Best of these other mid-90s Britpop albums

Placebo.

Boo Radleys, vaguely followed by Ash.

But basically

http://i34.tinypic.com/20gef7c.jpg

boo radleys by about 6000000000000000 light years

oh, honeycrack, obviously.

i'm sure you're being sarcastic, but honeycrack are the only act out of that whole mid-90s Britrock thing that I could stomach. As mentioned on the Beatles Yellow Sub thread, they did a really good version of "Hey Bulldog". Can't find it on the net, but this was also a jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgKAO5QQAmY

Are Placebo Britpop?

New Grave.

Well if I say Terrorvision were Britpop in the last poll, then Placebo are in this one.

And y'know, if this isn't britpop, I dunno...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RIlRhXXQjg

i love how back in the day all the metal kids who hated indie stuff still went aroudn wearing terrorvision t-shirts just because that band had long hair and were a bit greeboish.

Still consider 1977 a classic, so that one.

Though Suede's Coming Up is still nice. Placebo didn't age well for me.

I know I am alone in this, but Ocean Colour Scene is the best of this generally strong bunch.

I'm glad that you recognise your solitude.

Isolation.

Pariah status.

Loneliness.

i wish now that i'd saved some of these albums for a separate mid-90s britrock poll featuring Muse (erh), Placebo (pffft), Therapy (oh okay), Skunk Anansie (Ummm..), Three Colours Red (Ack!) and Groop Dogdrill (NOOOOOOOOO!)

hmmm. the first skunk anansie album is pretty strong. stoosh? not so much...

I have absolutely no memory of electrafixion

Muse's first album wasn't until 1999, dog latin; in no way do they qualify as "mid 90s". They were at school in the mid 90s. I know, I was in the same science class as the bassist.

Electrafixion was Ian McCulloch's 90s band. They did fuck all so he got the Bunnymen back together

yeah they were shite.

I'm not saying what I voted for. It's too, too embarrassing.

Sleeper?

Worse than Sleeper.

KULA SHAKER

Kula Shaker might have been a public school, traveller toff, George Harrison-parodying, inverse swastika-touting mockery of a band, but they had one or two really really good songs. I liked many of the singles, and then there were tracks like Hollow Man and Knight On The Town, which were nice too. Musically, "K" was loads better than many of the other britpop also-rans.

Knight On The Town is an OK idea for a one-off Viz strip but not for a fucking song

but they had one or two really really good songs.

No they didn't.

Oh, they kinda did.

(Also, Crispian Mills was totally hott)

::hangs head in shame::

OH COME ON - like Sleeper didn't have a fanbase for similar reasons.

I have a weakness for Sitars. I'll listen to almost anything if you stick a sitar on it.

http://waxidermy.com/images/keeponwomblingcover.jpg

The UK folk will have a different relationship with this stuff than me, in the US. I imagine some of these bands were inescapable at the time and still bring back a visceral response. For me, I quite liked Sleeper, "The It Girl" is a solid album that still stands up.

Electrafixion - I spun that recently and it's aged verrrrrry poorly.

Kula Shaker - K
Suede - Coming Up
Ash - 1977
Ocean Colour Scene - Moseley Shoals
Sleeper - The It Girl

These were all GREAT albums.

As was also "Wake Up!" by Boo Radleys, but not so much "C'mon Kids".

I saw Electrafixion on tour... the best thing about them? The support band -> a very young Dandy Warhols.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Electrafixion was Ian McCulloch's 90s band. They did fuck all so he got the Bunnymen back together

Wasn't it actually both Mac and Will? And then about six months after "getting the Bunnymen back together" they were back to just the two of them again

Voted Skunk Anansie because fuck all y'all.

Boo Radleys more like the Snoozzzzzzzze Radleys.

Boo Radleys C'mon Kids would be better placed in a poll of albums that came after suddenly successful albums.

I think its a flawed masterpiece of British psychedelia.

Groop Dogdrill RULED.

I got an advance promo of Kids, was all .....

(then again, got one of "Kingsize" and was all "YAY!!" but I was the only one it seems)

I voted 1977.

The Kula's? Their single "Sound of Drums" seemed to suggest that they were going from strength to. What happened then? blimey.

I was listening to Kingsize the other day and in hindsight, while it was a bit of a curveball - it was perfect pop music, so right on for that.

Suede probably but the boo radleys record is great. Much better than the previous..

(Though I have to admit Coming Up is one of my favourite Suede albums. In another minute I'm going to start flouncing around the office singing " we're TRRAAAAA-AAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAAAASSSSHHH... we're the glitter on the breeze..." etc. etc.)

Oh god did I really just vote for Crispy Ian over Brett? Can I change my vote please? It was an accident, I didn't mean it.

yes you did

I don't even know if I have any sockpuppets left to go and vote for Suede with now. DAMMIT. I have, like, 3 on that other board.

