what Frank is listening to #231 – THE SOUP DRAGONS – This is Our Art – (Sire) – 1988
I knew very little about The Soup Dragons before sliding this on the turntable.
I knew they did appear on a Kinks cover versions tribute album that I have some years ago. That's a good thing.
I knew they did a "baggy" cover of the Stones "I'm Free" which was obvious but fun which is also a good thing.
I knew they were English and from the 80s. That's not a good thing.
Actually as it turns out they are Scottish. My apologies to the Scots for that faux pas.
Allmusic: "Before Scotland's Soup Dragons hit the mainstream with their reggae-infused cover of the Rolling Stones' "I'm Free," the Glasgow four-piece were poised to carry the torch first lit by the Buzzcocks and the Adverts. Formed in the mid-'80s around singer/guitarist — and eventual programmer — Sean Dickson, the band included guitarist Jim McCulloch, bassist Sushil Dade, and drummer Ross Sinclair. Their punk-pop debut, Hang-Ten!, consisted of two years worth of singles and EPs — the shorter Hang-Ten! EP arrived via Raw TV Products in 1986 — and was released in 1987 on Sire Records. Their direction changed completely on 1988's uneven but ambitious This Is Our Art, a schizophrenic collection of hard rock, funk, and harmony-laden pop that showcased the group's love of melody and willingness to experiment within the modern rock genre".
As suggested above in the allmusic extract The Soup Dragons vacillated in their sound looking for an audience, which after this album became an even more pronounced vacillation.
Wikipedia refer to the same: "Originally inspired by Buzzcocks and lumped in with the C86 movement, along with fellow members of the Bellshill Sound, such as the BMX Bandits and Teenage Fanclub, they went through a number of stylistic changes in their career".
I try not to read to much but just listen to the music as I sit here scratching myself. After all, I have to try to challenge my prejudices. Right? A little background can't hurt too much though. Can it?
The Soup Dragons have been called a "C-86" band. Surely one of the most obscure music genres, if it is in fact one.
Allmusic: In 1986, the British music weekly NME issued a cassette dubbed C-86, which included a number of bands — McCarthy, the Wedding Present, Primal Scream, the Pastels, and the Bodines among them — influenced in equal measure by the jangly guitar pop of the Smiths, the three-chord naivete of the Ramones, and the nostalgic sweetness of the girl group era. Also dubbed "anorak pop" and "shambling" by the British press, the C-86 movement was itself short-lived, but it influenced hordes of upcoming bands on both sides of the Atlantic who absorbed the scene's key lessons of simplicity and honesty to stunning effect, resulting in music — given the universal label of "twee pop" — whose hallmarks included boy-girl harmonies, lovelorn lyrics, infectious melodies, and simple, unaffected performances.
I don't know about "influenced hordes of upcoming bands on both sides of the Atlantic". That's a bit much. Otherwise the definition is apt but ultimately this is just retro 60s music.
There is nothing new here. The English (and others from the Isles) were playing catch up. By 1986, 60s garage had already been updated in the US (around the turn of the decade) with The Fuzztones, The Chesterfield Kings, The Fleshtones and others. Jingle jangle and harmonies had been exploited and updated by Californian Paisley Underground bands like The Three O Clock (initially The Salvation Army), The Rain Parade, The Long Ryders, and The Dream Syndicate whilst 60s girl group pop had a look-in with the influential Bangles. The 60s powerpop would continue to be mined successfully in the US with Jellyfish, Urge Overkill and others.
Ultimately, though the Soup Dragons headed into "Baggy" territory, a close relative, as did many of their peers. Baggy (and Madchester) music was a perfectly English, highly derivative, limited and very short-lived mix of the poppiest elements of 60s psychedelica, 70s glam, 80s new wave and dance music. A lot of it was catchy but most of it is so poppy, light and frivolous (as was the associated scene) that like fairy floss it dissolves, pretty much, instantly. Excessive use will lead to cavities. It's best taken in very small doses but it did ultimately lead to many superior Britpop acts like Oasis.
Whoops, my prejudices are showing.
Anyway, who gives a flying fuck if the music has been done before.
I like 60s music so this will be given a go, err, more of a go.
This is The Soup Dragons first album – all the other releases of the preceding couple of years were EPs.
I sit here writing and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised though not entirely excited. To me they sound like a catchier Wonder Stuff (though with a poorer sound).
The songs are a grab bag of styles but there is a 60s vibe running through the whole album so the band certainly fit the definition of 60s retro updated to the 80s thought there is more 60s here than 80s. It's certainly not very far from here to Oasis though Oasis can play better and write better songs.
Tracks (best in italics)
- Kingdom Chairs – a incredibly catchy song (admittedly a bit deja vu) but with an incredibly lame harmonica solo.
- Great Empty Space – catchy (and deja vu) again
- The Majestic Head? – Fuck this sounds like The Three O'Clock. And it's more the better for it.
- Turning Stone – ho hum
- Vacate My Space – another Three O'Clock type number but average
- On Overhead Walkways – dull.
- Passion Protein – a wannabe rock song with some lame keyboard. Sounds like bad "Blue Ruin", if anyone remembers that great band from Australia.
- King of the Castle – a slightly funky
- Soft as Your Face – a beautiful, katchy (sic) bubblegum pop song with a knod (sic) to The Kinks "Better Things".
- Family Ways – did Blur rip this off?
- Another Dreamticket – just dull.
And…
There are at least 3 great songs here dying to get out. But whether it is the production or the band I do not know but ultimately the album is underwhelming. There is no punch or passion.
I suspect I will tape a few tracks and sell.
I am keen to hear their earlier albums though…but definitely not their later LPs.
