However, not so many folk seem so fond of the follow-up Easy Pieces, released in 1985 just 13 months after the debut. While Rattlesnakes was commemorated with a 20th Anniversary Tour in 2004 (where the band played a blistering set at Glasgow Barrowlands only spoiled by the fact that a then unknown but cringingly appalling James Blunt was the support act), Easy Pieces is passed off with the words 'its ok....but nowhere near as good as the debut' - even by the band themselves.
I'm not going to sit here and argue that Easy Pieces is a better record than Rattlesnakes.....but I am prepared to say that it as a far far far better record than many give it credit for.
Lead-off single Brand New Friend is a near perfect piece of pop, brilliantly polished by the production skills of Langer and Winstanley. Trust me on this one....
mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Brand New Friend
The follow-up single is one of the few bits of music written by bassist Lawrence Donegan who is now better know to thousands of readers as the Golf Correspondent of the Guardian newspaper.....(incidentally, each of Lawrence's books about being a golf caddy, a used car salesman in the USA, a journalist in rural Ireland and a steward at the Ryder Cup golf tournament are all worth a read). Anyway, as I was saying the follow-up single is one of his bits of work and he has admitted since that it is based on the same chords and riff as The Passenger by Iggy Pop, which is no bad thing:-
mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Lost Weekend
Incidentally, in reaching #17 in the charts, this was the band's most successful single.....a fact that surprised me somewhat.
The next single lifted from the LP was Cut Me Down which in some ways was a strange choice as it isn't the most commercial of songs but I suppose when six months have passed since the LP was released and the promotional tour is over then the third and final single isn't really all that important in the grand scheme of things. I still think they missed a trick not issuing this as a 45:-
mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Why I Love Country Music
Two other songs on the LP are also personal favourites - opening track Rich which is one that seems tailor-made for radio and is very reminiscent of REM and closer Perfect Blue with its wonderful harmonica and acoustic guitar opening that screams out Americana Road Movie..........
mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Rich
mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Perfect Blue
So there you have it. Five of the ten songs from the LP. Everyone a gem. And the other five aren't too shabby either......
Happy Listening
7 comments:
Its a great lp but the worst one they made if that can make any kind of sense. Rich is one of my favourite commotions tracks and I used to read all kinds of stuff into the lyrics, thinking it was about a Hearst character. Someone once asked him about it on his website (he does a very good ongoing Q and A called strangely enough Ask lloyd)and he burst my balloon that it was more a collection of lyrics he liked rather than an overall narrative and didnt really mean that much
I love this album... yeah it's not better but the first 7 tracks are as good as anything on rattlesnakes, just different...
but it was the one I heard first and the one I owned... my only disappointment on it as a youngster was the track James – as thats my name I really wanted to relate to it but never could...
Gotta say 'Why I Love Country Music' is now the only thing I ever play off it.
I'll have to dig it out at the weekend and give the rest a re-listen.
I've loved all of Lloyd's records, but this one probably least of all. I really, really dislike the production. The way his voice is recorded makes him sound choked and hiccupey. Compare the Paul Hardiman (Rattlesnakes producer) production of Perfect Blue on the 84-89 Compilation to the album version. I'd have loved to have heard the whole record done that way.
Production aside, it is an album with some of his best songs (Why I Love Country Music) and some of his worst (James).
Putting aside the
Count me in as one of the people who like Easy Pieces. How can you not? It's got Lost Weekend, Cut Me Down, Brand New Friend and Why I Love Country Music on it. Oh - and Her Last Fling. And Perfect Blue.
Okay. I'm going to stop now and just go listen to it.
I like it...really like Mainstream and Lloyd's first solo album too.
Maybe the problem is that he's like Orson Wells; the first album -like Citizen Kane -set the bar so high everything else was always going to pale by comparison.
Totally agree, a lost underrated album. And almost impossible to find on CD (as many lost album from the '80's and even 90's)
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