Young Marble Giants : Colossal Youths or Little Duds

I think they were also asked to play as part of a festival I'm loosely involved with in Cardiff in November, but I don't have any other info at the minute

how did i miss this? colossal youth is way up there (top 5? 3?) in my favorite albums of all time. the obligatory comment about them seemed to be 'well, they only recorded 70 minutes worth of music, but, damn, how 'bout them 70 minutes?' defininitely will pick this up.

You know, given the paucity of YMG and YMG-ish material, it might be worth noting that the *awfully* RIYL band Confetti's compilation album is up at Mutant Sounds right now:

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2008/04/confetti-retrospectivecd1995ukjapan.html#links

I like this one a lot, esp. the Au Pairs cover.

seeing confetti on mutant sounds is odd

at their best they had some great songs, but a full album of it can be hard going. incredibly twee, but generally well done twee

I agree: it seems really outside of the usual MS aesthetic. Was very surprised to see it there. I guess they did feature Po! a while back...

oh i shall have to check that out, po! were great

xpost to dlp

well, ya know, how many obscure kraut/jap/noise/improv/synth/whatever albums are there? after you've posted 3000 of them I would imagine you'd need to branch out a bit. and I'm sure glad they are.

this album is a good antidote for my occasional periods of thinking about life way too melodramatically. so modest, content, almost devoid of ambition, but not in a bad way. because it's also really cool. but without being even slightly flashy about it. what they did was probably a lot harder to pull of than it seems, wasn't it?

I relistened to Confetti after seeing that Mutant Sounds link. I still like those tracks, but I was damn near obsessed with Confetti circa 1992, and don't feel anywhere near the same now. Perhaps I was pretending that the Confetti comp CD was Colossal Youth II instead of what it really was - a better-than-average twee-pop records with heavy YMG/Marine Girls influence.

think of salad daaaaaaaaaaaayyys

This is a nice album and all, a bit overrated here it seems. Perhaps the uniqueness of it has never registered for me. Still, something I'll put on once a year or so.

They seem very enigmatic to me. Such spare album cover/liner & such spare music. It feels like one step to the left of what I know. This is a good thing.

What are noddemix?

always figured it was like pot noodle

I thought they were like breath mints.

Some info:

What is Noddemix (as referenced in the song "Eating Noddemix")?
According to Stuart Moxham, noddemix is a Swiss cereal bar. A friend of mine actually found one in Sweden; they look like this. However, after finally figuring out to do a proper Google search for the term (the secret is in the letter "ø"), it now appears that "nøddemix" is actually a generic term for "mixed nuts."

Some examples of same.

staring at the mirror on the seamy bathroom wall

mystery solved!

I found this in a pile of CDs I have had for years should I bother loading it to my hard drive or has it outlived its usefulness? I am confused about this album, it is stunning when you first hear it, but after 1000 plays is it still rewarding? What is the purpose of this album after all this time?

I mean, I think it really is great, are people underwhelmed because they expect everything to be cathartic? I know some people who inexplicably HATE it.

What is the purpose of this album after all this time?

The purpose of this album is to be one of maybe five or so albums in existence that you can play no matter what mood you are in because it's THAT GOOD.

Was emailing with Vic Varney of the soon to be reissued Method Actors about their influences and peers an he surprised me by mentioning Young Marble Giants. He said something about their atmosphere and minimalism being an influence/really popular in Athens in the early 80s.

after 1000 plays is it still rewarding?

Absolutely!

...because it's THAT GOOD.

ABSOLUTELY!!!

Athens in the early 80s.

I think if Oh-OK had managed to expand/refine what they were doing on their first mini-EP, they might have made an album like Colossal Youth. (Although I love Oh-OK's Furthermore What a ton too, it's a more typical jangle-pop sound.)

in theory this album should be one of my favorites, but i find it just a shade dull.

REM has listed Young Marble Giants as an inspiration.

And yeah, Oh-OK channel that spirit nicely.

Yep, this is stone cold classic top 10 or so of all time material (for me).

How did I not hear about Weekend until just now?

It took me years as well, don't feel bad... I had a 7" single that I think was non-representative, it put me off of them. The longer demo tracks on the La Variete CD are just amazing.

"Nostalgia" was the track that drew me in.

i was playing them on ilxor lisnin room yesterday

idk, still prefer ymg by a distance

Just great:

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/young-marble-giants-colossal-youth-round-22-toms-selection/

The record I mean, not my attempts to write about it!

They're playing at atp in a month or so, i'm pretty excited, have they been playing lately ? i wonder what kind of condition they are in...

http://www.collapseboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Young-Marble-Giants-590x468.jpg
healthy?

This record is all times top ten afaiac

Nature intended the abstract for you and me

>>>

Listened to Colossal Youth for the first time in a long time and realized how much I like the guitar playing. Never knew Moxham played a Rickenbacker.

http://front.bc.ca/events/concert-by-young-marble-giants/

amazing

bump for the greatness of that video

The long stony faces of the men, the slightly bewildered girl, everyone uncomfortable in their own skin. The muddled black and white, and the odd tempo to the whole proceedings. That video feels a piece to Stranger than Paradise.

I had not seen that video, thanks for the bump! What a wonderful band.

Another bump for that video!

Why didn't anyone tell me? New (2018) album from Alison Statton & Spike, "Bimini Twist": https://alisonstattonspike.bandcamp.com/album/bimini-twist

Sounds good! Statton's voice barely ages.

Re the original question: Very classic. Some hurtful comments about Weekend up-thread though. Some days I think I prefer the Weekend album to the YMG one.

I just read a comment by some peasant describing this band as lounge music. The fucking nerve! I firmly believe this is one of the punk-est albums of all time. It might sound “too clean” for what you’d normally expect for a punk album to sound like but that is a very non-punk mentality in itself.

Isn’t the punk rock attitude to destroy established perceptions of what things should be and sound like? To say “fuck you” to the excessive sound of stadium rock? Its undiscriminated use of solos, ridiculous costumes and massive banks of equipment in elaborate stages?
You certainly can’t accuse YMG of maximalism. The sound they created is so unique it might have arrived from an alternative reality.

Honestly, it’s hard to trace a time or a place for it. There’s nothing quite like it and the fact this album came from 1980 always blows my mind.

Beach Party by the Marine Girls is kinda like it

The only reason I can think of for that is maybe the sound of the organ. I hardly think their songs, the drum machine stuff, or the guitar and bass sound like lounge music.

A good cover by another of my favorite bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_f2kMgUxp8

wow, Sugar Plant have a album on Spotify from 2018!!! I thought they broke up years ago.