Di died, Dodi's as dead as a dodo: "Summer Smash" by Denim vs. "Bingo" by Catch

Also re: this thread, Autocade by Prolapse

https://bsky.app/profile/23daves.bsky.social/post/3lxkxzet6jk2t

...and the first thing Cassetteboy ever put out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxK15AhqWYI

...and for the sake of completeness: Candle In The Wind '97

ugh that bluesky post reminds me how much I hate the 'umm akshually Denim were never really going to have a hit single' rebuttal, like it's so obviously just a bit of self-deprecating commentary by Lawrence on his failure to attain mainstream success but 'smart' people simply can't help not ruin joke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5dOKgfRvp4

the drums from 187 Lockdown speed-garage anthem "Gunman" over the melody of Laura Brannigan's "Gloria" but lyrics about Diana

for what it's worth I bought the Catch single at the time, but I was nine years old, I clearly didn't understand it properly at all, and when it appeared recently on the TOTP repeats I was horrified by my childhood lack of taste

the singer from Catch, Toby Slater, died a few years ago at age 40 or something ridiculous. his mother was a famous model in the 70s and went out with Angus Deaton. the bass player, Wayne Murray, after leaving Catch in the late-90s went on to form thirteen13 who were part of that serious wave of post-Ok Computer rock music—Coldplay, Doves, et al.—then said fuck it and quietly made one of the great lost sophisti-pop albums of the 00s with his Norwegian partner Thorunn Magnusdottir as The Honeymoon which basically sunk without a trace, then he joined Manic Street Preachers who also had a band member who died. and of course the aforementioned Princess Diana also died ... idk life is just so fucked and unpredictable but we're forced to endure it

unfortunately The Honeymoon album (titled Dialogue) doesn't appear to be on any of the streaming services but it is on slsk and I seriously recommend checking it out because it's good and vastly underappreciated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBSt7v79WZI

“life is just so fucked and unpredictable but we're forced to endure it”

otm

...made me think of off-topic quote

"What do you do from morning to night?"

"I endure myself."

-Emil Cioran

Always interpreted this as enduring one's dissatisfaction.

Summer Smash one of my favourite pop singles ever. So beautifully written.

My vote is mainly based on how bloody appalling "Bingo" is.

It really, really is

Album only released in Indonesia!

I like Bingo.

same here, it's quite a charming mix of innocence and archness and fits in with other bubblegum indie stuff of the period like Shampoo, Crush, Bennet, et al. the album is surprisingly decent as well, though I can understand it being anathema to most people owing to Toby Slater's extremely fey and effete vocal delivery. he was actually a pretty cool guy by all accounts, being one of the main instigators of the Romo movement as a teenage DJ on the mid-90s Soho club scene ... there's apparently a demo tape floating around of the songs what would later become the Catch album with full on synth pop production

reading his wikipedia page, I'm like, Yikes he was less than a year older than me, and I was still at school when he was moving and shaking around the place. Impressive.

he was one of two actual kids who latched on to the Minty / Club Smashing scene pre-Romo, the other one was Patrick Wolf.

I mean the whole point of Bingo is the character he is inhabiting is mean to be a bit slimy and naive, like a posh version of Jay from The Inbetweeners

I think one of the lessons to be learned from the mid-to-late 90s is that if you make throwaway pop music with guitars which is also very arch and clever and ripe for analysis then nobody will notice that second bit and you will be dropped by your record label after they fail to release your album except maybe in Japan.

It feels like Bingo was massive at the time, it was all over the radio certainly but it only managed number 23. I wonder if this is because people generally just didn't like it. Perhaps though like 'Heroes' before it (number 24) it will become a sleeper hit

God, “Summer Smash” is such a dumb goofy late-90s sugary pop song.

YES I KNOW the whole thing is supposed to be ironic but those dumbass “we’ve got a summer smash!” backing vocals are so annoying.

don't agree that anything Lawrence does is supposed to be ironic

I do find it ever-fascinating that Felt were a very serious, humour-free and arguably pretentious group, but after the first Denim album, it's like a switch was pressed in Lawrence's head, and he could never, ever return to anything remotely like it

he's like the inverse Mark Hollis / David Sylvian / Scott Walker

There's nothing like "The New Potatoes" or "Sailor Boy" in the Felt canon but there are examples like "Ballad of the Band" which could easily be a Denim song. Bits of the final Felt album show where he's going (eg. New Day Dawning). "Romeo Jones is in Love Again" from Denim on Ice reuses the chord progression and vocal lines from Ballad of the Band and it could easily be a Felt song if he changed the "Punk Rock in the UK" line. There's lots of bits of songs from both periods that are not too dissimilar.

The whole thing with Train Above The City is funny to me. Also the song title “Seahorses on Broadway”.

And "On Weegee's Sidewalk" is a little three word poem when you think about the possibilities of it's meaning.