Boo Radleys - Giant Steps Poll

Has Louis Jag ever heard this I wonder?

Love this entire album but I'm pretty sure it's gotta be Lazarus...

i don't really listen to any of the albums/bands that would be considered contemporaries of this, but i heard "Leaves and Sand" on a Peel comp in high school and got totally hooked on it, really love this album and am definitely voting for it in the 90s poll.

Yeah I was worried about that. Lazarus is amazing and all, but the intro's sadly truncated on GS (the only flaw on a imo flawless record). Plus there are a load of really really good tracks - (spoiler) Butterfly McQueen being the one I voted for - on here.

xpost

"Leaves & Sand" was also my intro to the Boos, strangely enough. It was on an 8-track compilation that came with DOnkey Kong Country on the SNES.

haha really? that's so weird.

i know, right?

i was only about 13 at the time and more into games than music, but i do remember listening to that comp over and over. what it had to do with donkey kong i'll never know. st etienne, primal scream, ride were all on there. beyond strange.

am definitely voting for it in the 90s poll.

hmmm?

ALL-NEW FREEFORM (SORTA) 1990s ALBUMS POLL: THE BANNS

Brilliant one-two, 'Upon 9th & Fairchild' is the better of them. Could never really get into the rest of the album after that.

"Spun Around" is like "Upon Ninth And Fairchild" throwing up a lung. Where do I remember reading an article that I was surprised to find referred specifically about "Upon Ninth"?

Wishin I was skinny. Also, that's the song I voted for.

I just played this earlier today, still sounds as amazing as ever.

Lazarus is one of the finest songs ever but I'm tempted to vote for Thinking of ways or I hang Suspended.

I will also be voting for this in the 90's poll.

9th & Fairchild gets my vote, just.

Has Louis Jag ever heard this I wonder?

Ha, I been loving this longer than most others! Six years and counting. Truly excellent record, the hard part is choosing between Rodney King (Song For Lenny Bruce) and I've Lost The Reason, which are both utterly joyous slices of noise-pop mayhem

If Butterfly McQueen -> RK(SFLB) was one song, this'd be no contest

('most others' = most other records I love, not most other people who love Giant Steps, obv)

agree with Stoke - unfortunate that Butterfly McQueen/Rodney King can't be voted as one. vote BM!

Brilliant one-two, 'Upon 9th & Fairchild' is the better of them. Could never really get into the rest of the album after that.

this does not compute. it is one amazing song after another right until the end. i vote for 'i've lost the reason' but i don't think there is one standout track really. i've loved all of them at different times. maybe i should have voted for 'best lose the fear'.

and then Moose's 'honey bee' was recorded right across the hall at the same time.

I guess I've never even heard the full-length version of Lazarus...

I know I've read on some other Boo's threads that these dudes had some killer b-sides. I've tried to find some online but no luck- anyone care to share a nice comp?

it is one amazing song after another right until the end.

Even "Run My Way Runaway"?

It's weird. I loved this album at the time, but listening to it again, it's not as good as I remembered it. Kind of too simplistic, and every song uses the same trick - quiet bit, cod-dub bit, pile on the layers of loud LOUD LOUDER distortion at the end. It doesn't sound anywhere as "ooh, out there" as I remembered it. But the melodies still stand up.

I'll probably end up voting for Barney & Me because when this album came out, I had a large spotted dog named Barney, and this song reminds me of him.

"Wish I Was Skinny". Never liked this album much. The next one, on the other hand....

I know I've read on some other Boo's threads that these dudes had some killer b-sides. I've tried to find some online but no luck- anyone care to share a nice comp?

I made one that spans about 3CDs. It omits remixes and live versions, but it has all their b-sides which often I think were up with their strongest work simply because the Boos were more comfortable in their element dicking around in the studio with backwards tape loops and moog synths than they were sweating to write great pop songs.

... i know ned raggett made a comp that's supposed to span something like 6 cds(!)

oh shit, I just realised that much as I totally adore Rodney King, it TOTALLY rips off MBV's Soon

I've Lost The Reason it is, then

fwiw C'mon Kids is the better album, it's like an intensified, less sprawling but even wilder leap at the throat of British pop

Geir already said that.

