Tag: British pop

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Oasis “Time flies… 1994-2009”

(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: Oasis
Album Title: Time flies… 1994-2009
Year released: 2010
Year reissued: 2025
Details: 4 x LP, orange, green, pink, blue, 15th anniversary, RSD limited edition, 5363/15000

The skinny: In a parallel universe, I would be attending the first of two Oasis gigs at the newly constructed Rogers Stadium in Toronto with a handful of old friends tonight. The risk in procuring tickets over a year in advance of a gig is that there’s always a possibility that your circumstances could change. In this case, they did change and I needed to give up my ticket. But no fear, I take small comfort in two things. First, that I have seen them already once before*. And second, that I managed to procure this special Record Store Day, coloured vinyl, 4 disc box set reissue of their 2006 ‘best of’ compilation “Stop the clocks” from an online indie shop earlier this year. I’m not always convinced that compilations are the way to go, especially when I already have the best of the artist in question’s albums in my record collection. However, I made the exception for this one given how pretty it looked and that it included a couple of great tracks that I was still missing on vinyl, most importantly, the amazing non-album single featured below. And I’ve listened to set this a few times since it arrived and with all these great tracks, back to back, there’s been no regrets. For those attending tonight, I bet it’s going to be a great show, no matter their setlist, so please enjoy for me.

Standout track: “Whatever”

*That infamous gig at Virgin festival 2008 where a ‘fan’ ridiculously hid under the stage the whole day only to leap out while Oasis were playing and push Noel Gallagher from behind.

Categories
Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #92 The Housemartins “Caravan of love” (1986)

<< #93    |    #91 >>

Ah… the high school dance memories…

The Housemartins’ “Caravan of love” at track #92, reminds me of the half-hugging*, half-shuffling we would call “slow dancing” back in the old high school auditorium days. Teen boys lining the walls on one end of the hall and groups of tittering teen girls on the other, each eyeing and sizing the other up, while betwixt them were couples that had got up the nerve to cross the floor and find each other. There might be a few more songs on this list that call this image clearly to mind, some on this list mostly because of this memory.

In this case, though, I consider myself something more of a fan of the group that sang the song. The Housemartins were formed in 1983 by Paul Heaton and Stan Cullimore and went through a number of personnel changes, that included drummer Dave Hemingway, who would go on to form The Beautiful South with Paul Heaton later on, and bassist Norman Cook, who would later go on to fame as Fatboy Slim. Their music was jangly, indie pop at its best with Paul Heaton’s extraordinary vocal work at the centre of it all.

The group only ever released two full-length albums and a handful of singles in their brief five years in existence, but so many of their songs soundtracked the latter half of my high school years and the ones immediately thereafter. Indeed, The Housemartins’ 1988 compilation, “Now that’s what I call quite good”, was one of first compact discs I ever bought, a necessity after I had worn out the cassette tape I had copied from a friend. So many great tunes on that one and it’s a compilation that I keep hoping will see a vinyl reissue one day.

“Caravan of love”, an a cappella cover of an Isley-Jasper-Isley tune (this is the first of a number of covers that will grace this list), gave The Housemartins their first and only UK #1 hit in December 1986. Paul Heaton and company often delved into a cappella territory but for some reason this is the one that struck a chord with the buying public. It certainly is a song that begs to be sung along with.

I think I’ll go sing along to it again.

“…Everybody take a stand, Join the caravan of love… Stand up, stand up…”

Original Eighties best 100 position: #89

Favourite lyric: “We’ll be living in a world of peace /
In the day when everyone is free ” Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

Where are they now?: As I hinted at above, the band went their separate ways after they broke up in 1988 and never looked back. I read somewhere that the original members were gathered for a photo shoot and feature by Mojo magazine in 2009 and at that time, they unfortunately maintained that there won’t ever be a reunion.

*Not too close, mind you, it was a Catholic high school!

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #18 Saint Etienne “You’re in a bad way”

<< #19    |    #17 >>

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard Saint Etienne’s sophomore album, “So tough”, but I can definitely tell you that I fell in love with it in 1994, a whole year after its release.

I’ll try to elaborate.

My friend Tim recorded a copy of it to cassette tape for me. That much is true. I probably listened to it a few times after he first gave it to me but it really only fell into rotation on my walkman that second year of university. Don’t ask me why I switched back from discman to cassette tape player that year, though if I had to guess, it was probably because I was so impoverished that my only real entertainment came from making mixed tapes. I’m pretty sure I had the album on the other side of a C100 with Lush’s “Gala”, though I no longer have said tape so I can’t confirm or deny. What I can be certain of is the regularity with which visited my ears that year.

“So tough” is technically Saint Etienne’s sophomore LP, it could also be considered the debut by the band as a trio. They began as the duo of Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs and had originally planned to employ a series of guest vocalists as needed. They settled on Sarah Cracknell as a permanent vocalist after working with her for one of the singles from the debut, 1991’s “Foxbase Alpha”. “So tough” was her coming out as third official band member and that’s her (a much younger version, of course) gracing the album’s cover.

All in all, “So tough” is as much an album about mood and ambience as it is about getting you out on the dance floor, and with all the sampled soundbites from older, esoteric films that provide segue ways between tunes, it almost feels like a soundtrack, a narrative to a trip of sorts. It certainly soundtracked a number of trips for me, long walks and bus rides. I remember the album keeping me warm on more than one occasion waiting, shivering for the bus that would rocket me down Steeles, away from my institution of higher learning, towards the basement apartment I was lodged in, just north of the ‘416’, near Dufferin Street. It was in that same basement apartment that I, quite by accident, caught an episode of Life on Venus Ave. and that whimsical, extraterrestrial VJ, Ziggy Lorenc, played the video for “You’re in a bad way”.

The album’s second single and sixth track certainly fit* with Ziggy’s love and sexuality funhouse vibe. It’s an obvious kick at 60s throwback bop and pop. It kicks off with a sample from the 1963 film “Billy Liar”: “A man could lose himself in London.” And despite the song’s bright and spritely joy, the lyrics address a man who’s been beset by the humdrum of life and has let it get him down. But have no fear, our good friend Sarah will save him (and us) with that golden voice of hers.

“You’re in a bad way
Every day seems just the same (every day)
Just dial my number
Or call my name”

*And yeah, so did the throwback video.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.