Chart Action
US
Singles
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Album
—
Singles
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Album
—
England
Singles
Singles
Soft as Your Face #66
Album
#60
#60
Sounds
Kingdom Chairs
The Majestic Head
attached
Turning Stone
Soft as Your Face
Others
Review
Bio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soup_Dragons
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-soup-dragons-p5484
Website
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Trivia
- The band split in 1995 with Quinn joining fellow Bellshill band, Teenage Fanclub. Sushil K. Dade formed the experimental post rock group Future Pilot A.K.A., and singer Sean Dickson formed The High Fidelity. Jim McCulloch joined fellow Glaswegians Superstar, and has since formed musical collective Green Peppers. He writes and records with Isobel Campbell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soup_Dragons
Other Comments
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Soupdragons?….. meh….whatever. They made it impossible to like them. Careerists I suppose. Is that necessarily bad? Probably, though it doesn't stop us liking Paul Revere and the Raiders. Maybe if we were alive when PR&tR were charting I would have similar prejudices. Theoretically, I don't hate some of those Soupdragons songs but that's the best I can muster……i feel kind of ill listening to them. The most petty part of me, which is bigger than I would care to admit, can't like them.
However you want to classify movements and scenes is up to you Frankie, but mention of "Madchester" certainly tags Happy Mondays, and despite your assertions, light and frivolous it ain't? I would have thought that they were about the only dangerous thing happening in music in the late 80's and early 90's that wasn't coming from black America. A glorious shambling mess of drugs, crime, guns, topless photo shoots, brilliant humour, before a note was played. (Nirvana? I don't think so. "My mommy and daddy split up up and my tummy feels funny from drugs……..BANG!!!" ……Pussy). The Pixies were also musically bending our schitt at the turn of that decade, (and I know you don't like them either), but they were not like the Mondays, who were the epitome of that "last gang in town" stuff I had always fallen for….. but for real. Someone was always going to jail, and the tabloids were always outraged.
I know you say you don’t care if the music has been done before and I agree…..BUT, obviously there is something seriously intoxicating about new-sounding tunes that float yer boat. Public Enemy provided us with music like we had never heard, overlaying grabs of music over each other to make an utter cacophony, yet bagged it into killer tunes……giving plenty of headlines, for better or worse. It was everything. Danger Baby! Truly exhilarating. The papers were properly scared of a band again……not in a Guns n Roses way……properly scared this time…..and goooood tunes.
Happy Mondays were my next joy in this same category – truly odd and inventive music, with some of the best lyrics ever put to paper + real life total and utter chaos.
My favourite verse:
“Son, I'm 30
I only went with your mother 'cause she's dirty,
And I don't have a decent bone in me.
What you get is just what you see yeah.
I see it so I take it freely,
and all the bad piss-ugly things that feed me.
I never help or give to the needy.
Come on and see me
Genius.
Please don’t call it instantly-dissolving fairy floss…………..
though I do love fairy floss, (I heard Cliff and the Shadows doing “In the Country” today and was ‘gasming)
Depending on the day, Thrills, Pills and Bellyaches is my favourite album. I suppose that is why I feel the need to comment. The "baggy" scene which you mention was definitely shit. But, if you want to draw a circle around other bands and make it a scene, of course there is way too much fluff. Isn't that always the case? To use Nirvana again, the second biggest band in the grunge scene was Pearl Jam……just so bad – puddle-deep emotion at best, no humour….oh god, I feel sick again. They were awful. It doesn't get any better as you go down the list with grunge.
There’s meat in the Mondays Fra Fra.
Now go back to the fucking Dillards.
Can we have something about Johnny Chester?
Hmmm…I did’nt know I was commenting on The Happy Mondays. I have not heard enough (and do not intend to) to make comment about their music with any great conviction but I will say that you seem to be as intoxicated with their lifestyle, world view or persona as much as their music. There is nothing wrong with that. In their own way their continual hedonism, drugs, sex and guns is no different than the best ( or worst) in disco or hip hop.
And despite any lyrics to the contrary, when you can hear them (understand them), the music is about (and designed for) dancing, not thinking. There is nothing wrong with that either. I could be wrong but that’s what always impressed me about raves…hundreds of people sitting around discussing Happy Mondays lyrics. For what it’s worth I will say the music(from the little I have heard), at best (for me), is catchy but not particularly memorable.
As for “new sounds” what little I have heard (I will keep labouring that point) from The Happy Mondays ( bits and pieces of “Yes Please”, “Pills and Thrills…” – I dont know what was from which) sounds like 70s glam with 60s psych, a bit of soul or funk and a lot of dance. Original ? Maybe , though some of it sounds like acid house to me. But it can be “new sounding” if you havent heard the music the band was listening to. Ultimately, does it have to be original? No.
Ultimately though you know as well as I that you prefer English music to American music.
As for Nirvana (you will get no disagreement from me on Pearl Jam- why they were ever considered grunge, apart from some remote band connections is beyond me) Cobain expressed his particular pains in his way. Whether he was as thoughtful as Shaun Ryder is up to the listener.
I’m not sure why you criticise Nirvana and then lionise Public Enemy. Their music was as “original” as Nirvanas – they both referenced and reinterpreted the past in their own way. Their music may have an element of “danger” but so did the music of Nirvana. Whether the “danger” was in the music or as a result of lifestyles I dont know though I will point out that both Chuck D and Flavor Flav were both Uni students with reasonably stable upbringings. Something which cannot be said about Cobain.
Ultimately though Cobain sang about things I can identify with … Public Enemy’s angry, militant Afro-American rhetoric is something I can understand but has little in the way of shared experiences. Maybe it was different for a white, Aussie kid, from the mean streets of Zillmere?