Wake Up! is Geir's shurely. Mine is Everything's Alright Forever even though it's an MBV ripoff and I don't even like MBV.

yeah they did Wake Up! which Geir loves because it's largely classic pop and then they went totally nutso and made their best record and then they made a record nobody has heard except me because I'm listening to it for the first time now on Spotify

Shame on me. I always found this lot a bit underwhelming tbh - they're one of the few bands who I thought were worse for trying to find an audience.

I dig Kingsize, definitely should have a cut a few tracks but the best tracks are gorgeous.

Opening track was pretty dece

Ismael you gotta hear C'mon Kids if you haven't! It's fucking MAD

Righto then. I don't dislike them as such, they have quite a few things I liked, they're just inconsistent. I don't know what it is exactly. Maybe that I think they're pretty poor at straight pop and pretty poor at being out there - but excellent when they balance on the pinnacle between the two, it's just that's a very hard thing to do.

ah, those days.

and then they made a record nobody has heard except me because I'm listening to it for the first time now on Spotify

"Kingsize" is actually quite good. "Wake Up!" is of course by far my favourite, but on "Kingsize" they managed to combine the pop sensibilities of that one with the weirdness of the others with quite good results. Surely joins Pulp in the list of bands whose last albums nobody ever heard even though they were actually quite good.

Maybe that I think they're pretty poor at straight pop and pretty poor at being out there - but excellent when they balance on the pinnacle between the two, it's just that's a very hard thing to do.

Sounds like "Kingsize" may be your kind of Boo Radleys album then.

Ichabod & I was the best, from there it was steadily downhill.

Yeah, they were OK when I saw them in New Brighton in '88 but after that... ;)

Actually, scratch that, Sice's best moment was when we beat Plessington away in the quiz league in '81 and we scoffed all the Ginger Nuts before the posh kids could get to them.

I liked Kingsize a lot, but it got lost in the Creation closedown, plus they split before the "Kingsize" single was issued which would have been a big radio hit.

I hung around R&TE to get the single promo for Kingsize for weeks. Got one tho.

(ending up sharing the unreleased tracks w/ Ned, way before ILX happened!

The "From the bench at Belvidere" e.p. gets neglected, I remember when it came out I ws like "If this was actually the new Beatles single, there would be mass rejoicing, etc"

Then "Free as a bird" came out a week later and I was vind.

(Is that page with Mine and NSouth's reviews still on the boo's website?)

(Seriously, I adore the EPs up to the time of Everything's Alright Forever, and that album too. After that, it was all a sort of displaced civic pride that they were doing so well. I think the records post-'92 are often very good, mind. Voting for Laz, las.)

I was so happy when the early EPs popped up on Learning To Walk, because that is still some of my favourite Boo stuff. The Finest Kiss is just swoonsome, and the whole Kaleidoscope e.p. - argh, I wish I had that stuff with me at work because it's so amazing.

I never really "got" the early stuff (i.e. pre "Everythings")

But then I found a CD of the "Kaleidoscope" e.p. and I liked it much more as an isolated 4-tracker.

The Kaleidoscope EP was the first thing I ever got - a friend just stuck it on to fill up the last 15 minutes or so of something else she'd taped for me (really miss that about 90 minute tapes) and I liked it more than the thing she'd actually taped for me. That also happened with an early Ride EP as well, if memory serves.

The segue from Butterfly McQueen into Rodney King is maybe my favourite moment on the record.

http://www.booradleys.co.uk/giant_steps/fans.htm

Ten years since the "ten year anniversary" site was set up!

Fucking hell.

The segue from Butterfly McQueen into Rodney King is maybe my favourite moment on the record.

― Scary Move 4 (dog latin), Thursday, July 12, 2012 3:50 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Near enough a year late, but... YES!

xpost I know!

Has anyone interviewing Carr quizzed him about a reunion possibility of late?

I'd assume he gets enough residuals from "Wake Up Boo" to not bother

They seem like a band that's never getting back together. What's the point? I don't think their cult following is too large anymore, either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd0GCgyhbq0

Does anyone know if that's Sean O'Hagan doing backing vocals? It looks like him to me. Is he on the album?

That'd make me like that song/album twice as much. I adore everything Sean O'Hagan, hence my name.

I never read a proper explanation of why they actually split. Did they argue?

