The Sundays : C or D

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This'll take a while to digest but dang, good stuff.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 15:20 (8 years ago) Permalink

I've only scanned it, but it certainly looks hilarious.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 15:32 (8 years ago) Permalink

The Sundays' debut album was better than the Smiths' debut album.

― righteousmaelstrom, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 15:42 (8 years ago) Permalink

For if love cannot be separated from the desire for sex and the desire to be together no matter with whom, then it is clear that love can only be fully regained when the other impulses are affirmed along with it, and that it is placed entirely out of reach when we seek the absolute suppression of those that seem to contradict it.

i got stuck on this sentence for about five minutes.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 16:17 (8 years ago) Permalink

I have a feeling that John Polewach is a very ...odd man.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 16:18 (8 years ago) Permalink

It appears much of the review's thesis hinges on the idea that the Sundays debut was written as a response to the Smiths' debut release some six years prior and that's just not true.

While it's fine to make an exercise out of "connecting the dots" of each album's themes, I was hoping that the review was going to be a reevaluation of the album, not a simple compare and contrast.

I give the essay a C-.

― righteousmaelstrom, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 16:27 (8 years ago) Permalink

I hope I'm not being offensive or frivolous in saying that it reminds me very much of the writing of some people with Asperger's Syndrome.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 16:52 (8 years ago) Permalink

The Sundays' debut album was better than the Smiths' debut album.

-- righteousmaelstrom (righteousmaelstro...), August 17th, 2004 2:42 AM. (later)

the sundays' debut is better than *all* of the smiths albums, and by a considerable margin.

― purple patch (electricsound), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 22:04 (8 years ago) Permalink

uh, dunno if I'd go that far... Queen is Dead sounds way less precious to me. Pretentious perhaps.

I've just been thinking lately that the Smiths' albums as a whole are not that good. They lack a cohesiveness that you see in strong albums from other groups. Fact is, they were a superlative singles band.

(xpost) I had to look up Asperger's Syndrome in my medical dictionary and I'm still not grasping that assertion.

― righteousmaelstrom, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 22:26 (8 years ago) Permalink

complete piece spoiled somewhat by repeated use of "My Finest Hours".

― koogs (koogs), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 11:43 (8 years ago) Permalink

Koogs has found the pound.

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 17:28 (8 years ago) Permalink

(I can't quite read it, it feels too much like a weird mailing-list post by a 17-year-old from Norway, or something. I'm going to need a comfortable chair and a seriously clear mind for this.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 17:46 (8 years ago) Permalink

Age: Seventeen
Home Country: Norway
Favorite Things: The Smiths, Ibsen, Alain de Botton
Goals: I will to one day study the Library Science

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 17:48 (8 years ago) Permalink

I am liking of the last line?

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 17:50 (8 years ago) Permalink

Once I saw that the article was about the "themes" in The Sundays/The Smiths, I stopped reading.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 20 August 2004 17:50 (8 years ago) Permalink

The main difference between first-Smiths and first-Sundays is that no matter how much people say that Morrissey lyrics were always about everyday-English-life, they had the same sense of constructed drama that other rock bands had—just with a more interesting and realistic set of touchstones than most. Whereas the first Sundays album, at least, is sort of defiantly mundane, and tends to make the most rote aspects of twenty-something existence seem dignified and interesting. The whole album is like some sort of Woolf parody where a woman sits in her living room reading a book and thinking of the same things everyone does: being lazy, being bored, things done as children, eventless seaside vacations, not even having relationships with people but just generally pondering them. (David + Harriet = most charmingly sexless indie couple ever! They probably just get up and make breakfast and water plants and read the paper together, then tea, nap, “Harriet, how are you enjoying that book?” “Oh, David, it’s lovely, did you let the cat in?” “Yes, let’s listen to De La Soul now.” Even the Mates of State seem more torrid, man.) And when you’re between the ages of 12 and 18 and don’t particularly know how to party and quite like just sitting around and drinking coffee, that particular sort of glamorizing of normal-life is incredibly potent and reassuring. First Sundays-album = well, if all goes well, that’ll be me. First Smiths-album = yeah right, like my life is that interesting.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 18:08 (8 years ago) Permalink

I love the Sundays!

― 57 7th (calstars), Friday, 20 August 2004 18:17 (8 years ago) Permalink

I mean, here's the track-by-track, Smiths on the left, Sundays on the right:

1. sordid loss-of-innocence sex / "i threw up on that dress"
2. rivalry / "sometimes i think about other people"
3. sordid loss-of-innocence sex / "i'm not really sure what i'll major in"
4. sordid loss-of-innocence sex / "i can be witty, though"
5. defensive fear of child-death / "teehee what if i did stuff?"
6. gagging for sordid loss-of-innocence sex / "i think i'll hide in the bathroom instead"
7. but sordid loss-of-innocence sex won't help / "what if i had lots of cash?"
8. tragic sun-on-behinds love / "remember when i kicked that kid?"
9. oh who cares about anything / "hey look, a pound!"
10. i can't relate to people / "i'm sad about the lone ranger or something"
11. child murders / [no track]

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 18:26 (8 years ago) Permalink

i owned the first sundays lp on cassette back in my prehistoric days. it disappeared with most of my cassettes at some point. i think i've completely forgotten what it sounds like. i look forward to rediscovering it. i very very vaguely remember hearing "here's where the story ends" on wxrt and liking it enough to order the tape from columbia house.

though i wonder, given nabisco's explanation of their appeal, whether it would reach me in my old age.

