RTSBBK#3: The Jesus and Mary Chain - I Hate Rock n Roll

Taken from the Mary Chain's final album, Munki (1998), this single is a wonderfully acerbic, spite-filled and withering attack on commercial and corporate aspects of the music business, and radiates the immediacy and rawness of a live recording. It has to be one of my favourite Jesus and Mary Chain tracks of all time. The album itself is largely ignored in discussions about the band's career and discography, the perceived wisdom, (and musical snobbery), being that the Mary Chain were on a gradual downward slide ever since the release of their stunning debut album, Psychocandy, and therefore Munki's not worth talking about too much. I couldn’t disagree more. Written at a time when the Reid brothers were barely talking to each other, the album mirrors this dichotomy and division by the inclusion of another track, I Love Rock n Roll, written by Jim Reid, as a counterpoint to William Reid's I Hate Rock n Roll. 

RTSBBK#3: The Jesus and Mary Chain - I Hate Rock n Roll

RTSBBK#2: Television Personalities - Part-time Punks

The TVPs – the indie band’s indie band. It’s incredible how such an influential group, whose first release was in 1978, and whose back catalogue is so extensive, are nonetheless, relatively, so obscure to this day. Name-checked by virtually everyone who had anything to do with the evolution of indie music in the UK as a post-punk genre in its own right, and worshipped by the likes of Stephen Pastel and Bobby Gillespie because of the integrity of their DIY ethic and superb song-craft, the band remain curiously and stubbornly inconspicuous, even within indie circles. It’s puzzling, but entirely appropriate, that a band who are the very essence of what it should mean to be a successful indie band remain, relatively, unsuccessful in commercial terms. But, that’s easy for me to say, of course…This song, on the band’s second release, the Where’s Bill Grundy Now? EP from 1978, is an indie anthem, a feel-good dance floor-filler, and was at the same time a seriously scathing attack on middle-class souls who viewed the punk phenomenon as a kind of opt-in/opt-out fashion choice, where image and the aesthetic, and not the music itself or the politics of it, were all-consumingly important. It’s a cracker.

RTSBBK#2: Televison Personalities - Part-time Punks

RTSBBK#1: The Fall - Two Librans 

Perhaps a funny choice on the face of it, given that with their dogged longevity and voluminous back catalogue, The Fall are pretty well-known, even outside of indie circles. However, this sheer volume of recorded material, (29 studio albums, and a seemingly endless supply of live material and session recordings), going back to 1976, paradoxically means that even stand-out tracks on stand-out albums can be lost or forgotten in this plethora of releases - a kind of "release-fatigue" of sorts. This track comes from the album The Unutterable, released in 2000, not an album from the Fall’s back catalogue which receives a huge amount of attention. That’s a mistake. The song itself is a belter, and although the lyrics are too cryptic for me to understand, (references to Oprah Winfrey and bee-keeping just add to the mystery of it), frankly, the band have never sounded better.

RTSBBK#1: The Fall - Two Librans

Welcome to my new blog. i hope it expands your musical universe.

Welcome to my new blog. i hope it expands your musical universe.