I think Martin Carr just got fed up. Kingsize was a massive compromise between the band and Creation Records, because post-Oasis and 'Wake Up Boo!' (and because C'mon Kids was perceived as some kind of flop), the label actually wanted the band to sell some records.

I think he just got bored. I've read a couple interviews where he said he really didn't care at all about the band when he recorded Kingsize, which makes all the posthumous love for the album funny.

The Boo Radleys sound always evolved between each album, was this always a natural progression or did you ever decide on the theme/sound of an album before you started writing?

It was a natural progression but also a very conscious one. I never wanted our albums to sound the same. I never wanted to do what people with lesser imaginations thought that we would, or should, do. So Giant Steps was a step away from the MBV sound into using more instruments and less conventional arrangements. Wake Up was a stab at pop which we loved although there were only about three or four of those ‘It’s Lulu’ (i really hate that song) type songs on it. Apart from those tunes you would have to be deaf or an idiot to think that the album was similar to what other bands were doing at the time. C’mon Kids was us trying to get back to just being the four of us, no outside musicians. A more dense sound. I’ve no idea what Kingsize was, I’d had enough then. That album probably had the least preparation out of all them.

http://www.creation-records.com/interviews/the-boo-radleys/

Funny seeing an interviewer go on about Electric Soft Parade as if they're relevant... at least it was 2002.

I like this album & band enough to say I've listened to them a considerable amount compared to bands I don't absolutely love, but I can't help but get the sense that their songs don't feel very developed. It's like they're just racing to the next track and showing off a new style. This album particularly suffers from that problem. But when I look at the tracklist I can definitely say I enjoy more than half the tracks. It's a tough one.

For me, I think that's part of the appeal and charm. I've always loved the "stoned mixtape" approach to albums, and this fits in with the grand traditions begun with things like the White Album and Smiley Smile, where it's more about laying down this huge flood of ideas best you can before you forget about them.

I just wonder how a band with so many good ideas didn't really manage to continue making great albums together as a band or solo.

For me, I think that's part of the appeal and charm. I've always loved the "stoned mixtape" approach to albums, and this fits in with the grand traditions begun with things like the White Album and Smiley Smile, where it's more about laying down this huge flood of ideas best you can before you forget about them.

― dog latin, Tuesday, February 12, 2013 4:03 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I agree... this is part of the reason why I like C'mon Kids so much!

I like "It's Lulu." I don't hear any obvious signs of it being worse than any other song on Wake Up.

It's over maligned, for sure, but it's no Joel.

Wake Up is often seen as their chirpy Britpop album, but only because of singles like It's Lulu. The rest of it's still pretty dark, psychedelic and confessional.

One of many great moments on this album: that tiny bit of ludicrously loud high-pitched feedback just before 'Leaves and Sand' kicks in!

i have not thought about this album probably since ILM's Boo Radleys poll from a few years back. i do play that Spotify all the time but was thinking about putting on those first three EPs just this morning. ironic that this thread got bumped. the first three EPs also called Learning to Walk is right up my shoegaze alley, nothing else quite hits that spot in the same way.

I also re-listened to Wake Up! tonight and enjoyed it pretty much start to finish. 'Joel' and 'Martin, Doom! It's Seven O'Clock' particularly stood out as fine slabs of '90s psychedelia, but the singles on it are probably some of the finest pop songs Martin Carr ever penned.

Martin Carr is auctioning off a slew of GS-related swag (including an initial demo tape!)

https://newshapes.co.uk/product/giant-steps-turns-30-martins-attic-bundle/

http://www.booradleys.co.uk/giant_steps/fans.htm

Ten years since the "ten year anniversary" site was set up!

― Mark G, Monday, 11 February 2013 17:00 (ten years ago) link

Fucking hell.

― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 11 February 2013 17:05 (ten years ago) link

Fucking hell.

Fucking hell indeed

And there we all still are!

30 year and I bought on day of release as I was a huge fan of Everything's Alright Forever. I was not prepared to proclaim best band of the 90s but that is what ultimately happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAD6nrv-zGg

A small bump to note, not a new piece from me, but I am a source for something new soon to appear...

Ooh!

And here it is — Zach Schonfeld on the album for Pitchfork, with a small contribution from me! https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-boo-radleys-giant-steps/

Good stuff! I didn’t realise until just now that the Lazarus single was different to the album mix. Their pre Giant Steps material was hard to find and ill-served by compilations and such.

