![]() The last two albums from the decade, Hold Your Fire had the band moving to using computers for song writing and production but the last studio album from that decade, Presto saw the band return to a more guitar-driven sound from what is known to many as Rush’s “synthesizer period” of the last four releases. This is not bad thing for a rock band like Rush as after Moving Pictures, Signals is one of my favourite Rush albums. On Signals the band continues to incorporate the synthesizer into their songs with less emphasis on guitar-oriented riffs which had been the focus of their sound in the 1970s. The instrumental YYZ from Moving Pictures was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. They also used synthesizers as well which added another dimension to their sound. The single from the album, The Spirit of Radio featured the band’s early experiments with a reggae style in its closing section, which was explored further on the band’s next three albums. With the 80s the band would experiment in new sounds. I have some of them on vinyl but the ones that I played today are on CD and they were Permanent Waves (1980) which had just been reissued as a 40th anniversary edition, Moving Pictures (1981), Signals (1982) Hold Your Fire (1987), Presto (1989) along with standard live album release A Show of Hands (1989). The band were very creative that decade releasing seven albums. A friend of mine introduced me to the band around 1990-91 and I borrowed some of his albums mostly from the 70s and a few from the 80s and I was hooked.įor today’s run the focus was all on their music output from the 1980s. I had got back into listening to a bit of Rush lately and today it was all about Rush in the 1980s. This best of album comprises fourteen singles, four album tracks, and three new songs written for the album. ![]() The title refers to the album’s total length, just 34 seconds short of the maximum running time possible on a single CD: as a consequence the track “My Uptight Life” was edited from its original version in order to fit on to the album. So if you wanted to introduce somebody to Teenage Fanclub where do you start? Maybe a gentle introduction is Four Thousand Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds – A Short Cut To Teenage Fanclub (2003). Even author Nick Hornby namechecks the album in his book 31 Songs as one of his all time favourite albums. The album is just perfect and a fantastic follow up to Grand Prix. No one calls Scotland “Northern Britain,” although technically it is. The band have described the album title as “a joking reference to Britpop, and everybody who thought we were part of that scene”. Norman Blake expanded on the title in 2016, commenting, “We just thought it sounded funny. They were on tour with Radiohead that year who had just released Ok Computer and the band supported them when they came to the RDS at Dublin. It became their highest charting release in the UK and contained their biggest hit single to date, Ain’t That Enough. Songs from Northern Britain (1997) followed Grand Prix and built on the former’s success. The other way round I think, Teenage Fanclub are better! Around this time Liam Gallagher of labelmates Oasis called the band “the second best band in the world” - second only to Oasis. It was both a critical and commercial success in the UK, becoming their first top ten album. However, that would all change with the release of Grand Prix (1995). At the time the band were listening to them quite a lot but this record was their most difficult one to make and didn’t get get the success as Bandwagonesque. Even Kurt Cobain had it down as one of his all time favourites. It topped Spin magazine’s 1991 end-of-year poll for best album, beating Nirvana’s Nevermind, their Creation stablemates My Bloody Valentine’s album Loveless, and R.E.M.’s Out of Time. Bandwagonesque was more deliberately constructed, the hooks became stronger, the guitar riffs were brought under control, and the harmony vocals took shape. A Catholic Education (1990), released in 1990, is largely atypical of their later sound, with the possible exception of Everything Flows which is my favourite song.īandwagonesque (1991) released on Creation Records in the UK and Geffen in the US, brought the band a measure of commercial success. Their sound is reminiscent of Californian bands like the Beach Boys and the Byrds, and their seventies counterparts Big Star. Music life in lockdown week 40 – the final edition.Sunstroke Festival returns after 25 year hiatus.Which gig would you have liked to have seen?.Stiff Little Fingers – Putting the Fast in Belfast. ![]()
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