Classic or Dud / Search and Destroy: McCarthy

More or less a straight-edged precursor of Stereolab, but (as with Stereolab) rather frozen in its time, and the lyrical subversiveness doesn't really transcend the grey C86 ploop which orchestrates it. If you've heard "Frans Hals" that's pretty much all you need to know. Now howzabout the Servants - "She's Always Hiding," vocals by Luke Haines, circa '86. You wouldn't have seen "The English Motorway System" coming.

search: charlie

destroy: joseph

undecided: jenny

Search: Lots of the tunes.

Destroy: Lots of the words. Don't get serious on me, babe.

Guitar-pop ordinaire circa late 80's. Dull, weighty ideas, but musically uninteresting. Avoid.

the singer is a tough one to get over. he always let me down every time i tried to get into them because they were the pre-stereolab band and i thought that meant i was destined to like them. the brilliant corners were much better.

I only know one song (We're All Bourgeois Now), but seeing as they came from roughly the same place I do, classic.

Search and Destroy: McCarthy !!!!!

Or at least, the dreadful album "The Enraged Will Inherit The Earth", which I bought (big mistake) on the strength of the vaguely jaunty single "Keep An Open Mind... Or Else", which turned out to be the best track in an half-hearted A-Z of terrible late-80s indie cliches, including jangly guitars, cheap organs, jumpy drums, crap cello+violin on the "thoughtful" songs!!!! Add to that hilariously badly written right-on Socialist Worker style cliches which were clearly written seperately from the music, as the singer seems to have immense trouble making them scan a lot of time!! Mind you, the singer seems to have a lot of trouble even singing the easier lines with anything sounding like conviction...

To be fair, some of their later stuff (as heard on Peelie) sounds a bit better, with the crap indie arrangements banished in favour of more interesting instrumentation, and the lyrics honed down and bettered targeted, "I'm On The Side Of Mankind As Much As The Next Man" in particular.

But avoid the earlier stuff!!!

Old Fart!!!!

Search the earlier stuff.

I love 'I Am A Wallet'. Still listen to it. Also search 'New Left Review 2' (an early track I have on a tape somewhere) and give me the copy that you find.

I was quite disappointed by 'The Enraged Shall Inherit The Earth' and if that wah-wah baggy bandwagon single 'Get A Knife Between Your Teeth' is anything to go by, they didn't get any better after that.

There's something curiously timeless about 'I Am A Wallet'. I can't explain it, and I'm sorry the word 'timeless' has been appropriated by the enemies.

The opening chords of 'An MP Speaks' are spinning through my mind and it feels like an elegy for the 1980s that 'I Love The 1980s' forgot.

Sort of hit and miss. Great lyric by large, and the singer (malcom Eden I think ) has great ear for interesting melodies, but many of the songs sound the same. Best songs are "should the bible be banned?" , red sleeping beauty and the aformentioned "we are all bougios now". I grown to quite like them

For god´s sake people, they were one of the BEST BANDS OF THE EIGHTIES, all of their records are wonderful, from "i am a wallet" to their last single, great lyrics, great melodies, attitude, they had it all, nothing to do with Stereolab (fortunately)

i don't know, the last mccarthy lp is very proto-stereolab to me.

Tim had the tight as nails trance guitar down at that point.

there is some mad talk on this thread. really.

"frans hals" and "red sleeping beauty" are both just fantastic, classic, guitar pop singles where the anger stays in the lyrics rather than the music. and the closing instrumental of "an mp speaks" is simply delicious. yes there are some duds, but the highs make the lows well worthwile. and to see their albums filed under "stereolab" is - a travesty.