Oh yeah, the original full version of the song is the one to hear. I was a big enough fan to have originally gotten that single on import in late 1992 and really being blown away, it was so clearly a level up from Everything's Alright Forever -- regret missing their show around then opening for Sugar but I did catch them at the Roxy for the full album in 1993 plus a side stage performance at Lollapalooza in 1994, so no regrets.

Said full version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGGgzogrxOE

That's really wonderful write-up in Pitchfork. God, imagine a world where Wake Up was bigger than Definitely Maybe. Who knows what else woukd be right with the world

*three great albums that followed :)

Yeah I was thinking that. But yes excellent review.

This is great and would have missed it. Thanks for sharing. Beat band of the 90s.

I was thinking of re-polling all the Boos' work since we're on a bit of a roll with the last few. But what is there to say about Giant Steps that hasn't already been said?
It is literally my favourite album of all time. But even I'm surprised at how enduring it is. I gave it yet another listen the other day and noticed/thought about aspects I hadn't previously done.

So in lieu of re-polling this record, I thought I'd start writing a track-by-track rundown on Giant Steps and my relationship to it.

YES PLEASE!

So these are really just freeform thoughts so far. Migh tnot be the best writing. I'll come back to this thread occasionally

I Hang Suspended

A running theme in this write-up, and my thoughts on the Boos in general, is that their deep cuts are the strongest. They are at their best when they're indulging their tendency towards weirdness. It's written in Boos' fan-lore that each album is marred by a bare-faced attempt to make a hit single. And Giant Steps is no exception.

I'll come to all that later. Because "I Hang Suspended" doesn't factor here - it's one of the Boos' greatest A-sides and an absiolute WALLOPER of a lead track.

Starting like a transmission from outer space, ambient, almost BoC-like analogue keys swirl from speaker to speaker in the stereo field. Layered and backmasked voices sound like they could be even be saying "Wake Up Boo" in a strange foreshadowing of their next album. Searching around on the internet, it's more likely that they're saying "Boo be with you". But who knows. Hidden Easter eggs via backmasking are one of the Boos' favourite tricks and they appear throughout their catalogue. I used to have a lot of fun reversing them and trying to figure out what they were saying.

There's another voice, an old-fashioned US broadcasting voice seemingly taken from sort of audio testing record. We hear something like a technical numbers, the words "Ampex" and "alignment tape", ending with the (by now iconic, to me) phrase "700 hertz".

Then it all kicks in. Wow. Rob Cieka's drums. It's a simple beat but it POUNDS. One of the most exciting drum intros I can think of accompanied by a short, four note guitar phrase that sounds like it's reaching for the sky. I mean BLIMEY!

The track kicks off properly with one of the Boos' best guitar riffs and Sice comes in. "Ain't that just you? / You know the facts but you haven't got a clue". Until now the Boos' shoegaze proclivities buried Sice in the mix, but here his voice is prominent and forward in the mix. We don't talk about what a fantastic and underrated singer Sice was and continues to be judging by recent live shows.

I Hang Suspended is a fantastic start to a fantastic album. One of their best singles, as I already said. And manages to introduce us to the "new" Boos sound while still maintaining the impact and squall of their earlier work. It does so much heavy lifting, setting the scene for a wildly varied album.

Upon 9th and Fairchild
Upon 9th and Fairchild has risen and risen in my esteem sicne I first heard it.

An aural depiction of dread and isolation, it immediately swerves Giant Steps into new, darker territory with its dubby Skank Bloc Bologna-style backline.

While they were probably listening to a lot of Jamaican dub as any self-respecting music fans in their early 20s should, this has a particular gloom reminiscent of early-80s Two Tone ska - especially early UB40 songs like " "Don't Break MY Heart" and "Food For Thought".

What struck me most on recent listening is the freeform expressiveness of the guitars. You can tell they were getting into Coltrane and Miles Davis as well as dub stuff like King Tubby. The guitars twist around Sice's vocal, punctuating phrases with atonal yawns and growls. I imagine the protagonist in his kitchen, lit by pale electric light late at night. The guitars gurgling like food matter stuck inside the sink's drain pipe, taunting him goulishly.

