Tag: British rock

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 1997: #4 James “Whiplash”

This album might come as a surprise on this list (for the rest of the list so far, scroll to the bottom) to all but those who know me a bit. For those who don’t, I’ll catch you up.

By the mid 90s, I had gotten into James in a very serious way. First with 1993’s “Laid” and shortly thereafter, with the companion album, 1994’s “Wah wah”. I was truly in love with both of those albums and their big, atmospheric sound, and I was just starting to explore a bit more of their back catalogue when I first laid ears on “Whiplash”.

It happened one night in early 1997 when I was downtown with one of my fellow Creative Writing majors, a real scenester named Darryl (I might have the spelling wrong). We went to a cool British rock influenced night at the Lion’s bar, deejayed by one of Darryl’s friends, and had a blast dancing the night away, fuelled by way too many beers. We got a ride home, all the back up to York University from downtown, with the DJ, and almost immediately, I recognized “Tomorrow” from “Wah wah” being played over the car’s speakers but noted it sounded somewhat different. The DJ, whose name I’ll never remember now, though we became passing acquaintances afterwards, explained that we were listening to an advanced copy of the new James album. From there, it had my attention for the whole way home and I couldn’t wait to get my grubby hands on it for myself.

In my opinion, James is super underrated and unjustly dismissed as a pop band in some circles and a one-hit wonder in others. Their music is beautiful and incredible to dissect but what makes them a cut above is the vocals of Tim Booth and the lyrics he writes for these compositions. “Whiplash” sees the band add some electronic elements to their already full and multi-layered palette and they incorporate it rather successfully.

For me, this album is solid from front to back, much like the rest of the albums coming up in this list, so I made it easy and selected the singles as my three picks for you. Give them a chance and you might just enjoy them.

“She’s a star”: “She’s been in disguise forever. She’s tried to disguise her stellar views.” The first single released off “Whiplash”, “She’s a star” saw James’s return to the UK top ten and even saw some them receive some airplay on alternative radio stations in North America. It is instantly recognizable as James with the big, layered sound and Tim Booth’s inimitable voice, lovely even in falsetto. Which reminds me of when the song was originally released and my friend Sam and I would halfheartedly try our own hands at falsetto whenever it came and hurting everyone else’s ears in the process. It’s a great pop song with sliding guitars and a hinting that nothing is what it seems. Stars have a feelings too.

“Tomorrow”: “I see you falling. How long to go before you hit the ground?” As I mentioned above, it was originally recorded during the “Laid”/“Wah wah” sessions with Brian Eno. The production was cleaned up a ton, the song lovingly lengthened by a minute or so, and released as this album’s second single. It’s a driving and relentless number, frenetic drumming layered with jangly and racing guitars, all held in check by Booth’s close your eyes and sing into the mic with you hands clenched behind your back vocals. But you can tell by his insistence that what he really wants to do is join you and let loose on the dance floor with his usual reckless abandon. You know, that dance of his that actually caused him injury on tour, the one that some say was foreshadowed by this album’s name.

“Waltzing along”: “May your mind let you be. May your heart lead you on.” The interesting thing I found about their singles from “Whiplash” is that the single versions were all quite different than the ones that appeared on the album. I’ve asked my wife Victoria many times, which version she preferred, since this is her favourite on “Whiplash”, perhaps even one of her favourites all time by the band. I’ve even asked her why she likes it so much but I’m not sure she knows. I think it’s the lyrics, which include the phrase at the beginning and this gem: “Help comes when you need it most. I’m cured by laughter.” The whole song is a waltz and the dancer’s partner appears to be his or her depression.

Check back next Thursday for album #3. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Cornershop “When I was born for the 7th time”
9. The Dandy Warhols “The Dandy Warhols come down”
8. Teenage Fanclub “Songs from Northern Britain”
7. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Let’s face it”
6. Ocean Colour Scene “Marchin’ already”
5. Blur “Blur”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 1997: #5 Blur “Blur”

Blur practically invented Britpop.

It was the media that invented the term, of course, but the impetus lay in albums like Blur’s sophomore album, 1993’s “Modern life is rubbish”. Written in part as a reaction the Grunge scene and the alternative explosion in North America, frontman and principal songwriter Damon Albarn wrote a poppier rock record influenced by British artists with songs satirizing British life. These British-centric themes and ideas carried forward into 1994’s “Parklife” and then, released during the height of Britpop mania in 1995, “The great escape” saw Blur almost parodying themselves in technicolour cartoons.

When it came time to record album number five, the four members of Blur had become disenchanted with the scene and really, with themselves. Albarn finally bought into the lo-fi influenced rock (think Pavement) that guitarist Graham Coxon was becoming more and more enamoured with. Coxon convinced Damon that it was time to write ‘music that scared people again’. The band convened to Reykjavik, Iceland and “Blur” was born.

Many of you who read these pages frequently will know by now that I have been a fan from the beginning so it may not surprise you to see this album in my top five for 1997. However, when I first heard the lead off single “Beetlebum” and then the rest of “Blur” later on, I didn’t recognize it as the band I loved and was initially unsure of the change. It was so jarring, so different from the zaniness of “The great escape”. Of course, it didn’t take super long for me to buy in, maybe a few go rounds in my CD player, and I didn’t look back. “Blur” is crunchy, noisy, and aggressive and it’s not surprising that it finally gave the band their first hit single in the US.

I imagine most of you already know “Song 2” (often misnamed “The Woo hoo song”) so I didn’t include it as part of my three picks for you below.

”M.O.R.”: David Bowie and Brian Eno get songwriting credits since Damon and company lifted the chord progression from two songs on “Lodger”, which themselves shared the same progression as an experiment of sorts. “M.O.R.” is a song that builds through each verse structure to the explosive chorus. The call and response vocals are fun, each taking turns under distortion effects. The drums are punchy and the guitars wailing. It’s most certainly constructed for pogoing and shouting along with and just having a blast.

