I am tireless, sub zero, comin' from the wireless

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts.

01/05/94 : Stacked Up - Senser


Our second band starting with S that I don't remember in the slightest - from the name I'm assuming it will be similar rock nonsense to that provided by Skin.

Well, it's rocky but it's not at all similar. It features indie-ish backing tracks which include all sorts of most peculiar noises with a rappy vocal over them - I was reminded of The Levellers, early Jesus Jones and House Of Pain. I'm actually not sure whether I enjoyed it or not - I think I liked the idea more than the execution (which is very repetitive in places) but it's certainly different though. It's also interesting that, although this is much more up my street musically than our previous visit with Skin, whereas I said that they would have been fun live, I imagine that I would not have enjoyed a Senser gig in the slightest.

We're at a surprisingly high #4 in the charts with a new entry in the charts this week on the start of a five week run - this was as high as it got and part of me is surprised that it lasted that long. The rest of the top five were Blur (a new entry starting a 94 week run), Pink Floyd and best-ofs from Deacon Blue and Marvin Gaye, with the next highest new entry being Chumbawumba (#29).

Wikipedia tells us this is their debut album and it "features an eclectic, incendiary cross over of hip hop, rock and psychedelia". To my surprise, they've released seven albums in total, although it seems that after each one they've split "due to musical differences" - but they're still at it because the latest one came out in October this year. That's pretty much your lot for useful info except that (to my complete lack of surprise) they were a political bunch - the only other thing that jumped out at me is that none of the singles released from the album got any higher than #39, so quite how this got to #4 is very unclear. The critics weren't entirely sure what to make of it but erred on the side of caution with The Record warning people that they "weld thrash, metal, and hip-hop into an ungainly, unlikeable contraption" (which sounds harsh, but is hard to argue with). Unsurprisingly, it didn't do anything away from these shores, but it still sold an unlikely 400,000 copies - I'm very unclear who was buying it.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for three quid but if you want the limited edition fluorescent yellow vinyl version then it's going to cost you £40 - I bet it's quite the look but I suspect I can live without it. This has been a peculiar visit because it's rare that I'm not sure what I think about an album after one listen - I feel a few more listens would convince me I quite like it or I hate it, but for the time being it gets filed under "puzzling".

24/04/94 - Fine if you like that sort of thing
08/05/94 - One I didn't remember in the slightest

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