eilrahc wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 12:33 am
I actually really like "Cherry Bomb" and "Shining Light", but
Free All Angels definitely has some proper low points, I don't enjoy "Candy" either, and I think "Submission" is pretty awful, and a really bad fit on the record. I love those other tracks you mentioned though, they're at their absolute best doing those fizzy, fuzzy pop punk songs.
Omg I forgot about
Submission 
yeah the drummer Rick wrote that. He's into bondage we get it, but I think anyone on the BDSM scene should have the sense to keep that to those in it rather than write songs about it, words to live by. Awful song just as a song before you consider the lyrics. Yeah I don't mean to dunk on
Cherry Bomb it's just a style of song they did better on their first and second album, for example I'd pick
Wild Surf over it, a song that Kerrang! that bastion of quality they thought themselves of in the 90s/early 00s when I still cared and bought it, slated and slandered pretty hard. In true rock/punk attitude fashion that made me like it more.
eilrahc wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 12:33 am
Agreed that it wasn't the same after Charlotte left, she definitely added an extra dimension to their sound. I got to see them eighteen months ago when she briefly rejoined for the
Free All Angels anniversary tour and it was really enjoyable, but I'm undecided on if I want to see them again without her. I expect I probably will at some point.
Yeah I saw them in 2001 on the original
Free All Angels tour, which is part of why I dislike
Candy so much - Tim put down his guitar to work the crowd, which ironically didn't work and was one of the few times the gig dragged, most of the rest was solid gold pop-rocking out. Great live sound - Portsmouth Pyramids, that was.
Same year and venue I saw - and no-one seems to believe this but this was the order of the bill - Muse, supported by Coldplay, supported by Snow Patrol. All of whom are huge. I find that hilarious now because Snow Patrol were a band with an identity crisis, didn't know who they were and what they were writing, all disparate genres, even had some faux-metal songs in the set. Coldplay on the other hand, already polished and huge live sound, still using the original keyboard for
Trouble,
Shiver was the bigger deal I think as
Yellow had only just come out as a single and hadn't blown up to the point it was everywhere yet. I still think
Shiver is the better song as it's more melodically interesting, lot of weird chords in it too. Muse were great, I bet you'll never get to see them do the majority of the first album live, including
Unintended, a song that's basically been forgotten about now which is a shame because it's a great ballad, and I'd take it over the sub-Queen prog-rock cod-conceptual stuff they seem to peddle these days.
eilrahc wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 12:33 am
They're one of those bands who leave me with a really strange feeling of melancholy rather than outright nostalgia. I was too young for
1977 and
Nu-Clear Sounds, but
1977 especially is viewed as one of those zeitgeist records that encapsulated the joy and exuberance of being a teenager or early twenty-something in the mid/late-nineties, which I wasn't. So it's enjoyable but also leaves me feeling a bit sad that I feel as if I missed all the fun. But that's probably a separate discussion.
You know it would be really tempting to say that the rep around
1977 for those of a certain age isn't all it's made out to be, but personally I find that record actually does capture some of the mid to late 90s "Rule Britannia" peak here in the UK, where great guitar music was everywhere and I assumed always would be. The thing is though, Ash were just one great band among many because of this - literally on rotation for me and my family along with Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene, The Charlatans and a bunch of others. I was 12 in 1996 when
1977 came out so that might be why, that was a good year for me. So you were musically spoilt for choice as a rock/pop-rock fan, even regular pop was on the whole less mediocre - someone like Ed Sheeran probably wouldn't have broken through in the 90s because the competition was so fierce. The music of the time certainly made having to put up with crap like Spice Girls (still a crappy name, sounds like they work in a shop) a lot easier. Also worked as a stepping stone back to brilliant older Britpop/Britrock like Kinks, Jam etc.
I naively assumed this upward trajectory would continue indefinitely and as a result worked hard on my songwriting because I figured it would continue to be a super-competitive marketplace to break, however, with the exception of guys like Biffy Clyro who occasionally focus and produce a great song, there just aren't the amazing dearth of UK rock bands there were a few decades ago. Sadly a lot of the best venues have closed - I literally don't think there's any kind of scene any more, but it's never too late to try, hence part of why I'm doing an originals band again for the first time since I was a teenager, however that is most DEFINITELY a separate discussion.
yeah the drummer Rick wrote that. He's into bondage we get it, but I think anyone on the BDSM scene should have the sense to keep that to those in it rather than write songs about it, words to live by. Awful song just as a song before you consider the lyrics. Yeah I don't mean to dunk on Cherry Bomb it's just a style of song they did better on their first and second album, for example I'd pick Wild Surf over it, a song that Kerrang! that bastion of quality they thought themselves of in the 90s/early 00s when I still cared and bought it, slated and slandered pretty hard. In true rock/punk attitude fashion that made me like it more. 
