Tru Skool Britpop: Best Track on 'Back in Denim'

for me it would be a toss-up between back in denim, middle of the road, and the osmonds. although american rock is deadly too. i might have to go with middle of the road. one of my favorite albums, so kinda hard to choose. denim on ice would be equally hard.

i'm torn between 'the osmonds' and 'i'm against the eighties'.

the osmonds

Prediction: The Osmonds 10, Middle of the Road 3, Back in Denim 2, Fish & Chips and I'm Against the Eighties 1, the rest zero.

i can't go past middle of the road, although i'm against the eighties is great too

i don't remember how 'the osmonds' goes, i obviously need to dig this out again

i was thinking of the osmonds the other day cuzza that american pie/billy joel thread. definitely one of the great name-drop songs ever. even if i don't know who or what everything is. the lyrics used to be on the web, but not anymore.

i mean, i know what billy don't be a hero and paper lace and bell records and george best are, but there was some brit stuff that i am not hep too. kinda like when terry hall was singing about ian paisley when i was a kid.

I mean, I voted for 'The Osmonds' too. It's an extraordinary song. Don't really understand how he came up with that. So vicious, strange, loving, hurt. I love Denim but I've never been tempted to listen to Felt, cos I imagine something more innocuous, pandering. As with Luke Haines, I think of (commercial) failure as Lawrence's muse.

i was gonna say, that song is pretty densely english. and not having grown up in the 70s not all of it was immediately familiar to me. it is kind of an antidote to 'american pie' -- they way the verse about the pub bombings gets darker and darker and then pops back to 'and in the seventies there were osmonds...'

"but I've never been tempted to listen to Felt, cos I imagine something more innocuous, pandering"

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! no way. greatest band of the 80's. after swans. and joy division. alright, maybe not by objective standards. but they are MY favorite band after those two.

I wanna listen to Felt & all, but I just dreaded witty indie. It's not that at all?

slightly off topic, but is Denim on Ice any good? Never heard it, and was just looking at in iTunes. As for Felt - I love some and hate some. That instrumental/jazzy album they did is pretty great, though.

i think 'denim on ice' is less good but it's still very very good. there are more tracks but they're shorter and it's more overtly a 'comedy' record, though at the same time not. there's nothing like 'the osmonds' on it.

i might actually like denim on ice MORE than back in denim. i love the variety. such great songs. my faves: the great pub rock revival (genius!), it fell off the back of a lorry, supermodels, shut up sidney (coulda been a hit for the toy dolls!), best song in the world, synthesisers in the rain (more genius!), glue & smack, jane suck died in 77, granddad's false teeth (so rude!).

"I wanna listen to Felt & all, but I just dreaded witty indie. It's not that at all?"

felt could be witty. definitely. but also heartbreakingly beautiful. they were lots of things. tons of instrumentals if you fear wit. although their instrumentals could be witty too.

best instrumental rock album of the 80's:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c314/capasculto/LettheSnakesCrinkleTheirHeadstoDeat.jpg

you can feel free to ignore me when it comes to felt though. i'm a fanatic. i'm a lawrence fanatic in general.

best music review in the world:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0043,seward,18841,22.html

xposts
(+ scott and you others otm)

Denim on Ice is swell; if likely not as good as Back in...when doing Back in Denim I'm guessing that Lawrence was esp. inspired after a tenure in NYC and other assorted major life transitions which came in the wake of the dissolution of Felt.

The press at the time of Denim on Ice was that Lawrence had almost destroyed himself recording it, having gone through some massive romantic breakup halfway through the recording process. Also, he was possibly on the cusp another commercial breakthrough of sorts, being that he was poised to tour with Pulp during what was possibly the height of his old friend Jarvis' fame.

There are definitely some great moments on the record, though. Aside from a somewhat dated but still amusing song called "We are the Supermodels", there is the brilliance of "Mrs. Mills" which is Lieutenant Pigeon-inspired; another song whose name escapes me now that is Showaddydaddy/Rubettes-inspired, and then some eighties pastiches/ lyrical references, including the Ultravox-cued "Synthesizers in the Rain". Definitely worth a listen. Back in Denim is more of a coherent masterpiece, but there are moments on Denim on Ice that are totally brilliant. Lawrence conceived it as a novelty record of sorts, so there are "novelty" numbers addressing some of his post-Felt concerns such as public housing in Britain, unemployment, junkiedom, etc.

I consider Denim On Ice to be the masterpiece and Back In Denim to be a great album with a handful of amazing songs and a few flat ones. I'm a huge fan of Novelty Rock and Go-Kart Mozart also, so maybe I've just got a short attention span. Back In Denim sprawls a little considering there's only 10 tracks. I wish songs like American Rock were a little more concise.

