The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #1

Ocean Rain – Echo and the Bunnymen  (1984, Korova Records)

“La la la la la la la la la la”

Points 166

Highest Rank 1^st (twice)

Silver – Echo and the Bunnymen (1984, Korova Records)

The great thing about this series has been its unpredictability.  There hasn’t been one album that stood streets ahead of all the others.  Right up until the last hour of voting, any one of the Top Four could have feasibly won this, in fact Pulp (who finished third) were top with two hours to go until the votes of the MJM#23 popped into my inbox with less than 90 minutes of the voting left.

At that point the scores stood like this Pulp 156, Echo and the Bunnymen 146, Bowie 146, REM 143 so less than fifteen points between them, but the odds are stacked in Pulp’s favour.  Or you’d think so, I knew that MJM#23 was going to vote because he’d been emailing me all week about it. I also know that he is a huge Bunnymen fan.  He grew up in Southport and they soundtracked his teenage years on the Wirral.

Crystal Days – Echo and the Bunnymen (1984, Korova Records)

“Here you go, I’ve been predictable, as you know ‘Ocean Rain’ is my favourite album of all time”.

Which put the Bunnymen on 166 and meant that Bowie and R.E.M could no longer win, but ‘Ocean Rain’ would have to score ten more than ‘His N Hers’ to finish on top.  I scoured the table adding the points to their respective albums.  Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’ was sixth, which put them second, New Order eighth, Everything but the Girl a rare ninth place, and there in tenth were Talking Heads, which means that Mac and co would finish top by four points.

MJM#23 is not alone in having some love for ‘Ocean Rain’ – Here is Swiss Adam, or MJM#11 to give him his real name.

My Kingdom – Echo and the Bunnymen (1984, Korova Records)

““Ocean Rain’ is a special album, a record that I’ve been living with since the 1980s.  On release Ian McCulloch/Bill Drummond/record company adverts famously said it was “the best record ever made”.  It may or may not be.  It may not even be the best album the Bunnymen made.  It’s definitely one of the best 4^th albums anyone ever made.  It is a perfect picture of where Echo and the Bunnymen were in 1984 – their sound adorned with strings, the hip shaking post punk urgency of their earlier albums now a widescreen majesty, the lyrics time shifting, magical worlds, the sound mirrored by the underground cavern on the sleeve, four Bunnymen in a boat.  Will Sergeant’s valve ammo guitar solos on ‘My Kingdom’.  ‘Seven Seas’ tidal pop majesty.  ‘The Killing Moon’s swooning drama.  Ian’s voice on the title track, screaming from beneath the waves.”

I was up until about three months ago, convinced that ‘Crocodiles’ was the best Bunnymen record and then I found a copy of ‘Ocean Rain’ in a second record shop in Exeter and it soundtracked most of my summer, because its extraordinarily good.  I can’t describe it as well as Adam has above, but he is spot on about tracks like ‘The Killing Moon’ and ‘Seven Seas’ – it is just divine from start to finish.

The Killing Moon – Echo and the Bunnymen (1984, Korova Records)

MJM#11 is not alone in his love for the swooning drama of ‘The Killing Moon’, here is regular contributor MJM#4.

“Ocean Rain’ has ‘The Killing Moon’ on it, which alone merits a high ranking.  It also has ‘Thorn of Crowns’ on it, with its quite bonkers lyric of “C-c-c cucumber, C-c-cabbage, C-c-c cauliflower…” that was once sang live on Channel 4 by a drugged up Ian McCulloch and thus made for one of the great live bits of TV ever….”

You can watch that performance on You Tube if you want to – here is the link, ‘Thorn of Crowns’ in all its bonkersness starts around nine minutes in. There’s also a great moment of Mac trying to be funny around four minutes in.

