Best Teenage Fanclub album

A vote against Bandwagonesque is a vote against reason.

Thirteen is seriously underrated though.

grand prix > thirteen/sfnb > bandwagonesque. latter sounds somewhat jejune these days, altho still enjoyable.

Yep, was listening to Thirteen the other day and thinking it was full of really terrific songs. Gene Clark's simply wonderful.

Grand Prix is better than Bandwagonesque. They should be playing that one in full instead.

Songs from Northern Britain is my pick.

Could have voted for Bandwagonesque (one of my favorite albums ever) or Grand Prix but I've played Songs from Northern Britain the most recently. "Ain't That Enough", "I Don't Want Control of You", "It's a Bad World", and "Take the Long Way Around" would be an incredible EP.

Listening through Grand Prix now I want to change my mind.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ILM is OTM again. though i still think SFNB is their best.

I can't help get the feeling that some people don't know any TFC post-Thirteen

Those are by far the three best albums, though I do like A Catholic Education more than I probably should.

howdy & dff both better albums than these results would lead you to believe, but not classics either..

howdy and man-made were very under-produced but howdy had better songs
sfnb is my favorite

to whom it may concern

I have this vinyl reissue of A Catholic Education on Fire Records and it doesn't sound very good. That is, the sound is very clear, but the guitars don't sound loud and trebly enough. I don't have my CD with me so I can't find out if it's my transitional stereo messing the sound up or what.

it's probably just a bad repress... those new vinyl reissues always seem to sound like garbage. And obviously it's not the world's most hi-fi record.

I have a Giant Sand record on Fire, but it's not a reissue so I have no comparison. A shame if they all sound bad, I like the records Fire chooses to release.

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/rank-your-records-teenage-fanclub-norman-blake

Norman ranks the albums.

he has good taste in his own music!

Dumb dumb dumb is lovely

I'm glad to see "Dumb Dumb Dumb" get a special mention, it's a beautiful song and a great arrangement.

Odd to read someone above describe Howdy as under-produced. It and SFNB are kitchen sink productions

That was a great read. A Catholic Education was too high and Thirteen was too low for me. Nice to see Howdy get a decent position. Always thought that was their most underrated record.

Thirteen is really good. Maybe one good song short of a great record.

The ranking of the top three is pretty much how I'd rank 'em. I love Grand Prix, although when I listened to it recently I was struck by how 1995 the production sounded.

There was a great advertisement for Grand Prix in one of the music weeklies.

Yeah. We were with Creation at the time in the UK, and Alan (McGee) is a great friend of ours. They would spend money on random ideas. So there was a reviewer I think in Melody Maker who gave us a scathing review. He hated the band. But everyone else had given us good reviews. So we thought, “How can we stick a finger up to Melody Maker?” And what we did was, and Creation was up for this, we took the back page of Melody Maker and we had ten quotes that said, like, “amazing album” and “album of the year,” and then we put his quote of something like, “this band should be thrown into the trash bin of history.” It was based on this cat food commercial from the 1970s that said, “Nine out of ten cats prefer Whiskas.” So we took the ten quotes and wrote, “Nine out of ten cats prefer Teenage Fanclub.” It cost Creation like three grand to do that, but it was such a nice way to say fuck you!

^ <3 this!

first side of Thirteen maybe their best. The rest of it imo is mixed but with some gems.

Miss TFC with that layer of fuzz on top ca. Bandwagonesque and Thirteen

the fannies are an odd-band for me in that i love them but i don't find any of their albums to be an unimpeachable classic, and whenever they bring a new one out im only marginally interested.

agree, even Bandwagonesque doesn't totally work as an album experience (despite my love of all the songs)

the most fascinating tidbit from that piece was that their decision to go the "harmonies" route was influenced by some american punk-grunger! genius intuition there, however

it's such a defining factor of their sound, like catholic education really stands out from the rest of the discography because of its relative dearth of harmonies

i.e. i haven't listened to it in ages but isn't everything flows like the only classic teenage fanclub sounding song on it? (also my favourite teenage fanclub song)

"God Knows It's True" is to me what EF is to you, also kinda fits the latter TFC mold. (that is on CE, right?)

