First Elastica LP - Classic or Dud?

(x-post)

Disagree, too, that the first half is dull. Love the whole damn thing. While the best tunes are scattered throughout, I do agree that there's a great run from "Waking Up" through "Stutter".

Fixed.

Kinda the problem for me, in that I already had. Much less irritated by it now than I was then, but no active love.

DUD.

Even with Donna Matthews spunky guitar playing.

All the Britpop hataz - it's a lot more imaginative than what the NME is covering now. I guess that's not saying much but I'm suspicious of hardcore Britpop haters cos they reek of blind popism.

The legacy of Britpop is WHY there is little very imaginative in the NME now.

Most of the stuff I do like from the Britpop era (Kenickie, Dubstar, Pulp) I have a hard time imagining wouldn't have found success on their own terms eventually.

xpost- haha! I don't even like them that much, grasping at straws really when it comes to Britpop that was any good.

"Connection" is alright I guess, but it still comes over like a limp cousin of The Breeders "Cannonball" with less actual spirit.

Not sure how to dismiss Elastica but like Kenickie? Seems like they were both along similar lines, at least on their respective debuts. I like both of them but I prefer Elastica.

What? The Klang cd was great!

Yeah, I actually think that was the best thing to come out of the whole band!

I don't get that at all. The 00's haircut bands all have that bland (ProTools?) production with no kick at all. Elastica had lovely raw-sounding guitars.

Maybe they shouldn't be lazily lumped in with the lumpen Britpop acts after all, though I still think they were a right cardboard cut-out of a "band".

God this is so good. Better than His And Hers.

I still go mental when I hear 'Stutter' out.

The whole first half sucks.

nooooooooo :(

Stutter is so sexy.

CLASSIC.

That they weren't able to come up with a proper follow-up to this and instead spent years dicking about doing smack and falling out with each other still sucks.

The fact that half of The Menace was badly re-recorded versions of things that sounded great on the preceding EP was the worst of it, they could have made a half-decent second LP even after the smack and the revolving door membership.

Yeah, it seems to me that once they managed to get themselves into a decent enough shape to make a record, that the energy, enthusiasm and drive had completely gone. In hindsight, perhaps they did far too much touring. I gotta say, of all the bands of the time, my money would have been on Oasis being the drug casualties rather than Elastica!

Also, is it just me or were Ash more than a little inspired by Elastica's 'Blue' on their track 'A Life Less Ordinary'?

hmmmmmm...

Yeah, from memory of both, yeah.

I've also gotta say that as a Stranglers fan, I wasn't bothered about 'em borrowing from 'No More Heroes' for 'Waking Up', either. In fact, I loved that they were so blatant about it. There's countless bands that have obviously been inspired/influenced by the Stranglers, but they won't come out and say it.

Holy mackerel I did not know about that EP. Nothing Stays The Same is my alltime favorite song of theirs.

I might even like the EP more than the first LP, only Operate lets it down a bit, the other 5 tracks are all brilliant and all sound so different to each-other.

Just listening to The Menace again now and still cannot believe how they ruined How He Wrote Elastica Man, why the living fuck would you do that to yourselves?

why the living fuck would you do that to yourselves?

When it comes to Elastica's career after the first album in general, that is indeed the question!

Because I have many other things I should be doing, I've instead spent the last few days making a good version of The Menace.

https://soundcloud.com/james-errington-769931947/the-menace-redux

01 - How He Wrote Elastica Man (6 Track EP, 1999)
02 - Mad Dog God Dam (The Menace, 2000)
03 - The Bitch Don't Work (Single, 2001)
04 - Nothing Stays the Same (6 Track EP, 1999)
05 - Generator (6 Track EP, 1999)
06 - Miami Nice (The Menace, 2000)
07 - Human (1997 Studio Demo)
08 - Bush Baby (B-side, 2000)
09 - KB (6 Track EP, 1999)
10 - Da Da Da (The Menace, 2000)
11 - A Love Like Ours (Radio 1 Session, 1996)
12 - Don't Know Where (Me U & Mew, 2001)
13 - Faking (Demo from Japanese The Menace, 2000)
14 - My Sex (The Menace, 2000)

What changed with "how he wrote" ?

Many small changes, the LP version sounds a bit overcooked, but the headline difference is that the EP vocals are 90% MES 10% Elaatica, LP vocals are 30% MES 70% Elastica.

