is probably a good idea to dispense with listening to prog rock, would mean all sorts of horrors could have been inflicted on fellow members.

But as turning points go, this revelation was more  like the slow turning circle of a ocean going super tanker, as it took me well over a year from release until I began to embrace the Smiths and their music. As some of the offerings detailed on this site show, at 18, I considered myself fairly eclectic in my choices and hadn’t yet tired of U2, enjoyed the acerbic prettiness of the Bunnymen, felt I was being ‘edgy’ by listening to R.E.M., and still managed to sneak along to see Marillion.

I wasn’t prepared to submit to the cultish observance to the Smiths which I saw around me. Neither was I prepared to listen to a music press touting them as the most important thing to have happened that decade. I constructed arguments  around why it was important to ignore them because of references (very misunderstood) to the Moors murders and a lead singer who seemed both too weird and cannot sing (‘…..but you should hear him play piano!’. Apologies, but could not resist).

Time is a great healer and by the end of 1985 a string of fantastic singles by the band had worn me down and I finally reached for my polo neck jumper and knelt at the temple of Mozza and Marr. The introspective and insecure subject matter of the lyrics began to fascinate me and I quickly discovered that the Smiths had some of the catchiest and most beautiful guitar based indie/pop rock that I had ever heard. My delay in submission simply allowed me to gorge on the subsequent compilations and singles I had ignored for over a year.

As for the album itself, I am so familiar with it, a judgement on how it sounds today is difficult to arrive at. ‘Reel Around the Fountain’, ‘The Hand that Rocks the Cradle’ and ‘Suffer Little Children’ still haunt with the combination of subversive lyrics and fantastic melodies. Quirkiness and energy still pours from ‘You’ve Got Everything Now’ and ‘Miserable Lie’. If you can’t sing along to all the words of ‘Hand in Glove’ or ‘What Difference Does it Make’, then you haven’t explored the treasures the ‘The Smiths’ has to offer and certainly never went to a student disco in the 1980’s.

Tom Listened: I have a theory, of which I am ever more certain with each passing meeting of the Record Club, that a predisposition (or not) towards a certain type of music or band is almost wholly contextual. Sure there is some music that is just plain awful (Black Lace, Pink Floyd) but for most bands that have released an album or two that have come to be considered as ‘classics’ it’s rare, if the volume is turned up and prejudices are put to one side, that the true quality of the work doesn’t begin to shine on through.

I have to thank Graham for enlightening me to The Smiths in general and their first album in particular. As a teenager desperate to avoid the cliques in the sixth form common room, I dismissed The Smiths as mopey and dull and way too affected – just like my ‘friends’ who listened to them. When my tastes in music began to broaden at university I listened to the eponymous first album a couple of times but I didn’t really want to like it and was almost relieved to find it mopey, dull and too affected. Although only removed by a few years, the ‘thin trebly jangle pop’ of The Smiths seemed a million miles away from the thrillingly visceral music I was exploring at the time – MBV, Pixies, Sonic Youth, Dino Jr etc and I was happy to hand back the cassette I had borrowed and say ‘thanks, but no thanks’.

But, as is so often the case, fast forward 20 years, let much water pass under the bridge and listen again, carefully and with an open mind and, sure it is still as trebly, jangly and affected as ever but there is also so much to enjoy here – Morrisey’s singing and lyrics are quite astonishing, Marr’s guitar work accomplished and innovative and the rhythm section is surely one of the most underappreciated bass and drum pairings in popular music.

I have subsequently dug out my CD of the Queen is Dead that has barely been listened to since I picked it up in a sale 10 years ago and it’s just great…as it’s supposed to be…and now I’ve allowed myself to like it, it’s as though my music collection has just gained another album! Silly me.

Nick listened: The Smiths aren’t my band, the way that some other bands are. I feel no sense of ownership or kinship or belonging to their cult, particularly. I’m too young to have caught them in their (brief, prolific) heyday, and by the time I was a teenager exploring music they were a relic, something my older brother had listened to and that, thus, I would ignore, because who wants to follow the path already trodden? So I consigned them to a mental dustbin, labelled “miserablist parody”, and carried on with other music.

I eventually bought The Queen Is Dead when I was at university, treated it almost like a coursework assignment, and, like Adorno or Debord or Barthes, admired it and absorbed its ideas and structures, but never considered that I could fall in love with it. I only explored Meat Is Murder beyond that, because the old CD version had “How Soon Is Now?” on it, which I really liked, but I didn’t really bother absorbing the rest of the record.