”Beetlebum”: As mentioned above, this was my first exposure to the new album, being the first single released and also the opening number on the playlist. Writers have called it a tribute to The Beatles and you certainly can hear their influence buried deep within all the crunchy guitars and feedback but it could just be laziness on the writers’ parts, making assumptions based on the name. Damon Albarn has admitted that it was influenced by his own experiences with heroin and other drugs and that definitely sounds spot on. It is droning and flailing and free falling. It would have easily fit on the “Trainspotting” soundtrack had it been recorded a year or so sooner.

”On your own”: Yes! This is actually my favourite song on the album. It’s a singalong, for sure, but not in the traditional sense. It becomes one in the way the thumping drums and Coxon’s wailing guitars frame the vocals so wonderfully. And Albarn’s singing is so personal and lazy, like he doesn’t care who’s listening but knows we all are. The backing vocals join in midway through the verse and the chorus becomes a defiant shout. You just want to pump your fist in support. This is the new Blur. They don’t give a fig if you don’t like it but somehow know you will. Wicked.

Check back next Thursday for album #4. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Cornershop “When I was born for the 7th time”
9. The Dandy Warhols “The Dandy Warhols come down”
8. Teenage Fanclub “Songs from Northern Britain”
7. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Let’s face it”
6. Ocean Colour Scene “Marchin’ already”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 1997: The honourable mentions (aka #10 through #6)

Happy Thursday! And welcome to the second installment of my Throwback Thursday (#tbt) best albums of the year series. For this one, we time travel back twenty years to 1997. Back to a time where I was one year removed from graduating with BA Honours from York University on a five year (yes, I took it slow) program. I was working part time at a tool rental store, spending plenty of quality time talking pretentious in the pubs, and I had just started into a relationship with Victoria, whom I’m still with and I’ve since married. So happy times indeed.

It also happens to be another great year for music and can easily be argued to be the best year ever for British Alternative Rock. Just think about it for a moment and you’ll realize I’m right, probably guess which are my top three albums, but perhaps not in the correct order. Britpop mania had reached its apex the year before and was already on the wane, more artists were trying to disassociate themselves with the term rather than buy in. So yeah, in 1997, it was more rock and less pop. However, North America’s (and likely the rest of the world’s) ears were still tuned in to Cool Britannia so British rock was all the rage on the radio and music video stations. I was in music heaven with all the great albums being released and as you’ll soon see, the majority of my faves were from – you guessed it – the British Isles.

So without further ado, below are the first five albums from my top ten and if you don’t know the trick by now, I will be featuring the top five, an album each Thursday, over the next five weeks. Enjoy the nostalgia ride with me.

#10 Cornershop “When I was born for the 7th time”

Third time was a charm for Tjinder Singh and his Cornershop. The band’s blend of Indian traditional, British rock, funk, and psychedelia hit home with the Britpop crowds at the time and has since influenced more than a few bands that I can think of (Hello, Elephant Stone). Then, Norman Cook remixed the song below and they exploded, the song in question waxing ubiquitous in the summer of 1997. As for the album, it’s quite eclectic and fun. You can certainly tell they were smoking quite a bit of something funny during its recording.

Gateway tune: “Brimful of asha”

#9 The Dandy Warhols “The Dandy Warhols come down”

I saw The Dandy Warhols open for The Charlatans in the fall of 1997 but I didn’t appreciate this, the album they were flogging at the time, until much, much later. Still, their live show was so good that I immediately picked up their next album, 2000’s “Thirteen tales of urban bohemia”, on release, which I loved and pushed me to continue to follow them and to re-examine their back catalogue. If you’ve seen the film “Dig”, you know that the band had its troubles at the time and despite the below song’s modicum of success, it would be their only flirtation with the mainstream. “Come down” is a noisy beast and a rollicking ride.

Gateway tune: “Not if you were the last junkie on earth”

#8 Teenage Fanclub “Songs from Northern Britain”

For years, I’ve called Teenage Fanclub the “Scottish Sloan” or likened Sloan to “the Canadian Teenage Fanclub”, depending on my audience. Both bands have multiple songwriters who sing their own songs but maintain a consistent sound, and that is a classic sounding guitar rock style with plenty of harmonies that somehow manages to sound completely original. The Fanclub’s sixth album was their most commercially successful, its name a joke around the idea that many people at the time considered them part of the Britpop scene. The album itself though was anything but a joke.

Gateway tune: “Take the long way around”

#7 The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Let’s face it”

Boston’s own flirted with the mainstream and certainly achieved commercial success with their fifth studio album, “Let’s face it”, the band’s only certified platinum selling album. The eight-piece ‘skacore’ band toned down the ‘core and sweetened the ska and punk sound and found themselves a whole a new swarm of fans. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you can’t deny that this album cemented their place at the forefront of the 90s wave of ska punk. It’s brash and energetic and a hell of a lot of fun on the dance floor.

Gateway tune: “The impression that I get”

#6 Ocean Colour Scene “Marchin’ already”

Ocean Colour Scene followed up their breakthrough sophomore album with music cut very much from the same cloth. Often the tunes were those written well before recording but refreshed and brightened with slick studio production. They were rewarded by the buying public with their first number one, famously supplanting Oasis’s bloated third record, “Be here now”, an album that (*spoiler alert*) won’t be on this list. I really like the straightforward and honest trad rock of this and “Moseley shoals”, perhaps preferring “Marchin’ already” slightly over the former. Unfortunately, things steadily went south from here.

Gateway tune: “Hundred mile high city”

Check back next Thursday for album #5 on this list. In the meantime, you can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.