Forever POLL: The Psychedelic Furs' "Forever Now" Poll

"Run and Run". Or one of the others.

Is that the US cover btw? And can we poll the first LP? And maybe I should change my vote to "Love My Way"?

Or maybe not. I love love love the opening line of "Run and Run" but I've just realised I love the close even more.

It's the US cover.

I'm voting for Love My Way ...or Only You and I ...or Run and Run ...or President Gas. I'd better not listen to it again, or else another song or two may sneak into my shortlist.

President Gas on everything but rollerskates.

Here's where I admit: I think "Love My Way" is just okay.

I'm talking not just about the words but about the way the words, tune and music converge, but for me the defining "Love My Way" moment is "You can't ever win or lose if you don't play the game" whereas "Run and Run" has "I've been waiting all night for someone like you but...you'll have to do" and the latter is beyond perfect to me. "President Gas" is definitely top 4 alongside the title track.

It took me a few moments to realise that this is another cockamamey US tracklisting that disorients my sense of how the album flows.

Prefer the US sleeve, and the UK running order.

iirc "run and run" is the jam, though "president gas" and the title track are quite good

"love my way" has always been kinda meh and it's sad that that and the gelded version "pretty in pink" are what this band is known for

"Run and Run" has "I've been waiting all night for someone like you but...you'll have to do" and the latter is beyond perfect to me.

otm. This album has quite a few one-liners.

Forgotten how good "Merry-Go-Round"/"Yes I Do" sounds tbh. Thick sludge of cellos(?) under the twinkly keyboard/guitar stabs and one of the finest tunes on the album, verse and chorus. It's probably the most adventurous track in terms of doing something different but retaining the band's sound.

Oh and "Sleep Comes Down" is the other real winner that I'd forgotten.

Talk Talk Talk into this is the most conspicuous quality drop of the 80s with the possible exception of when Cabaret Voltaire signed to Some Bizarre

that said, the tag/coda of "Forever Now" isn't the embarrassing betrayal of promise that the rest of the album is

Haha while I wouldn't deny that they couldn't have taken better directions, you still so wrong.

I would agree with J0hn if he's mentioned the dropoff from this album to Mirror Moves. I mean, wtf? At worst this sounds like an Interesting Experiment. The only time Rundgren's production crowds them is on "Danger." The rest of the songwriting is no pox on FN's predecessors.

*he'd

"Love My Way" still just hits me perfectly. I acknowledge more than a little nostalgia is mixed in there.

Greatest 80s quality drop-off is Simple Minds, though I agree the next couple of Psych Furs albums go from mediocre to utter crap.

And Cabaret Voltaire may have embraced a new direction but there wasn't any quality drop until "Code"!

Just bought a ticket to see the Furs in Austin in a couple months. Last time they were here, they filled up a roughly 2,500 person venue; this time it's about 800 capacity.

When was the last time?

Maybe 1-2 years ago? Not long.

The only time Rundgren's production crowds them is on "Danger." The rest of the songwriting is no pox on FN's predecessors.

the band that wrote Into You Like A Train, had you played "President Gas" for them and told them it was what they'd be doing next year, would immediately have disbanded out of a sense of honor

I would agree with J0hn if he's mentioned the dropoff from this album to Mirror Moves.

man, i love mirror moves. more than forever now, even tho i think this one is pretty lovable. i think i'll vote "president gas" just because i catch myself singing it a lot. (and yes obv. the first two albums are godhead. but i don't think turning into a great cynical synth-rock band was a bad move for them.)

"President Gas" is marvelous: the way the guitars are mixed, Ely's pounding, the bridge, the chord shift in the chorus, the fade-out, and a really good set of lyrics.

