Elastica : Classic or Dud

Justine Frischmann ‏@thefrisch
Brett liked making me eat citrus fruits. I told him, "Don't feed me a lime, boy".

Justin Welch's Facebook has pictures of the whole band (minus JF) at Abbey Road this week. Probably just a remastering job thought I guess....

Even Donna? I suppose she's come to more peace with her past.

I re-listened to the first LP the other night and I still think it holds up, even if one can detect the Wire and Stranglers, uh, "influences"

Oh sure, but then I liked the 2nd album, after a fashion..

http://www.vanyaland.com/2017/01/21/they-hadnt-seen-each-other-for-20yrs-elastica-are-back-in-the-studio/

Wow, Donna's looking really well!

I thought Donna was a nun?

In fact, both Donna and Justin look really well, really healthy. Annie, on the other hand...

So, I'm listening to The Menace again for the first time in more years than I'd care to count, and... it hasn't aged very well, has it? A couple of the tracks sound good to me ('My Sex', which sadly isn't a cover of the Ultravox classic even if it nicks the chord progression and feel) but on the whole I think the lukewarm reviews it got were OTM. The debut still sounds lemon fresh and packed full of great material and performances, but this album sounds like an anti-drugs advert.

I never thought it was as bad as people said at the time, but I'm fully prepared to accept that it wasn't as good as it should have been.

The EP they released shortly before The Menace is far, far superior IMO.

This one - https://www.discogs.com/Elastica-6-Track-EP/master/91191

At the time I thought it was weird that they included Donna material on the album after she left the band long before the release. Seemed like an admission of (good) material shortage

Wasn't most of that ep on the album?

And they missed out "Bar bar bar" which was silly of them.

Elastica were one of the few Britpop bands I liked at the time and still do. Probably because they were much more punk influenced than most of them I suppose. But I've never actually heard the Menace. I saw them live a couple of times around that time so I have heard some of the songs, and I think I've listened to the 6 track EP once but years ago.

I liked the demolish one on there. Funny how it's very like "Kidney Bingos" tunewise..

The album had inferior rerecorded versions of several of the EP tracks.

Think I could put together a pretty decent second LP by combining the EP, some session tracks from 96 and perhaps one or two tracks from The Menace

Whole EP is up here for anyone feeling in the mood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzssCSvI5Jc&list=PLUo1lRxNwvLUa-0k0ZS9tE4glTw9AjhbL

I revisited the debut today and it still very much sounds like one of the better of the '90s British guitar pop stuff... as much as I like The Great Escape, Elastica is a far better record. Yes, you can detect the influences here and there but so what? They had great influences.

As for The Menace, I could see what Justine was trying to do - bring in more electronics, go further down the post-punk route, but the material isn't as good and it doesn't sound like their hearts are in it... the constant touring of the first record, the smack addictions, the Donna and Justin thing, the pressure to follow up the debut, the line up changes and indecision... it all had a negative effect on the band and they may as well have knocked it on the head, to be honest because it would have been a miracle if the second album had been any good.

What made it worse, and this often gets forgotten as the popularity of British guitar music would start to surge again as a new wave of bands came along, but by 2001 it was too late as a lot of Elastica's '90s British guitar music peers had either split or were perceived as being on the slide.

Damon's heart was in Gorillaz and not Blur and Think Tank would not have been made if he hadn't felt obligated to do so. Pulp's We Love Life didn't generate any huge hits and their greatest hits would chart poorly. Suede were fumbling through the making of A New Morning with a newly sober but still not with it Brett Anderson and would soon split. Supergrass still retained their audience but their chart success had long faded. Oasis were down to two original members and had slid in popularity immensely. The Verve had split, The Boo Radleys had split. Ash were doing well, though.

https://i.imgur.com/IvjHvUn.png

Justine with Liam, 1995

nah Swing Out Sister innit

https://michaelputland.com/swing-out-sister-1992/

haha what a bizarre revive

A breakout, you could say.

I just learned that Justine appears on Pete Townshend's "White City" outtake "Night School," and the video, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WMOnfiu40k

Apparently she was boarding school roommates with Pete's daughter?