The Boo Radleys - Wake Up! poll

stuck on amber

Joel!

It's Joel for me too. But I really like so much about this record. Some days it even rivals Giant Steps for me.

Great moments, as mentioned above:

- the middle eighth of Wake Up Boo: "You can't blame me for the death of summer", i.e. the bit people overlook; the part that betrays the TFI Fridays jolliness of the thing
- Fairfax Scene / Stuck On Amber - I think of these as "sister"-songs. As Beatlesy as the Boos got
- Joel - so good, but also that it's their best "rooms within rooms" type songs, starting as a sort-of tribute to Hey Jude but switching into a kind of rap/metal track halfway through and then "All I want is harmony like some outmoded 60s throwback" (a line I love). And then into ambient dub by the end. It sort of does everything Giant Steps does in one song. Sublime.
- All the fun back-masking, like on Find The Answer Within (try playing it backwards)
- The fact the lyrics are deeply personal but not so personal they're unrelatable. Reaching Out From Here is a great example of this. Just universal ennui.
- How this is a concept album about hangovers, and Martin, Doom! exemplifies this as the opening track on Side 2 - the flip of Wake Up Boo!'s coin
- Charles Bukowski Is Dead - the lyrics of which are mysteriously missing from the liner notes.
- 4AM Conversation is so deeply sad and forlorn
- Twinside rawks! MAybe my favourite of the Boos' straight-up rock songs. Could have been a single tbf
- Wilder - oh god what a closer. And the extended coda. I can never make out the sample - is it Alan Watts? "You should always put your hand in front of you... and see inside", gives me goosebumps every time

I love every damn minute of this album (including It's Lulu, which I think is a great pop-rock burst of fireworks -- reminds me of the kinds of things I would hear on rock radio growing up, but a lot more thoughtful and better-crafted). But mostly I don't know which track is which, since my mp3 player has a broken screen and I usually load albums on there as single files (like our dog latin's curated glorious unbroken suite "And Tomorrow the World"). Time to find out where the track breaks happen!

Instinct says Wilder because that coda is divine, but there are so many other excellent candidates! I've seen interviews in which Sice bemoans this is part pop fireworks and part usual Radleys psych-noise-folk but I really really love how these two sides of them coexist here.

"Charles Bukowski Is Dead" is meant to be a 'live' song about what's going on 'right now', which is probably why there's no set lyrics on the sheet.

Voted for Reaching Out From Here just ahead of Twinside and Stuck On Amber. Still bugs me now that it wasn't put out as a single.

I couldn't see it as a single. It's so forlorn. I love it to bits. It's one of the reasons I think of this album as the Boo Radleys' most mature and adult statement. C'mon Kids goes in a very different direction lyrically. Even songs like Everything Is Sorrow don't really touch this song

"You think that it's alright so I think it's alright... Whisper in my ear..." ugh the delivery on this bit murks me so hard

Reaching Out From Here

I couldn't see it as a single. It's so forlorn. I love it to bits

― rameau in the main room (dog latin)

I just think the melody is one of those beautiful ones that sounds so instantly familiar and has a timeless feel to it that would have really worked on the radio. The "it looks like another rainy day" line is such a strong hook that gets stuck in my head a lot. It would have been a much a wiser choice than Find The Answer Within which was a desperate attempt to get another Wake Up Boo style hit and also was the worst song on the album. Twinside as the third single and that would have been the perfect campaign that would have given the album a bit more longevity and shown people the different sides to the album a bit more.

Yeah true. Although I like FTAW a LOT more than It's Lulu

Interesting that their 15-track major label single-disc 'Best Of..' from 2007 has Reaching Out From Here on it

https://www.discogs.com/release/1507700-The-Boo-Radleys-The-Best-Of-The-Boo-Radleys

Yeah some interesting choices on there. Definitely not a "Greatest Hits" considering deep cuts like Spun Around and I've Lost The Reason. Both great songs in context of Giant Steps but closer to what I'd call "bridging" songs than things that work as standalones

4am Conversation is also an odd choice

Find The Answer Within which was a desperate attempt to get another Wake Up Boo style hit

yeah It’s Lulu is the real offender here. the Mint Car to Wake Up’s Friday I’m In Love.

voted Wake Up on the merits but with bonus points for Music For Astronauts

Interesting that their 15-track major label single-disc 'Best Of..' from 2007 has Reaching Out From Here on it

https://www.discogs.com/release/1507700-The-Boo-Radleys-The-Best-Of-The-Boo-Radleys

― piscesx

That best of is such a mess and doesn't look like it had any effort put into it. All the Giant Steps songs put together half of Wake Up is on there. The sequencing is a mess too.