Mansun, of course, are better than these polls

(well, Six specifically, although it was late 90's)

I saw Babybird live "before he was famous" because a friend had heard good things and wanted to go so I went with him, and it wasn't that bad. This was before all that You're Gorgeous stuff though.

a) "you're gorgeous" is a fantastic little bit of sheer unblinking satire
b) dude you were in sleepy p30ple weren'tcha? briefly? not very harmoniously?

yes, I was briefly in sleepy people, or as they were calling themselves then, "Blue apple boy". I just don't see how it's relevant to the shittiness of ulrrasound's album. I am a bit loaded, maybe I will relate the story if I can remember it.

"You're Gorgeous" is a horrible, hateful record that sounds like ir was written and performed by mr stalky

"You're Gorgeous" is a horrible, hateful record that sounds like ir was written and performed by mr stalky

I am listening to this now and this statement is 100% OTM

actually, if you have a copy of blue Apple boy's only album, you could look and see if I am credited on the sleeve, I never got a copy. I believe I might be on one song, unless they rerecorded my parts.

it's utterly sarcastic! like, one of the more effective bits of sheer tongue-in-cheek piss-taking spawned in the 90's

its crap.

Worst Of These Mid-Late 90s UK Bands?

WORST SONG Of These Mid To Late 90s UK Bands

I thought they had been done. I forgot it was by me.

oh wait, I think I've also apologetically admitted somewhere that I liked that first Placebo album okay, especially the fake-Sonic-Youthy parts

i mean, verging on the artistically worthless. I don't care if its sarcastic!

(xpost, obv)

youre gorgeous vs youre beautiful

aka black and decker drill up the bum vs small slivers of bone hammered slowly under your fingernails

my main reaction to "You're Gorgeous" is I am super fucking glad that I spent all of my time in 1996 listening to jungle and trip-hop

well the *song* is banal and trivial but this is what makes the barbed lyrics work so well...it's lyrically worthwhile even while being musically poor imo...it's a parody of anodyne pop sentiment

or maybe it just really really really sucks

From that Worst Song thread:

I've gotta go with the mewling bum-drizzle of 'You're Gorgeous'. The sort of song that makes me wish I didn't have any ears, and that's coming from someone who wears glasses.

― NickB, Friday, 6 June 2008 10:13 (1 year ago) Bookmark

NickB OTM

NickB made me laugh

would rather listen to something w/good tune, or interesting sound even if it has shitty lyrics, that something musically poor, even if the lyrics are joni mitchell-level awesome (which the words to "you're gorgeous" aren't)

I take it no-one is interested in my experiences of being in a recording studio for 1/2 an hour wth tiny wood? I figured not, it is pretty boring as a story.

sounds like the beginning of an Enzyte ad

regale us! also i am not saying i *ever* choose to listen to you're gorgeous, because i don't, but the lyrics raise a smile any time it comes on incidentally

you seriously need to make immediate lifestyle changes if that fucking horrible song exists in your incidental orbit

haha okay possibly that is hyperbole taken too far, sorry

no youre right dan

i think the last time i heard it was like 3 or 4 years ago tbh

I think I voted for Placebo, still love 'Teenage Angst'.

It's "Blue Apple Boy featuring Tiny Wood" on the album isn't it? Bad name.

im trying to remember what happened. i remember the sleepies were always playing live up here & were really good, like a cross between the cardiacs and family. I really dug them & saw them loads of times. @ some point tiny, the bassist (who was the guitarist in ultrasound) and the drummer split off & formed ultrasound. I remember being really freaked out a couple of years later, seeing tiny on the cover of nme.

they had, like, loads of different players pass thru the band after that (hint to YOU LJ, AVOID ever joining a band w/a high turnover) and at some point the keyboard player left and they were looking for another one, and because I liked them & got on w/PH and RT I thought I'd have a go. Partly because the keys player who left used all of these nasty airy flutey sounds that tended to distort horribly & hurt yr ears when you saw them live. I figured I could use the hammond organ patches on my wavestation keyboard as well as my digital pipe organ simulator keyboard w./them, i thought it would sound really good & powerful.

At about this time the bass player quit the sleepies because he joined ultrasound mk 2. ultrasound mk2 is i guess probably little known because to the best of my knowledge, they only played the one gig, which i was at. It was terrible, they had this shredder guitarist who played a pointy ibanez type thing, and the music just totally blew.
I started rehearsing w/the sleepies and it went pretty well at first, they replaced the bassist with this young lad, who had a slight tendency to overplay, but who otherwise was good. Then, b/c the bassist got cold feet about ultrasound mk2, or they split up or something, he asked to get let back in. This they did, sacking the young guy. the old bassist was, i have to admit, a fucking brilliant bassplayer, totally pro. BUT, he didn't like me, didn't hit it off at all. I thought the guy was ok, didn't realise anything was afoot until the atmosphere started getting a bit poisonous @ practices and in the pub afterwards. I did a recording session w/them in wallsend, then there was this practice where everything sounded really great, and I remember PH saying he thought it was going well, was delighted etc etc. I had to go away for a week b/c my wife's stepmother had died and the funeral was on in w yorks. when I came back I phoned the sleepies, and got RT on the phone, she was all "errr, welll..." and all that shit, so I drove over to the cluny in newcastle to see what was up. It turned out that the bassist had been kind of briefing against me, then he'd hit them w/some ultimatum, that it was him or me, or maybe it was the drummer who was the bassplayer's mate, I can't remember. It was all quite obnoxiously passive-aggressive, they way they handled it. I nearly tipped my glass of fruit juice over RT's head, but figured it wasn't worth the fuckage. Thus ended my time in Newcastle's premier psych rock band. I never got to play a single gig with them, the only evidence of my even being in the band is the tune I played on, IF they didn't record over my parts.