― amateur!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:32 (8 years ago) Permalink

It might, Amateurist. It'll be like the skinny girl in the apartment next door is singing to herself. Except she's English, and came to Chicago for grad school. And she left her cardigan down at the cafe yesterday, maybe if you stopped by to return it she'd ask you in for tea...

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 18:34 (8 years ago) Permalink

:-0

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:37 (8 years ago) Permalink

It is the best record of the 1990s.

― the pinefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:45 (8 years ago) Permalink

(Incidentally I am going to have to start working on a children's book where young-Morrissey goes to the shore and winds up in a dingy seaside hotel having an emotionally scarring pseudo-sexual encounter with a tart straight out of Brighton Rock. Then the young Sundays come along and walk on the beach for a few minutes and go "It's a bit humid out here, let's go back in and have tapas.")

― nabiscothingy, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:52 (8 years ago) Permalink

Nabisco, you're fucking hilarious. You should have written that article! It's a hell of a lot better and more insightful.

5. defensive fear of child-death / "teehee what if i did stuff?"

Priceless!

― righteousmaelstrom, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:57 (8 years ago) Permalink

I don't wholly agree with your description of them.

Mainly, I think that you neglect the romanticism.

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:57 (8 years ago) Permalink

I think it's a romanticism of mundanity, though -- and that's what's so appealing about it. Most pop groups romanticize mundanity by inflating it, giving it characteristics it doesn't actually have; the Sundays album romanticizes mundanity just by giving it space to speak, and attention, and the same sweeps and drama as anything else. It's still constructed, in its way -- hardly anyone's personal mundanity is quite as precious and dreamy as theirs (except the Clientele's, natch) -- but it's mundanity nonetheless.

Big caveat: my sense of this subject matter as "mundane" may have to do with my growing up (and loving the Sundays) mostly in the same general sort of quiet-suburban landscape they're always said to conjure. The everyday is a relative thing.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 19:03 (8 years ago) Permalink

I think it's this romanticism of the mundane that really attracted me to them (besides sounding like the Smiths!) That is, being able identify with the situations posed in the lyrics.

Love in an elevator? Never happened to me.

Sleeping in a chair? Happened quite often.

― righteousmaelstrom, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:09 (8 years ago) Permalink

(And admittedly, Piney, I'm posting from a self-conscious adult hindsight, where some of the Sundays' stuff seems charmingly precious; when I was a teenager, I swooned to this stuff in a way that had, yes, a lot more to do with romance than with the everyday. That's part of what I was originally trying to get at, though. For a teenager, the swoony-romance of the Sundays seemed somehow attainable, a dreamy little world that was still made of things that were familiar and graspable. I hate to do the whole thing where the Sundays come out sounding like librarians and wallflowers, but the album did offer up a world-of-romance that seemed open to people with that particular streak in them. At thirteen you imagine that you really might grow up and get lucky and live in some charming Sundays-world; possibly at twenty-seven you realize you lived in more of a Sundays-world when you were thirteen than you ever have since. For that, and for Harriet's charmingly-unstylish pleated jeans, I thank them.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 19:16 (8 years ago) Permalink

pleated jeans?

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:21 (8 years ago) Permalink

I can't find a picture. Yes, there were some pleated jeans involved, possibly with an elastic waist. Also overalls. Here's the classic photo where Harriet's head appears to weight six times as much as her body:

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 19:25 (8 years ago) Permalink

That's a rather unfortunate pose.

― righteousmaelstrom, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:31 (8 years ago) Permalink

I don't think I know what you mean about 'pleated'.

But I agree with you more now that you have admitted the romanticism of the mundane.

Yet, 'mundane' is a very unromantic word, and perhaps not the right one.

I think the Clientele a red herring here. I don't think they are about the mundane - more about a certain vocabulary. I think I, let alone the Sundays, am more about the mundane (and associated romance) than they are. But I only know their first LP.

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:32 (8 years ago) Permalink

pleated pants:

unpleated pants:

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:40 (8 years ago) Permalink

sorry that post got kind of f'ed up.

― amateur!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:40 (8 years ago) Permalink

I got believe there is no mention of The Smiths "Cemetary Gates" on this thread. I like the Sundays very much, but almost all their music sounds like a direct variation of that song.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 20 August 2004 19:50 (8 years ago) Permalink

The first album where acoustics are used is reminiscent of 'Cemetery Gates,' but the subsequent albums not so much.