Luckily this exists which is a much better set with some interesting sleeve notes from Martin Carr. The main flaw is obviously the presence of Free Huey.

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

Yeah Find A Way Out feels much more representative. Even has Blues For George Michael on it, which is probably my favourite Boos song

Stuck On Amber all the way

I remember the Evening Session used to play Reaching Out From here a lot, as if someone was trying to encourage it to be released as a single. Unless that was a session track they kept repeating

A good EP should work both as a snapshot of a band at a specific point, and also as a transition point between eras. From The Bench At Belvidere EP is a perfect example of that. The title track has the classicist Beatles-y melodies of the Wake Up! album but with the wistfulness and whimsicality that would characterise the C'Mon Kids record the following year.

Hi Falutin and Crushed showcase a funkier, granular, hip-hop inspired side they hadn't really explored but would play around more on songs like Fortunate Sons and Shelter. It's a brighter, more polished sound overall.

Then of course Almost Nearly There is one of their greatest songs, tucked away as the fourth track. Just a sweet, romantic piece that feels like the flip to Wake Up Boo's "death of summer" anticlimacticism. This time the anticipation of a beautiful day sounds like it's going to be realised. I love it.

Of course, the title track has the first line is a callback to "Barney and Me" !

Yeah. Isn't there another track that references "Barney"?

Voted for Martin, Doom! - I like that Marcello identified the intro as Dazzle Ships-derived because I'd long thought that also.

Ok I've listened to this for the first time ever, and a few times more. It hasn't all fully sunk in but sadly I'm not too inclined to give it more time. Passing over Wake Up, Fairfax Scene is a verse and a bridge and a verse - it's half written. And is that still Sice singing the verse in a lower register? It doesn't sound good. The less said about It's Lulu the better. I just don't think Joel hangs together and the lull halfway really kills it. Find the Answer, yeah it's trying too hard to be pop and the back masking is actually irritating. Reaching Out is ok. Martin, Doom! - 45 seconds of the most irritating sample incessantly repeated doesn't whet my appetite for a song that fails to rise above its in-jokey title. I can see why you might fall for its gentle beatlesy charms but I'm afraid I can't. Stuck on Amber - good one! Classic 90s indie rock guitar. Bukowski sounds like a tongue in cheek attempt at Mario's Cafe and it falls flat. 4am, in a better album this could be a decent interlude. Twinside, is this a stab at "proper" britpop? Splitting the difference between blur and oasis? Either way the chorus (from a minute in) is dreadful. Wilder - yes! Finally another good one! An epic closer that feels out of place for this very non epic album. Sadly the whole thing feels ill thought out, underwritten, underproduced. Hate to be the shit talker in the thread but I did try.

I really don't mind "It's Lulu". Was it massively overplayed in the UK or something? I'm certainly prepared to believe that having heard it only perhaps 5-6 times in my life may be significant. (Wake Up was their first major release I didn't actually possess back in the day, but my brother did!)

Haha, why you break heart, ledge? But srsly, I think it's interesting to hear this from the persepctive of a 2026 listener of a 1995 album.

I love Fairfax Scene. Not a fully-formed pop song by any means but it works well off the back of Wake Up Boo's maximalist bombast. Actually, there's a lot about this album that reminds me of the Beach Boys' "Smiley Smile" and how it splits the difference between pocket symphonies, sweet little sketch-like songs and the odd peppering of psychedelic weirdness.
"It's easy to hide behind a smile / Behind an ugly grace / It's easy to talk behind a back / It's harder to the face" is a lovely, fluid opening couplet. Then there's the slight lift in the "Come on and listen to me / I can't complain / I've got it easy" middle-eighth, before lifting yet again in the "Now it's gone awaa-aa-aayyyy" part. It gives me similar autumnal vibes to Rubber Soul, to name another classic sixties album.

Reference to Britpop is fair. But Wake Up would have been recorded just a few months after Parklife was released and at roughly the same time as Definitely Maybe was coming out. So I'm not sure if "Britpop" had fully-bedded in as a cultural idea yet for the songs to have been modeled on this. C'Mon Kids is a lot more obviously Britpop-influenced. Compared to Wake Up the production has dated a lot worse for me.

I really don't mind "It's Lulu". Was it massively overplayed in the UK or something? I'm certainly prepared to believe that having heard it only perhaps 5-6 times in my life may be significant. (Wake Up was their first major release I didn't actually possess back in the day, but my brother did!)