tiny was perfectly pleasant and affable. about six months later he was advertising for musicians to put together a prog rock band, I couldn't be arsed with it.

IIRC they sleepies played one more gig, or maybe 2 after that, then seemed to pack it in. They were an excellent band, an odd, insular bunch though. I had bad feelings about them for a few years, not anymore though. Sometimes I think about trying to get in touch w/PH, he was a clever songwriter, but I don't know. Also, being an on-call electrician one weekend in 3 tends to fuck up any plans w/r/2 playing in a band atm.

I told you it was boring.

"sleepy people" I thought was a good band name (i see there is another different band called that now) "blue apple boy" didn't really work, no. PH told me that some NME flack had told him that NME hated the sleepies and would never cover them, so BaB was his way of sneaking under the radar, IIRC it did actually work a bit.

K, because at least they were trying.

that's not a boring story! in fairness the actual music is very much in one of my areas of interest...but it seems too much of a dicey situation to have been genuinely productive

C'Mon Kids without a doubt.

Actually, I also remember seeing this gig - Ultrasound supported by Dark Star! LJ heaven, I suspect. Dark Star's set I missed half of b/c some guy had jumped off the tyne bridge and the traffic was diverted. They were pretty great, what I saw of them. Ultrasound were bad, they just played everything at top speed, full on, everything at fff. the keyboard player's rig - hammond organ, mellotron, minimoog etc, they must have blown half of their advance on. Waste of money. I really wanted to like them, they had the odd half-decent number, but they didn't make it.

i have a blue apple boy single, didn't realise the SP connection, it's not very good either way

i like parts of the ultrasound album but tbh their career was one disappointment after another from pretty much the third single onwards

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

voted for placebo fwiw, probably the only record here i'll ever listen to again

(hint to YOU LJ, AVOID ever joining a band w/a high turnover)

Note in record store window: WANTED: dude who can compose symphonies on his teeth. No other musical aptitude required.

I was briefly in sleepy people, or as they were calling themselves then, "Blue apple boy"

I did not know this! I had the Blue Apple Boy single on Shifty Disco, I remember liking it I think? At the time I'd fairly recently been semi-converted to Cardiacs appreciation, and I'd been buying Shifty Disco singles for a while because it was a local label, and was surprised to hear them release something vaguely Cardiacsy. Tried to buy the Sleepy People album for a quid off ebay a while ago but it didn't turn up. Sorry they dicked you about, Pash!

Heard that Space album again (well, actually for the first time) recently-ish, in a LOL friend gets new old car with tape player and excavates various forgotten 90s tapes scenario, and was surprised at how weird and all-over-the-place it was for a hit 90s schmindie album, but also, well, bloody awful. 12 votes? Really?!

Fucking astonished that Space got more votes than the Boos.

Yep, that is crazy. I didn't vote because I couldn't quite decide between Ash and the Boos. As bands I'd say I like the Boo Radleys and don't really care for Ash, but somehow I can summon more nostalgia for 1977.

Wanted the Honeycrack album at the time and never heard it, maybe I'd still like it, but I can't remember the first thing about them now. I liked a bunch of the singles off the first Placebo album at the time but their subsequent work annoyed me so much that Molko's voice is nails-down-blackboard to me now.

I know what you mean about Placebo, but every now and then they'd do something great like 'The Bitter End' so I couldn't write them off completely.

That 'Running Up That Hill' video was some hilarious emo-bomb though.

i still love angel interceptor. justice has been done.

I assume all the Space votes were joeks. Props to whoever else voted for Stoosh tho.

that would be me.

Shit I missed this entirely, The It Girl without a doubt! I love that album to this day.

The Shit Girl morelike amirite?

I remember seeing SP play in London with some impossibly young singer guys who looked *exactly* like the 'consultant' and he
had this dead weird stage presence, then somebody told me later that he was dodgy and had been in trouble with the law. Odd bunch indeed.

They sounded pretty good IIRC apart from some occasional lapses in taste that could make them sound a lot like a bedroom prog band.

I especially liked the song the apes Master Builder a bit.

Fucking astonished that Space got more votes than the Boos.

morelike

haha