DROP THE HEY! AND WHAT HAVE YOU GOT???

You would of course need to read yesterday's posting to make sense of the title of today's inane ramblings.

Having burst onto the scene in the middle of the Britpop era, Elastica enjoyed a fair amount of success with three Top 20 singles and a self-titled debut LP that hit #1 on its release in March 1995. Indeed, at that particular point in time, Elastica was the fastest-selling debut LP in the UK ever. Each of its 15 tracks were short and sweet - the LP only lasted 38 minutes in total - while the band were accused of all sorts of plagiarism with both The Stranglers and Wire receiving out-of-court settlements for old tunes being, ahem, borrowed from.

That shouldn't detract at all from the fact that the debut LP is an excellent listen and one that has stood the test of time.

But just as the band seemed on the verge of greatness it all fell apart, with sex and drugs very much to blame. Despite going into the studio in early 1996, no material emerged until 1999 when out of the blue a six-track EP was released:-

mp3 : Elastica - How He Wrote Elastica Man
mp3 : Elastica - Nothing Stays The Same (Donna's Home Demo)
mp3 : Elastica - Miami Nice (Home Recording)
mp3 : Elastica - KB
mp3 : Elastica - Operate (Live Version)
mp3 : Elastica - Generator

And to avoid any more court cases with the lead track, the band roped in Mark E Smith for a sing-song on a couple of the recordings.

The lead track is a superb bit of noise that clocks in at just over 2mins, its a disgrace that this was a flop. It is recorded as reaching #123 in the charts.....which means me and about 12 other folk bought it in the week of release.

Here's the promo:-



Happy Listening