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Tuesday, 23 June 2026 09:50 (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It wasn't massively overplayed but it was a low-key chart hit. I bought both editions for the B-sides.

I just think it's brash and annoying. An attempt at one of those Kinksy "character" songs beloved by people like Damon Albarn and popular with bands at the time. But it comes across as a lazily-drawn caricature transplanted from a Harry Enfield sketch. There's no nuance to it and it lacks real melody. Just a sort of "Na na na" verse with a repetitive three-note chorus.

I generally don't like the Boos in this mode where the brightness is turned right up. Not a big fan of C'Mon Kids, What's In The Box either, although those were more like attempts to rawk-out than write radio hits. Wake Up Boo, at least, has some subtle shading in its middle eighth to balance-out the ostensible Saturday morning chirpiness. Find The Answer Within flirts with exotic marimba textures and a hooky, emotive chorus at least - there's a little melancholy in there, which I like.

Conversely It's Lulu is facile. An attempt at a catchy pop song but without any real hooks. It's a major-key lump hammer where Sice struggles to sound like he really means any of what he's singing. And why should he? The song isn't saying much beyond "Teenagers, eh, what are they like?". No one was going crazy to this at the local indie disco, or rushing out to buy this song about an archetypal surly teen.

Maybe it would have worked better in other hands? I could imagine a band like Kenickie having fun with it, but they'd need to make it sound a bit more edgy or at least say something. This is a soft-touch. I can't tell if Martin likes Lulu as a character or not. And the way it ends with "Yes it is, yes it is, yes it is, yes it is, it's Lulu" just leaves me with shrugging.

"Stuck On Amber" came out early on an NME cassette (might be a different version).

It's one of the strongest songs on the album, could have been a single for sure. but "It's Lulu" could only be a single, I guess.

Oh, and no we did not name Amber after a Boo Radley's song.

Oh, has anybody noticed the mid-atlantic twang on "here she comes now" descend into a scouse twang towards "'ere she cumms" before the chorus?

I like that I can't actually refute any of those criticisms of "It's Lulu", dog latin.

Also: not actually sure I'd seen Harry Enfield before this evening but certainly have now, for better or worse lol.

It only just occurred to me that the little wordless intro to It's Lulu is part of that song and not a coda for Fairfax Scene.

I've got no beef with Harry Enfield. For context, he (and Kathy Burke) had a sketch on his show at that time called Kevin The Teenager. It got made into a film called Kevin & Perry Go Large. It was memorable and not unfunny at the time, but ultimately played on the trope of teenagers being surly and self-absorbed. So the whole "grumpy, spotty teenager" thing was a big trope in the UK (I should know because I was one)

Oh, has anybody noticed the mid-atlantic twang on "here she comes now" descend into a scouse twang towards "'ere she cumms" before the chorus?

― Mark G, Tuesday, 23 June 2026 10:57 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I hadn't. But I sometimes notice a pitying Tweety-Pie rhoticism on the line "Thewe's a teaw on her cheek when she's talking on the phone" - Awwww, paw widdwe Wuwu...

Happily, the teenage stuff was exactly what I stumbled into over here :) (re: Enfield)

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Wilder it is. Awesome album with a transcendent ending.

I was ignoring this poll until I had a chance to revisit. Even though I was not able to immerse myself in it like i did with Everything's Alright Forever I was able to finally give it a go again, though 6it was rushed and interrupted. I did enjoy EAF more but that was because I was able to play many times over this go around.

I do love this album and have always considered it their Beatles album. Not sure how true that is anymore as Giant Steps could be described the same way and is a better album. I wanted to throw a vote to "Martin, Doom! It's Seven O'Clock" but ultimately voted for "Joel" with "Wilder" right behind and also loved "Find The Answer Within." I also didn't hate "It's Lulu" like I thought I did.

Further to what I wrote about It's Lulu, it'w a song about a 15 year old written by a 25 year old from the POV of a 45 year old

I do think of this as their Beatles album. More so than Giant Steps. Strong Rubber Soul vibes with White Album moments thrown in

I think there's a boldness to a band who can release a long sprawling, genre-bending record and then say "now let's consolidate what we've learned from all this experimentation and put it to work".

In that respect, as a pure pop album with leftfield overtones, I see Wake Up as the more mature work - a distillation of the band's practice before moving into other areas on the next two albums.

Don't get me wrong, Giant Steps will always be my favourite album of all time, but I increasingly think of Wake Up as their apex, the point at which everything converges and becomes near-perfect.

I agree, the reason I brought up Giant Steps is because there are a lot of left turns on it and is a double album, sort of like the White album.

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