(further xpost(s))

It's surprising that the poster above professed to liking "Train Above the City" so much. I think most people balk at that one...though, I personally think it's pretty great; the slower songs especially reach sublimity. Not to mention that conceptually, the idea of the "bandleader" only participating by naming the songs is pretty funny...and then there's the story that the record was only ever even recorded in order to pay for a vibraphone that the drummer had purchased!

Even if one is allergic to all things indie, I think that Felt has stuff to offer most anyone somewheres in their catalog. Lawrence's updating of a Tom Verlaine/Lou Reed/Dylan schtick on some of the records is way more interesting than I could ever do justice to in print. Myself, I'm partial to the swirly organ-drenched pop songs that arrived after they signed to Creation, but the Cherry Red stuff is brilliant as well, with Lawrence mumbling/speak-singing/singing over Maurice Deebank's classical guitar and what at times is some Mo Tucker-style idiosyncratically rudimentary percussion work.

And surely no one can argue with the Poem of the River record?.. What always strikes me is that Felt used Moog synthesizer and pedal steel some years before any other "indie" bands. They covered a Beach Boys song on one of their records well before Pet Sounds overtook Revolver in most critical canons, and it was a DENNIS song from Friends, for crying out loud!

in the 70s there was long hair
there were leftover hippies everywhere
and i should know cos i was there

in the 70s they had prayer mats
there were stringy beards and floppy hats
and men looked like jesus in crushed velvet flares

in the 70s there were osmonds
there were lots of osmonds
there were lots of little osmonds
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

in the 70s there were skinheads
there were bovver boys and brummie reds
and greasers, grebos judge and natty dread

in the 70s there were chopper bikes
oxford bags and kung-fu fights
trojan sounds, lee perry dub

in the 70s there were osmonds
there were lots of osmonds
there were lots of little osmonds
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

in the 70s there were lots of bombs
they blew my home town up
and lots of people were killed

on the news the relatives cried
everyone knew someone who'd died
they'll never forget it for the rest of their lives

and all around the people say
we hate the IRA
and we asked for justice but it never came

in the 70s there were osmonds
there were lots of osmonds
there were lots of little osmonds
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

in the 70s there was hughie green
lieutenant pigeon hit the scene
paper lace and candlewick green

mouldy old dough, chicory tip
gilbert o and hurricane smith
billy don't be a hero
hey david rock on

in the 70s lesley whittle died
the black panther went inside
and jeremy thorpe, oh, he resigned

and at art school the girls
would bring a thousand volts of holt
and sing hey there lonely girl
impossible love

in the 70s there were osmonds
there were lots of osmonds
there were lots of little osmonds
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

in the 70s the rollers came
best retired from the game
and cassidy quit
oh what a shame!

in the 70s i was just a kid
still knew what it was all about
i soaked it in
now it's all dripping out

in the 70s there were osmonds
there were lots of osmonds
there were lots of little osmonds
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

oh now there were lots of paper roses
yeah there were lots of crazy horses
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

3 button waistbands / skinners / side pockets / star jumpers / nelson house / orange hand / bomber jackets / budgie bird / do the bump (maaan) / timothy davey / peter gordeno / the persuaders / crombies / cartoon belts / barry blue / pete duel / jaytex shirts / brutus shirts / bell records / eddie holmon / falmers / chinn & chapman / can the can / uk records / crown court / top rank / tank tops / hot pants / k-tel / blackfoot sue / tony bowker / shard end kids / gangsters / baileys (bullring) / clodagh rodgers / clifford t ward / donny caps / tina charles / hot butter / tony christie / mungo jerry / stephanie de sykes / spencer banks / shut that door / pam ayers / dave boy green / frankie abbott / fenn st gang / spaghetti junction / queenie's castle / beryl's lot / eddie howel / bobby crush / stan free / jeff astle / jonathan davis / star soccer / jack green / rudolph walker / sally chapman / park hall / arden hall / black wax / tessa wyatt / romeo challenger / rupie edwards / karen bridgewater / lesley skinner / arthur wild / our kid / freddie slade / dandy livingstone

novelty rock and go-kart mozart will have a critical renaissance in 20 years time. they will be heralded as proto-Venutian classics.

I just typed that out. Only understand half of the references in the last bit.

i guess i could google all the people i don't know in that song. i never have. it would make a good paper/thesis/book for some industrious brit.

where does the kojak sample come from? that's something i never knew.

