The Boo Radleys, Classic or Dud?

wow, really? now i'm really excited about getting that CD in the mail.

the Boo Radleys poll is up next, i have only been listening to them to prepare. they are so fucking good as i feel like i have almost forgot, poll is going to be a blast.

Martin Carr is playing at the union chapel in about 11 hours time (12 noon today).

I was there! lovely show. enjoyed the medieval horror-folk duo as well.

At 4am my maths is terrible.

That box she had was full of bees, bees of different sizes.

What was that thing? it was the most unwieldy box shaped instrument to make such a minimal tone (like someone playing a long drone on harmonica)

hi.

It was a shruti box, an Indian harmonium. Strange noise from a non electric instrument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OacT6M5CI9k

Lyrics are pretty cringeworthy, eh.

Revive sent me back to Kingsize. Still enjoy the big brassy Britpop production, clear melodies and "Choose Your Own Adventure" structures. What a way to go out.

for some reason i was unable to add the cd version of kingsize to the archive earlier today.
my optical drive would not recognise it as a cd.

oh wow, thanks for this.

i have said it many time, love, with all my heart Kingsize, it's such a great album if you remove "Free Huey."

never did link this to this thread: Just a simple song but God I love it Embedded in me, so bittersweet I’m addicted, I’m a melancholic Sing it again, I’ll be your Poll forever: THE BOO RADLEYS - ILM artist poll #60 or new numbering #65

rub it in bee ..
would have loved to have added it to the archive today.

Wake Up! is commonly viewed as their "pop" album because of the big hit single that they had from the album, but I actually think Kingsize is their "pop" album. The production on it is a lot more fuller, smoother and glossier than on previous efforts, and the songwriting (on the whole) is far more accessible, even if it retains the "room with many doors" approach on several tracks. Word has it that the record company got heavily involved in the making of Kingsize and tried to steer the band in a more commercial direction after C'mon Kids was seen to be deliberate attempt to scare the 'Wake Up Boo!' fans (which the band always denied) and this is ultimately why neither Martin or Sice have any real fond memories of making the record. Nevertheless, even with their most slickest and most accessible record to date, the idea of the Boo Radleys suddenly selling a massive truckload of records in 1998 was a laughable one. I still prefer both Wake Up! and C'mon Kids to Kingsize, although I heard Everything's Alright Forever recently and found it to be mostly awful, apart from 'Smile Fades Fast', 'Memory Babe', 'Does This Hurt?' and a couple of others.

The story I read was that the band turned 'Kingsize' into Creation and McGee described it as something along the lines of "not even a bunch of c-sides!", so the band were dispatched to write a single - "Free Huey". Which makes sense, given how much of a sore thumb it is on the album.

The artwork was horrible. I picked up a promo of it cheap not long after release, the plain yellow sleeve was an improvement. I'd go as far as to say 'Kingsize' is my favourite Boos album, loved it at the time.

That Pitchfork top 50 Britpop albums list sent me back to 'Giant Steps' for the first time in years.

yeah, I got those yellow promos from MVE

hung around for that Kingsize single promo (blue) but it was worth it.

Alan McGee never understood this band. There were two types of band on Creation Records, there were the Alan McGee bands (Oasis, Primal Scream etc.) and then there were the Dick Green bands, and the Boo Radleys were definitely a Dick Green band.

oh but XTRMNTR is one of *those* albums right

Yeah, I'd say so. Vanishing Point, too!

Each of those Primal Scream albums destroy the Boo Radleys... and we're not even talking about 'Screamadelica' here.

Not even close, but the Boo Radleys speak to me on an emotional level that very few bands achieve.

I don't really like Kingsize (sorry, worst biggest fan ever, ever)

I don't know why people are suddenly so down on EAF - I think it's fantastic.

Revisiting Giant Steps which has always struck me as a product of its time and left me completely cold. The only way I can really explain how I feel about this is to go track by track:

