I wonder why Professor Cook thinks that his post will
probably bore most of you stiffless
? I thought it fascinating, as I usually do re. what he has to say, except when he's very drunk, when I only find it interesting, cos I can't seem to open my ears. Or swallow properly. He said:
The delectable Mr PF had to say (why, heaven above only knows):
It's nice to be delectable, but I wish to point out that my name is not 'Mr PF'. It's 'PF', or possibly 'pinefox'. Orange-Juicy Lucy A once called me 'the pinefox', a definite article which I really enjoyed. But there has never been a 'Mr' involved. 'Mr' is not, as it happens, my title. Anyway, Ally96 went on:
Easy Pieces - Lloyd Cole and The Commotions, 1985 Raintown - Deacon Blue, 1987 Lloyd Cole (X) - Lloyd Cole, 1990
It seems fitting to start, as is usually best, at the beginning. And in The Beginning there was 'Rattlesnakes'. Now let's not beat about the proverbial here, this was, still is and ever will be one of the single most perfect incarnations of The Pop Record ever to have graced that strange, contradictory decade known as the 1980s. Yes, standing with 'You can't hide your love..', 'Murmur', 'Queen is Dead', and all the ones I can't remember or haven't heard yet. Yes! Soaring and swooping and whispering in the shadows and hollering from the rooftops "why can't it be like this all the time?!".
And 'Easy Pieces' is yer lot, so to speak. Not a lot, but you might like it. I do, kind of. Yes, it's dull in
I'm with you so far, though inevitably unconvinced by the 'You Can't Hide Your Love', with or without capitals (of Scotland). Of *course* I'm unconvinced: I've never heard the thing. parts, yes, it doesn't quite have the same youthful charm as it's predescessor, but, well,
it is what it is.
That clause is below your usual standard, Cook. I mean, can you tell me about anything that is not what it is? Possibly Steady Mike could, via an unscrupulous manipulation of evidence from the Quantum Fizzy Drink world, but he's not here to protect you now.
Reasonable, if not triumphant
It's just...well, the songs are often there, I mean you can see them, God knows you can almost feel then, and then suddenly
On this I agree. What about 'Brand New Friend'? That strikes me as a rather disappointing, or unrealized, track. But I know a fanzine editor with a big soft spot for 'Why I Love Country Music'. And I like the guitar intro to 'Grace' and the outro to 'Pretty Gone'. And 'Minor Character'! The return of the swooping strings from 'Rattlesnakes'! Fabulously cold lines like 'She said she'd throw herself off a bridge', and 'She telephoned to say that she'd cut her wrists'! Tossed off with the usual Cole langour - or are they? Come to think of it, maybe he gets worked up here. What do you kids think? The other thing about these early Lloyd Cole strings is that they are the model - the model? - for the strings on 'FYHCYWLAP'. I mean 'Woman's Realm' and 'Too Much Love' and, well, 'The Model', specifically - among the tracks' most, um, delectable features is the Lloydishness of the strings. Ally96 then moved on to Deacon Blue: they're lost forever under blankets of rubbish production, crap guitar parts and Lorraine MacIntosh's incessant wailing. Alright, so it's not that bad really, I mean there are high points (Dignity of course, The Very Thing) and the cover's lovely, a cloudy Dundee (one assumes), but the whole thing just doesn't quite work for me. The cover is lovely. The songs are, sometimes, there. Production, maybe I agree. Guitars, maybe. But are you sure it's right thus to diss McIntosh? I think she was an asset. She was a better singer than Ricky Ross, as she proved on their cover of 'Are You There With Another Girl?' - which I think was released almost exactly 10 years ago (c. September 1990) and got to no 4 or no 2 - the Bacharach / David ep, I mean, was their biggest UK hit. I don't agree, either, that 'Dignity' is a high point. I think the high points are: Born In A Storm (brief) Raintown (urgent verse - shame about the chorus, maybe. But I like the line 'You're [or is it 'I'm'?] down here, working on some dumb show') He Looks Like Spencer Tracy Now (OK) Chocolate Girl (excellent, and trés 80s. That sounds a bit like 'Trezeguet', doesn't it? As in "TrezeGUEEEETT!!!!!!!!!") Ally96 recovered from these objections, which he knew were coming, and continued:
Finally, we come to the boy Cole's first solo outing, all black leather and gruff sleeve with Bad Cowboy stubble. Inside though, we find some soft centres (leopards and spots, eh?). The single 'No Blue Skies' is possibly the finest thing here, as Lloyd accuses "Baby you're too well read". It seems self-depreciation is the new black. Elsewhere 'Loveless' is gorgeous ("why do you say you love me/when you don't?"), and 'Undressed' is pleading and pretty wonderful. It doesn't quite sustain itself over 13 tracks though, in fact the last 3 could have been omitted without too much fuss from me, but it's all about compromises, folks, and I'll happily take the rough with the smooth. Two adjectives which can be applied to Lloyd Cole in almost equal measure. Long may he keep slowing down.
I couldn't have put it better myself. Have you reflected on how LC *did* slow down with this LP? In the sense that his first 3 LPs started with medium-to-fast songs, whereas this one starts with a (magnificent and indispensable) slow cruiser? But I disagree with the judgment of the last trio of tracks. If I remember rightly they are: I Hate To See You Baby Doing That Stuff // which is a fun, dumb rocker with French words, laughter and screaming Quine axe; Waterline // which is a very straightforward Dylan rip-off, but excellent, I think; and Mercy/Killing // which is long, heavy and menacing - a bit like Alasdair Cook - and ends startlingly - again a bit like him. On the other hand (again), it's true that No Blue Skies, Loveless and Undressed are all marvellous, in their different ways. At the end of the day, I think this is one of the great pop records ever, and even better than Rattlesnakes. I seem to have said this before somewhere. It is the last day of summer, by my reckoning. It is thus nine years to the day since I finished reading Ulysses for the first time. I sure hope I didn't *entirely* waste them. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ ++++++ ++++++ ++++++ August 27th Sinister Third Birthday Red Underwear Day ++++++ ++++++ ++++++ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+