Agree that Denim On Ice is better than Back In Denim, which is why I've always been fearful of Felt. Half of Back In Denim is straight-ahead indie songwriting. Then mad things happened.

xpost

yeah, if there's a fault, some of the songs on Back in Denim do seem to drag on a bit when they needn't.

(sigh) all this blabber from me and I probably won't even bother voting in the fucking poll.

Scott, I think you may be right about GKM and such's prescience...it took a long time for me to properly appreciate Back in Denim, said record which ultimately sealed my feelings to the tune of Lawrence being some temporarily incomprehensibly ahead-of-his-time dude, at least as had been my conclusion at the time regarding the Felt years. (I dunno if that sentence makes proper sense, but I'm confident that it's parseible nonetheless)

It's "Camberwick Green" (BBC kids show which was actually made in the late 60s I think).

Also, "Train Above The City" is my favourite Felt record. Mostly because I can't be doing with the indie-shmindieness of some of the other stuff. Great songs though.

Once I was in a girl's room & was hoping to get it on & she made me choose one of her CDs to put on so I took the first one I liked & knew, which was Novelty Rock -- first song New Potatoes ("we used to live in a field / now we live in a can"). Then I had to pee & when I came back Denim had been chucked for Air's Virgin Suicides soundtrack & no joke it was only then I realised that there is different music to listen to on your own and to have sex to... life-changing moment.

It would be interesting to hear other versions of those songs. Thing is, for all of the classical guitar/keyboards-by-prodigy Duffy/jazzy Ainge drumming embellishments, the skeletons are great songwriting in and of themselves, especially coming from someone who kicked off with the "non-song" of Index, and professed to being not much of a guitar player and spoke humbly of himself as a songwriter.

i note the osmonds patriarch just died.. was it this thread?

both my children are huge new potato video fans:

http://www.monkeon.co.uk/potato/newpots.swf

Ha that is ace.

it's a good point re 'american rock' being about twice as long as it needs to be. it's an odd quirk. the properly concise 'back in denim' is one of my favourite opening tracks evah evah evah.

Once I was in a girl's room & was hoping to get it on & she made me choose one of her CDs to put on so I took the first one I liked & knew, which was Novelty Rock -- first song New Potatoes ("we used to live in a field / now we live in a can"). Then I had to pee & when I came back Denim had been chucked for Air's Virgin Suicides soundtrack & no joke it was only then I realised that there is different music to listen to on your own and to have sex to... life-changing moment.

-- Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, November 7, 2007 1:18 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Link

welp, at least it wasn't 'grandad's false teeth'.

Anybody got Denim's version of the "Robin's Nest" theme tune...

yes

Yet one more vote for Denim on Ice, even though that's not the question here.

"The Osmonds" was genius. As was Saint Etienne's self admitted Osmonds follow up "Fake 88" which covered the eighties.

"Back in Denim" was the stand out for me. There's nothing like having the group manifesto as first track on the debut album.

I love the liberal steals. One track (is it "I saw the glitter .." ?) is "Who knows where the time goes?" which shocked me when I first heard it as Fairport weren't in the official list of influences, unlike the Glitter Band etc.

http://shallowrewards.blogspot.com/2003/11/so-much-for-afterglow-20-worst-post.html

^^^dick

fucking hell, that shallowrewards blog on Denim misses the point of both Felt and Denim in such a spectacular fashion that it could almost *not* be serious...

Ummm. Once I read "Proto-straightedge "puritan" Lawry Hayward. . ." there, my head was done in and I couldn't go any further with that retard babble.

the unreleased third album "Denim take over" is pretty awful, in spite of the fact it has a song called "Lorra Laughs, Cilla". i do have it on mp3 though if anyone wants it.

i voted "middle of the Road".

"Lorra Laughs With Cilla" showed up on the last Go-Kart Mozart album with different words. It's called "At The DDU".

And yeah, LOL at "proto-straightedged puritan". I started thinking it was a piss-take at that point too.

Middle of the Road

love it.

lawrence gets away with all the references because he's so deadpan. a lesser talent would have made this unbearably smug and "zany".

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

been listening to felt all day cuzza this thread. i binge about once a year. it always sounds so good. except for the robin guthrie drum sound on ignite the seven cannons. hahahahahahaha. i can live with it. i remember when it sounded "modern". it's just that everything else sounds so timelessly brilliant. the difference between the guthrie-produced "primitive painters" on the 12-inch and the john leckie-produced "cathedral" on the b-side is VAST. "cathedral" is so friggin' HUGE on there. not that pp isn't brilliant in it's own way...

sometimes i wish everything sounded like crumbling the antiseptic beauty. or the sunlight bathed the golden glow 12-inch. or the space blues 12-inch. or penelope tree...i always wanted life to sound like a felt record.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.