What happened to LUSH?

An over-defensive article based around the idea that they are validated because lots of well known people said they liked them. Should've just talked about what they meant to the writer. Then again...

Lush’s Spooky album is a bona fide masterpiece.

It's their worst imo. It might've had a chance if it wasn't buried under a thick layer of Robin Guthrie varnish. Gala is their best release, but I prefer both Split and Lovelife to Spooky.

And I don't know who is having these discussions where Chapterhouse and Echobelly(!?) are favoured over Lush, but anyway.

i also think spooky is their worst but it's far from a bad record.

surely no fucker really favours echobelly

leaving The Pale Saints & The Telescopes as the true unsung heroes of the genre.

Never really dug The Telescopes much beyond the first singles, but Pale Saints grow in my affections with every year that passes (and I loved them at the time anyway). I know a lot of people dismiss the post-Masters stuff, but some of Slow Buildings is fucking amazing.

some of Slow Buildings is fucking amazing.

Eh, I felt the "Fine Friend" single pretty much summed up that period.

Saying some of slow buildings is amazing is most not otm statement ever.

it's not the horrific disaster some make it out to be, unlike say rachel goswell's solo material

it's not the horrific disaster some make it out to be, unlike say rachel goswell's solo material

Yahhh! That's so true, I couldn't believe how bad Rachel's solo stuff was!!

Meanwhile, by chance, my latest Not Just the Ticket entry...

Good work Ned - I only saw Lush a couple of times a bit earlier in their career, but Spotify has enabled a fair bit of retrospective listening recently. I've some photos from a gig at the Manchester Boardwalk in 1990 that I'll try to scan and upload soon (in the process of moving house currently so everything's packed up, but will get on it once settled).

i know the production on spooky gets a bad rap, but imo if there was ever a band built to withstand (nay, prosper) from guthrie's sugary winterblast it was lush circa '92

argh end parenthesis after from

Yeah, I often found the production on their previous stuff was a little thin, which is not an accusation that could be levelled at RG's maximalistic approach.

This is no time for revisionism, everything they say about Guthrie's work on Spooky is true. It's all true. The sound is so sealed in and polite. The voices are indistinguishable, and far too airy; the guitars should ring out clear, but are all cloudy; the drums are coming from the room upstairs.
Guthrie seems to think he's producing something called Sugar-Frosted Choo-Choo Faery, and he ain't.

guthrie has done a lot of great things, but his production of non-CT artists isn't really among them

Anyway, remember them this way:

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s236/mezxspectrum/miki.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s236/mezxspectrum/emme.jpg

So we don't get to see the lads with their tops off then?

Haven't got them, soz.

http://www.lightfromadeadstar.org/Photos/Promo%20Photos.htm

An extraordinarily good looking band. Part of their legacy problem right there. Too good looking. Too female/feminine. Too chipper looking.

It's been really good listening to Lush again this weekend.

revisionism my ass, i've always been down w/spooky

but fuck, i first "spooky" when i was 15, in 1998, and i probably traded my copy of stone temple pilots "core" for it. so n/m

No, no. Spooky is classic. Fuck production.

i like the production on spooky. it's their best album too, imo.

I am all for Lush-canonization -- there are tons of things about them that sound even better now than they did at the time, especially the stuff that set them apart from the other bands around them. But the one thing recaps can't really touch on is the way that ... even if it seems less significant in hindsight, the changes they made going into Lovelife are what buried them for a while, aren't they? It felt like they reached for a certain pop role, didn't quite snag it right, and that's surely why their reputation languished for a while.

first time i heard lush was the singles off lovelife and found them really annoying (altho "500" is ok i guess) got into shoegaze about 2000 and somebody played me a couple of their early tracks without telling me who it was and i've loved the first couple of albums and early eps ever since.

lush got way more popular in oz off the back of the lovelife album, but i'm betting that a fair chunk of that was the jarvis duet. also shake baby shake was thrashed on the radio

Ha, I should probably be clear what I mean about snagging the pop role right -- I mean, that album seemed way more successful in a broad pop way, but I feel like there was this sense that they'd accomplished that by going a bit bland, or joining up to run in a pack with bands like Sleeper and Echobelly, or something. I don't know that anyone considered that a huge sell-out, or anything, but surely it has something to do with their not being critically canonized in the way they might have been if they'd released three records like Gala and then broken up, you know?

http://vonpipmusicalexpress.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/lush-mad-love/

i do kind of miss these guys, though they were never ever in the same league as MBV or Slowdive.

the linked interview is really interesting, though. being American, i had no idea that Lush had gotten beaten up so much in the British musical press -- the interview claims it's because they were "lighter" than other shoegaze bands (which is true i guess) -- but it wasn't as if Slowdive (to give a counter-example) had a particularly easy time with the British press either.

yeah i recall interviews w/them in The Big Takeover where they blasted the British press, especially for constantly pushing the tired dull sexist "look these are women playing rock music" line.

Also, shoegaze in general got AN LOT of ridicule; the term itself was originally used as a pejorative iirc.

This must go down on record as the longest Lush thread ever being that it was stated in 2002!

In fact I can't think of any other band or for that matter, subject matter that has merited such an long thread!

i won't introduce you to the pseudo echo thread in that case

I suppose with Lush now talking about reforming, it could quite easy make it's 10th anniversary.

I guess it's only a matter of time, until a reunion is on the cards.

Which would be very strange, to say the least.

(sigh)

After seeing Lush repeatedly place on the shoegaze-tracks poll, I am revisiting all of these Lush albums and they are hitting all the right autumnal emotional trigger points. So fucking good. The outros to Nothing Natural and Desire Lines are killing me.

Of course Lush will never get old. They will forever be in their twenties and the music will always remain ageless. And they didn't need the build-up and applause of the music press to keep them relevant either.

Just read a note on FB that tomorrow is the 16th anniversary of Chris Acland's death.

I've just bumped into this Emma Anderson interview... was kind of surprised to learn they've actually contemplated reuniting, but haven't been offered enough money :(

Interview here

Was talking to Emma Anderson at a wedding the other week.

Saw the Ride / Lush tour the summer I gradjeeated from college at the late lamented Latin Quarter in Detroit. Epic show. My brother and I both lost hearing in our right ears from the treble onslaught, but 21 years later I have no regrets!

back next year according to a fake-Coachella poster doing the rounds!

I hope so!

firing up Spooky for the first time in a while; this album is still fantastic

It's one of my favorite albums that I would usually probably forget to list among my favorite albums. I discovered at just the right point in my life, too, which doesn't hurt. Total gateway drug to lots of other, similar stuff I'd never been exposed to previously.

I love Spooky but it's my least favourite of their albums.

Lovelife never really gelled for me

Yeah, Lovelife isn't bad, but they sounded like a different band to me (although I can't fault them for not continuing to do exactly what I wanted them to continue doing). I love everything up until then, though.