The Boo Radleys, Classic or Dud?

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.

I'm still trying to figure out how Monuments for a Dead Century didn't even place in the poll. It's probably my favorite thing they ever did and the arrival of the final section is a thing of beauty that they only really perfected by Kingsize.

i don't like the bit where they spell out 'millenium'

A little hard to listen to these days. 'Giant Steps' sometimes moves me a bit, particularly "I Hang Suspended" but the bah-bah-ba-bah harmonies wear thin on me in 2017.

Xpost clearly not, otherwise you'd have been able to spell millennium.

(smiley)

apparently they did it themselves when they first wrote the song and then had to work a way to change it

True.

'Monuments for a Dead Century' is ace! One of my favourite things on Kingsize, definitely. Listening back, Kingsize probably has the slickest, fattest sounding production of all their records.

you think? to me it sounds a little dry and plasticky. very '1998'. the psychedelic flute flourishes on Monuments sound like tacked-on psychedelic signifiers rather than the real thing

Yup, although it is undoubtedly the least psychedelic of all their albums.

so... this new Martin Carr album... best thing he's done since the Boos or?

Have to agree with Carr about his previous album, The Breaks, which was stuffed with nice tunes but stylistically sounded like it came out 20 years ago.

I prefer The Breaks to the new album, but the new one is great too. I think the Breaks is his best LP with or without the Boos.

i had no idea Martin Carr had a new album, thanks for letting me know.

and it's on Spotify here in the States!

interesting opinion brotherlovesdub, i even bought the CD of The Breaks but for me it's not the Boo Radleys.

I connected with the lyrics to Mainstream, and the overall lyrical themes of the album. I find it very easy to listen to all the way through.

I prefer The Breaks to the new album, but the new one is great too. I think the Breaks is his best LP with or without the Boos.

― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, November 16, 2017 7:33 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wow, this is quite a statement

I bought it on vinyl (the Breaks) because it came out at a time when I'd been thinking about the Boos a lot, but yeah it wasn't my cuppa really. Sounded like Martin trying to sound like someone trying to sound like the Boo Radleys or something. Very Britpop but none of the weirdness that I know he's good at.

I didn't come in wanting weirdness. It's very straightforward, overall very mellow and lyrically down a bit, but I just find it really pleasing to listen to. I don't have to skip any songs and I find myself either singing along to the lyrics or nodding my head in agreement. I like the Boos, but there are several songs on every album that I have to skip. I'm not much of a guitar person, so shrieking guitars and feedback usually make me want to skip the track.

So way back when, I talked to Tim and Rob. (Subscribers only!)

https://www.patreon.com/posts/interviews-from-32425553

I really like 'Kingsize', would happily take "Free Huey" off but otherwise think it's really good, a teenage favourite. I have the promo CD in a yellow sleeve so I also don't have to see the atrocious official artwork.

I have 'The Breaks' but have yet to listen to it.

The last thing the Boos released was a cover of a song from Bugsy Malone - and only as the b-side of a single that was cancelled after promos went out. It's on soundcloud for a day or so.

Was definitely available elsewhere because I put a copy in my end of year mix one year.

https://www.discogs.com/The-Boo-Radleys-Find-The-Way-Out/release/742208

Sure you didn't get a copy of the promo?

https://www.discogs.com/The-Boo-Radleys-Kingsize/release/384046

(Fair play about the later comp, I didn't proof the uploader's claim)

Is it weird that, after 20+ years, the Boos song I return to most is 'Joel'?

"Tomorrow" is on the Boo Radleys best-of collection "Find the answer within"

One track, "Superintendent", remains otherwise unreleased.

are YOU sure you don't mean The Boo Radleys, Classic or Dud?

Well...

i'm pretty sure i voted for "Tomorrow" on our artist Boo Radleys poll. i remember hearing it for the first time and thinking what another great B-Side from this band, had no idea it was a cover at the time. also one of the last new songs i would ever hear from them. fast forward to sort of recently and the Jodi Foster movie was on and i happened to catch the song in the movie where a kid was singing it or something like that.

i don't see this posted on this thread, so for reference:
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

I know there's some huge Giant Steps fans here, so figured you might be interested in this re-up on one of my favorite blogs:

https://wilfullyobscure.blogspot.com/2017/05/boo-radleys-giant-steps-demos-1992-93.html

I remember Martin Carr hosting a load of demos on his website, in "Real Audio" (remember that?) along with some live takes. They sounded very telephone. Will have to see what these are like.

These are quite rough. Still fun for fans!

oh wow, i have never heard these before. downloading now and thanks Evan!

the download worked but don't have the software on my computer to play...minor details but i like to just play everything on Spotify these days

Thursday May 28th
8pm (U.K. time)

Giant Steps is getting the #TimsTwitterListeningParty  treatment - @martin_carr will take us on a track by track journey around The Boo Radleys’ seminal album

Come with us pic.twitter.com/lvh2b7dBl4

— Tim Burgess (@Tim_Burgess) May 24, 2020

Giant Steps getting the Listening Party treatment on twitter tonight at 8:05 uk time

(watch out for my friend stephen posting work-in-progress pics of the original art)

Meanwhile, in a bedsit flat on Huskisson Street, Liverpool 8, circa '92/'93... pic.twitter.com/mdSLTSBgRQ

— Stephen A. Wood (@stephen_a_wood) May 28, 2020