C/D : Therapy? "Troublegum"

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My girlfriend says/That I need help/My boyfriend says/I'd be better off dead

Prompted by hearing Alkaline Trio's latest single "Time To Waste" on the radio today, which is not only T?-sounding but blatantly rips off a T? track which I can't remember right now.

Anyway, mostly remembered for Therapy?'s heyday of pop-punk (ugh) singles ('Screamager', 'Nowhere', 'Die Laughing'), the real gems are buried elsewhere. Regardless of the perfect riotousness of 'Knives' (above), there are riffs to kill for spread around like double entendres in a Carry On film. Yer Blink 182's etc. would kill for 'Hellbelly' or 'Brainsaw', yet there's more.

There's the impeccable-taste cover of 'Isolation' (though it was a lot better live, frankly), 'Femtex' with its shuddering guitar and show-stopper opening line of 'Masturbation saved my life', and the Sisters-meets-Killing Joke 'Unbeliever'. 'Turn' is the C.L.A.S.S.I.C. with its cod-reggae guitar shivering and woah-turn-the-bright-lights-on chorus.

And finally 'Unrequited', which at the time was the 'Fitter Happier' CD-skipper of the album, but which wouldn't sound out of place on 'Zen Arcade'. Yes, there are clunkers ... 'Trigger Inside' is sixth-form lyrical bollocks, frankly (I know how Jeffrey Dahmer feels - no you don't Andy, shut up) and 'Stop It You're Killing Me' which is similarly cringe-inducing ... but this is a grebt album. Praise it now - or alternatively don't.

― Si Carter (Si Carter), Thursday, 19 May 2005 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

it rocked. i don't have it now. i should rectify that.

― grimly fiendish, who should be soaking up the sun in greece but is grounded in g, Thursday, 19 May 2005 22:41 (twenty-one years ago)

the band is the runaway winner in the worst-band-name-ever contest

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Thursday, 19 May 2005 22:47 (twenty-one years ago)

'If It Kills Me' was the T? track I was thinking of, though to be honest it could be a lot of things. Mind you, the whole of A3's output....

― Si Carter (Si Carter), Thursday, 19 May 2005 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Absolute classic. Best they ever mustered.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 20 May 2005 01:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, easily their best album- their next one was awful prog-punk. Nurse was pretty good, though- Teethgrinder is a cool song.

― Neil Stewart (Neil Stewart), Friday, 20 May 2005 10:09 (twenty-one years ago)

The intro to "Teethgrinder" was the closest approximation to World Domination Enterprises I ever heared.

Was the 12" remix any cop?

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 20 May 2005 10:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I really liked Therapy? at the time. The only thing I still really like now is the Photek remix of 'Loose'.

― $V£N! (blueski), Friday, 20 May 2005 11:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I hadn't thought about this album for a long time so I put it on again and realized that it's fucking terrific. Yum. Thanks to the thread author for reminding me...

― John Justen (johnjusten), Friday, 20 May 2005 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Very much a classic. This disc, a hand me down from a friend's brother who later layed Nitzer Ebb on me, opened up a new realm in my personality. "Screamager" had about as good lines as an immoral middle schooler can hope for.

― scrimshaw (scrimshaw1837), Saturday, 21 May 2005 03:57 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven months pass...

Troublegum is one of my favorite albums ever made. Absolute classic.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Thursday, 11 May 2006 21:14 (twenty years ago)

I like it but Nurse is better. The Ep's are classic too. There should be more love for early Therapy?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 11 May 2006 21:27 (twenty years ago)

in eight days' time it will be a year since i commented that i don't own a copy of troublegum.

that gives me eight days to locate a copy. or ... i'll punch myself in the bolls.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 11 May 2006 22:26 (twenty years ago)

I have it on green vinyl. I actually have the tshirt of the album cover.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 11 May 2006 22:55 (twenty years ago)

I was saddened to find out that this record is out of print (at least in the US). I found this out when someone sold it to the store I work at and it wasn't in our computer anymore. I played it in the store and the CD sold to someone hearing it for the first time ever after that one play.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Friday, 12 May 2006 12:13 (twenty years ago)

yeh, nurse is better.

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 12 May 2006 12:46 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

http://snurl.com/26716l
Used (39 from $0.28)

It'll be the best twenty eight cents you ever spent, folks.

