This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to… Teenage Fanclub, Thirteen

It’s funny, when this album came out in 1993 and despite listening to it incessantly – it was one of the first CDs I bought – I found I couldn’t quite connect. Three or four songs in and my mind would begin to wander.

Following hot on the heels of nearly none more grunge Bandwagonesque and remarkable general acclaim (they were, hard to believe, topping end of year polls in 1991 ahead of both Nirvana and My Bloody Valentine), this was meant to be the album that would propel them to even greater heights. And yet, somehow it didn’t.

Instead they hit a sort of plateau and transformed into a hugely respected, much loved band, almost an institution. Anyone who has followed them subsequently will know about the highs, and almost overwhelmingly they have been highs – perhaps with the exception of the somewhat mundane Man-Made in the mid 2000s (even dragging in John McEntire from Tortoise didn’t quite lift that set).

Anyhow I filed it away and despite fairly religiously listening to the albums that came after I didn’t go back until recently.

And what’s interesting is just how refreshing it sounds at this remove – Bandwagonesque almost sounds forced in comparison. Yes it slots straight into the period but its metal flourishes seem perhaps a bit mannered, it’s overall approach a tiny bit heartless. By contrast this is a series of songs that mix the louder and softer side to their sound perfectly and charts their path out of commercialism. I’d still quibble with the first line of the lyrics of Norman 3… ‘Come on over, break some bread’ Really, Norman? But overall, no complaints.

The grunge goes soft genius of the intro to Escher is great as is Commercial Alternative (check out the laconic comments to them both on the live version below).

There’s a brilliant insouciance to the band in the video for the still striking Radio, where their disdain, or is it disinterest, in success is palpable.

I saw them on this or the previous tour – it was definitely 92/93 – when they played the Tivoli and they were almost precisely as they were on album, a curiously rigourous and yet sort of shambolic presence on stage, and that insoucience was carried into the live area by them but not directed towards the audience. Indeed it was a fairly friendly gig.

Of course there’s a lot more to them than Thirteen. Songs from Northern Britain… well, look, I’d be here all day if we were considering that… or… ah, if you don’t know and you like the sound of these then…

Enjoy.

Radio

Norman 3

Song to the Cynic

Commercial Alternative/Escher (live in New York).