Forget your heart, it's your bank I wanna break

Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...

20.04.22 : The Eight Legged Groove Machine - The Wonder Stuff (1988)

I actually own 3 Wonder Stuff albums - but, drawn in by "Don't Let Me Down, Gently" (with its confusing comma) I started with Hup and stuck with them through to Construction For The Modern Idiot which was the last album with the classic line-up before they realised they actually hated each other, split up, reformed, remembered they hated each other and left the lead singer to work through multiple alternate line-ups.  Ah, the classic path of musical evolution (only lacking legal squabbles about who gets to use the band name, it appears).  

I actually had the chance to see them live about a year after this album came up but I decided against it for the very sensible reason they were playing in a rough part of town.  Except that, ladies and gentlemen, I was at uni in Bath at the time - I really didn't know the meaning of "a rough part of town".  At least not until I moved to Basildon a couple of years afterwards (although I seem to recall there was a good argument that Basildon didn't really have one particularly rough part of town unless you counted "all over" as one part) - obviously, I'm sure it's a lovely place now but in the early 90's it didn't have a huge amount to recommend it.

Anyways, that's enough about me - what about this album?  I've never heard it, so was interested to do so but I was at least partly hoping it wasn't great, because then I'd be kicking myself for having ignored it for all these years.  And, was I disappointed by its greatness?  Nah - I enjoyed listening to it and it's perfectly fine, but it doesn't really bring anything to the party that Hup doesn't and it didn't have a stand-out confusingly-comma'ed track for me.  I'm sure I'd have loved it at the time if I'd known it back then, but coming to it after all this time (33 years!) I'm (fortunately) not gutted I missed it.  Phew!  I do have to comment on the terrible album name and cover though - I really can't see they'll have helped sales.  

The channel didn't have a lot to say about the album - we had one "really digging" and one "pretty inoffensive", although we did go down an Erica Nockells shaped blind alley that I might be tempted to investigate if I can ever find some time to do so.  Apart from listing the tracks and personnel, Wikipedia has one sentence on the album - "The Eight Legged Groove Machine is the debut album by The Wonder Stuff from August 1988".  So that's us told, eh?  I feel they need a little bit more time in the limelight, so I'll remind you they actually had a #1 in the UK - "Dizzy" with Vic Reeves.  And Wikipedia tells me that their version "added another key change to the 11 that already exist" - I very much recall it was a song that didn't know when to stop.

"Customers also listened to" a load of very 80s acts - some of which I remember with fondness, and some not so much.  The Wonder Stuff are probably best known for their Never Loved Elvis era, but there's a lot to love throughout their canon if you like that sort of thing and this album falls squarely into that category for me, so I was pleased I caught up with it, even if it's not exactly essential listening.

20.04.23 : Songs For The Deaf - Queens Of The Stone Age (2002)

I love "No One Knows" (although the first time I heard it was a cover version played by The Divine Comedy, so it was a slightly different version) and had checked this album out as a result, but it didn't stick, so I haven't revisited it (or, alternatively, I haven't revisited it, so it didn't stick).  Either way, I was interested to come back to it after a "few" years to see what I thought.  And yeah, whilst I didn't mind it, it doesn't really have any particularly high points for other than "No One Knows" and I found some of the songs a bit too repetitive for my tastes - they reminded me of Led Zep at their most riffy, which I find a bit tiresome despite the obvious musical skills on display (especially when there are 67 minutes of it to endure).  I can't quite decide if I like the radio bits or not (I chuckled at some of them, and cringed at others) but, in complete contrast to the previous album, it's certainly got a cool title and cover.

I was expecting this album to push a few buttons on the channel and it totally did - there's a lot of love for it out there.  Wikipedia tells us there's a lot of love for the album out there in the wider world as well although it sold relatively few in the US compared with the UK - 1.2m compared with 600k - which surprised me somewhat since it feels a very US kinda thang (and people quite like Dave Grohl over there as well).  The critics absolutely loved it as well - it has appeared on a lot of "best of" lists.

"Customers also listened to" Foo Fighters (quelle surprise!), Muse, Franz Ferdinand and MIA - which seems a strange mix to me.  With the exception of "No One Knows", this album falls into the "admire rather than enjoy" category for me - but I can see it would push quite a few people's buttons.

20.04.24 : Based On A True Story - Fat Freddy's Drop (2005)

I had heard of FFD, but couldn't have told you where from - and when I looked them up and found they were a dub/reggae/soul band from NZ, that didn't exactly jog my memory (which you might expect).  So, I was going in blind but with some added trepidation having read that description.  But I didn't mind it - it's not really my thang and it kinda slid past me, but it's cool and well done and I can see there would be times it would nicely hit the spot.  I wasn't entirely convinced it needed the full 69 minutes for only 10 tracks, but maybe that's just me.  The channel tells me it was picked for being "well produced, laid back and probably suits a Friday afternoon" - and I'd struggle to argue with any of that.  The channel mostly approved, but preferred the dubbier stuff than the soullier stuff (they're both actual words, right?)

Wikipedia tells us that there have been a lot of albums with this title, but this is the one that has gone down best in NZ - it debuted at #1 and holds the record for longest run at the top for an NZ artist.  I'd love to tell you how long, but Wikipedia gives me absolutely no idea - the statement "As of June 23, 2016 the album had been in the New Zealand charts for 108 weeks" suggests the page hasn't been updated in a bit.

"Customers also listened to" a load of people I've never heard of - with the exception of Little Roy's Battle For Seattle which is a load of Nirvana songs "reggaed up" and although this sounds like a perfectly dreadful experience it is surprisingly enjoyable.  Overall, I'd say this album is another in the "admire rather than enjoy" category - it's well done, but just not really my sort of thing.

So, in a completely unfair turn of events, The Wonder Stuff win the round with the least musically accomplished album of the three just because I'm a nostalgic idiot and like to be reminded of the good old days (it's the oldest album we've had so far, after all!)

20.04.17 - Another album I've actually heard!
20.04.27 - Not a lot of common ground here