Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Sundays

 
I had a mate that used to buy everything that came out on the 4AD label, mainly for the Vaughn Williams cover work. Consequently, his record collection had it's fair share of shit in it, but it looked great . Music is a weird old barrel. Something can sound great, but for some perfectly illogical reason or other you instead hate it .
 
Only 17 years after most indie saddos were creaming their pants at the merest glimpse of Harriet Wheelers woolly tights, I've actually started listening to The Sundays. And they sound quite good.
 
For some reason, at the time I went out of my way not to like The Sundays, probably because I figured that they were the kind of music bought by people who don't actually listen to music but feel they should buy some music because that's what people do. Mr Fremescent tackled this issue rather wonderfully in his blog recently. There was a time when I lumped a lot of musicians in this bag, and in fact still do, but these days I am too old and uncool to care who likes what, so long as I like it. (I can, for instance, admit to owning almost all of Rush's musical output, but I haven't listened to them for a bit. Apart from Exit, Stage Left, which is always in the car and is possibly the best live album ever. Live albums are generally shit, but Exit, Stage Left actually improves on some of the songs contained on thier studio albums in almost every case.)
 
That said, there are artists I will never like on principle, or at least have a deep mistrust of. These include such joys as Travis, Tanita Tikaram, The The and some others that don't begin with the letter 'T', like Sade, Paolo Nuttini and her that did that punk rocker with flowers in her hair and is absolutely not major label backed product, oh no sir. And Katie Melua, who appears to be far too nice for her own good.
 
Some of them I hate because of the music, some of them for shallow reasons. I never liked Tanita Tikaram purely because she always had a face like a slapped arse, while I hated Sade for her particularly souless brand of soul and the fact she always had a face like a slapped arse.
 
The The have a special place in my heart for their song 'The Beaten Generation', which has the presumptiousness to call my enitire generation a bunch of mindless layabout consumer cunts with no political will or capacity for independent thought. What a twat. Well I have news for you The The bloke, at least 2 people read this blog. Where are you, eh? Where is your band, eh? Nowhere! Ha ha! Who's the loser? You! Ha ha!
 
Anyway. The Sundays Reading, Writing and Arithmetic turns out to be a decent album, and mentions sheds, which is always welcome.
 

1 comment:

′Fremescent said...

*Tut* Oliver - Vaughan Oliver is the sleeve designer bloke's name.
.
I had an album by The Sundays but my flatmate Russ borrowed it and never gave it back. I liked her voice. Now I can't remember any of their songs.
.
*goes off to find his Clan of Xymox and Dif Juz albums*