PiL's Flowers of Romance: C/D

this is embarrassing, but i scored a cheap copy of flowers of romance yesterday, then got home and realized i bought the 12" single. no wonder it was $8. :(

I saw DJ Shadow do his "pass me a record and I'll mix it" routine at Other Music a few years ago. Somebody passed him Flowers of Romance, and he didn't get anywhere. After a couple minutes of fussing with the crossfader, he handed it back, flustered, and said something like "I'm not into that."

surprised he couldn't do anything with Atkins' drums on "Four Enclosed Walls"...I mean, that bass drum

/I saw DJ Shadow do his "pass me a record and I'll mix it" routine at Other Music a few years ago. Somebody passed him Flowers of Romance, and he didn't get anywhere. After a couple minutes of fussing with the crossfader, he handed it back, flustered, and said something like "I'm not into that."/

surprised he couldn't do anything with Atkins' drums on "Four Enclosed Walls"...I mean, that bass drum

I was thinking the same!!

My mate was looking for a nice phono amp for his system and brought a bunch of records to the store to test out, of which one was this. It was a sweet setup, probably a $20-30k demo system in one of those acoustically treated rooms, no angles, just a couch, etc.

This record sounded ungodly.

As if I had never heard it before, my reaction was "so THIS is what John was going for!"

Not that you need that kind of environment to appreciate it, but it helped reveal a different aspect.

It's not really a good album but I appreciate it as gesture. Context matters too: at last night's Pearl Jam show it played -- LOUDLY -- over the PA system.

it = title track

I remember buying this on the first day and taking it home and playing it.

How to make an album that's minimal, but huge at the same time.

I was marginally disappointed that the "Pied Piper" lineup didn't do more stuff, but then PIL have a whole bunch of "didn't do a lot" about them, up to "Commercial Zone"

It took close to 30 years, but this album finally clicked for me.