Thorn of Crowns – Echo and the Bunnymen (1984, Korova Records)

That is a probably a great place to end this series, a series which I think has been the best countdown I’ve done on No Badger Required, not only because of the unpredictability of it (Billy Bragg tenth!!) which if you think about it is rather fitting with the general unpredictability of most fourth albums.  The guest postings have been outstanding, all of them from the short sentences that littered the votes (“Kid A is SHITE!!!’) to the eloquent pieces that made up a fair section of this series. 

Which brings us on to the Musical Jury – you are all marvellous and I really couldn’t do this blog without you.  Even those of you who refuse to write something or those of you who only vote every now and again.   Thank you for about the millionth time.

If you have sat there and read the thoughts of the Jury and shouted “Stop talking nonsense” and thought you could do better then drop a comment below, I’ll do the rest.  Next year the Jury will (hopefully) be called into bat on at least three occasions, I’m sure of one of these topics but not the other two yet – but come and join us the more the merrier.

Tomorrow brings along December and that means the No Badger Required End of Year Tracks and Album Countdowns.

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #2

Hunky Dory – David Bowie  (1971, RCA Records)

“It seemed the taste was not so sweet”

Points 162

Highest Rank 4^th (Five times)

Changes – David Bowie (1971, RCA Records)

I’m going to break with convention and hand over to two members of the musical jury who didn’t vote in this countdown.  I’ll call them MJM#24 and MJM#25 just because that’s where they are on my list.  Here’s MJM#24 and I’m quoting from an email.

“Hunky Dory is David Bowie’s fourth album, just saying”.  He then didn’t vote for it (or at all in fact)

Here is MJM#25, who wanted to vote, forgot, and then emailed to apologise about six weeks after the voting door slammed shut.

“I would have given my twenty points to ‘Hunky Dory’ had I met the deadline”

Now. 

The keen eyed amongst you will have noticed that up at the top, the voting shows that the highest final position that ‘Hunky Dory’ finished was 4^th and that happened five times.  This only tells half the picture, because it also got voted fifth twice and sixth a couple of times as well.  Pretty much everyone who voted for it ranked it very high.  I mean its David Bowie, and even if it isn’t his greatest work (that would be ‘Low’ right?), ‘Hunky Dory’ is still heads and shoulders above most of the other records on this list and I reckon the acts on it would probably agree with me there.  So MJM#24 and MJM#25, had you voted for Dave then I wouldn’t be typing this sentence because ‘Hunky Dory’ would have won convincingly.

Let’s see what some of the Musical Jury Members had to say about it.  Here’s MJM#5 to start us off

“’Hunky Dory’ is Bowie’s first proper triumph….’Changes’ is a remarkable song that never fails to thrill whenever I hear it and it has one of the best choruses of all time and ‘Life on Mars? boasts one of his very best vocals”

Obviously he’s right on both things – I’ve always thought, just because I’ve gone there, that ‘Life on Mars? also contains rocks greatest ever question mark, but we might discuss that next year.

Life on Mars? – David Bowie (1971, RCA Records)

Here is MJM#22 who was one of the many fourth places voters

“Changes’.  ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’.  ‘Life on Mars?’ ‘Kooks’. ‘Queen Bitch’.  And its still not my favourite Bowie album!  That’s how good he was.  I couldn’t appreciate it at the time of course as I only just celebrated my first birthday in December 1971.  Incredible that the album didn’t even chart in the UK when it was first released due to the lack of record label backing.  These days, it’s a compilers nightmare trying to decide what’s not to include when compiling a career ‘best of’. “

Kooks – David Bowie (1971, RCA Records)

Queen Bitch – David Bowie (1971, RCA Records)

Like MJM#22 I couldn’t appreciate ‘Hunky Dory’ when it first came out, because I wasn’t even a twinkle in the milkmans eye back then, but it is a record that I’ve played an awful lot.  It is a record that changed music and culture itself.  It opened the door to glam rock for a start, but more than that, it made songs about sexuality, gender, nuclear war, and even mystical nonsense an everyday thing.  But most of all it made David Bowie a huge star, one who would go on to make several more outstanding timeless records.

So we move to the album that the Jury have voted the greatest 4^th album of all time and here is a little clue as to what that might be.

