Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque poll

December was an answer song to September Gurls, wasn't it? Sure I read Gerry Love saying that somewhere. "I wanted to assassinate December" - December is the December boy of September Gurls.

I agree with thinking that this album doesn't sound like Big Star, though like lots of others, it was that hype around this album that got me to buy that fab Big Star 2-fer back in the day.

I voted "Alcoholiday".

Isn't there one song on this that nicks one song by Big Star. I can't be bothered to double check. Other than that, never heard much similarity. Spin got it right in calling this better than Nevermind, which I'd gladly never hear again...

yeah I never listen to Nevermind

"Star Sign" sounds uncannily like a song (don't know the title) by Ride, almost exactly the same tune.

Both on Creation, both out around the same time...

star sign

I voted The Concept but I meant to vote Alcoholiday :/

To me this album hangs on 4 tunes - Concept, What You Do To Me, Starsign, and Alcoholiday. The rest are good but those are a cut above.

Their best anyway - Grand Prix is solid but doesn't have that layer of fuzz and really could almost be any power-pop band, and I miss Brendan O'Hare

Can't believe Alcoholiday wasn't on that best of they put out - it's probably their best ever IMO

'I Don't Know' because it was the soundtrack for the first time I fell in love.

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voting "Star Sign" as "Alcoholiday" seems to get enough love.

star sign

― cave duel (latebloomer), Thursday, July 21, 2011 1:21 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

star sign

― cave duel (latebloomer), Thursday, July 21, 2011 1:21 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

― in 77 everything is fine (Drugs A. Money), Sunday, July 24, 2011 2:12 PM (16 minutes ago)

Forever associated with the girlfriend who left our long table of friends at the cafe with the girl she'd fallen in love with instead of with me, informing me of her change of plans just before. So classic, I guess?

At the time I remember TFC saying they really loved 3rd/Sister Lovers, but that album really bears no resemblance to their own material.

I think they were talking about how they were influenced by Big Star more around the time of "Thirteen". I haven't heard that album in forever, but I think the Big Star comparisons on that album are more on the mark?

Other than that, never heard much similarity. Spin got it right in calling this better than Nevermind, which I'd gladly never hear again...

Yeah, it's much, much better than "Nevermind".

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metal baby and pet rock deserve more votes. interesting that alcoholiday and the concept are 1-2, as they always seemed very similar melodically.

Amazed that December didn't get more votes. I'll have to go back and listen to Alcoholiday again as I can't really remember it. Not heard the album for a while and I seem to think of it (obviously wrongly) as somewhat top-heavy.

Voted for "is this music"; great sports show end credits stuff

I like this album, but I wouldn't put it in the same universe as Big Star or the best tracks on Nevermind.

i might

Sorta surprised by the Alcoholiday love. I don't recall ever hearing anyone single out that song.

Bandwagonesque is definitely one of my fave albums from the 90s, even though Grand Prix and Songs From Northern Britain are technically better albums, imo.

I always found Bandwagonesque super top heavy - side one is golden, and it slips down a few notches on side two - hence my non-appreciation for Alcoholiday.

Pet Rock deserved at least one vote.

I'm pretty sure I bought Bandwagonesque and Loveless on the same day. I was working in a record store and was going nutty waiting for the shipment to arrive.

damn the guitars on this album sound nice.

i also remember being pretty knocked out (at age 13) by their SNL performance.

I'm pretty sure I bought Bandwagonesque and Loveless on the same day.

WTF the hugest release date ever. And both are on the same label.

also wtf this album is 20 years old???????

20 years is nothing these days.

also re big star it's all about the coda in the concept which sounds like daisy glaze

Alcoholiday is one of the great Teenage Fanclub 'Fuck' songs - see also Everybody's Fool, Weird Houses, Fear of Flying, Verisimilitude, and of course Some People Try to Fuck with You.

(Everybody's Fool maybe not that great. Weird Houses, Fear of Flying and SPTTFWY are blinders tho.)

star sign single is pretty much _exactly_ 20 yrs old this week

sorry that is throwing me for a bit of a loop

"Maybe i've been fucked already" makes me kinda pensive

I love Everybody's Fool.

it's 'baby' not 'maybe', ain't it? maybe, baby.

yeah, it's baby.

and yeah alcoholiday is the pinnacle of this record

Google search says it's "baby." no fair.

Oddly, TFC rarely play anything beyond 'The Concept' off this album these days. They did an unplanned encore of Starsign in Glasgow last year though

This album is distinctly inferior to Grand Prix. I really don't get the love for it; it seems sort of middling, and also as other have stated, this bears only a passing resemblance to Big Star, mostly in the vocal harmonies,

i like grand prix AND bandwagonesque. but i prefer bandwagonesque as it is dirtier, noisier, as it is more like a perfect marriage of distortion and melody. grand prix is a little too clean and slick and therefore boring for my likes. and of course the year 1991 was much more life-shattering than 1994 or whenever grand prix was released.

The songs on Bandwagonesque seem unfinished to me... like they could have done more with them but just decided to be lazy.

normally, I'd agree that dirtier would be better, but in this case, it doesn't really work for me.

I would take the point about the messier elements of Bandwagon, but to me there are 4 or maybe 5 tunes on there that destroy everything else they did, before or since.

That's what 'saves' it for me - that, and the fuzz

Songs from Northern Britain tops 'em all, imo

listening to these dudes a lot lately. i had never heard grand prix until recently. i don't know if it's better than bandwagonesque but it sure sounds nice.

would not have guessed back in the day that they would have such a consistent, solid catalog 20 years later but here we are

Only one (lacklustre) album in the last 10 years though. Every album they knocked a few edges off until eventually there's nothing left.

I missed the fuzz...part of that trend of indie bands who really turned the distortion down as the decade progressed

I like the last album a lot fwiw

Gene Clark would be in the running for my all time #1 fannies track.

I will say, I was lucky enough to see one of the Creation Tour 3-night runs (Band/13, then GP/NB, then Howdy/b-sides) and the best song of the whole thing was probably "Radio"

Thirteen starts and ends well, just sags a bit in the middle imo

Funny, I think some of the stronger songs are the middle ones, but overall the main issue is the somewhat murky/lacklustre production (but yes, "Radio" really leaps out at you). The idea that the album was "savaged [...] upon its initial release" (I'm quoting AllMusic) doesn't seem to square with the actual contemporary reviews that I can find linked on Wikipedia (A- from EW, 4/5 from Q, 7/10 from NME, 3.5/5 from RS). They're much the same as the retrospective reviews, like the one Pitchfork did last year (7.2), which I think is exactly right - solid album, just no comparison to the 8.5-9 level of Bw/GP/SfNB.

Select panned Thirteen for definite. Remember MOJO was positive. It was years before I heard anything about it being a 'disappointing' album. Always sounded like the bridge between Bandwagonesque and Grand Prix to me.

Of course the band did at least one interview (NME cover) where they said they didn't enjoy making the album and Gerry is fairly dismissive about the lead single, his own Radio, so I guess it's not wise to give the press free reign to pan your new album by talking it down

as a gerryhead ive got to agree with this judgement there