hi!
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 5 July 2019 13:38 (four years ago) link
👋
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 5 July 2019 13:39 (four years ago) link
(XP) I can see a 10-track Sire version of SHF on Spotify from here. But I was almost certainly streaming that expanded one with beloved outtakes quite recently!
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 13:55 (four years ago) link
http://i67.tinypic.com/2ikps5.jpg
#10THE GO-BETWEENS - SEND ME LULLABY November 1981 / February 1982 [expanded (*) Rough Trade issue]
Points: 24 Votes: 6 First-place votes: 0
Your Turn, My Turn* / One Thing Can Hold Us / People Know / The Girls Have Moved* / Midnight to Neon / Eight Pictures* // Careless / All About Strength / Ride / Hold Your Horses / Arrow in a Bow* / It Could Be Anyone
"Send Me A Lullaby is to me an inauspicious debut. It's a record that I think if I'd heard - well, it's hard for me to say that, but if I'd heard that and I wasn't in the band, I think my comment would have been 'What the fuck is going on here.' There's great melodies but then there's changes which to this day I can't work out. There's lyrics to this day which I don't understand and when I actually summon up enough courage to get to the microphone, I sound like a choirboy with a mouthful of fruitcake." - GM
Youtube audio track: Complete SMAL tracklist
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 14:03 (four years ago) link
Eeek! "Send me *A* Lullaby", obviously.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 14:05 (four years ago) link
SEND MORE LULLABY
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 5 July 2019 14:14 (four years ago) link
again i do not understand why "send me a lullaby" is so unpopular. i do not especially like the classic period from "before hollywood" to "tallulah" but i love the quirky SMAL and the tunefulness of everything from 16LL onwards.
― je est un autre, l'enfer c'est les autres (alex in mainhattan), Friday, 5 July 2019 14:19 (four years ago) link
You don't find the so-called classic period tuneful?
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 5 July 2019 14:20 (four years ago) link
not really, i find those tunes pretty hard to decipher if they are there at all. they do not grab me but i must admit i have not listened to them many, many times. in the 80s i did listen to other music, not the go-betweens.
― je est un autre, l'enfer c'est les autres (alex in mainhattan), Friday, 5 July 2019 14:23 (four years ago) link
I gave SMAL some points. I sometimes wonder how it'd be perceived if it was the only LP they managed to release. I can still imagine it having a sizeable cult following in Australia, at least. Gawky Queenslanders prone to stumbling into weird rhythms who came down and hung with the Birthday Party and left us this strangely compelling LP. Or something. (Though apparently Rough Trade only became interested in them at about this point, having deemed their first two singles 'too pop'. Maybe such a cult following would still endure further afield.)
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 15:00 (four years ago) link
http://i67.tinypic.com/w2k4gk.jpg
#9ROBERT FORSTER - DANGER IN THE PASTNovember 1990
Points: 34 Votes: 9 First-place votes: 0Youtube audio track:
Baby Stones / The River People / Leave Here Satisfied / Heart Out To Tender / Is This What You Call Change // Dear Black Dream / Danger In The Past / I've Been Looking For Somebody / Justice
"I wanted Mick Harvey to produce my album, and we recorded it in a way that I’d wanted the Go-Betweens to record but had been, to an extent, thwarted – in a big studio, live, trusting the songs and the glorious sound. In Hansa you don’t have to double track an electric guitar, everything’s so big. It’s a sound that goes back to Buddy Holly’s records or to Highway 61 – there are no overdubs on those records. We did it in 12 days, recorded and mixed, with Hugo Race, Thomas Wydler and Mick – a very tight crew – and it was a beautiful experience." - RF
The River People
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 15:11 (four years ago) link
Whoops, mangled it again.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 15:12 (four years ago) link
I love this record, Forster otm about its sound.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 5 July 2019 15:16 (four years ago) link
Still the highest rated solo outing on my ballot. Even after a year of remedial McLennan listening. :)
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 15:31 (four years ago) link
lovely 9 & 10, Danger in the Past is the only solo one I listen to much.
Also love the picture at the top of the thread. The four-piece lineup looks so timeless and great in pretty much every photo I've seen.
― verhexen, Friday, 5 July 2019 15:47 (four years ago) link
Oh wait, just looked at the cover of Metal & Shells, let me immediately retract that statement.
― verhexen, Friday, 5 July 2019 15:50 (four years ago) link
why is John Willsteed on the cover of M&S?
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 5 July 2019 15:52 (four years ago) link
I believe he contributed some peroxide to the recordings
― verhexen, Friday, 5 July 2019 15:57 (four years ago) link
http://i64.tinypic.com/20gku54.jpg
#8ROBERT FORSTER - THE EVANGELIST April 2008 Points: 68 Votes: 14 First-place votes: 0
If It Rains / Demon Days / Pandanus / Did She Overtake You / The Evangelist // Let Your Light In, Babe / A Place To Hide Away / Don't Touch Anything / It Ain't Easy / From Ghost Town
"I might make an album in three or four years, or five years. There won’t be one in two years, I know that. But I’m very happy to have The Evangelist as my last album for as long as possible. People will think well of me." - RF
Youtube audio track: Don't Touch Anything
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 16:00 (four years ago) link
That'll have to be the last one for now. Brain is insisting on sleep. I'll return soonish for the thrilling conclusion!
