The Sundays : C or D

i got stuck on this sentence for about five minutes.

While it's fine to make an exercise out of "connecting the dots" of each album's themes, I was hoping that the review was going to be a reevaluation of the album, not a simple compare and contrast.

I give the essay a C-.

-- righteousmaelstrom (righteousmaelstro...), August 17th, 2004 2:42 AM. (later)

the sundays' debut is better than *all* of the smiths albums, and by a considerable margin.

I've just been thinking lately that the Smiths' albums as a whole are not that good. They lack a cohesiveness that you see in strong albums from other groups. Fact is, they were a superlative singles band.

(xpost) I had to look up Asperger's Syndrome in my medical dictionary and I'm still not grasping that assertion.

1. sordid loss-of-innocence sex / "i threw up on that dress"
2. rivalry / "sometimes i think about other people"
3. sordid loss-of-innocence sex / "i'm not really sure what i'll major in"
4. sordid loss-of-innocence sex / "i can be witty, though"
5. defensive fear of child-death / "teehee what if i did stuff?"
6. gagging for sordid loss-of-innocence sex / "i think i'll hide in the bathroom instead"
7. but sordid loss-of-innocence sex won't help / "what if i had lots of cash?"
8. tragic sun-on-behinds love / "remember when i kicked that kid?"
9. oh who cares about anything / "hey look, a pound!"
10. i can't relate to people / "i'm sad about the lone ranger or something"
11. child murders / [no track]

though i wonder, given nabisco's explanation of their appeal, whether it would reach me in my old age.

5. defensive fear of child-death / "teehee what if i did stuff?"

Priceless!

Mainly, I think that you neglect the romanticism.

Big caveat: my sense of this subject matter as "mundane" may have to do with my growing up (and loving the Sundays) mostly in the same general sort of quiet-suburban landscape they're always said to conjure. The everyday is a relative thing.

Love in an elevator? Never happened to me.

Sleeping in a chair? Happened quite often.

http://www.sirensofsong.com/Harriet/harriet.jpg

But I agree with you more now that you have admitted the romanticism of the mundane.

Yet, 'mundane' is a very unromantic word, and perhaps not the right one.

I think the Clientele a red herring here. I don't think they are about the mundane - more about a certain vocabulary. I think I, let alone the Sundays, am more about the mundane (and associated romance) than they are. But I only know their first LP.

http://www.originalscasualwear.com/item_images/299P-KH_FULL.jpg

unpleated pants:

I was listening recently to the first album and Gavurin's guitar work actually reminds me of Peter Buck's earlier style. Also, the last part of 'Hideous Towns' could have been written by the Wedding Present.

I can't and don't speak about the couple's actual relationship - that may be as nabisco describes. But the *records* aren't like that. And it was odd how nabisco kept going back to 'one day my life could be like that', as if they were a description of mature life or wedded bliss. I think they are not - I think they are a description of young, drifting life, which is where the Smiths comparison comes in again. I think that if the records really made one feel 'one day my life could be like that', it would be to feel: 'one day my life could be as romantic as that'.

There are Cocteau comparisons to be discussed too, I think, not in the traditional vocal sense but in the sense of how "likely" their respective worlds seem.

ilx was far better a year ago: only 4 years since the last Sundays LP.

N., this is a bad line that illustrates your weakness.

No, but neither did Buck. I'm sure of it and you're going to make me have to drag out my copies of 'Murmur' and 'Reckoning' and listen to them, aren't you?

I'm also puzzled by what you mean about "...shapes sliding up and down the neck in a slightly perverse fashion." Are you talking about the beginning of the album where you hear the slide on the guitar that then kicks into the riff?

I have often heard things that sounded exactly like it, but they were never guitars.

re. Buck, my memory is of his draping every other song in a pattern of notes off the top 3 strings, in certain very clear and indeed predictable patterns. Which I like, a lot. I have always been a tad vexed at the thought that I may have picked up more from him than those - Gavurin included, I guess - I consider my real heroes.

Possible example of what I mean: 'I Believe'. That absent-minded picking-at-a-G stuff is barely to be found on the Sundays' records.

Nabisco if you were this insightful as a guitarist when you were 15, then you're a better guitarist than I will ever be (which is quite probably true!)

Though I still think that slide at the beginning of 'Skin & Bones' is a guitar: it sounds like a descending slide on one string moving to two strings. It sounds like there's a pitchshifter or harmonizer in there too.

Can we all agree on one thing though? It's a telecaster Gavurin is playing. Y'all are not going to fight me on this are ya?