I love "Run and Run" and the title track and "Goodbye," but really .... could it honestly be anything other than "Love My Way"? Let's be serious.

please please please let it be anything other than "love my way". Seriously.

cuz it feels like love?

lol I'm totally looking forward to the MIDNIGHT TO MIDNIGHT poll but ya rly "Heartbreak Beat" over "Love My Way" any day YEAH I SAID IT

aw i like "love my way" just fine, it's so broody new-wave and all.

plus it makes me think of e.g. daily in valley girl.

http://www.midnitesformaniacs.com/images/pg_1.jpg

E.G. Daily, responsible for this one-hit-wonder godness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW2LOaCHhOg

by the way I can write a short novel about this video.

Dr J0hn

I respect yr intensity but plz explain yr disdain for this album in terms of objective musicality or else gtfo u goth

kthx

Yes indeed. I keep waiting for him to explain at length. Did Richard Butler's pointy bangs almost stab his eye out in 1983?

well: take the delivery on "love my way," and the prominence of the vocal in the mix - compare that to the lovely muddle of the vocal mix on talk talk talk, any track there really - where duncan kilburn's sax & that fuzzy electric guitar wash are constantly just overwhelming the vocal. it has to fight for space; it wins your attention. here, it's presented as yr ho-hum hey-check-out-the-singer vocal. dull as toast. the milieu, the weirdness, the difference: gone. what's left is a bowie cover band only without any bowie tunes. compare it again to the debut, that menacing anger of india, the propulsion, the urgency - what indicates that they're capable of that here, anymore? "Danger"? Pshaw, I say once, and again I say, "pshaw." This album is warm fucking milk. Talk Talk Talk & the debut by contrast are shots of hair tonic since there are no more martinis to be had. In short: it's that here, the question is "what would the Psychedelic Furs sound like if they were trying to broaden their reach?" the answer is, "not as interested as when they were less sure what they were trying to do."

Fair enough, but if I'm reading you correctly "She Is Mine" and "Pretty in Pink" are guilty of the same crimes: good foregrounded vocals.

And by your own lights "Forever Now," "Goodbye," and "President Gas" also present a singer pushing past phlegm, synth oooze, and ugly guitars.

This is maybe a question of direction as much as anything then - I didn't get into the Furs until the late 80s, unaware of Pretty in Pink as a movie or a song. Me and my brother worked our way thru the albums from beginning to end, tho, and never thought of Forever Now as being a sell-out or a drop-off; a few years after the fact it was just the next step on their path, and altho the production was obv different and it felt like it was missing some of the density of sound that the 1st album had especially - swear down that the 1st album is as massively different from Talk Talk Talk as TTT is from Forever Now - the songs are on a par (like Alfred said upthread).

I can only picture dislike for this album in terms of contemporary disappointment. But obv I'm biased too.

I should have mentioned my own defense:

http://stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/psychedelic-furs-forever-now.htm

naw man both "PiP" & "She is Mine" have Duncan K, who they let go after Talk Talk Talk - the explanation given in an NME I remember as "Duncan wanted to play on every song." And fair enough; a little saxophone goes a long way. they also have that pervasive second distorted guitar that's hardly even a rhythm guitar, just buzz - come the Forever Now album, for whatever reason, that's become a much more controlled quality. Whereas in "She is Mine" the dirt really does feel almost accidental.

I don't know. Maybe I should go revisit Forever Now - I'm guessing I'd be a lot more forgiving of it now. For sure, I think the Furs redeem themselves on Book of Days - if you're going to be a band foregrounding that singer, then a track like "Torch" is the way to do it. By then, too, Butler's recovered a little more of his lyrical gift; most of Forever Now sounds rushed & left-over to me, like he's unsure what to do with his angry half-sequiturs. "you have to get right out of here/like out of all this mess"? c'mon Rich. I liked that line better when it was "sorry I can't wait for you, I couldn't stand to stay/you have to get right out of here, you have to get away." And that's the feeling I took from the record: not enough second-look newness, too much uninteresting uncertainty about what to do with what's left.

but yeah Alfred's article highlights why I probably will never hear this like he does: I'll take Steve Lillywhite over a dozen Todd Rundgrens.