"I Hang Suspended" – solid Boo pop. Hard to deny.
"Upon 9th and Fairchild" – godawful guitar noise and dub. Dated in about a hundred ways – and stops the album's momentum cold just as it's begun.
"Wishing I Was Skinny" – poss. their first really Boo-ish tune. Love the new wave-y organ at the end.
"Leaves and Sand" – shoegaze-y and kind of unremarkable from a melodic standpoint.
"Butterfly McQueen" – more dub bass, gah, tho the trumpet is a nice touch. Contrast between the soft vocal section is interesting. More shoegaze guitar but interesting deconstruction at the end.
"Rodney King – Song for Lenny Bruce" – nice transition from the previous song. Interesting groove, more electronic than anything to this point.
"Thinking of Ways" – a preview into Wake Up-style melodicism and baroque arrangements. Love the "head full of beer" lyric. Alas, the noisy guitars enter to remind us that they're a rock band near the end.
"Barney (...And Me)" – a nod to New Order ca. 1987? Regardless, it's not particularly compelling as a song and seems to try to get by on its driving energy.
"Spun Around" – maybe a bit of a preview into what inspired C'mon Kids. Guitar noise here seems to transcend some of the more bro-ish tendencies elsewhere on the record.
"If You Want It, Take It" – the most straightforward thing on the disc to this point. Four piece indie pop, with organ and guitar solos. Fine I suppose.
"Best Lose the Fear" – bouncy tune and interesting chords, excellent chorus and, perhaps not coincidentally, one of the simpler things on the album. Clarinet is a nice touch. Perhaps drags on a bit long.
"Take the Time Around" – slamming guitars wake us from our slumber, bounces back and forth between jangle pop and driving New Order noise pop. An early example of Carr's "Choose Your Own Adventure" structuring, tho none of the melodies are particularly compelling.
"Lazarus" – ah, the dub shit again. Break into the melody is welcome however, and there are some lovely textures here and the brass bit is one of the few places on the record where the loud guitars work without reservation.
"One Is For" – acoustic interlude, threatens to burst into shoegaze noise but thankfully never does.
"Run My Way Runway" – again, feels like a bit of a lean into where the Boos would go two albums later, constructing tunes out of texture and Sice's vocals. Pretty cool.
"I've Lost the Reason" – "Sha la la la" vocals and an intimate intro melody that presages the middle section of "Monuments for a Dead Century." Second section kind of a neat swinging guitar groove, a little flugelhorn to Bacharach things up, a touch of flute and chorus near the end, this is one of Martin's better early-ish creations.
"The White Noise Revisited" – an early entry in the Boo's ambiguous "hey kid, its all gonna be ok...I think" album closers. Almost a bit of a Elephant Six feel to parts of this one, before resolving into a befuddled singalong to close things out.

Long and the short, this feels like the Boo's Annie Hall – the first place where people took notice that this was a talent to reckon with but in retrospect less a breakthrough than a transitional album and far more grounded in earlier influences than it appeared at the time. Interesting but not always successful – with lots of signposts toward their next three albums.

boooooooooo....!

The only songs I don't like much are the two singles - Wish I Was Skinny and Barney.

I love 'Barney (...And Me)', it reminds me of The Cure.

Three singles, surely. ("I Hang Suspended")

yeah but I like IHS

i don't like the particular jangle of the acoustic guitar on Barney. The lyrics feel chirpy and cheap, a bit like It's Lulu or Free Huey or C'Mon Kids. Always felt that the Boos picked their least interesting songs as singles.

cmon kids title track is amazing

it has *that bit* in it

They got progressively better with each album. C'mon Kids and Kingsize should be their albums which are celebrated.

Wake Up! should be celebrated more, it's not the shiny happy pop album almost everyone makes it out to be, either lyrically or compositionally. It's quite a sad, downbeat record.

I think I've said this before, but that album is the best example of the difference between what I *thought* the lyrics were and what they actually were. Total depress-o-rama set to the catchiest tunes this side of catchy.

I'm starting to make my peace with a lot of '90s UK guitar music... there was a period of a few years where, with one or two exceptions, it was the last thing I wanted to hear.

I'm starting to make my peace with a lot of '90s UK guitar music... there was a period of a few years where, with one or two exceptions, it was the last thing I wanted to hear.

this.

yesterday i added my creation cds to the archive thinking i would never ever get any enjoyment out of them.
so randomly earlier today, i listened to the 18 wheeler album, year zero, and totally and utterly loved every minute of it.
was weird given that at the time it came out it did nothing for me.

They got progressively better with each album. C'mon Kids and Kingsize should be their albums which are celebrated.

agreed

I must have played "C'mon Kids" about twice, it didn't click with me. And seeing as it was a promo, I'd stopped playing it before bit had even come out. Liked the single b-sides more.

Anyway, last year I got the deluxe edition, and found that it was great after all.

While we're all here, I got the Rainbow Ffollies album 'Sallies forth' recently, and some of it definitely reminds me of the Boos, so see if you think so, why not?

About seven years ago, Stuart Campbell (yes, the video game journalist) did an alternate tracklisting for C'mon Kids which includes some B-sides of the period substituted for some of the album tracks.

If I was trying to slim down Giant Steps I'd be happy to lose these ones: Thinking of Ways, Spun Around, Best Lose The Fear and The White Noise Revisited

No.

Anyway, one time I tried to make a version with the long version of Lazarus, but it did not work. The slightly edited version was better.

sorry guys but I have to step in here and say: Giant Steps is one of the very greatest albums ever made, and Kingsize... isn't

but yeah, Wake Up is a hugely underrated record. I hear C'Mon Kids as the big (Brit)pop album really. That album is like 'what if Oasis really were obsessed with the Beatles?'. Wake Up, as expressed upthread, is the psych-oustic diary of someone who's going through some very difficult quarter-life crisis stuff and it's also a fantastic collection of songs.

Does anyone else appreciate them as a songs band, but not an album band?

There was a great run of 12"s that were essential back in the day but the LPs that followed weren't as good. Ichabod probably my favourite. #rockist

If I was trying to slim down Giant Steps I'd be happy to lose these ones: Thinking of Ways, Spun Around, Best Lose The Fear and The White Noise Revisited

― Warren's Treat (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Saturday, April 1, 2017 7:51 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, I'd gladly lose 'Spun Around', but I'd keep the rest. 'One Is For' is really the only other track I'd lose.

we changed your mind about Kingsize during their poll dog latin, sad that didn't last.