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 16:14 (four years ago) link
Big jump in points for The Evangelist, and a great quote from Robert.
― Alba, Friday, 5 July 2019 16:21 (four years ago) link
Fucking good album.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 5 July 2019 17:07 (four years ago) link
otm
― kornrulez6969, Friday, 5 July 2019 19:01 (four years ago) link
Big Star’s 3rded
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 5 July 2019 19:09 (four years ago) link
the album is good but the cover is awful and looks very cheap and amateurish. i love the cover of SMAL, those drawings of the band members have got something very human to it.
― je est un autre, l'enfer c'est les autres (alex in mainhattan), Friday, 5 July 2019 20:00 (four years ago) link
Send Me A Lullaby and Before Hollywood have the only good album covers.
― Alba, Friday, 5 July 2019 20:49 (four years ago) link
I've never had a strong association between the first three album covers and the music, because my first exposure to many of those songs was with the 1978-1990 compilation. Then for the actual albums, the late 90s Beggars reissues with redone "consistent identity program" cover art.
I would take issue with calling the Evangelist cover any more amateurish than many of their others, except that it does look like it was selected from a menu and assembled by a bot. Select popular background pattern A and trendy typography effect B. Insert photo X. Voila!
Kind of surprising, because I think of Forster as having a more sophisticated sense for things visual.
― punning display, Friday, 5 July 2019 21:34 (four years ago) link
http://i66.tinypic.com/15md0yw.jpg
#7THE GO-BETWEENS - THE FRIENDS OF RACHEL WORTHSeptember 2000
Points: 90 Votes: 16 First-place votes: 0
Magic in Here / Spirit / The Clock / German Farmhouse / He Lives My Life // Heart and Home / Surfing Magazines / Orpheus Beach / Going Blind / When She Sang About Angels
"Rachel felt really natural – it wasn't like Robert and I had separate managers or any of that industry bullshit. We'd always wanted to record in America, too, so that was a real dream. I think it has a really mysterious, otherworldly, "lost" feel to it." - GM
Youtube audio track:German Farmhouse
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 21:53 (four years ago) link
I am in love with this album. In a way it reminds me of the Clientele?
― L'assie (Euler), Friday, 5 July 2019 22:00 (four years ago) link
xpost
This means that barring some heinous miscarriage, the remaining regular GB albums must fill the top seven spots. That's how I voted, but I also included BYBO in a Top 8. Wished I could have seen a way to make it less predictable. I thought Warm Nights might make a sentimental showing until I listened for the first time in probably 15 years. Eh, so much for that idea.
― punning display, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:04 (four years ago) link
Then for the actual albums, the late 90s Beggars reissues with redone "consistent identity program" cover art.
― Alba, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:13 (four years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/vr1ukb3.png
― Alba, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:14 (four years ago) link
Third time lucky?https://i.imgur.com/XE8vWKU.jpg
― Alba, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:23 (four years ago) link
Yeah, those generic sleeves were atrocious.
Not a fan of the ‘Inferno’ artwork either, tbh.
― michaellambert, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:32 (four years ago) link
I think that might be the only Go-Betweens release I didn't buy secondhand. I've added distressingly little to Forster and McLennan's royalties for someone with multiple copies of many of the LPs.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:36 (four years ago) link
http://i67.tinypic.com/xc51j5.jpg
#6 THE GO-BETWEENS - OCEANS APARTMay 2005
Points: 103 Votes: 18 First-place votes: 2
Here Comes A City / Finding You / Born To A Family / No Reason To Cry / Boundary Rider // Darlinghurst Nights / Lavender / The Statue / This Night’s For You / The Mountains Near Dellray
"On this record, most of the songs -- the ones that I sing anyway -- are about isolation and trying to get out of that. Trying to feel again, trying not to be so cold, maybe, not to be a statue" - GM
Youtube audio track: The Mountains Near Dellray
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:37 (four years ago) link
Why highlight "The Mountains Near Dellray", of all tracks? Because I like it and [spoiler redacted]
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:41 (four years ago) link
I'd like to finish this section right now, but am mindful that it's quite late on the east side of the Atlantic. Any views on this?
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:49 (four years ago) link
I am in love with this album. In a way it reminds me of the Clientele?― L'assie (Euler), Friday, July 5, 2019 3:00 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
― L'assie (Euler), Friday, July 5, 2019 3:00 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
That's a strong reference in my book. I don't really think of the Clientele & the Go-Betweens as being that similar. But I'm embarrassed to say I've never listened to Friends of Rachel Worth so maybe that's the one that ties them together.