Re-listening last night for this poll I make it 6 good/great songs vs 4 non-entities. Which is more than good enough for a 3rd album imo. I agree that they lost something after the skronk had gone but Butler's songwriting plus quirky detailed but not insipid T. Rundgren production wasn't the turning point for me - the failings on FN aren't sonic but songwriterly imo

Also still think the Barney Bubbles cover is hugely superior so am probably blinded by nostalgia

man the emusic version has Aeroplane - that track was extremely hot stuff iirc. I wanna grab the album & give it a reevaluation but feel like I'll probably start throwing glasses across the room if I hear "Danger" again, that was the straw breaking the camel's back for me.

"He isn't very honest but he's obvious at least" is my favorite line, and suggests how little Butler parsed his own lyrics for career advice.

listening to this right now it strikes me how much of a bass-guitar album it is. tim butler was always sort of their secret weapon, but he's really the major presence on this besides richard.

swear down that the 1st album is as massively different from Talk Talk Talk as TTT is from Forever Now - the songs are on a par

btw i'm going to raise "it sounds terrible but the songs are on a par" whenever we do Midnight to Midnight. Some great stuff hiding beneath that oil-slick production imo.

agreed with J0hn that Book of Days is just fucking amazingly good and it's a shame it happened after everyone had given up on them.

i think the first 2 albums are better than forever now but i think this is the only one i'd still have an interest in listening to precisely because of the way it was produced

I only first heard the first three Furs albums a couple of months ago, but I think listening through one by one wasn't the best introduction b/c this album was the standout (I vote for the title track btw). I'll need to revisit in due time.

I heard MTM thanks to you guys a couple of days ago, and, wow, apart from the production, stuff like "Shadow in My Heart" and "Torture" are just humdrum (and unpleasantly loud).

well: take the delivery on "love my way," and the prominence of the vocal in the mix - compare that to the lovely muddle of the vocal mix on talk talk talk, any track there really - where duncan kilburn's sax & that fuzzy electric guitar wash are constantly just overwhelming the vocal. it has to fight for space; it wins your attention. here, it's presented as yr ho-hum hey-check-out-the-singer vocal. dull as toast. the milieu, the weirdness, the difference: gone.

You realize this is pretty much the same argument that M0unta1n G0ats fans apply re: Z0pil0te Mach1ne vs. Th3 Suns3t Tr33, right? I don't buy the argument in any band's case, though... that cleaner, "better" production means a less compelling album.

I guess. You're aware that dragging my work into a discussion is disinviting me from the discussion, right, and that there are dozens of other examples you might have used to avoid making me uncomfortable?

"hey J0hn: I wish you'd just not talk about this, so here, let me make it impossible for you to do so without engaging in discussion of your own stuff, which you've explicitly made plain again and again you'd rather not do"

Man this thread relies on the creative tension of you not digging this fine album so suggest post deletion and permaban.

No need to discuss further; but here I think the personal example is key. I find it interesting that any musician who's made a pretty clear aesthetic choice in his/her career to move toward cleaner production would make an argument against such a thing as a "breaking point" for another band's work. Which is to say, another of the many dozens of examples out there doesn't really make the point I was aiming to make.

Apologies for any discomfort, etc., though.

so the point you were trying to make was actually "get the fuck off this thread" and you weren't just being a dumbass?

No, I'm just trying to understand the rationale behind J0hn's argument. No GTFO intended.

whatever

can you please respect my wishes and pretend you know as much about my day job as I know about yours? thanks.

Gotcha. Moving on...

You probably should revisit the album, though, if you're plugging Book of Days (admittedly a half-return to form, but...) over this one, or "Torch" over "Love My Way." I mean, why don't we discuss the merits of "Nothing Lasts Forever" vs. "The Killing Moon" while we're at it?

Because that argument ends with "The Killing Moon" very quickly.