no, same period tho, maybe a non-album single?

yeah that was non-LP

Everybody's Fool is my favorite off CE

it's true I kinda don't think any of their albums are amazing from start to finish, but there are so many great songs throughout their catalog, it would be easy to make a v impressive and consistent box set or greatest "hits"

there is a commercially available one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Thousand_Seven_Hundred_and_Sixty-Six_Seconds_%E2%80%93_A_Short_Cut_to_Teenage_Fanclub

including the dreaded "new songs recorded for this compilation" why do people do this?

to get completists to buy it for the new tracks? no mystery there

I think Bandwagonesque - Thirteen - Grand Prix - Songs from Northern Britain is an amazing run, but never got why Grand Prix was favored by so many, it's my least favorite of the four.

yeah ok, it's annoying though.
xp

I would love to hear the "Grand Prix" album played by Oasis

I think Bandwagonesque - Thirteen - Grand Prix - Songs from Northern Britain is an amazing run, but never got why Grand Prix was favored by so many, it's my least favorite of the four.

― mizzell

I'd put Grand Prix ahead of Thirteen. Songs From Northern Britain and Banwagonesque are my two favourites. I'd include Howdy in that great run too. The two albums they've done since do absolutely nothing for me.

Bandwagonesque is their apex. A perfect album without filler. Great blend of melody and noise. I also love the folky bits which show which place they come from. Bagpipes have got this amazing ringing drone quality.

A perfect album without filler.

there are at least two tracks that the band themselves acknowledge as filler iirc

including the dreaded "new songs recorded for this compilation" why do people do this?

"Did I Say" is probably one of my 5 or 6 fave TF songs.

there are at least two tracks that the band themselves acknowledge as filler iirc
Never trust the artist's judgement of his own work.

#takemytime

#findmyway

Would be cool if ilx could hyperlink hashtags

thanks for that link, some great stuff.

This is still Songs From Northern Britain.

The new album is streaming on NPR

http://www.npr.org/2016/09/01/491518447/first-listen-teenage-fanclub-here

I got a bit bored/blasé about them after Songs From Northern Britain - every record since Grand Prix has felt more-or-less interchangeable - and the best songs are always Gerry's. Guess I should check the Lightships record - anyone heard it?

there were a couple of good tracks on the lightship album, notably "the warmth of the sun", "stretching out", "photosynthesis" and "sunlight to the dawn".

"Here" is good though maybe their lowest stakes album since "Howdy." I keep playing "The Darkest Part of the Night," probably because it's from the same template as "I Don't Want Control of You."

Also, terrific show last week. Like, one of the best sounding bands I've ever seen. Don't look to the albums for signs of mellowing.

#mellowdoubt

the back half of the new one feels v minor-key + meandering - I liked Shadows more on the whole

Same here with darkest part of the night!

Nothing here can touch baby lee, but I think I like this one more overall.

Baby lee is the worst :(

lunacy

<3 that song

it's p good but there are better songs on the album imo

The First Sight is one of their best-ever songs

So I'm loving this new one, in spite of (because of?) the 'meandering / minor key' vibe mentioned upthread. I think, in my old age, I really prefer melodic, slow-and-stoned Fannies to melodic uptempo Big Star-y Fannies. After 3 or four listens, this may be my favorite since SONB.

I love how "I Was Beautiful When I Was Alive" kind of becomes an entirely different song at the end. Agree with the highlights already mentioned ("The Darkest Part Of The Night," "The First Sight") but oh man, the last third of this record is a real beaut. Love the guitar on "It's A Sign." Actually, the guitar sounds in general are terrific.

My friend calls this band "The Fountains Of Wayne It's OK To Like"

I'm still starting every morning with this record. Definitely my favorite since Songs Of Northern Britain

Yeah, the new album is surprisingly great. I might agree that it's their best singles Northern Britain, although I really I like Howdy.

The new album is wonderful. There is hardly a bad song on it. They still have the knack for those innocent naive melodies. Probably their second best after Bandwagonesque.

I love it on 'Get Funky' when you hear "howdy disco citizens" at the beginning. Sounds like it could be a direct sample from ABC's 'A to Z', actually!