― that's not my post, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:50 (four years ago) link
I think Oceans Apart is my favorite of the later Go-Betweens albums
― Dan S, Friday, 5 July 2019 22:56 (four years ago) link
Last one now...
http://i67.tinypic.com/15wng5y.jpg
#5 THE GO-BETWEENS - SPRING HILL FAIR September 1984
Points: 146 Votes: 23 First-place votes: 0
Bachelor Kisses / Five Words / The Old Way Out / You've Never Lived / Part Company // Slow Slow Music / Draining the Pool for You / River of Money / Unkind and Unwise / Man O'Sand to Girl O'Sea
"It's an album where we talked right from the start of Loaded or a White Album, where there would be different songs on the record, and I stand by that. I deny the allegations of scrappiness." - GM
Youtube audio track: The Old Way Out
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 23:25 (four years ago) link
This album has 4 of my favourite songs on it... but is sabotaged by two godawful Grant McLennan tracks.
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Friday, 5 July 2019 23:30 (four years ago) link
Spring Hill Fair was the Go-Betweens album I started with. I love it but can count at least 3 other albums of theirs that I love more
― Dan S, Friday, 5 July 2019 23:31 (four years ago) link
XP: "Last one FOR now" rather.
I was kinda impressed by the performance of SHF (and its constituent songs) given that it seems a tad divisive. Only one other LP appeared one more ballots. (It was on 23 of 24.) It was no one's #1 though, not unexpectedly.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 5 July 2019 23:33 (four years ago) link
Admittedly, fifth place doesn't seem enormously impressive at first glance. :) I should clarify that it was also a couple of places higher for much of the voting period. This cluster remains fairly tightly bunched.
I broadly agree with Tom D, though possibly not on the specific "godawful" tracks. Regardless of the finished product, some of their best songs arrived in 1984 (including my #1) and I get an awful, awful lot of mileage out of the associated obscurities and alt. takes on the expanded issue and G is for Go-Betweens.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Saturday, 6 July 2019 00:06 (four years ago) link
I totally love Spring Hill Fair, side one has some of Forster’s catchiest work, and basically the whole thing made my tracks ballot
― mott the hoopleheads (voodoo chili), Saturday, 6 July 2019 01:39 (four years ago) link
http://i64.tinypic.com/14ca1w0.jpg
#4 THE GO-BETWEENS - TALLULAHJune 1987 Points: 148 Votes: 22 First-place votes: 2
Right Here / You Tell Me / Someone Else's Wife / I Just Get Caught Out / Cut It Out // The House That Jack Kerouac Built / Bye Bye Pride / Spirit of a Vampyre / The Clarke Sisters / Hope Then Strife
"We were sort of cursed. We had the engineer that we were using on Liberty Belle, Dicky Preston, and working with Dicky was good. We then went on to the next one and we were put into this horrible studio it was over a practice room or something. And so Dicky didn't do a good job I think on Tallulah, so it had to be rescued and remixed a little but which always sounds horrible but it actually worked out okay with Mark Wallis." - RF
Youtube audio track: Someone Else's Wife
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Saturday, 6 July 2019 04:38 (four years ago) link
I'll deal with the top three when it's less middle-of-the-night for a lot of you.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Saturday, 6 July 2019 04:42 (four years ago) link
Well I agree with the top 3
― Alba, Saturday, 6 July 2019 06:15 (four years ago) link
Tallulah gets off to a bad start for me. In another, simpler arrangement I'd like Right Here, but while Spring Rain or the whole of 16 Lovers Lane have a effortless pop sensibility to them, here it sounds contrived and trite. Then You Tell Me soars before the album loses its way again.
― Alba, Saturday, 6 July 2019 06:37 (four years ago) link
Bravo.
― Authoritarian Steaks (Tom D.), Friday, 16 April 2021 12:27 (three years ago) link
Imagine not just writing, but delivering lines as good as these:
In la Brisa de la PalmaA teenage RasputinTakes the sting from a gin
a) what even is the Brisa de la Palma? Brisbane, presumably? Not to mention squeezing 9 syllables into what are generally 5 or 6-syllable lines for the rest of the song. b) a teenage Rasputin! Just put that in there. c) the assonance of 'sting from a gin' and the insouciance of the delivery. One of those lines you wonder if it went through multiple iterations of 'sip from' or 'sling from' but you really hope arrived fully formed.
― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Friday, 17 March 2023 23:11 (one year ago) link
"When a woman learns to walk she's not dependent anymore"A line from a letter May 24
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 18 March 2023 00:26 (one year ago) link
A white moon appearsLike a hole in the skyThe mangroves go quiet
― SA, Sunday, 19 March 2023 00:48 (one year ago) link
XXP: The 1978-1990 sleeve notes talk about an oppressively hot, tropical, Cairns (Qld) setting. The 'Shields St' elsewhere in the song is almost certainly the one in the middle of said town. There's an intriguing claim on ye olde GB messageboard that there was a Cairns establishment called Las Palmas or similar. Maybe he constructed 'Palm Breeze' from that starting point? (Spanish names are not exactly abundant otherwise in Aus, so maybe?!)
http://go-betweens.org.uk/chatroom/messages/6/51.html?1479982384
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Sunday, 19 March 2023 01:48 (one year ago) link