Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Sudden Sway
’76 Kids Forever
(Rough Trade, 1988; reissued on él, 2003)
Peterborough art-pop japesters' audio soap opera. It's immersive!
A decade on from punk's Year Zero, the movement's snot-caked Kulturkampfers had, by and large, scrubbed up and slinked back into the mainstream: the officer class to predictable roles in the media aristocracy, footsoldiers into a Mr Byrite Mcjobworld to a chorus of told-you-so sneers. Rubbing salt into the wounds were Sudden Sway - their own Residents-like secret-hipster mystique unblemished by vulgar success - with this tableau of crushed dreams and homogenised humanity, an episodic song-cycle about formerly flaming youth now content with an MFI Home Amusement Centre and a "Hunstanton tan" (one for the East Anglians out there), the horror flip of the '80s consumer fantasy. It was not the group's first, nor their weirdest art-pop gambit, having released a single in 1984 (The Traffic Tax Scheme) which incorporated a computer program and board game*, and having kicked off their inevitably brief tenure on Warner Bros with eight bafflingly different, simultaneously released versions of one single, Sing Song**, but it remains their most sustained and coherent long-player. Stealing some clothes from Ray Davies' underrated Kinks flop, Soap Opera, drawing from the same well of faux-slick indie-soul visited by Prefab Sprout and The Kane Gang, it will be too clever-clever, budget-production-thin or conceptually top-heavy for some (sometimes the Sway seem slightly too eager to parody Spandau Ballet) but mid-'80s indie explorers should not be without it. Intellectual ambition aside, it is a melodic treasure trove, testament to the purely musical skills of singer Mike McGuire and guitarist Simon Childs, with the sonic swoon of opener The Phoenix Family Protection Plan and the poignancy of the title track adding empathetic cushioning atop the contemptuous swipes at curry-vomming weekend warriors and Hush Puppy-shod enterprise culture boosters. Mostly, however, you're left to ponder how a record made in and for 1988 can speak so eloquently to Britain in post-crash 2010. "Should I let my feet do the walking / Upon an England the English made?" sings McGuire towards the record's close. "Sell our shirts / But save The Stock Exchange..." The Sudden Sway Anthology Box Set Release Campaign starts here.
*I have legendarily suave former MOJO Editor Paul Du Noyer to thank for my copy. Thanks, Paul.
**I own #3, but have a vague, Peel-based memory that #6 may have been best. Can readers help me out here?
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 30/09/2010
Further Listening
The Kinks – Soap Opera (RCA, 1975)
Blur – The Great Escape (Food, 1995)
Win – Freaky Trigger (Virgin, 1989)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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I trawled all around London searching for the 8 versions of Sing Song when it was released back in 86 with a bewildered pal in tow. Found the last 3 in the Rough Trade Shop down Notting Hill way - those were the days
Posted by Diarmuid O'Leary at 10:38 PM GMT 01/10/2010 Report Abuse
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I have the Peel Session ep (click on Peel-based link for details) which is bloody weird but clever stuff too. However reading the words Prefab Sprout and Kane Gang puts me off wanting to find this album.
Posted by Alexander Meerkat at 8:56 AM GMT 14/01/2011 Report Abuse
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