the label didn't hear a single so they went back and recorded one

A large chunk. of the Boo Radleys' single tracks sound forced and out of place on the albums I think. It's Lulu is ghastly. What's In The Box and C'mon Kids are irritating attempts at punky fun times but just come off shrill and unimaginative compared to the rest of the album

i just read about that Martin affair elsewhere; apparently Giles Martin won't speak to him

(him being Lewinsohn)

All in the same vein. All horrible. All break up the flow of the album.

― doorstep jetski (dog latin)

wait hold on, did you just say "sweet johnny" was 'horrible'?

right, yeah, that played into it too - that's what i enjoyed about lewisohn's bio, he pushes past all the polite half-truths and reading it honestly gave me a new respect for causality. the actual story of how the beatles got to a point where they could record "please please me" is even more interesting and god-plays-dice-with-the-universe than all that stuff about george martin's tie is!

― revenge of the jawn (rushomancy), Thursday, January 16, 2020 8:48 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

otm. "I heard them, and they were a mediocre band, but funny as people, so I signed them!" isn't an amazing story, and also makes absolutely no sense whatsoever: one of the largest recording companies in the world doesn't sign untested artists because they joked about someone's tie.

I heard that "Laura" by Bat For Lashes was one of these.

The first PIL album, Warner USA didn't hear any hits so refused to release it unless the band rerecorded it.

So, they did. But nothing has been heard apart from the new "Fodderstompf" which became the b-side of the "Death Disco" 12"

And obv, WB didn't release the album. They did go for "Metal Box" though.

All in the same vein. All horrible. All break up the flow of the album.

― doorstep jetski (dog latin)

wait hold on, did you just say "sweet johnny" was 'horrible'?

― revenge of the jawn (rushomancy)

I love Sweet Johnny. Poodle Rockin' too. Mow The Lawn is bad though, although that album in general isn't up to much.

A large chunk. of the Boo Radleys' single tracks sound forced and out of place on the albums I think. It's Lulu is ghastly. What's In The Box and C'mon Kids are irritating attempts at punky fun times but just come off shrill and unimaginative compared to the rest of the album

― doorstep jetski (dog latin)

I do like It's Lulu. Find The Answer Within however is the worst song on Wake Up and I'm not surprised it killed the album campaign. Reaching Out From Here, Twinside or Stuck On Amber would have been much stronger singles. What's In The Box is great. It was the song that really changed my mind about them. I can see what you're saying about the title track, but What's In The Box is much more imaginative IMO.

As for Kingsize, I remember reading that Martin first approached the label with The Future Is Now and saw it as the lead single (Alan McGee hated it and said they were barely writing B-sides, he also hated Wake Up). Great song, but it wouldn't have worked as single. That album is filled with songs that sounded like hits, but it did feel too late. I'm not sure that songs as commercial as Comb Your Hair or Eurostar would have done anything. Didn't Martin say he couldn't stand the thought of Comb Your Hair becoming a single? Agree with the Free Huey comments. Such a terrible misfire. In the sleevenotes for their best of, Martin defends it and says, "it still sounds like a hit to me".

Sweet Johnny and Poddle Rockin' are great, even if they are forced single attempts. Mow The Lawn is bit less so, formula a bit tired by then though.

I read some horrible article in Shiding recently which goes by the idea that they were pop sellouts after John Lawrence left, becoming "the Euros Childs show" afterwards, which is kind of laughable

^ particularly when you consider when the lead single from the follow-up full-length album was the incredibly great Stood On Gold written and sung by Richard James
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah5FpgT6N4E

He left after Gorky 5 didn't he? The next three albums are so lovely. I wouldn't exactly call The Blue Trees a pop sellout album in any way.

