Not Forgotten
Not Forgotten: The Wonder Stuff – Hup
While 1987’s The Eight Legged Groove Machine was The Wonder Stuff’s statement of intent, ultimately it was little more than thrillingly scruffy post-punk guitar thrash aimed squarely at the pop charts. It was utterly brilliant for what it was, but ultimately it was the type of album that a band could only release once, with any attempt …
Not Forgotten: Super Furry Animals – Guerrilla
For years I felt that Guerrilla was Super Furry Animals‘ untidiest album by some distance, never quite really holding it as close to my heart as I have their other albums, despite SFA being one of one of my favourite bands. Regardless of my how much Guerrilla has baffled me down the years, the opening five numbers of the album have …
Not Forgotten: Flight of the Conchords – I Told You I Was Freaky
Follow ups to successful albums where the primary ingredient was humour are few and far between. Humour is a transient thing and can fall out of fashion even quicker than music (just look at how arse-clenchingly unfunny a big-at-the-time Little Britain looks these days), so there are very few acts that maintain a consistent level of humour …
Not Forgotten: Suede – Dog Man Star
For all the hype around the band, in retrospect Suede’s self titled debut album was pretty damn ordinary, with only a few decent singles to mark the band out as anything above average. Despite this, in Brett Anderson they had a fine vocalist, and in Bernard Butler they had one of the UK’s hottest young guitar …
Not Forgotten: The Beautiful South – Welcome to the Beautiful South
There are some songs from your childhood that you clearly remember hearing on the radio for the first time. It was summer 1989, and it was a period of change in my life which my ten year old self was feeling pretty optimistic about. My family were about to move house, I was about to …
Not Forgotten: R.E.M. – Monster
The late 80s and early 90s had seen U2 get big. Too big. They seemed to have reached critical mass with the live / studio hybrid Rattle and Hum, but a creative reset on 1991’s Achtung Baby had seen them find a touch more equilibrium and sound considerably less like a band who created a …
Not Forgotten: Jethro Tull – Stormwatch
If Jethro Tull’s ‘folk trilogy’ was not a reaction to Punk, then it was a stupendously well timed circumstance that saw the old rockers pull in the musical opposed direction to the fashionable youth rock movement of the time. While folk had always been an element of the Jethro Tull sound, 1977’s Songs From the …
Not Forgotten: They Might Be Giants – John Henry
With the Two Johns having forged an enduring career releasing a series of albums that appeal to socially awkward types who perhaps spend just a little bit too much time in their own heads, it’s a tiny regret of mine that I didn’t encounter the music of They Might Be Giants during my teenage years, …
Not Forgotten: Jethro Tull – Under Wraps
The mid 80s were a fascinating and fractious time for what would become known as classic rock. The two giant super bands of the 70s were no longer with us, with Pink Floyd having imploded in acrimony around Roger Waters’ ever more despotic tendencies, and Led Zeppelin coming to an end following the sad death …
Not Forgotten: The Cult – Dreamtime
By early 1983 Bradford’s goth rockers Southern Death Cult had called it a day, having released a solitary single. An album consisting of said single, as well as a bunch of radio sessions and live recordings was released after their split, however by that time frontman Ian Astbury had already started to lay the foundations …