Until about 18 months ago when the remastered box set, which collects all four studio albums and the four early compilations together, was ludicrously cheap – like £25. So other than the big singles and such, I only really heard The Smiths outside of The Queen Is Dead very recently. My feelings for them haven’t changed much, though; I still admire them more than care for them, as much as I may enjoy the way Morrissey writes lyrics and twists melodies and song structures over Marr & co’s instrumental backing as if he’d never heard a song by another rock band before. I think, from “This Charming Man” and all the daffodil-waving and fey-ness, that I’d expected their debut album to be limp, brief, and easily blown away in a gust of wind, but actually, like The Queen Is Dead, it’s surprisingly muscular and powerful beneath the surface. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Buffalo Tom were the grunge era’s nearly men; seemingly always on the verge of breaking through into the big time but destined to be forever looking on from the sidelines (like the everymen they so blatantly were) whilst the demi-gods – Cobain, Vedder, Dando, Corgan – strutted their charismatic stuff through the pages of NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone and Spin and on to the day glow X-factor hit machine of its time that was MTV. I love the band photo of Buffalo Tom on the back of Let Me Come Over – Bill, Chris and the eponymous Tom sat around an anonymous table in some anonymous diner, looking slightly apprehensive yet vaguely excited like three young Dads about to go and see their children in their first Xmas panto. It’s a brilliantly mundane photo of a brilliantly ordinary band (that’s not meant to sound pejorative at all) and it wholeheartedly captures the reason why I like them so much…and why they could never mix it with the big boys – they were just three great blokes singing great songs without an iota of pretense or showmanship.

And that’s why, of all the records I immersed myself in the Spring of 1992 (one of the key turning points in my life) this is the one with the greatest power to evoke personal (rather than scene based) nostalgia. You see, when I listen to Nevermind or Blue Lines or Slanted & Enchanted all records that, in their own way, broke a mould and set a new agenda, and all records that I love or have loved, I do get a sense of nostalgia but they don’t take me back to myself, sat in my bedroom in my parents’ house counting the days before I would leave to go on my trip of a lifetime to Australia. No. I am reminded of Grunge and Trip-Hop and Lo-Fi and the music scene in general at the start of the 90s. These records are so connected to what came next, so steeped in the scene they spawned that, for me, the memories they evoke are forever blurred, tarnished even, so that I can’t even tell whether those memories are true or illusionary. But seeing as it was one of the most exciting times of my life, full to overflowing with the thrill of anticipation, it’s great to head back to those feelings every now and again…and that’s where Let Me Come Over comes in.

Buffalo Tom existed in a vacuum really. They had no angle, no ‘USP’ as Nick puts it. They just wrote really good songs…well, I liked them anyway! Admittedly some of their work was patchy and, for me, their five albums go: good, not so good, great, not so good, good. But I may be wrong as I haven’t listened to albums 1, 2 or 4 for some time now (and there are a few other albums but I don’t know them). But I am pretty sure that album number 3, Let Me Come Over, is the one where the stars aligned and there can be but a few albums of straight ahead US alterna-rock with a hint of grunginess that set the bar so consistently high through 12 tracks. There are no weak links here, no filler, no mis-steps and revisiting Let Me Come Over is like spending time with a long-lost, very dear and completely trustworthy friend. There’s no danger, no unpredictable mood swings or ghosts in the closet, just warmth, pathos and 12 sweet melodies – from the noisy opener of Staple to the noisier closer Saving Grace, through moments of calm (Frozen Lake), poignancy (Mineral, Porchlight) to anthemic sing-alongs like Taillights Fade and the unimpeachable Larry – that make me feel good about life. And what’s wrong with that?

Rob listened: I loved Buffalo Tom and I fully endorse Tom’s assessment of their place just below and to the right of the pantheon. Although a couple of their songs, ‘Sunflower Suit’ and ‘Crawl’, had as much impact one me and held the same addictive pull on me as anything Nirvana or Pixies ever released, it seems broadly fine for them to stand as workmen. The work they did was great and they made me very happy by doing it. ‘Birdbrain’ probably has more resonance for me, soundtracking the Summer between my first and second year at university, but it was great to hear ‘Let Me Come Over’ again after so many years. It may be off in the distance now, but its taillights have yet to completely fade.

Nick listened: My brother, who’s about the same age as Rob and Tom, professes to only like 3-minute-power-punk-pop. I have noticed that he has a Buffalo Tom album or albums on his shelves. Which is not surprising. Despite being aware of them for ever, seemingly, I’ve never actually listened to them knowingly. As such, I’ve got none of the attachment to them that Rob, Tom, and presumably my brother might do. This was very pleasantly workmanlike, as it were, but I definitely got the sense that it lacked that certain je ne sais quoi or creativity or charisma or insanity that the likes of Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins had which made them explode out of the scenes from which they emerged. But Buffalo Tom don’t seem to be all that bothered about not exploding, which is fair enough.

Graham listened: Another band I always knew were there and deserved investigation, but never got around to it. I thought this was really great and after borrowing the album and listening to some others, I would agree it sounds their best. Strangely it sounds as if the ‘…Tom’s did it for Tom, in the same ways the Screaming Trees, did it for me around the same time. As no-one is  still reading this far down a review, its probably safe to reveal I currently don’t, and have never have owned, Nevermind. Phew, think I got away with it!