“La la la la la la la la la la la la la”

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #3

His N Hers – Pulp (1994, Island Records)

“If you want I can write it down”

Points 157

Highest Rank 1^st (twice)

Razzamatazz – Pulp (1994, Island Records)

‘His N Hers’ spent this entire contest in the Top Five, it swapped places with ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’ on an almost daily basis, and it was only the arrival of some high scores for the albums at one and two on the last day of voting that pushed it into third place.  For a very short period, on the last day, it sat top and could have won the whole thing. 

It would have been a worthy winner too, because ‘His N Hers’ is an outstanding album, the sort of album that sticks with you after one listen.  That might be because it is packed full of brilliant songs, like ‘Babies’ and ‘Lipgloss’ songs that back in 1994, hinted that it wouldn’t be long before Pulp became one of the biggest bands on the planet, but as MJM#4 points out, that really shouldn’t have happened.

Lipgloss – Pulp (1994, Island Records)

“His N Hers’ came out of nowhere.  The first three Pulp albums were savaged by the press and they really should have marked the end of the road for Jarvis & Co.  Instead with their backs to the wall, they created an absolute masterpiece, one that laid the foundations for all that was to follow as Britpop in all its manifestations took hold of the nation”.

MJM#4 has a point, in October 1994 virtually no one danced when I played ‘Babies’ in the basement bar, some cool hip kids kind of did a dance to it – one that seemed to involve standing still and moving just one arm, whilst pouting, but everyone else ignored it and the (mainly) geeky boys doing that dance, did so alone.  Six months later, ‘Babies’ took the roof of the place before Jarvis had taken his first breath.  Girls, by the way, now seemed to love those geeky indie boys in their charity shop blazers. 

Babies – Pulp (1994, Island Records)

If you don’t believe me here’s MJM#17 (one of the few female ones),

“I didn’t listen to ‘His N Hers’ until about five years after it had been released, I think I might have been 16 when I was given a copy of it for Christmas.  After about two listens I was kind of obsessed with them and particularly with Jarvis Cocker. I used to sit in my bedroom and devour the lyrics, I scrawled them on exercise books, and I had a big picture of Jarvis on the back of my bedroom door, that, I kid you not, I said goodnight to every night.  I loved the way that ‘His N Hers’ managed to address the agony of adolescent, tracks like ‘Someone Like The Moon’ properly nailed how heartbreak and teenage loneliness felt – it’s a stunning track.  For two years, two years!!, I dated this lad because he ‘sort of’ looked like Jarvis (if I squinted – I mean he had cheekbones to die for, but unlike Jarvis, he was dull.).

Someone Like The Moon – Pulp (1994, Island Records)

It’s not just the teenage heartbreak though, it’s the way that ‘His N Hers’ created stories and weaved humour and ordinary (ish) situations into the record.  Be it the way it mocks what the tabloids tell us what good looking looks like, or the way that it dealt with clumsiness of losing your virginity or the way that songs like ‘Acrylic Afternoons’ made you look at your neighbours in a different way, just in case they might be up for some under the kitchen table fun.

Acrylic Afternoons – Pulp (1994, Island Records)

Pink Glove – Pulp (1994, Island Records)

Which leaves us with just two records, and here is a lyrical clue as to which act we find in the Jimmy White role – and for once its not the Jesus and Mary Chain.

“Every time I thought I’d got it made”

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #4

Life’s Rich Pageant – R.E.M (1986, I.R.S Records)

“Bargain building, weights and pulleys”

Points 143

Highest Rank 1^st (thrice)

Fall One Me – R.E.M (1986, I.R.S Records)

Before I hand over to Rob, a quick word on ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’.  It was the album with the second highest number of nominations and it topped more polls than any other album on the list.  So in theory it should have possibly have won the whole thing.  Where it lost points was that apart from the three times it came out on top, it only featured in four other top tens, and despite featuring in all but three of the returned votes it scored a lot of low points and hence it finished fourth.  Saying that it was second until about the last day of voting.

