The Boo Radleys, Classic or Dud?

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.

it's not a bad album by any means but there's no comparison. Some of the production choices are very much of their time and the artwork is atrocious. it's got some great songs on there but it's also got Free Huey cluttering up the front half while the last third drags a bit for me. I'd lose one or two tracks.

Not enough dub for dog latin

'Comb Your Hair" was going to be the third Kingsize single, but Martin decided to split the band rather than have to play it ever again.

Comb Your Hair sounds like a rehash of Pulp's Something Changed to me. I'd probably drop it

Blimey that Martin Carr single is awful, it's like the office HR manager's sparetime band or something.

I love Giant Steps, it's one of those Tusk/White Album records where all the songs make a lovely single piece, including the less-good-bits and the ones that go on forever. Never really liked anything after that except "Ride the Tiger".

'Gold Lift' is better than 'Free Huey.' God, that song is irredeemable. The last minute feels like an hour.

DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE
DON'T YOU KNOW AND YOU GOTTA BE ALL YOU CAN BE

http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/hazards/primer/images/volc-images/puuoo.jpg

sure "Free Huey" is their worst song and did not make our Top 40 in the Boo Radleys poll. they also released their best song "Kingsize" around this time. "Comb Your Hair" is such a great song, made my ballot.

Weird how high New Brighton Promenade made it in that poll. Some very interesting results. Firesky at number 10 is a surprise too. Still sour that Blues For George Michael didn't even place

re: Kingsize. I feel like, starting about the time of C'Mon Kids, Carr became a great pop composer but his lyrical output was starting to wane, and this is felt very strongly on Kingsize. The lyrics on GS were always very personal but often shrouded in ambiguity, whereas on Kingsize and on later solo releases they become very literal almost to the extreme. Gold Lift is the most obvious example of 'bash-you-over-the-head-with-the-message' songwriting, but it started a lot earlier. Jimmy Webb, for example, has some lovely orchestration but the lyrics are really trite and simpering. I'd have called it a b-side. Monuments for A Dead Century, Melodies For The Blind, are musically fine but again I find the message is broadcast just a bit too brightly. There's no mystery or intrigue. Even on Wake Up, like, you knew he was singing about his life but not SPECIFICALLY so, and the weakest moments on that album (It's Lulu) told it exactly as it was.

Baby's gone but there'll be more
I'm only twenty three
My hair is thin, my size is large
What have I done to me
Pretty soon I'll fix a drink
Though I've been told it will kill me

"ambiguity"

The thing is, while there's plenty to praise about this band, I'm not convinced that Carr has ever been a particularly great lyricist. I think the lyrics fluctuated in quality from song to song, rather than album to album.

He's had a pretty thick head of hair, himself.

Sice's hair, well..

"I don't really need, to be the way I are"

(shudd)

The rest is OK, but.

that always really bugged me. then again Timbaland did it too and no one blinked

Yeah, but Martin was supposed to be some sort of lyricist.

Baby's gone but there'll be more
I'm only twenty three
My hair is thin, my size is large
What have I done to me
Pretty soon I'll fix a drink
Though I've been told it will kill me
"ambiguity"

― ...so music and chicken have become intertwined (Turrican), Tuesday, April 11, 2017 3:40 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

See I really love that lyric but when he gets all agit-prop and expressive I find it really hard going (Twinside notwithstanding). That lyric feels legitimately like something you'd think when you get home drunk and heartbroken, whereas by the time he gets to C'Mon Kids he's using these weak cod-psychedelic metaphors about painting your life with colours.. Also: 'a fuel infected car'. Also: 'Monkeys dressed in uniforms thinking they own the place / Threatening to break my face'. There are a lot of cringey lyrics post-Wake Up that I just don't notice on their first few albums.