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Post by oh oooh on Jan 21, 2019 8:36:34 GMT
Bummed is much more exciting. The guitars on something like 'Performance' are a joy, but the drums have always sounded a bit muffled. I think they were supposed to be, weren't they? that shuffling, slamming Hannett-sound? It's one of the things that makes the album stand out. The Roses' album has gained prestige in the 30 years since it was released, and Bummed's profile has gradually lowered. It's kind of a shame, but I suppose the classic rock of the former is always going to have more staying power. Something like 'Performance' (as you mentioned it!) still sounds exhilarating. 3D, swirling, thick. Those keyboards! Anyway. They're not particularly similar records, but at the time, the press pitted the Mondays against the Roses in a kind of Beatles/Stones playground battle - you took a side. People forget.
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Post by Reasonable good Nick on Jan 21, 2019 9:10:01 GMT
I was wondering when When I Was Born for the 7th Time came out by Cornershop. It had to be around the same time. Eight years between them, 1989 and 1997.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Jan 21, 2019 10:14:03 GMT
Bummed definitely sounds far more of its era than The Roses which I think sounds pretty timeless. I’ve always liked the sound of the record, particularly Squire’s guitar although I would concede Reni’s drums are a bit flat but it’s hardly critical and because they eschewed the production habits of that period it doesn’t sound nowhere near as dated as countless other records. There’s a crystalline quality to their sound, an appealing gossamer delicacy you find on something like Sugar Spun Sister or the pealing coda of Bye Bye Badman that is rather beautiful. Even Brown’s vocals, much maligned and ridiculed and for good reason – live at least – work in their favour here. His soft spoken Mancunian burr has a lovely lilt to it. There’s an beatific innocence there (Waterfall) but also a cocksure confidence on I Wanna Be Adored or I Am The Resurrection that just works. On something like Fools Gold he really does sound like a Northern mystic whose spent 6 months exploring inner and outer space in the Himalaya’s on a diet of vegetables and hashish. I don’t know how hard it was for Leckie to capture these vocals and how much production magic was applied afterwards but on this record they sound great to me. Reni’s angelic backing vocals help too btw.
Fange uses the world “alchemical” and he’s spot on. There’s magic in the performances and the arrangements here. The kind of lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry that is rarely captured satisfactorily on record. They’ve clearly spent time working shit out too. Damn near everything has some kind of moment of brilliance, an exquisite detail, a bass part, a guitar part or something that elevates and delights. Take something like Don’t Stop which on paper sounds like some kind of throwaway filler thing. “Just play Waterfall backwards and add a vocal over the top fellas!” but it’s one of the best things on the album and that moment where everything comes together and the track suddenly goes up about ten levels – you know the moment I’m talking about - is a dopamine flooding, magnificent thing. As psychedelic and transportive as any moment the 60s produced.
Or This Is One One folks. Listen to how the band genuinely lifts off as they career into the “I’d like to leave the country...” section. Bands so rarely achieve that sorta thing anymore. Who can’t relate to what is being communicated here? It doesn’t matter if you’re a suburban kid dreaming of the big city or a city dwelling Northern oik dreaming of bucolic escape, we’ve all been there and it’s suitably transcendent. It’s like in one surging moment they captured everything Oasis were trying to do a few years later but with a beauty and feminine grace that was completely beyond them. It’s magnificent.
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Post by tory on Jan 21, 2019 13:41:23 GMT
They pretty much took 5 years to make that record and the 10 or so other songs that made up the b-sides and early singles.
It often happens though; a band works solidly with little or no success, honing away at arrangements and then boom, it happens and they find themselves in an altogether different dimension. The pressure on the band after that period from around mid-1989 to the end of the court case must have been huge. No wonder the second album really wasn't all that.
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