Anyway, around a year or so ago, over at his excellent and still (at the time of writing) on a hiatus, blog Is This The Life? The Robster reimagined a bunch of R.E.M albums, in which he basically reordered the songs, changed a few to include additional or different versions of songs and generally made them all the better for it. 

Here is what he said about ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’.  You can read the full piece in its original format here (as I’ve edited this version ever so slightly) and I think you can hear the re-imagined version of ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’ if you click on that link.

https://isthis-thelife.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-reimagined-albums-part-6.html

A Guest Posting by The Robster.

For most, R.E.M.’s records on the IRS label are sacred and should be left well alone. And to be fair, there’s very little you’d ever want to tamper with on those five brilliant albums. But…

‘Lifes Rich Pageant’ is a big favourite of mine, yet it’s far from perfect and has a couple of things that really niggle me about it. It was only the second R.E.M. record I ever heard so it’s one of those I’ve been exposed to the most over the years. Its first four songs make up what I think is the greatest opening sequence of songs on any album I’ve ever owned. That’s probably what makes it such a big fave. But from that point on it doesn’t quite tick all the boxes.

Begin the Begin – R.E.M (1986, I.R.S Records)

Some history: ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’ sounds like something of a statement. After the traumatic process of the making of ‘Fables Of The Reconstruction’, which almost broke the band and caused Michael Stipe to sink into a deep depression, R.E.M. reconvened to record LRP in March 1986 with renewed vigour. It’s a record which sounded like no other R.E.M. record at the time – loud, hard-hitting and, in places, very angry. It was largely the result of six years under Reagan and the political situation in America it garnered. Gone were the claustrophobic jangles of the previous records, gone were the oblique stories in Stipe’s lyrics. These new songs had a real purpose about them.

Except they weren’t all new songs. For some reason, the band unearthed some material dating back to their earliest period. At least five of the songs demoed for the record were written and performed as far back as 1980-81. ‘All The Right Friends’ and ‘Mystery To Me’ were, in fact, both played at their legendary debut gig (at the abandoned St Mary’s Episcopal Church, Athens, GA. on 5th May 1980), while ‘Just A Touch’ featured at their next show just a fortnight later. Both ‘Wait’ and ‘Get On Their Way’ (the latter of which became ‘Why Don’t We Give It Away’) got their first airings in January 1981. Another LRP song ‘Hyena’ was written in 1984 and was played a number of times during live shows that year before being demoed for ‘Fables’ but cast aside.

Just A Touch – R.E.M (1986, I.R.S Records)

Exactly why the band saw fit to revive these long-forgotten songs at this time is unclear but revive them they did and two of them even featured on the finished record. Originally conceived as a ten-track album, side one was to feature the album’s loud, fast songs, while side two its slower, quieter moments.

At some point though, things changed. At a mere 34 minutes, it was deemed to be too short, so a couple other tracks were required. And this is where I think ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’ went a little pear-shaped. The band chose to record one of their newer original songs and a cover version. ‘Underneath The Bunker’ is a short, silly bossanova piece with few lyrics. ‘Superman’ was a bubblegum pop song by The Clique which Mike Mills liked. He sang lead on it as Stipe didn’t want to – he instead sings backup. Quite why these songs were chosen remains a mystery. So a new (better?) track order was arranged and ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’ was released.

Superman – R.E.M (1986, I.R.S Records)

And this is where I come in. What can I do to make LRP the album it could have been? Well, the first four songs remain untouched. As I said, there is nothing that could make this opening sequence any better. I can well do without both ‘Underneath The Bunker’ and ‘Superman’ – b-side material at best as far as I’m concerned. I’m replacing them with two of the demos recorded at John Keane’s studios in March ’86 instead.

