Prefab Sprout OP10

Alex, "Appetite" isn't all that -- good song but I'm not sure it'll appear in my top 10. (Dolby's production on this one is a mix of brilliance and cheese -- I love the chopped-up-and-stereo-panned vocal samples, but the throbbing-repeated-note bass makes me cringe a bit.)

or to give it its correct title 'hot dogs, jumping frogs and a big loada alberqueque, biyatch'

(Before I started compiling my list I thought I'd easily come up with twenty, but I'm finding there are maybe a few more gems -- Cruel, Cars and Girls -- and then I'm into the ones for which I have decidedly mixed feelings... Which surprises me since there was a time around 8 years ago when I wouldn't have hesitated to call them my favorite band. I've never heard L.I.M.O.G.E.S. or anything from The Gunman)

1. Jesse James Bolero
2. Pearly Gates
3. When Love Breaks Down
4. Cars And Girls
5. The King Of Rock And Roll
6. Nightingales
7. Carnival 2000
8. Horsin’ Around
9. The Ice Maiden
10. Appetite

That's more than ten already isn't it and I haven't finished yet....

New album out on 18 days!

Is this new album the instrumental odyssey I read about some time ago, or something else?

I only got hold of the Songs from the gunman album quite recently, I was initially loath to buy it because I find their recent stuff just too Disneyfied to the point of being cringeworthy to listen to, but thanks to the internet I didn't have to buy it, and actually I really like some of the songs like Cornfied Ablaze and that one about the cat. I do find the production to be cloying and the lyrics, apart from the odd gem here and there, verge on the humiliating. And I prefer Jimmy Nail's version of Cowboy Dreams!

btw. have you seen any pictures of him recently? The guy is HUGE. He looks like (I think this might be the idea) Brian Wilson, locked away in his studio dreaming up fairy tale symphonies, and making us wait (and hunger and thirst) for the fruits of his labours.

According to http://www.prefabsprout.com/ "[I Trawl The Megahertz] is an almost monumental achievement for Paddy McAloon. Written almost five years ago, Megahertz the demo accompanied the Sprouts on their last tour and was essential listening during the making of The Gunman And Other Stories.... Megahertz features the voice of Yvonne Connors with strings arranged by David McGuiness. Engineering duties are performed by Calum Malcolm"

THE VIDEO, have you seen it? fantastic! REAL hotdogs suits dancing by the pool!

my top
1. The devil got all the best tunes
2. Lions in my own garden
3. some song on Swoon i haven´t learned yet
(i´m currently staying at my frienbds house who is a big Pfrefab sprout)
king of rock n roll (if only accompanied by that video)

And really, that's kind of arbitrary...

Lions In My Own Garden
Appetite
Desire As
Life Of Surprises
'Til The Cows Come Home
Cars & Girls
The Ice Maiden
One Of The Broken
Prisoner Of The Past
Avenue Of Stars

Cruel
Elegance
Goodbye Lucille #1
Talking Scarlet
Machine Gun Ibiza
Dublin
I Never Play Basketball Now
Mercy
Wild Horses
Golden Calf (I like it, but everyone else probably hates it)

mercy
scarlet nights
swans
faron young
we let the stars go
carnival 2000
cars and girls
life of surprises
cruel
king of rock and roll

Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
Cruel
Bonny (because that spoken line at the end "Save your speeches/flowers are for funerals" is the most brilliant thing I've ever heard)
We Let The Stars Go
Cars And Girls
Electric Guitars
Pearly Gates
Appetite
Life Of Surprises
Couldn't Bear To Be Special

yeah but it took like two years.

So that's what he says!!!

God, I R DUMM.

But jesus, that just puts that whole song on an entirely different level... it just fucking FLOORED me the firs time i realized it. Never would have been in my Top 10 before...

I am almost in tears to have found this band, twenty-five years late. "He'll Have To Go" is brief but sublime--I would love to hear Bowie cover it with a woman singer I can't think of.

And this guy Paddy writes stinging couplets as beautiful as Bejar or Ferry, which is really something

bejar-ugh

Enjoy your discovery and let us know if you need help getting hooked up with anything!

say what you want about bejar, he's a great writer

spinning belinda
donna summer
cruel
appetite
desire as
faron young
enchanted
rebel land
wild horses
wicked things

so i've heard-xpost

didn't know Paddy had done a cover of Two Way Monologue, what was that on?

Girl when I burn - Hell nothing's the same

I'll singe your pretty blonde lashes

We're talking fire - We're talking flame

We're talking ice into ashes

But death is a small price for heaven

I always liked Lions, Cruel from the first album and Faron Young.
REcall reading in an interview that the Lions title's initial letters spelt Limoges, because he had a girlfriend there, or something.

didn't know Paddy had done a cover of Two Way Monologue, what was that on?

I don't remember exactly why I wrote that comment, but I don't think he has. Would have made a great Prefab Sprout song though (he is probably the most important influence on Lerche's songwriting style, and that song in particular)