defending the indefensible 6: the housemartins

ALEX IN NYC TO THREAD IMMEDIATELY! i know you like these guys! all yer fire-honouring and yer hiding london 0, hull 3 behind yer copy of KISS alive! hasn't fooled me nosireebob!!

Beautiful South seem pretty inoffensive to me. Not worth hating.

Even then I remember thinking they were a bit too wimpy, and "wimpy" was pretty much my whole reason for buying the thing. On the other hand, they could be wimpy in a good way -- half the time they sounded like children's entertainers, and I couldn't help imagining Mr. Man on the cover was clowning around to get a group of six-year-olds to sing along. But then: why were they talking about lynching bankers? And what was up with their warbly soul fixations? Did this guy really think he could sing Curtis Mayfield tunes? The main thing that was clear was that the Housemartins were in on something I was clearly not, and they seemed to be having fun, and that made them good enough for me. So I bought a two-dollar harmonica and learned how to play "Reverend's Revenge," and after the fun of cuing up the CD over and over again and blowing through that little track, I was pretty much sold.

Okay, I'm much much older now, but I still don't think I get the Housemartins. My freshman year, I put my name in a bowl in a coffeehouse for free tickets to see the Beautiful South, and since I was the only name in there I won, and I went, and I even talked to Heaton for a second, but I still don't understand what the hell was going on with the Housemartins. And now I can't wait to go home and listen to that disc -- for the first time in at least six or seven years -- and try to figure it out some more. And I am suddenly remembering the handbell breakdown in "Happy Hour!"

second was a drop off and Beautiful South were boring.

Will write a longer post later as to why i love the Housemartins

Or maybe there is...

out of curiousity, why do you prefer "people...."

housemartins 9 - mark s 1

i guess they were "skiffle"-y because they were pretty musically basic, emphasized their singing (all those a capella songs!), and rhythmically simple (though catchy).

http://www.glass-artist.co.uk/music/skiffle/skiffhist.html

>"Skiffle was New Orleans jazz and jug band music"

if you add washboards = zydeco. I am now tryingto construct an elaborate argument in my mind for Housemartins as a zydeco band. It's not really working so far.

I had a roommate who used to get really drunk, put on headphones, and sing along with "Caravan of Love" at the top of his New Jersey lungs. This was not popular with the neighbors, but I found it endlessly entertaining.

-- associated with earlier forms of rock that were somewhat "unfashionable" when they were popular (CCR = rootsy American rock as opposed to contemporaneous psychedelic stuff; Housemartins = skiffle, gospel/choir, soul singing v. hair-metal, Big Eighties production values and synthesizer music)

-- sartorically distinct and conservative (CCR w/ their flannels, Housemartins w/ their cardigans and loafers)

-- in opposition to the aforementioned musical and sartorical conservatism, lyrically both were pro-working class and populist ("fortunate son" roughly equivalent to "get up off our knees")

-- both came from the sticks (northern california, northern england) and took swipes at the big cities ("left a good job in the city/workin' for the man ev'ry night and day/but i never lost a minute of sleepin'/worryin' about the way things might've been" vs. london 0, hull 4)

-- some who might otherwise wince or be embarrassed at their sorta music (i.e., i can't stand roots-rock and couldn't give a rat's ass about skiffle) nonetheless like their music and will so admit when confronted

Sorry, Nick. I missed that before. I guess it makes two of us.

i think you're it
out of curiousity, why do you prefer "people...."
-- H (harefeain...), June 19th, 2003 6:06 PM.

To be honest, I haven't listened to either album in two or three years and would be hard pressed to remember specific reasons. But the overall flow and brighter sound of TPWGTTD appealed more to me. Also, I had it on tape and could listen to it in my car just about any time, whereas my copy of L0H4 was on vinyl and I had to schedule an appointment with my turntable to hear it.

(mark s ire disqualified)

There was a brief flurry of retrospectives a few years back when Paul Heaton's record was knocked off the top of the charts by Norman Cook's.

Come on! That's a perfect slice of 80s social satire.

(Inspired be the "Songs that make you cry" thread. For me it's "Flag Day", and has been since I was 11.)

Utterly classic, of course. London 0 Hull 4 one of the few albums I consider perfect in every respect. I listen to it much more than I listen to anything by the Smiths, to whom they were often, in those days, compared. Sorry, Smiths.

The demos that wandered out a few years ago (e.g. "Swansea" and "The Day I Called It a Day") are magnificent songs and I'm sad that they were never (as far as I know) properly recorded and released.