Which brings me to track 5 which I’ve decided will be ‘All The Right Friends’. It picks up the energetic mood again following the previous two songs, but I’ve edited it slightly. Being a demo, it is a bit rough around the edges, especially the ending. After dabbling with a couple other versions of the song, I decided to use the final chord of the 2001 version recorded for the Vanilla Sky soundtrack as it’s the one that worked best. To be fair, it’s still rough, but that’s down to my skill level and available resources. (Insert one of Jez’s statutory disclaimers here…) Side one ends with the thunderous rasp of ‘Just A Touch’, Stipe’s words (borrowing from Patti Smith) fading into the runout groove… “I’m so young / I’m so goddamn young“.

Side two starts the same as the real LRP with the gorgeous ‘Flowers Of Guatamala’ and the lively ‘I Believe’, while’ Hyena’ is transferred from side one. The next two songs gave me problems in that I wasn’t quite sure how to sequence them. ‘Mystery To Me’ was to end side one in my previous draft, but I ended up swapping it with ‘Just A Touch’. To be fair, ‘Mystery To Me’ perhaps sounds a little out of place wherever it goes as it might just be the one weak link in this project. The only other options I had were PSA (the early demo version of ‘Bad Day’), ‘Wait’ and ‘Two Steps Forward’. None quite fit the bill though, and PSA sounds way too much like ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It’ in its original form. The remade version from 2001 is better but wouldn’t fit here.

Flowers of Guatamala – R.E.M (1986, I.R.S Records)

In the end I settled for ‘Mystery To Me’ as the penultimate track, though it is preceded by a little instrumental segue (also lifted from the demos) to make the transition from ‘What If We Give It Away’ more palatable. You may recognise it as a section of Rotary 10, but at the demo stage it was simply known as Jazz. To finish with, a rather contentious decision, perhaps. Rather than the album version, I’ve opted for the demo version of ‘Swan Swan H’. Now, there’s absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with the original, it’s a track I love and, were it not for the presence of Superman tacked on the end, would have been the perfect closer for the real LRP. I do love the demo though, in which the band retains the electric guitars rather than swap to acoustics. Mills’ bass riff in the album version is played here on lead guitar, though I’m not sure whether it’s he or Buck who plays it. Anyway, this version keeps things interesting for those of you who have never heard it.

Swan Swan H – R.E.M (1986, I.R.S Records)

Thanks Rob.  The ‘Reimagined’ series was a great idea – and for those who might not have read them before – one that is well worth exploring.  The full version of this with the reimagined album can be accessed via the link at the top.

Now here is a lyrical clue as to the album at Number Three

“Am I talking too fast or are you just playing dumb?”

50 Twelve inches #20

Mall Monarchy – Compulsion (1994, One Little Indian Records, Taken from ‘Comforter’)

The ‘STOP’ command is whispered this morning, not because my daughter has lost her voice or because Daddy has a sore head but because it is an unearthly time of the morning and we are about to drive to an airport to catch a flight.  We decide to play whichever song the finger stops on in the car on the way to the airport.  I cross my fingers and hope that the finger of fate is not hovering over one of the few Goth records that pollute my record collection when the STOP command is whispered.  I’m not sure I want to listen to that as we drive up through the back lanes of South Devon on our way to Bristol in darkness a couple of weeks before Halloween (and I know that this won’t get published until like, the end of November, but humour me)

A part of me hopes that it avoids a dance record as well, not because they are awful far from it, but its nearly 5am on a Sunday morning, even the nightclubs have realised that is no time for a 303 to spiralling out of control like a chimpanzee on very strong acid.  Anyway, the finger is poised and ready to fly along the spines of a cupboard full of records.  My wife shakes her head and tells us she is taking the cases to the car and the door closes just as “STOP” is whispered.

It is a great choice and one that is greeted by me with a small punch to the air.  Its’s early, don’t judge me.  I’ve had two cups of tea and a pain au chocolat, already and I’ve only been awake 45 minutes, for a clean living man like me, this is like being high on a cocktail of crack and amphetamines.  So, for the next 45 minutes or so Compulsion entertain us as we drive to the airport (the second half of the journey is brought to us by the monstrosity that is Heart FM)

Accident Ahead – Compulsion (1993, One Little Indian Records, Taken from ‘Casserole EP’) – there wasn’t it seemed a decent song to link.

