the rectal prolapse of norman lamont: terrible post-britpop/dadrock ephemera

I'll always love Kenickie they had a perfect career. The debut was a really exciting record full of energy and great tunes. Then just over a year later they put out a second album that was a great Britpop comedown album (five months before Pulp's This Is Hardcore which did a similar thing) It still had some poppy moments but on the whole was quite dark and sounded like they were already burning out, especially on the song Weekenights. Then they split weeks later after a shambolic a gig where they Lauren Lavern said "We were Kenickie...a bunch of fuckwits" It was all so brief but it was exciting and they left two great records that still sound good now.

But sure, the critics couldn't accept Dodgy because Dodgy was pure pop, without any rock elements at all. And yet, the classic Beatlesque form of pop, not the hip-hop/dance-influenced stuff that people tended to confuse with pop by the mid 90s.

You're Twistin' My Melody Man! (Geir Hongro)

Actually they were really critically acclaimed when they started out.

http://www.rocklist.net/

They rated The Dodgy Album higher than The Verve, Radiohead, Manics, Paul Weller, Rage Against The Machine, New Order and most amazingly Nirvana.

Also Geir I think when you said

They were just clever musicians, knowing how to construct good pop tunes and arrange them in a clever way.

You were possibly getting them confused with The Boo Radleys, who at times wrote brilliant simple pop but also made interesting albums that sound just as good now and even did entertaining interviews in the press, Basically they were everything Dodgy were not.

The Rocklist link was meant to be the 1993 NME Albums list which has The Dodgy album at number 17.

yeah I mentioned this earlier re Dodgy, think the 'party line' was morelike "these noodleheads are never gonna be cool or big stars but they can't half write a nice tune"

critics couldn't 'accept' dodgy because dodgy were shite

how true

I couldn't accept Dodgy because they were named Dodgy and therefore already knew everything about themselves that I could ever contribute

lol menswear, bought that album :(

tbf its one of the best albums released by anyone on here

longpigs-The first album had some great singles and the second one was kind of a lost indie classic, the singer was a twat though.

longpigs, divine comedy, gomez are the only 3 here that i f/w though and gomez not anymore really

Lead singer of Gomez playing solo at Shepherd's Bush Hall next month - I was there last night and they had posters up advertising it. Not sure if it's too much time on ILX that I immediately thought of this thread and would've been tempted to deface the poster with "can't believe this cunt's still going" if I had a pen on me.

worst post britpop era song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGwB-f1xfxM&feature=related

Would rather listen to that than Gene or Shed Seven.

haha

srsly with a lot of britpop it's difficult to parse song and artist titles

posh / mermaid
bingo / catch
oasis / supersonic

I actually liked a handful of Dodgy songs from Howngrown and the singles for that album. Never heard the other album(s).

staying out for the summer was okay.

but that was it. good enough is one of the worst songs ever recorded

So Let Me Go Far was pretty good too.

You were possibly getting them confused with The Boo Radleys, who at times wrote brilliant simple pop but also made interesting albums that sound just as good now and even did entertaining interviews in the press, Basically they were everything Dodgy were not.

The only pure pop album Boo Radleys made was "Wake Up", which is usually hated by the same people who hate Dodgy. The others were all full of screaming and really loud guitars, i.e. not pop but rock. Hard rock even.

But, sure, I know, they were critically acclaimed for a while. In fact, those who hate them do it because of just one song. A song that was far from their best, but still by far their biggest hit.

http://i.imgur.com/OWfS4.jpg

ha, i thought 'no way no way' sounded pretty bad in my head, but actually listening to it, it's baffling that anyone thought this was something suitable for release.

(and then people bought it!)

the 'and you can hold me' bit is one of the three or four most important pieces of recorded sound in the 20th century

girl just finds notes nobody else could reach

and once she finds them, she fuckin disembowels them

was it a prank by the big breakfast or something?

7 decent songs from this lot

“into the blue” – geneva
“sleep well tonight” – gene
“neighbourhood” – space
“what do I do now” – sleeper
“whippin picadilly” – gomez
“not so manic now” – dubstar
“the frog princess” – the divine comedy

I used to love Dubstar's "Inside" back in 1997 or so, but it's not on youtube so I can't verify whether it still holds up.

I do remember reading some review of Dubstar that said something like, "we've all long imagined what it would be like if the world's two best bands (The Smiths and New Order) collaborated, then it happened and it was Electronic and it wasn't very good, but this is much better" - typical myopic British music crit obv but what I remember is not perceiving it as myopic at the time, even though my own listening habits were far more broad even then. The uk music crit style is so confident - and there's so much of it - that it's pretty good at self-legitimising to suggestible young readers.