Lawrence is on Spanish Dance Troupe but he doesn't contribute any songs, or they weren't included in the final tracklisting. That article says that he quit over the recording of Poodle Rockin' being included. I remember it being mentioned being in live reviews of gigs not long after Gorky 5 was released, prior to him leaving

Poodlen rocken

"songs that inspired a band member to quit" would be another good topic

That could be Russell Senior with Pulp's Help The Aged

it's true that i don't like the post-gorky 5 stuff nearly as much as the lawrence-era stuff but calling euros childs a "pop sellout" is, uh, a fairly severe mischaracterization of the man i'd say

shame that the "hush the warmth" single never came out - there's a nice cover of richard thompson's "poor ditching boy" that was intended as a b-side. that could be another thread, b-sides the label didn't release because they pulled the single... i know ultrasound originally recorded "goodbye 25" as a b-side to something or another but that single was never released.

B-sides they didn't release because the label pulled the release?

"Superintendent" and "Tomorrow (from Bugsy Malone") from the last Boo Radleys single "Kingsize" - I had to visit MVE daily until I got the promo!

Lauryn Hill - Can't Take My Eyes Off You

― fetter, Wednesday, January 15, 2020 3:32 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

nope, it was previously recorded for the movie Conspiracy Theory then became a radio hit that summer before the album's release. they tacked it onto the end of Miseducation because it was already a currently popular song of hers

“Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Rhythmic Songs chart despite never officially being pushed to radio. According to Williams, it was never meant to be a commercial single.

“It was originally recorded for [the soundtrack for the movie] Conspiracy Theory and ended up on the radio, became popular, and that’s how it ended became a bonus track,” Williams explained.

I read some horrible article in Shiding recently which goes by the idea that they were pop sellouts after John Lawrence left, becoming "the Euros Childs show" afterwards, which is kind of laughable
― PaulTMA, Friday, January 17, 2020 10:02 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Don't know about "pop sellouts" (wrong decade), but they certainly took a sharp right turn around that time.
"Euros Childs show" is understandable, though basically amounts to giving JL all the credit for their previous David Bedford-inspired lunacy which strikes me as dubious (but I wouldn't know).

I’m straining to imagine a world where Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci was ever considered anything like a commercial proposition.

The 90s really were a long time ago, weren’t they?

Patio song got a fair bit of daytime radio play

Funnily I just happened upon a Netflix documentary about Clive Davis where they tell exactly this anecdote about Clive "not hearing any singles" from Bruce, and Bruce therefore obligingly going off to write "Blinded by the Light" AND "Spirits in the Night."

The implication being, of course, that Springsteen is apparently a talented enough songwriter to quickly write songs of the quality of "Blinded by the Light" and "Spirits in the Night," sure, BUT the true visionary genius in this story is the pudgy bald guy in a suit who told him to do it.

"and then old Clive Davis said he surely gonna make us a star, he gonna make us a star"

If Gorky's didn't refuse to play the double-formatting game, then most of their singles from Patio Song onwards would have made the top 40 with ease.

There was a little story about the Commodores on Decades last night, and they said "Brick House" was sort of one of these (producer told them they needed one more song).

Mac Demarco - "Let Her Go" is one of these

superdrag - "do the vampire"

p sad that "Living With A Hernia" appeased them - worst song on the album and possibly Al's all-time worst single

You can go straight to hell.

i will admit that after listening to the album again it rose a bit in my estimation, there's some good lyrics. i'd have to look thru his singles discography to see what could go below it tho.

This thread title makes it sound like the label got fed up with the band and recorded the hit single themselves, incognito

While on tour in 1968, the band (Ohio Express) found out they had a new single, "Chewy Chewy" when they heard it on the radio and had to deal with fans yelling for a song they didn't know at their concert that night.

Heat of the Moment by Asia!

“It was an afterthought,” Downes told Prog in a new interview. “We were going to lead off with ‘Only Time Will Tell,’ but the label said, ‘Do you have anything else?’ So John [Wetton] and I came up with ‘Heat of the Moment’ in one morning. Literally, the bones of the song were written in maybe a couple of hours.”

checks out