Tag: Supergrass

Mojo Reviews Challenge #011 – The Wonder Stuff – If The Beatles Had Read Hunter…The Singles

Where I dig into something I’ve not heard before, from the reviews section of old Mojo Magazines, on an irregular basis.

CS1813972-02A-BIGThe Wonder Stuff
If The Beatles Had Read Hunter…The Singles
1994 – Polydor

I would count Brit Pop as my big light bulb moment of music. I loved chart pop and a little bit of grunge, but the war between Blur and Oasis – and the rush of bands that included Ash, Supergrass, Pulp and more – was the first music that was mine.

Which is unfair to Brit Pop because It was already on its second or third wace by 1994/1995. The few years before that are still largely a mystery to me, although I’ve heard of a lot of those bands. Take the Wonder Stuff, who had several chart hits and four albums (3 of them bothered the top 10) and had broken up and released a greatest hits before ‘Common People’ was even recorded.

My knowledge of the Wonder Stuff can be summed up thus;
– ‘Dizzy’, the friggin’ awesome single they did with Vic Reeves in 1991
– ‘Size Of A Cow’ and ‘Unbearable’ on various compilations
– The singer has long, curly hair

The kind of perfect amount of knowledge to bring in a Greatest Hits, then.

The title comes from a review of the band, (the Hunter being Hunter S Thompson) and it is a very generous assessment. They don’t have the clean lines of the Beatles, but they do have a lot of thrash-it-out energy, which is the most exciting part of this compilation.

There seems to be no order with this set, and I hate Greatest Hits collections that do this. Why? Why not just go chronological? Tell me a story. I don’t know your songs, and putting it in some biggest-hit-to-obscure-songs order helps me nothing. It is a bit of a jumpy listen straight through – production values and instrumentation (the violin in particular) come and go.

There’s a lot of catchy, fun stuff here, regardless. The songs I knew still shine. ‘Welcome To the Cheap Seats’, ‘Don’t Let Me Down Gently’, ‘Caught In My Shadow’, ‘A Wish Away’ – all lovely little pop confections. But there is filler too – a very British thing to have so many singles over a short career. The quieter stuff, the country-ish stuff, are nice but unremarkable.

(Here’s Welcome To the Cheap Seats, album in a longbox and Paul Schaffer on keys and everything)

Unremarkable also, because of history. Maybe it is my age bias, but the aforementioned Blur and Pulp would sweep in and add this level to artistry that would bury this band and other similar bands. I don’t know about the Thompson comparison – I don’t know if the lyrical ambitions are that literary. Maybe these were cool lyrics in 1994, but by 1996 they were pop fluff.

At some point, I’ll probably start deleting some tracks off the iPod and be left with like 10 absolute solid thumpers. I don’t know if anyone talks about these guys anymore, and history is written by the victors. They missed to Brit-Pop movement going mainstream and international, although they have reformed and put out new albums. They also look dated. They had some great songs, but they just didn’t have it.

One last note – ‘Dizzy’ is still an amazing track. One of the very best.

MOJO11_ChrissieHynde

Mojo Reviews Challenge #010 – Portishead – Dummy

Where I dig into something I’ve not heard before, from the reviews section of old Mojo Magazines, on an irregular basis.

Portishead_-_DummyPortishead
Dummy
1994 – Go! Beat

Dummy is an album that was very much around, but avoided. I guess, in 1994, I was falling madly in love with guitar bands from the UK. The strange sophistication of this record and Portishead came second to, say, Supergrass‘s ‘Alright‘. An age thing.

I did hear a couple of the songs. Heck, I remember the TV ads for his album – this was a big deal. So some of the big songs from this album are familiar. I know of their acclaim, and I’ve heard bits and pieces from their later records.

And yes, this album was exactly what I expected. Which isn’t totally good thing. The same reason I’ve not ever really felt the need to explore this band is all over this record.

We probably don’t talk about trip hop now, and the groundbreaking sound of trip hop has been absorbed and seem normal. The album has an interesting sound, but even by the late 90s, Moby, the Chemical Brothers and all would make it mainstream.

Listening to it today, it just seems nice. It drifts by. Yes, that Barry-Meets-EDM thing is clever, but it is not arresting. The real highlights come when Beth Gibbon‘s voice just….GOES for it. ‘Sour Times‘, ‘Glory Box‘ and others kicks ass, as Gibbons gives it her all. Songs like It Could Be Sweet, however – so light that they float away.

Lyrically, its all a bunch of nonsense. There’s a sense of longing and drama, but there isn’t much to say. Maybe I’m just coming to this record when I’m too old, and I care about lyrics more than ever. But it hampers this record. Repeated listens, and I found it to be all surface, little feeling. Maybe if I held more leftist dinner parties…

Gibbons is a gifted singer, and Geoff Barrow has put together a very interesting soundscape. It sunds great in films, and film music is no doubt a big influence. It won the Mercury Prize, and it definitely pushed the conversation of music forward. It certainly hasn’t dated.

I’ve given this album weeks, and I’ll give it a few more. But as I suspected about Portishead for twenty years seems to hold ture – its not really my thing. And it comes down to the songwriting. Gibbons sounds like she’s tearing her heart out. Why is mine still intact and bored?

MOJO10_NeilYoung

Tuesday Tunes: The Hot Rats – (You’ve Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)

The Hot Rats - Turn Ons

Covers albums. Troubling things. But at least the Hot Rats have mentioned David Bowie‘s great Pin-Ups album as a reference. And for those just joining us, the Hot Rats are Gaz and Danny from 90s/00s superstars Supergrass.

Although they’ve not said it, we are assuming this is the natural extension of the Diamond Hoo Ha Men, the fictional duo that these two formed after bassplayer Mick was injured a couple of years back. Supergrass could use some time away, but these music nuts could not sit still. This is how we imagine it anyway.

So the Hot Rats (named after a Zappa record we guess) have recorded an album of covers. And, as is expected, they barely come close to any song from the last 20 years.

Amongst their excellent choices are Squeeze‘s Up the Junction, Elvis Costello‘s Pump It Up, Velvet Underground‘s I Can’t Stand It, and some Beatles, Bowie and more.

Looking deeper there’s some interesting song selections as well. The free track offered at Stereogum (one of our fave sites) is a cover of the Beatsie Boy‘s (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!), in a glam rock vein. If this is like the album, we imagine this album to be a lot of fun (but have limited shelf life).

What really raises our eyebrows however, is the inclusion of the Sex Pistol‘s spittingly bitter attack that is EMI. Having joined the Pistols as another band to be dropped by the classic label, one wonders how much the Hot Rats put of themselves in that track.

The Hot Rats album, Turn On, comes out on the 19th Jan in the US, and the 25th Jan in the UK. Not finding a release date anywhere else at the moment.

The Hot Rats – You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party! (from Stereogum)

Official site – http://www.thehotrats.com/