Can it be true that this thread has so many posts without anyone linking to the trapped in amber beauty of Northern Uproar's website?

omfg

Stories

Chris and Leon went for a hike up Ygairne near Tryffyn in Wales, the wind was blowing at 80 mph and they had to crawl and slither to keep from being blown away.
When they got back down to the bottom, Leon slipped and hurt his ankle, but instead of going to the hospital like any mere mortals would do... they went to the pub for some liquid anaesthetic.
Not 'til the next day did Leon find out that he had actually broken his ankle!

Northern upLAD

The uk music crit style is so confident - and there's so much of it - that it's pretty good at self-legitimising to suggestible young readers.

Sooooo OTM. The preening bullshitters who staffed the NME and Melody Maker persuaded me to buy any number of terrible records in the early '90s, and it was some time before I developed the self-confidence to accept that I was right not to see any value in most of the bands they were pushing.

These were all great:
divine comedy
dodgy
dubstar
gene
sleeper
bluetones
silver sun
supernaturals

Plus Gomez and Hurricane #1 (and even many of the others) also had brief moments of greatness.

hahaha Northern Uproar's fanclub is ("is") based in Truro

Can it be true that this thread has so many posts without anyone linking to the trapped in amber beauty of Northern Uproar's website?

― Animal Bitrate (Raw Patrick), Saturday, 26 February 2011 11:47 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omfg

― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Saturday, 26 February 2011 12:08 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

^^^

Stand and Fight is the third album by British band Northern Uproar, and the first after their reunion in 2005. It was released in 2007.

The only pure pop album Boo Radleys made was "Wake Up", which is usually hated by the same people who hate Dodgy. The others were all full of screaming and really loud guitars, i.e. not pop but rock. Hard rock even.

― You're Twistin' My Melody Man! (Geir Hongro)

Wake Up had some pretty strange moments on it too, I would say King Size was their most pop album. Even Giant Steps had some pure pop moments like Wish I Was Skinny and Barney (& Me).

If the Boo Radleys don't count how about Teenage Fanclub? The critics loved them and they definitely fit into your description of pure pop and I don't remember them being assholes or rock n roll in the press. The difference is they had big fuck off tunes and a few great albums. It's not really a case of the press not being able to accept Dodgy, they obviously just didn't rate them past their first album. Judging by the many singles they put out I can see why, the worst offender being Found You.

Didn't one of Dodgy used to go out with Denise van Outen? Couple of half-decent songs (So Let Me Go Far was almost good), but mostly rubbish.

I once went into an Italian restaurant in Soho that had several pictures of Jocasta on the walls.

Worst on this list is definitely Heavy Stereo. Awful fucking band, and really horrible people as well.

think it's p much mandatory for italian restaurants to have autographed photos of minor celebs over the wall (ususally from the kerry dixon / mad frankie fraser / her out of are you being served school, so 90s indie chancers are quite avant garde in context)

w/r/t music press plausibility: when one week the editorial line was don't like oasis? r u a nazi? and the next its like oasis? r u a nazi? it wasnt difficult to work out to just ignore the silly cunts

northern uproar website like finding a pacific island full of dinosaurs

the only reward those journos got was to end up writing for failed mags then failed blogs and/or posting here (or sleeping w/lauren laverne, ymmv)

If the Boo Radleys don't count how about Teenage Fanclub?

I like Teenage Fanclub, but they are still a bit too Americana influenced to really score with me. Dodgy were archetypically English in a Beatles/Hollies/Who way while Teenage Fanclub are considerably more Byrds/Big Star.

The critics also loved "Parklife", which is a lot closer to the musical spirit that makes me love Dodgy than Teenage Fanclub ever were. But, again, basically, Dodgy were more powerpop than Britpop, and fans of powerpop still love everything by them. Powerpop, unlike Britpop, has never been "cool" with the hipsters though (OK, maybe it was for a very short while around 1978-79, but it was much more needed in the 90s)

Well I've never come across any of these power pop fans who like everything Dodgy put out (apart from you) but to me they were just everything that was wrong with Britpop, although they are worse bands on the list like Embrace.

The NME had Big Star in their heartbreak list, best albums of all time and albums that students should own, if the NME is what mean by hipsters then I would say they are seen as very cool.

Powerpop, unlike Britpop, has never been "cool" with the hipsters though

fwiw this is rong btw

yeah wtf

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/129/l_c13a0d25feed4626adc737d168954526.jpg

"BUNGALOW BUMS are from Omsk in southern Siberia. They’ve been around since 2006, when they originally cranked out songs under the direct influence of britpop and US rock. With time, however, their interests and influences have moved backwards through the history books. Their listed idols begin with the time-tested threesome of The Stooges, MC5, and the New York Dolls. Somewhere in this post, therefore, the term garage rock is bound to pop up.

http://www.myspace.com/bungalowbums

http://www.last.fm/music/Bungalow+Bums

Should never have allowed Geir a visa into Siberia for his holiday look at the cultural damage he's done.