Well, that sounds "fair enough", it is their album after all. Otherwise, why call it their new album if it was just an enlarged version of that ep?

Of course I can understand it from a psychological point of view, but the point is they made a mediocre album when they had the material for a good one.

One other thing is 'My Sex' is such an obvious album closer, then the two tracks after it sound like unwelcome bonus tracks, that needed fixing more than anything.

I think the album is "not as bad as everyone says it is", but also "not as good as it should have been".

There was one of those "Britpop" documentaries which celebrated the rise of all those bands, but laid the blame on the ultimate failure on bad / mediocre bands jumpingon the bandwagon, the huge take-up of such bands by record companies willing to create landfill in the hope that one of them would be a golden fish..

I think Elastica were the architects of their own demise, that and the implication that they weren't 100% invested in the band and were looking towards the exit strategy.

Lack of investment in the project, yes. The whole LP has an overwhelming air of "will this do?" - especially on the tracks I cut. The Loz Hardy collaborations (Miami Nice, Bush Baby, My Sex) are for me the really underrated bits, the Donna demos are excellent too, basically the less of the band there the better.

I Want You from the 1996 Radio 1 Session always felt like one of the great lost post-debut tracks, maybe just because it felt like a fully-formed actual SONG with verses and a chorus and neat corners and everything.

I do genuinely love The Menace when viewing it as a frayed, sun-bleached, acid-scarred version of the first album - it's much better at creeping dread than bounce though. Your Arse My Place is pretty much worthless; Nothing Stays the Same is completely desolate and all-time gorgeous (in both versions).

I loved this band at the time — saw them live several times, had their poster in my dorm room — but I never was crazy about listening to the album. Somehow it didn’t seem to capture their fire in the best way?

The first Franz Ferdinand LP is sort of an analogue from the next decade — I loved the live show, terrific songs, but the album felt flat and I rarely played it.

One of my fave “stage antics” memories is from Lollapalooza ‘95 — Justine theatrically prancing to the edge of the stage and splashing a few drops from her water bottle into the front row (in a parody of “cooling down the crowd”)

Reading the OP -- I don't get how so many threads in the early years of ILM got started by people who actively dislike the music they're asking about.

One other thing is 'My Sex' is such an obvious album closer, then the two tracks after it sound like unwelcome bonus tracks, that needed fixing more than anything.

They had practice with the first album! "Never Here" is such a cool way to end but then they put the goofy "Vaseline" after it.

Vaseline = terrific album closer, IMO

Agreed with both of the above! Two different ways to close an LP, same with The Menace, but worse.

Anyway, go listen to my redux The Menace up there ^

"Bar bar bar" another missing song from the aussie "Car Song" single.

fwiw the UK album ends with Stutter, Vaseline is track 13, dunno how much input the band had for the US track listing

^ Yeah, I was just about to say this - I've always known 'Stutter' as the album closer.

Also, the US version has 'See That Animal' on it.

"Stutter" is a powerful closer! As it were.

I didn’t know the UK tracklist was different.

Marcello Carlin on Elastica

https://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2021/04/elastica-elastica.html?spref=tw

Don't know why he called out "See That Animal" as "problematic" when "Indian Song" was sitting right there...

if you are looking for "problematic" then track 4 on the Stutter CD single would be the obvious place to start.

Why is See That Animal problematic? I don’t know the references or whatever

(It may be that these were the only fifteen songs they had in their repertoire – “See That Animal,” which materialises in the midst of the U.S. edition of the album, is problematic, given the identity of at least one of its authors.)

The full context of the quote. Assuming he's referring to Brett Anderson, listened as one of the writers for the song, but I'm still not sure what makes the song particularly "problematic".

Stutter remains one of the best things ever by anyone

IS IT JUST THAT I'M MUCH TOO MUCH FOR YOUUUU

At least I'm not the only one who thinks The Menace is a "hidden gem".

Today I suddenly remembered awkwardly hanging out with everyone in the band but Justine for an hour or so before a show behind "The Menace."

BLUE I CAN READ YOUR MIND
IF YOU WANT TO I WILL LET YOU

idk about classic but it’s really good!!

My Sex (a co-write with Loz 'ex-of-Kingmaker' Hardy) from The Menace is the best thing they ever did.

I really enjoyed that re-imagined ‘The Menace’ upthread.

Hoping they get around to a vinyl reissue of it to go with the first one.