(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)
Artist: Ride Album Title: Going blank again Year released: 1992 Year reissued: 2012 Details: Double LP, 150 gram, gatefold, 45 rpm
The skinny: I just got back from Toronto a few days ago, where I was visiting family and friends and celebrating the holidays. As is my new-ish tradition, I went out to the record shops a couple of days after Christmas to take advantage of the “Boxing Day” specials. Did I find anything you might ask? The answer is: Yes, I sure did! In fact, I had to put a few records back on the shelves for my next excursion! This reissue of Ride’s second album, “Going blank again”, was one of four that I held on to, each one was most definitely a necessity for my collection. This particular album was the first I had heard from Ride and is probably still my favourite by the band. All you need to do is listen to the ‘standout track’ below for an excellent reason for why it is still so relevant.
Now that Christmas is all wrapped up, I thought I’d remind you all what’s happening with my Best tunes of 1992 list before I wrap up the other two lists I’ve been blitzing this month. And this one is pure joy.
Those of you that are not new to these pages will know that I’m something of a James fanatic. I first heard them with their hit single, “Sit down”, and really got into them with the album, “Laid”. Between those two was their fourth album, “Seven”, an album the Mancunian alternative rock band struggled with from the beginning. Half of it was produced by Youth, and only half because they ran out of time with him and given the band’s unhappiness with the results of early recordings. The band produced the rest of the album themselves with some help from Steve Chase. It was finally released almost a year late and wasn’t given the time of day by the music press. However, the band was pleased with the final product and I’m right there with them. I picked it up on CD as one of my BMG music club picks shortly after immersing myself in “Laid” and quickly found my favourites on it, of which this tune is but one.
“Ring ring the bells
Wake the town
Everyone is sleeping
Shout at the crowd
Wake them up
This anger’s deeper than sleep”
“Ring the bells” appears as track two on “Seven” and it sounds like it should’ve been the lead off single, picking up with the uplifting joyous energy where “Sit down” left off. However, they waited and released two other singles prior to unleashing this one. It is frantic acoustic guitar strumming, accompanied by an explosion of sound that will pick you right up out of your seat and get you dancing in a way that you can’t possibly sustain for its five minutes in length. I don’t even know how the band does it. But somehow we find the energy deep within ourselves and lose ourselves to the pure joy that the sounds evoke. Meanwhile, Booth is singing on about losing faith in religion and the freedom that brings and wanting to share it with us all.
The fact that such a tune that I obviously love so much is placed low at number twenty-two should serve notice that the rest of this list is going to be great. Prepare yourselves. It’s all coming in the new year.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.
This is not something you’ll see too often in my lists because it feels like a bit of a cheat. If you’re going to rank things, do so with conviction is what I say. However, in the case of these two covers, they will be forever inextricably linked and it would be near impossible for me to place one over the other.
I’ve already mentioned somewhere in these pages that I was pretty heavily into The Wonder Stuff in the early 1990s, especially in grade 13 (or OAC, as we called it at the time in Ontario, Canada). In January 1992, the Stuffies released the single, “Welcome to the cheap seats”, as a double EP and I duly purchased it on cassette. One of the eight tracks was their cover of The Jam classic, “That’s entertainment”. I wasn’t super familiar with the original but I loved the tune, along with the rest of the cassette, so I decided to share it with my friend Andrew Rodriguez, whom I knew was a fan of The Jam*. I offered him my Walkman on the bus ride home from school one afternoon and I watched his face as he listened but I couldn’t tell by the rapidly changing dramatic expressions whether he liked it or not. At the end, he took off the earphones, pressed stopped, and handed it back to me with: “It’s quite good actually. Quite faithful to the original. Definitely better than Morrissey’s cover.”
Then, Rodriguez went off about the original, waxing poetical about how Paul Weller wrote the song in about 10 minutes, probably drunk, probably on a bar napkin, but my mind was way behind him, still processing his last comment. Morrissey also covered this track? Why yes, JP, he did. In fact, it was done just the year prior and released as a B side to the single, “Sing your life”. It took some time for me to track this one down, I think. Things weren’t so easy before the Internet, you see. It was probably my friend John who had a CD copy of the aforementioned single and from whom I recorded a copy of this second cover to blank cassette.
Upon listening to both these covers, it is obvious that my friend Andrew was right about the fact that The Wonder Stuff cover was definitely closer in spirit to the original but that doesn’t necessarily make it better than Morrissey’s version. Say what you will about him these days, there was always something about Moz’s delivery. His version is slowed down, which lengthens the song by a whole minute, allowing us time to thoroughly process Paul Weller’s words and reflections on the crazy world happening all around him. The Wonder Stuff take the song on as it is, adding their own folk-punk-influenced pop sound and Miles Hunt’s easy snarl.
Waking up at 6 A.M. on a cool warm morning
Opening the windows and breathing in petrol
An amateur band rehearsing in a nearby yard
Watching the telly and thinking ’bout your holidays
That’s entertainment
Are either of these better than the original? Probably not. But I love them anyway.
Cover #1:
Cover #2:
The original:
For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.
* I’ve since realized that Andrew Rodriguez is quite possibly the world’s biggest Paul Weller fan (or maybe just Canada’s biggest). He’s been promising a Top Five Tunes post about The Jam for a couple of years now. Maybe next year…
My (life in) music lists 