You expose the film in me

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

29/07/01 : Rings Around The World - Super Furry Animals


SFA are one of those bands I always thought I should like, but never got into at the time - and two visits here have done nothing to change the situation. Third time lucky?

Well, third time luckier, certainly. I didn't love it, but I can see there's a lot to like here. It's very sixties tinged, harking back to The Kinks and later-phase Beatles and Beach Boys, sounding both lush and fuzzy which is quite a clever combination - The Flaming Lips would be another (slightly more contemporary) touchpoint. I was also surprised to recognise one of the tracks - "Juxtaposed With U" ("you've got to tolerate all the people that you hate"), which was one of the singles. I really quite enjoyed this album and can see if I'd bought this and listened to it a few times then I'd have properly got into it, which is a significant advance on our previous visits - well done to them SFA chaps for finally breaking me down!

We're at #3 with a new entry in the chart this week on the start of an eight week run, with it coming back for a single week in '21 for an anniversary re-release. The rest of the top five were Destiny's Child, David Gray, D12 and Gorillaz with the next highest new entry being NSYNC (#12 - at least I didn't have to listen to that!), but I'm also going to call out The Bangles best-of (#17) because this is a very fine collection of tracks which is well worth checking out.

Wikipedia has way more text than I was expecting (290 milliPeppers) and it tells us it's their fifth album and their major label debut - apparently it's also the first album ever to be released simultaneously on CD and DVD, which feels quite late sine DVDs had been around since '96. Most of the rest of the text goes on about how the band really tried to spend all that major label money doing weird stuff, but there are some interesting nuggets in there, with two guest artists in particular jumping out. John Cale maybe isn't such a surprise given his Welsh roots, but I don't think anyone expected to see Paul McCartney on here credited with "carrot and celery". Allegedly he provided vegetable based crunching sounds for the Beach Boys album Smiley Smile in the 60s and, after meeting him after a few beers at the NME Awards, the band cheekily asked him for the same here. Apparently he "took it with good nature" - you can almost hear him saying "ah - kids these days!". Critically, it was generally very well received and appeared on a load of year-end lists but commercially it only did anything over here, which seems like a shame because it feels like it could have found a niche in the US. 

discogs.com tells you're going to have spend the princely sum of one pound to get a decent version of this but if you want the "special cut" vinyl (nope, no idea) release complete with a one-sided, 33 rpm, white vinyl single then it's going to set you back £339 - wowzers! I can't say I'm a complete convert but I'm at least slightly more open to their charms than I was previously was - it looks like this is going to be our last visit with the lads but at least they went out on a high (I'm sure they'll sleep easier knowing this).

20/07/01 - Not for me
05/08/01 - Not as good as I expected

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And all at once I owned the earth and sky

Image
A new year to start the New Year - starting my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 30/12/01 : Swing When You're Winning -   Robbie Williams There's a reasonable argument I should reject this album, but it was such a surprising cultural moment that even I don't feel I can, so it means we're starting the year with one that "we" own. This is our fifth visit with Mr Williams - I'm determined not to enjoy it, but I also have to admit I'm not going to hate it nearly as much as I would like to.  You know what? This is perfectly fine. Completely inessential, but he's not doing anyone any harm. For the most part, it's classic Sinatra-or-thereabouts tracks which Robbie does a decent job with on the vocals (along with some slightly peculiar guests) and they've obviously got some decent musicians in to lay down the backing tracks. He rarely does anything wildly original with them but, most importantly, he doesn't ruin them either - I don't...
Read more

I got caught compiling my own news

Image
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  50 best albums of 2025 . #35 :  SABLE, fABLE - Bon Iver If, as Justin Vernon recently suggested, this is the last ever Bon Iver album, it’s a beautiful redemption arc: a loving send-up of his anxious, myopic sad-sack self blossoms into a radiant appreciation of possibility, sensuality, risk. Everything Is Peaceful Love has one of the year’s best refrains: “Damn if I’m not climbing up a tree right now!”, giddy with thrill and absolutely no idea of what to do when you get up there other than enjoy the view. And while there are gorgeously passionate songs here, it’s the ones about gracefully letting go of an unviable love that really underscore the admirable humility in Vernon’s bowing out. I always feel like I should enjoy Bon Iver albums more than I do - they feel like they have the ingredients I need but come across a bit detached and miserablist for me to actually want to revisit them - but The Guardian suggests there may be hope for this...
Read more

But you hold your love like a weapon in your hand

Image
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  50 best albums of 2025 . #14 : pr ivate music - Deftones This was the US alt-metallers’ first album back after serendipitously getting a huge new following via TikTok, particularly for their sweeter, shoegazier material. But rather than court that audience by cynically remaking Sextape 11 times over, they instead created a balletic cyborg of a record. The riffs could put a dent in concrete masonry, but the groove-metal rhythms are light-footed and, as ever, vocalist Chino Moreno sets out even wider tonal possibilities. It’s as if waves of pain and relief pass across his spirit as he goes from dry croaks to thunderous denouncements to blissful clean singing. The thirteenth album I've previously heard from the list because I met it as a new entry and I'm afraid I won't be relistening to this one because it was (and I quote) " too noisy for my sensitive ears". This debuted at #2 (kept off the top by Wolf Alice) and managed ...
Read more