The Long Slump

The Long Blondes - Couples [2008]

When a young band makes a great debut album that blows up and makes a pile of cash, you can almost set your watch to the sophomore slump, that shitty second album that never meets expectations. For this reason, when a band’s debut rocks your shit, it’s best to be circumspect in spinning the follow-up. To take just a few British examples from recent years, see The Music, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, The Streets, Art Brut…

It’s hard to say exactly why bands dud out the second time around, but there’s a few theories. Some debut albums take shape through years of songwriting and touring, while the follow-up might be squeezed out in the studio on record company time (see Bloc Party). Some debuts might find their poetry in everyday life, a vein of experience that can’t be mined on a second album that was written between snorts of cocaine from the naked bodies of groupies (see Arctic Monkeys). Sometimes, the group might respond to the pressure of sudden success by making an overwrought concept album (see The Streets). Other times, it might even be the listener’s fault: the debut album was so fresh and exciting that when the follow-up doesn’t shake the earth, the listener chucks a sad. Fickle consumers that we are, this happens to the best of us.

Sheffield’s The Long Blondes made a great debut album in 2006 called Someone to Drive You Home and now we’ve got the follow-up, Couples. Does it suffer from the sophomore slump? Honestly, yes. Couples falls into a number of the traps which beset second albums. It feels rushed, the songwriting and lyricism is diminished, it takes an ill-conceived stylistic left turn, and it even features some appalling cover art. But in spite of all this, it remains a partial success.

The beauty of Someone to Drive You Home was mostly about front-woman Kate Jackson. There was nothing too revolutionary about the band’s blend of 60’s pop, punk and new wave, but the album was an absolute delight because The Long Blondes could pen a rock tune catchier than syphilis to back Jackson’s wonderful, forthright, and at times hilarious lyricism. Maybe it’s just a reflection of the patriarchal nature of rock music, but I’d struggle to name another front-woman who sings so incisively about boys, girls and relationships. It sounds lame, but it’s actually a revelation to hear a woman sing lines like: “Where do you go when you’ve finished work/You should have been home an hour ago/And I’ve got your tea laid out like some kind of fifties housewife”.

The problem with Couples is that The Long Blondes sound like they’re unaware of their strengths. The album half-heartedly tries on a bit of dance-punk for size, with mixed results, on show in opener “Century”. Other songs, notably “Here Comes the Serious Bit”, sound at best like B-sides from the debut. But the worst sin of the album is that Kate Jackson no longer has her trademark vocal and lyrical presence. Sadly lacking are the witty lines that defined the debut, replaced by repetitive angst (“Century”, “Round the Hairpin”), and aural filler (“I Liked the Boys”, “Erin O’Connor”). Cheekiness was much more becoming on Jackson than the faux-darkness of Couples songs like “I’m Going to Hell”.

But not all is slump on Couples. “Guilt” exhibits everything that’s great about The Long Blondes, right down to some snarled lyrics about an unfaithful protagonist and her loathed fling, and is a legitimate dance-punk hit. “Too Clever by Half” is sexy as fuck, Jackson eschewing her standard talk-sing for a sultry, half-whispered croon.

At the end of album closer “I’m Going to Hell”, Jackson asks “Would you forgive me now?”. Sure we do, Kate. Just don’t go to hell before you make another album as good as your first.

Super Best Hits

No seals were clubbed in the making of this compilation

Morrissey - Greatest Hits [2008]

Fans of Morrissey and The Smiths know better than most that compilations should be handled with care. Whether the blame lies with profiteering record companies or with Morrissey’s narcissism, it seems that for every proper LP that the man puts his voice to, a compilation of some sort will follow. For the confused, an abridged guide to just some of Morrissey’s compilations follows:

1995: World of Morrissey
1997: Suedehead: The Best of Morrissey
2000: The CD Singles, Vol. 1
2001: The CD Singles, Vol. 2
2001: The Best of Morrissey
2002: The Very Best of Morrissey (my emphasis)
2008: Greatest Hits.

All this collating, repackaging, remarketing, and recycling of old material is palpably ridiculous. But is it wrong? Morrissey has a big target painted onto his back by virtue of his hard-line, limp-wristed positions on stuff like seal clubbing (Canada’s endorsement of which caused him to cancel a 2006 tour of that despotic nation), so he’s always ripe for parody and/or rancour from those cynical carnivores amongst us.

“Greatest Hits” is not exempt from such cynicism. To take the obvious example, it’s an utter misnomer to call a Morrissey album of 2004-2008 material “Greatest Hits”, when the guy’s prolific solo career began in 1987. But this is how it works: every Morrissey single is a hit, an album worth of hits is a compilation. There’s no point fighting it.

Beyond the inevitability of the thing, it’s not fair to make fun of Morrissey for releasing a new compilation every twelve seconds, for two reasons. First, people are obviously buying these records. That means they’ll keep getting made, thanks to capitalism and all, and PETA will keep getting its fat annual check from Morrissey. Second, notwithstanding the constant rape and pillage of his back catalogue, the man continues to make great music.

That Morrissey is still capable of penning a great tune is perhaps the point of “Greatest Hits”. Not everything that he does these days still works, but for an awkward, bullied Manchester kid come poet, musician, and androgynous vegan with three decades of groundbreaking music under his belt, we can allow some false steps.

There’s a couple of false steps here. One of two new tracks featured on the compilation, “That’s How People Grow Up”, is truly grotesque. Crunchy, pub-rock guitar is countered with dramatic-by-numbers rising strings and repeatedly interrupted by this horrible chorus from nowhere. It sounds like something a sleep-deprived Muse would squirt out late night in the studio. “In the Future When All’s Well”, which hit # 17 on the UK charts, is annoyingly repetitious and fails to reach Morrissey’s lyrical potential.

Apart from that, though, we’re in solid territory here, largely because Morrissey has had something of a renaissance of late. His 2004 album “You Are the Quarry” was stellar, and four of its tracks are featured on “Greatest Hits”. The wonderfully titled 2006 album “Ringleader of the Tormentors” didn’t reach Quarry’s zenith, but it’s singles, with the exception of “In the future…”, stand up well. Morrissey’s cover of Patti Smith’s “Redondo Beach” is also a treat.

And of course, the token pre-2004 tracks (all four of them) are fantastic. Thing is though, they’re so good that they threaten to overshadow the new stuff that, in all but name, this compilation is a showcase of. The two 1988 classics, “Suedehead” and “Everyday is Like Sunday”, are pretty much flawless, and feature some of Morrissey’s best poetry as lyrics. His call for nuclear Armageddon in the latter song still strikes me as the most poignant enunciation of subjugated teenage angst I’ve heard.

Don’t buy this album. If you’re interested in discovering Morrissey, pick up a Smiths record and try one of his early solo albums, let’s say 1992’s “Your Arsenal”. If you want to know what Morrissey’s been up to post millennium, buy “You Are the Quarry”. If you hate Morrissey and want him to die, then don’t go to England. He still gets played on the radio there.