"Now That's What I Call Quite Good" hitting the ears nicely on this summer morning. Of course, "I Smell Winter" runs though my head later in the year.

i had tpwgttd at the time it was new, and i assumed that i musta had l0h4. but apparently i didn’t, cause i just listened to it.

um that dude tryna sing things that i’m sorry he really cannot do well, is bad. i cannot defend that album as a whole. bad bad imo.

so then i relistened to the second one for the first time for at least 30yrs. those songs are p fucking good. perhaps they simply suit my middlebrow standards enough. i’d defend them on that.

i enjoyed that until this thread that i had compleeeetley repressed that fatboy slim had been in this band. it wasn’t “oh yeah.” it was “WHAT?! lolll oh yeah”!

i have Covid. day 5. i fucking pray for relief, as should we all, or the atrocities will continue.

Love these albums so much. Sounds best on cassette in a car a bit too loud. Flag Day was a song where I told my kids, ok sit down and listen for 5 minutes. Love the first BS album as well but I dropped off after that. Such a unique, precise sound with incredible hooks and choruses.

Aw, this is sweet to see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZytaquhD6s

I bought their compilation years (decades!) ago, but I often used to shelve albums after one listen unless something really jumped out at me--I'm a more attentive listener in the car. Found a thrift-store CD last week, spent a couple of days in the car with it, and the two songs I'll keep on the hard-drive are "There is Always Something There to Remind Me" and "Freedom."

"Build" is my favourite, I just love Dave Hemingway's voice on the chorus.

Build is sublime sophistipop. I'm also partial to the early stuff like taxi to Singapore, drop down dead and stand at ease. The discography is too spotty for a box set or complete reissue campaign but they could use a carefully chosen US best of that drops some of the lesser songs and instrumentals from 'quite good' and adds some of the demo tape busker era highlights.

Always been a big fan of the single version of Think For A Minute, much better arrangement and the backing vocals are exquisite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnLFCY2vWoI

Didn’t notice the most recent revive but just put on “Build” for some reason and it’s sounding great.

What's "Taxi to Singapore"? Looks like it's on a demos comp that I ... can't find?

A deluxe edition of Grinned would tidy up everything they ever released and have it available. A bunch of the b sides have never been on CD. Overall they were hardly The Smiths in terms of quality output outside of the albums, but it would be nice if it existed, even if mastered horribly

It's interesting to see how the set of things considered indefensible has shrunk over the years... is this the effects of poptimism, or just nostalgia as the ILM readership has aged?
I've always considered those 2 studio albums solid classics. I do wish they never tried to go all-in on the white gospel, but that only makes for 1 skippable track ("Lean on Me") out of 24.

I don't really get the Smiths comparisons though -- the Smiths didn't really do melody. Maybe people were just thrown off by the monochrome photo cover art?

I think it is to do with a lot of their songs sounding vaguely like I Want The One I Can't Have

This popped up on my feed, uploaded a few days ago and upgraded -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0f1Xx6VIco

A lot of my friends back then who were big Smiths fans also loved The Housemartins, I think a lot of the 50s iconography in the sleeves helped, in a weird way.

Wouldn't it also come down to the Housemartins and Smiths being the only mid-80s indie pop bands who are genuine household names

Almost got a Xmas No1 in 1986

Didn't they get attacked a bit by the tabloids, or did I imagine that?

I've just been listening to an old Chart Music podcast covering a July '86 TotP, and the tabloids had indeed done a deep dive on them (Norman's name is Quentin! He's from down south!), pulling out various music press quotes under the headline "House of Hate", exposing their anti-Tory/monarchy stance as dangerously radical.

(In that same TotP episode they pop up on the gantry with Janice Long, making thumbs-down gestures at Sam Fox - which seems entirely to do with her stunt of crossing a Wapping picket line in a tank).

Holy crap, that 1986 BBC thing is a real time capsule... apparently they were still using hard day's night as the template for music docs, but 4 minutes in we have norman cook inventing mash-ups. What was he even doing in that band?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Xd_xtcPic

That sounds fantastic. Thanks for posting!

Also, wtf...that toaster about four minutes into the video a few posts up seriously stresses me out. How many fires did those things start?!

I was watching a Fatboy Slim DJ set the other day on YouTube and marveling that he came from The Housemartins

There's at least a couple of reasons why it's not unthinkable and the first one is most of them had similar music taste