"Jesus, this room's so cold" is a powerful line. At first we're led to believe "Jesus" is jsust being used as punctuation. But followed up with "But you've got your own problems" it becomes clear he might be attempting to commune with the divine in vain. I often wonder about Martin's relationship with God. It's not the first or the last song that will evoke Christian or religious ideas. My guess is that he thinks of the divine in a more general psychedelically-informed way. The way, often when even the most atheistic person is at their wits end will look to outer forces to help them.

Wish I Was Skinny

Okay, I'm going to say it: This is where the album dips slightly for me.

Wish I Was Skinny is a great song in its own right. As a single it has to be on the album, and I get it. But coming hot off the back of Upon 9th And Fairchild's tantalising atmospheric horror is like having the overhead lights switched on halfway through a film.

The bright guitars and chirpy rhythm belies a darker tone, but of course.

I want to be kinder to Wish I Was Skinny. It's a good song and I can imagine Carr and the band being very proud of the lyrics and melody.

Sometimes it works on me. Other times I find it leans too hard into a type of self-pity which even as a young self-pitying teenager I found rather cloying and precious.

Maybe that's the idea here though. Perhaps there's a lick of irony intended. It's all very dear-diary - almost a parody of how someone might feel at the age Martin and the Boos were at the time. I wonder if it was an attempt to manifest Martin's woes and hangups by having it written and sung from the point of view of someone else.

It's as though the song is written from the point of view of Lulu, the archetypal teenager portrayed on "It's Lulu" from the following Wake Up album. Lines like "Wishing I was pretty", "Wish that I could wrap the world around my finger" sound self-centred, juvenile and arguably female-coded. As I say, I wonder if there's some intentional "woe is me" parodying going on here - Martin acknowledging that his own self-pity is rather vain and childish and that he needs to start understanding that the world isn't perfect.

I wonder about the concluding line "But I will always love you / I guess that will never change" and how to read it. It actually frightens me a little. Is he saying this to his partner or an unrequited lover - that he has all these unfulfilled desires that he will never achieve so long as he's in love? It's down to interpretation, but if so, it's quite a depressing twist.

Of course, being me, my favourite bit is when the blippy computer game noises come in at the end.

Leaves And Sand

It occurred to me that this might well have been the first Boos song I ever heard. It was included as part of a free CD that came with the Donkey Kong Country video game on the Super Nintendo. Quite why they chose this cut, or what it has to do with a giant computerised gorilla is anyone's guess. And while teenage me wasn't fully convinced by it at that stage, I definitely found it intriguing.

On the surface, this song's trick is defined as LOUD quiet LOUD, oscillating wildly between the two. It's certainly a thrill ride - genuinely hard on the ears at points, with guitars that pierce like caustic soda. I love the way the wordless vocals at 2.36 mimic the tune of the guitar riff.

And then it goes full Ride at 3.30. I really love this one as it manages to harness the best of their earlier shoegaze sound while also doing something totally novel with it.

I Hang Suspended, one of the great 90s singles IMO. I'm just always happy hearing it.

I specifically remember listening to it on headphones at the local music shop, and for once I didn't both listening to the other tracks, that one was enough to buy it.

The guitars on I Hang Suspended are outlandishly wonderful. And I love your description of that ghostly intro, dog latin, "a transmission from outer space" otm

I'm fortunate enough to love everything on this album, nonstop barrage of glory that it is. Same goes for "And Tomorrow the World" -- whereas on "Wake Up" and "C'mon Kids", there are (at least so far) moments I like more / less.

I want to be kinder to Wish I Was Skinny. It's a good song and I can imagine Carr and the band being very proud of the lyrics and melody.

Sometimes it works on me. Other times I find it leans too hard into a type of self-pity which even as a young self-pitying teenager I found rather cloying and precious.

I know what you mean, but I love this tune. I have the same feeling about White Noise Revisited and Melodies For The Deaf.. I don't know why sometimes I find it annoying but other times it's really effective (e.g. the second verse of I've Lost The Reason).

White Noise Revisited works for me. Did you mean Everything Is Sorrow as opposed to Melodies For The Deaf? For a band known for their sunshine pop hits they can be remarkably glum. But there's a self-awareness to all these songs just mentioned, kind of "I am conscious that I am wallowing in my own silly self-pity and I'm fine with it"