THE Lloyd Cole album

If I had to pick one it would be "Easy Pieces" actually.

For me, it comes down to Rattlesnakes vs X (aka Lloyd Cole, aka the first solo LP). The choice is difficult - the first has a swet, garrulous naiveté, the second has a weatherbeaten Classic Rock stubbly soaraway clichéd live-in-studio-ish spontaneity, a sudden overflow (13 songs) of invention, attempts to sound hard ('Sweetheart', 'Mercy // Killing') mixed with effortless sweetness ('Loveless', 'Undressed'). Both are crucial and reflect different aspects of Lloyd. I could go on about others too (Weird on Me, yes; Easy Pieces? I don't think so), but that would quite defeat the object of the question (which was 'desert island disc' stuff).

The broader question - why should we (someone, anyone) listen to LC? - I am still keen to try to answer in the way Tom E suggests, so will not go into it further here, maybe. (Whatever I might say, I wouldn't expect to convince most of the world to listen to Lloyd; only to explain, perhaps, why I still like him.)

Actually, let me answer the question definitively, from my POV: despite the crucial importance of the debut, X (1990) is the one.

easy pieces, by a mile, for me. I find Rattlesnakes a little too self-conscious, and he never quite had the same hooks after this one.

Favourite song "why I love country music".

Saturday, August 12 at 11:00 PM
Svengalifest presents Svengalifest featuring Lloyd Cole / Lorraine / Jah Wobble / James Lavelle / Levellers / Hayseed Dixie / Alabama 3 / South / Don Letts / Go Kart Mozart / Unkle Bob / Syrus / June / Raising Sand / Loki / Self Esteem / Epeestriday / Subdue
at Royal Windsor Race Course, England - South
£60.00-£100.00

Phew!

Now I look at the albums and wonder why.

Actually, I need to just get the best-of - though dear Lord, he/they deserve a nicely remastered one, maybe 2 discs? - and the Deluxe Edition import of Rattlesnakes.

"I hope you don't mind. I got drunk last night and did your taxes."

http://www.border.se/Press/Lloyd%20Cole/Lloyd%20Cole7.jpg

I like Mainstream best too, even now that "29" is behind me.

hey, he's looking much more hot these days!

I still listen to everything up to the Negatives, but
Easy Pieces with X close second
I finally found it thru GEMM. Nice Australian seller promised to play it first to guarantee condition. $15US (previous month it had hit $40 on ebay and it looks like there's one on Amazon for $70)

His last couple of albums have been really weak compared to the rest of his catalogue. I think The Negatives is tremendous and shows how much better he is when working with a real band.

And _Bad Vibes_ is THE example of an artist trying to stretch beyond their borders and failing spectacularly. And yet I think it's great but I recognize the lameness of much of it.

Which is more lame, Bad Vibes or the "with strings" side of Don't Get Weird on Me, Babe?

free rough mixes here:
http://www.lloydcole.com/rough/

Ongoing, apparently, so bookmark it.

Favourite song "why I love country music".

-- hobart paving (hobart paving), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:25 (1 year ago) Link

OTM. Love the fact that the title results from the lyrics, rather than coming from a chorus.

Hard to pick a favorite disc from his catalog. Figuring that one listen would spark much further interest, I'd start with The Collection and branch from there. But if forced to just take one, I'd go for Rattlesnakes, by a narrow margin.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WWd5bH9NL._SS500_.jpg

Out in the UK on September 28, 2010.

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Lloyd Cole plans to release Broken Record — the former Commotions leader’s first full-band album in a decade — this September, and reports that he’s “happy we got these songs finished because I’m not sure I’ll make another record like this again.”

The 11-track album, Cole’s first since 2006’s Antidepressant, finds the musician ending his “self-imposed exile as a would-be folksinger,” according to a note posted along with samples of three of the album’s songs (”Oh Genevieve,” “Like a Broken Record” and “Winters Retreat”) on the Tapete Records website.

Cole enlisted the members of his “baby bluegrass band,” the Small Ensemble, as well as Joan Wasser, aka Joan as Police Woman, and ex-Commotion Blair Cowan. The project is being funded, in part, by 1,000 fans who paid $45 for the deluxe edition of the album before it was even recorded (they’ll get a second disc with 15 outtakes).

The experience of working with a band again, Cole writes, was “rewarding, perplexing, fabulously enjoyable and heinously stressful.” He adds that, “Singing with a rock and roll band in the studio I felt exactly as I did in 1987 or 1995, and then I would see my reflection in the glass of the gobo and wonder who this old guy was…”

Cole is planning to do press for the album in Europe in July and September and play solo dates during those trips; he’s also working to schedule a European tour with the Small Ensemble in October and November, plus he’s tentatively planning to play shows throughout the U.S. and Australia/New Zealand in early 2011.

1. Like A Broken Record
2. Writers Retreat!
3. The Flipside
4. Why In The World?
5. Westchester County Jail
6. If I Were A Song
7. That's Alright
8. Oh Genevieve
9. Man Overboard
10. Rhinestones
11. Double Happiness

Will be interested to hear this, I love Lloyd with a band. Less convinced by him solo. 1995's Love Story was very nearly the best thing he's ever done.

Nice cover too. The 49 is probably a reference to his age.

Anyone else heard this yet? I love it, very much a classic Lloyd-plus-band album. Some winning wig-outs and a few wistful ballads. His voice is in great shape. If this is really the last band album he ever does, it's a great way to go out.

"Broken Record" is the best thing he's done since "The Negatives". He really needs a band to work with, his two strictly solo records are bland. I hope he doesn't return to that mode of recording.

Lloyd Cole's Twitter has blown up with the news that he no longer poaches eggs but sautes them in butter
.

I am now a world class egg cook. It's taken a while, but I could work in a French brasserie, now. My secrets? ask me anything. Hint - there's no need to poach an egg, ever, unless your allergic to butter.

— Lloyd Cole (@Lloyd_Cole) September 27, 2019

Lloyd … Cole … rendered "you're" as "your"?
* world disintegrates *

Was going to say ...

He’s one of the ppl I regret following on Twitter bc I thought he was a lot more interesting before I saw the many boring things he shares via that website.

looks like a bad kisser too