I was listening recently to the first album and Gavurin's guitar work actually reminds me of Peter Buck's earlier style. Also, the last part of 'Hideous Towns' could have been written by the Wedding Present.

― righteousmaelstrom, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:58 (8 years ago) Permalink

first line of my post should be "I can't believe..."

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:01 (8 years ago) Permalink

Early Peter Buck is a lot easier to mimic than Gavurin. It's just play arpeggios with cool classic-pop rhythms (rhythms of notes, I mean - something I used to get a kick out of, and still would if I thought about it). Gavurin is surely a different cup of tea: apart from all the acoustic rhythm guitar, he doesn't play many continuous arpeggios and riffs all the way through a song. He tends more to diverse effects, especially the one where you can hear shapes sliding up and down the neck in a slightly perverse fashion.

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:29 (8 years ago) Permalink

As I said, I agreed more with nabisco's more recent posts; just something bugged me in the ones before that. Something about his description of domestic happiness was wrong, I think: watering the plants, feeding the cat, and above all the really wrong note - the tapas.

I can't and don't speak about the couple's actual relationship - that may be as nabisco describes. But the *records* aren't like that. And it was odd how nabisco kept going back to 'one day my life could be like that', as if they were a description of mature life or wedded bliss. I think they are not - I think they are a description of young, drifting life, which is where the Smiths comparison comes in again. I think that if the records really made one feel 'one day my life could be like that', it would be to feel: 'one day my life could be as romantic as that'.

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:35 (8 years ago) Permalink

I think I think of "young drifting life" as sort of mundane and/or par for the course, and that in itself does feel glamorously mature, when you're a teenager. Tapas were more of a D+H-with-child joke; when really immersed in that first album, it's hard to imagine them consuming much more than hot water and light pastries. And I don't imagine their actual-lives having anything like the slim-British-novel dreaminess of that particular record. ("Novelistic" -- maybe it's just my joke above, but something about the album is reminding me of like de Botton's The Romantic Movement right now. Which I won't go into.)

There are Cocteau comparisons to be discussed too, I think, not in the traditional vocal sense but in the sense of how "likely" their respective worlds seem.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:45 (8 years ago) Permalink

perhaps the difference is degree of identification, or what people mean by subject vs. object, but i'm not sure of that. how does it feel to be someone about whom a romantic story could be told? i think it must take a lot of grace to feel some pain but, from another point of view, to see it muted and still and described as happiness because of its effect.

― youn, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:48 (8 years ago) Permalink

sp: "'cemetry'"

― the wildefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:48 (8 years ago) Permalink

Nabisco and Pinefox: Did you guys time-travel from old-ILM for this thread?

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:51 (8 years ago) Permalink

Well, it *is* August 2002, right?

ilx was far better a year ago: only 4 years since the last Sundays LP.

― the timefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:54 (8 years ago) Permalink

I find the continuing support for Harriet's hair, and the Sundays generally, I find somewhat bemusing.

N., this is a bad line that illustrates your weakness.

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:57 (8 years ago) Permalink

Gavurin...doesn't play many continuous arpeggios and riffs all the way through a song. He tends more to diverse effects, especially the one where you can hear shapes sliding up and down the neck in a slightly perverse fashion.
-- the bellefox (pinefo...), August 20th, 2004.

No, but neither did Buck. I'm sure of it and you're going to make me have to drag out my copies of 'Murmur' and 'Reckoning' and listen to them, aren't you?

I'm also puzzled by what you mean about "...shapes sliding up and down the neck in a slightly perverse fashion." Are you talking about the beginning of the album where you hear the slide on the guitar that then kicks into the riff?

― righteousmaelstrom, Friday, 20 August 2004 21:02 (8 years ago) Permalink

I don't think that opening sound is a guitar.

I have often heard things that sounded exactly like it, but they were never guitars.

re. Buck, my memory is of his draping every other song in a pattern of notes off the top 3 strings, in certain very clear and indeed predictable patterns. Which I like, a lot. I have always been a tad vexed at the thought that I may have picked up more from him than those - Gavurin included, I guess - I consider my real heroes.

Possible example of what I mean: 'I Believe'. That absent-minded picking-at-a-G stuff is barely to be found on the Sundays' records.

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 21:24 (8 years ago) Permalink

Is the weakness more in the bemusement or the mistake with the two "I finds"?

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 20 August 2004 22:10 (8 years ago) Permalink

I think the bemusement is lamentable, but it's the mistake that allows me a... a... a clear shot at it.

― the bellefox, Friday, 20 August 2004 22:44 (8 years ago) Permalink

Bellefox spot-on: Buck plays open chords and arpeggiates them; Gavurin likes to move open shapes up and down the fretboard and follow the slides ("My Finest Hour" is pretty much solely that). Buck also pick nearly-every 8th note, whereas Gavurin is a lot more pick-slide-pause, etc. PLEASE PRETEND I POSTED THIS WHEN I WAS 15 THANK YOU.

― nabiscothingy, Saturday, 21 August 2004 03:38 (8 years ago) Permalink

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