― NYCNative, Thursday, 3 March 2011 10:19 (fifteen years ago)

Truthbomb

― reallysmoothmusic (Jamie_ATP), Thursday, 3 March 2011 10:46 (fifteen years ago)

eight years pass...

the best £1 I have spent this week - not the expanded edition, just the single disc.

damn, did I miss out on this lot when I had the chance.

hitting the same sweet spot of noise/guitars/tunes for me as Compulsion do.

― mark e, Thursday, 2 May 2019 18:56 (seven years ago)

one year passes...

http://www.therapyquestionmark.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/THERAPY-BOOK-COVER-300x425.jpg

Kerrang! scribe Simon Young penned So Much For The 30 Year Plan, an authorized biography for Therapy?, that comes out in September.

The band is selling autographed copies on their website for £13.50.

https://www.therapyquestionmark.co.uk/shop/so-much-for-the-30-year-plan/

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Wednesday, 29 July 2020 00:09 (five years ago)

Good lord they HAVE been around for 30 years, haven't they.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 29 July 2020 00:20 (five years ago)

http://nerdheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/old-1.gif

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Wednesday, 29 July 2020 02:22 (five years ago)

Loved this album so much aged 16, I really don't think it'd be my cuppa at all these days.

― chap, Wednesday, 29 July 2020 18:07 (five years ago)

whereas i am the other way around.
would never listen to this stuff when i was 16, whereas now ...

― mark e, Wednesday, 29 July 2020 18:40 (five years ago)

Whereas I was 16 in 1985 so I am older than Therapy? but I like to think I would have loved it then.
I do love most of the things I loved when I was 16, just a lot more things too.

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Wednesday, 29 July 2020 18:51 (five years ago)

i too was 16 in 85 (ish).
if i had heard this then, i would never have bought the album.
however, now in my early 50s and i am loving it.

― mark e, Wednesday, 29 July 2020 19:10 (five years ago)

Even at the age of 15 I thought the masturbation stuff was laying it on a bit thick. The big singles were great though.

Therapy were massive at the time though, this whole strand of 90s British rock seems to have been entirely expunged from the history books.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 29 July 2020 19:15 (five years ago)

Even at the age of 15 I thought the masturbation stuff was laying it on a bit thick. The big singles were great though.

guess i need to listen to it more closely.
then again, perhaps it's best i don't.

― mark e, Wednesday, 29 July 2020 20:11 (five years ago)

Oh no I thought the wanking references were hilarious and edgy back then.

― chap, Thursday, 30 July 2020 14:27 (five years ago)

Yup, they were huuuge. I had friends who collected literally anything they could get by them. Nobody talks about Therapy?, S*M*A*S*H, Wildhearts etc at all. Maybe projects like Three Colours Red killed the enthusiasm. Honeycrack were brill though.

― doorstep jetski (dog latin), Thursday, 30 July 2020 14:44 (five years ago)

Therapy were massive at the time though, this whole strand of 90s British rock seems to have been entirely expunged from the history books.

I was thinking of this (on a slightly broader scale) yesterday when I got a PR mailout announcing the reissue of the first two Kerbdog albums on vinyl. (To the band's credit, the photo they sent around was them now rather than back then.)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 30 July 2020 14:45 (five years ago)

Infernal Love was a very boring, serious album but Troublegum, Nurse and the earlier EPs were really fun

― doorstep jetski (dog latin), Thursday, 30 July 2020 14:46 (five years ago)

listening to Troublegum for the first time in probably 20+ years and wow... It's amazingly catchy, still very driving, and I'm surprised at how memorable even the deeper cuts are

― doorstep jetski (dog latin), Thursday, 30 July 2020 14:54 (five years ago)

I never owned this album but have one of the singles and liked the other singles at the time, when I was 16-17, and I always liked the pre-Nurse stuff, but I downloaded and listened to this album once about 15 years ago and was like ugh no thanks. inspired by this thread I listened to it again and kind of like it now

I listened to Infernal Love not so long ago and yeah, that was still shit

I guess I'd probably better give Nurse another go as well now

― CP Radio Gorgeous (Colonel Poo), Friday, 31 July 2020 20:04 (five years ago)

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