And "World Outside" has as many great moments as "Book Of Days". As does Butler's post-PF work - his solo album addresses the same vague detachment from society as all Psych Furs albums. I think he's been very consistent; I just don't buy Alfred's Stylus assertion that he was flitting from image to image, though he clearly had his eye on getting paid.

But he very consistently flitted from image to image!

from midnight to midnight you might say

right before you got s-banned

A large part of his charm is that he's a thorough poseur.

I think it's the tension between an open pose & the (posited, also-constructed no doubt) person underneath - i.e., I think his poseur image is transparent: you're not supposed to buy the pose; it's being pointed out to you in-vivo

"Love My Way" is by far the best thing they ever did. Which makes this quite easy indeed.

On hearing the first challop of Spring

"Love My Way" would not make my Furs POXX. "Torch" might be top 5.

his poseur image is transparent: you're not supposed to buy the pose; it's being pointed out to you in-vivo

Ding ding ding! This is it exactly, subversion from within and all that. Besides, who says the man can't grow? When he's young he's into you like a train but when's older and wiser he just wants to get a room.

Christgau otm:

All of This and Nothing [Columbia, 1988]

This best-of sounded tired last summer, but when I returned it to the turntable around Election Day, "President Gas" presented itself as prophecy and Richard Butler's existential fatigue as the decade's great romantic stance. Pitting his penchant for beautiful melody against his penchant for ugly guitar and wrapping it all up in the mournful ennui of his carcinomic baritone, Butler is an unapologetic poser, but the pose takes on unexpected dignity when you hear how faithfully he's explored it over what is now a full-length career. He rages against the dying of the light, and refuses to play the cornball in the process. A

Not to keep harping on this, but J0hn, how is Butler's singing on "House" and "Torch" not an example of "ho-hum hey-check-out-the-singer" vocal you decried above? I like "House" but c'mon.

fair and good question - the vox are super-foregrounded there. but see also my remarks about the weak lyrics on forever now, and how there's a renewal on book of days. he's gotten somewhere. forever now is leftovers imo, the title track aside. book of days has an edge it lacks, and has gotten more interesting. also, having listened to it last night and today, it's a lot more interesting rhythmically than forever now, whose boldest rhythmic move ("danger") is also a terrible song.

This is the beginning of a drastic drop in quality for the band. Still, it would have been nearly impossible to match the perfection of "Talk, Talk, Talk" but this isn't even close.

It isn't even close to a drastic drop, yes.

I just listened to the first 4 albums over the last couple of days and I can see, at the time, how "Forever Now" must've come as a shock but in retrospect it's all great stuff. Except "Danger", that's just really embarrassing. And there's no way you can dis "President Gas", that's a total classic. Maybe having grown up in the era I give a pass to some of the more egregious production elements of the day. Fairlight's and near-ghastly sax (as opposed to awesome skronky sax on the first two) don't give me pause as it must some others.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Vote one more time for "Danger" to piss off J0hn!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://www.hauntingmids.com/forum/Smileys/default/morrisseycryingce7.gif

Let it stay forever now.

I love this thread and "President Gas"

Good discussion. I know the first 3 were reissued with a handful of bonus tracks but far less deserving albums have been given the deluxe treatment.

sleep comes down with 0 is so wrong

"President Gas" is so good. I'm shocked some earnest indie band hasn't done something with it. I can totally imagine, say, the Arcade Fire doing a good job with it.

Yeah, it's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W10jYqCDrLs

If you're not listening to this today, you should fix that. I'm doing it and I am otm.

let it stay forever now!

No Easy Street is really speaking to me today.

I approve this sentiment.

I bet Richard still has some great music in him, would love to hear something new.

In the UK I'd say the Furs are the great forgotten band of the era. Heaven was a small hit, and the film-related reissue of Pretty In Pink but that was about it.

I haven't looked at their US chart positions, but the band always seemed to be more Americanized than a lot of 80s English peers.