Prefab Sprout: Classic Or Dud

Looks like that’s been removed; shame.

Looks like that's back; hooray!

Your daddy loves you very much. He just doesn't want to live with us anymore.

vinyl reissues in september:

Prefab Sprout have announced vinyl reissues of three studio albums and one compilation. New pressings of their 1984 debut Swoon, 1988’s commercial breakthrough From Langley Park to Memphis, 1990’s double album Jordan: The Comeback, and 1992’s Life of Surprises: The Best of Prefab Sprout are all out September 27. A press statement notes that the packaging and remasters were overseen by band members Paddy and Martin McAloon. Pre-orders are available at their website.

Earlier this year, Paddy McAloon’s 2003 solo album I Trawl the Megahertz was reissued as a Prefab Sprout LP.

... i think i'm gonna need to buy jordan

Interesting that they didn’t include Steve McQueen. I hope these stick around long enough for me to confirm the pressings are better than my originals.

hope they fixed the glitch on life of surprises

What glitch?

sorry, i must be insane. i remember there being some weird glitch on a PS song, thought it was LoS, thought it was discussed on ilm as an error during mastering but re-listening i don't hear anything. apologies for derail

no, wait, it's there, around 3:38-41 on the word 'not' !

I've noticed that glitch too. Pretty weird oversight on their part, unless it was the only possible way for them to stitch it together. I hope that's even fixable at this point!

any news on femmes mythologiques?

nothing beyond the planned release in September mentioned at the start of the year

media is precious and fragile ... but despite the glitch LOS is still perfect

Trying to figure out why Steve McQueen (my fave of them, by far) was excluded, I found out there was a RSD release of 'Steve McQueen Acoustic'. Anyone heard it?

yeah, steve mcqueen is my favourite album of theirs :/

The Steve McQueen acoustic was all bonus tracks on the 2006 reissue iir

Ah, thanks. The lack of fanfare everywhere made me think already it wasn't something new.

love those acoustic versions.

yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6uTKJiD7iQ

is there a rights issue with the label that put out Steve McQueen / Two Wheels Good?

I got to know Steve McQueen via the 2006 reissue so those acoustic versions are as canonical as the originals for me. I think I actually like them better

the Steve McQueen Acoustic disc appears to be on spotify, along with 5 different issues of Steve McQueen (including one of Two Wheels Good), each with a different poorly scanned version of the album art

acoustic version was also issued as a stand alone lp.
https://www.discogs.com/Prefab-Sprout-Steve-McQueen-Acoustic/release/13288548

Variants of this pop up about once every 8 months when there's a news story about prefabricated something. JUST SAY NO. https://t.co/88A7ESVs2X

— NicD (@Sproutology) September 1, 2019

So is there a release date for the new album?

http://stereoembersmagazine.com/prefab-sprouts-new-lp-femmes-mythologiques-set-for-september-release/

McAloon has also indicated his vaults are rather vast.

How vast?

“You can work it out by doing the maths,” he went on to say. “…if you write three albums a year, approximately, and you’ve been doing that for 30 years, then that’s where we are.

damn, I really hope Paddy has a Max Brod in his life iykwim

STORM THE VAULT

New P4K retrospective: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/prefab-sprout-swoon-from-langley-park-to-memphis-jordan-the-comeback-a-life-of-surprises/

Just started checking out the Swoon remaster on Spotify and it is sounding good, less like it was recorded through a wall. Bass! It's a bit odd - that thinness or tinniness was the fabric of the album, the contrast to everything later – but I am liking it.

Anyone familiar with the protest songs record mentioned in that article? xp

it was recorded after steve mcqueen but not released until after langley park. similar in sound to steve mcqueen but not quite as good. has the song life of surprises which is great.

"Scarlet Nights" has become my favorite track off JORDAN at the moment. That understated key change in the final chorus is pure magic.

The kick / snare drum triplets on the Bobby Fischer section of Cue Fanfare

You know, almost all of the songs on LCTWWM are excellent innit. I'm going to blame the arrangements for obscuring this state of affairs for a decade.

In 1985 County Durham pop band Prefab Sprout sung about Moving the River on their highly acclaimed album Steve McQueen. But why are we bringing this up now, and what has it got to do with life in Stoke-on-Trent in 2020? Well, strap yourselves in... pic.twitter.com/dGQ3JTM7r3

— Stoke-on-Trent CC (@SoTCityCouncil) May 21, 2020

Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone.
Let's pretend that we're together, all alone.

i want to hear the diplomats over a flip of "moving the river" so fucking bad. the horn ostinato over those chords is pure plush sonic luxury

Some absolute shockers of posts at the beginning of this thread. The Sprout were incredible.

holy shit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhZA8GuZ1SI

this is a worlds colliding unexpectedly moment for me to rival the blue nile/rickie lee jones video discovery

Those plangent chords in Lion are the greatest thing ever

Lions

I have been absolutely hoovering up PS the last three weeks. Which is funny because I love them but not unconditionally. I find Paddy’s über-breathy voice and the “slick-but-kind-of-cheap” sound of many of their records to be … not off-putting exactly but also not as enveloping as it could or maybe should be. And outside of Desire As and Bonny, I’ve always had a bit of a tough time locking in on Steve McQueen. And yet, I can’t get enough of them right now.

Some thoughts:

I started many years ago with Jordan, which still
feels like their most fully realized release – kind of a compressed version of all those sprawling concept records he could never finish and chock full of classics (like, literally, a dozen). I sort of wonder what we’d say about them had it been another casualty of Paddy’s ambitious perfectionism.

Langley, as a friend rightly points out, is their Scritti record with multiple producers and probably their most experimental sounding record. It’s great to hear them playing around with arrangements here, and the Stevie Wonder harmonica on Nightengales is an inspired collision.

Let’s Change the World With Music is the surprise for me in their catalogue. Ride, God Watch Over You, Sweet Gospel Music, Earth, the Story So Far are all among their best tunes. And with all respect to Gerald McBoing Boing (who recently shared his b-sides CD-R’s with me), its sound has dated surprisingly well. Just a really delightful record.

Sound of Crying has been rightly praised here but Steve Lipson’s other production that came out on the Best Of, If You Don’t Love Me, is a pretty terrific as well – a PSB-style disco(!!) stomper replete with strings, scratchy guitar and a lovely ethereal Wendy harmony vocal.

I had completely forgotten Tony Visconti produced Gunman – which isn’t on Spotify but I want to spend a little time with.

"barnyard cat! barnyard cat! me, meow!"

Steve McQueen/Two Wheels Good being my first, it's the one I'd take to the desert island.

Surprised that an album or two from the vault haven't been completed thanks to the COVID years, not to mention Femmes Mythologiques finally coming out.

Every time, a PS or Blue Nile / Paul Buchanan thread revives, I enjoy that brief "new album, good news?" burst of joy.

same with scritti lol

"Your daddy loves you very much, he just doesn't want to live with us anymore."

Absolute classic. Steve McQueen is one of the top three albums of the decade. It rewards repeated listens in a way that few other albums do.

That ITtM title track makes my eyes leak, so I avoid it at work. The lyrics, the assembly, the woman's voice, the music - in my top 5 PS/Paddy songs.

re: new music, i thought paddy was having health/vocal issues that made new prefab music unlikely?

he had a new album on the way a few years ago with but ended up losing the files or something iirc and it never came out