I tell my daughter about the time my friend Dave and I got hopelessly lost walking back from a Compulsion gig in Tunbridge Wells.  We’d taken a supposed shortcut through some woods and ended up in the middle of nowhere, tired, hungover and completely out of Lion Bars and Kettle Crisps.  As part of that conversation my wife regales our daughter of all the amazing short cuts that I’ve made her take, either in the car or on foot, which have turned out to not be short cuts at all.  Including one across a field in the pouring rain.  I am apparently rubbish at short cuts.  

She has a point, once on a Scout hike I convinced the other lads with me that we could cut across a field to a road that led to the checkpoint we were heading to.  I was right, sadly there was a big stream in the middle of said field that needed hurdling first.

Between 1993 and 1994 I was a massive Compulsion fan, I greedily snaffled up any of their records that I could (all of which I still have to this day).  Not sure why I fell out of love with them – it might be that their second album was a bit below par and didn’t have the excitement and the energy of their debut.  Might be the fact that I saw Damon Albarn at one of their gigs and decided that I didn’t like them anymore.  I’ll give the second album another spin later on (as that might be a series that rears it ugly head again next year).

The twelve inch of ‘Mall Monarchy’ was the first Compulsion record I ever owned – I have a feeling that I bought it from The Longplayer in Maidstone – it definitely came with a free poster because it’s still in the sleeve (along with some old blutack).  It’s a tremendous record.  

Here’s your B Sides

A Little Mistake

Galvanised

F Bryon Farnsworth

(all 1994, One Little Indian Records)

Which brings us to my daughters No More Than Five Words Review,

“Good to wake you up”

Which I’d say was pretty spot on. Oh and here is my daughters musical recommendation for the week, which I suspect is something that Heart FM plays on a regular basis. Its not as good as Compulsion.

Cheap Thrills – Sia (Featuring Sean Paul) (2016, RCA Records, Taken from ‘This Is Acting’)

Nearly Perfect Albums – #87

Non Stop Erotic Cabaret – Soft Cell (1981, Some Bizarre Records)

I once borrowed a copy of ‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’ off of a mate when I was 16.  My interest in Soft Cell was largely piqued by Carter’s brilliant cover version of ‘Bedsitter’ on the B Side of ‘Bloodsport For All’.   I had that CD for twenty years.  It was returned to its original owner in 2011 at a wedding in Kent held in a big Rose Garden.   I knew the owner was going to be there, I didn’t carry it around with me for twenty years in the hope that I would just bump into them.  Additionally, and a contender for the most useless rock fact of the year, the owner of the CD told me at that wedding that he was moving to a house in Chertsey, Surrey which he and his wife had purchased from Jimmy Pursey the singer in the band Sham 69.  He was very excited about this.  Far more excited than I was, but then again, the wood fired pizza van had just turned up.

Bedsitter – Soft Cell (1981, Some Bizarre Records)

Like I suspect at least one or two of you, I didn’t realise that ‘Tainted Love’ was a cover version when I first heard it.  It was my dad who played me the original after hearing me blasting out the Soft Cell version in my room.  The only thing I thought after hearing the original is that the Soft Cell version is far superior, it has far more emotion, far more desperation in it and it rightly made superstars out of Almond and Ball.  Those first almost stuttering notes are now as synonymous with the eighties as Margaret Thatcher and big hair, although its better than both of those things, obviously.

Tainted Love – Soft Cell (1981, Some Bizarre Records)

‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’ is chock full of highlights – let’s start appropriately enough with the sex and drugs – shall we, or some of it, because this being an album called ‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’ means it is positively promiscuously propositioning nearly everyone who listens to it.

‘Frustration’ kicks the album off an almost perfectly delivered tale of a man living a double life.  It has lyrics which robotically talk of life more mundane parts before it descends into a hedonistic fantasy that is accompanied by a wonderful synth section.  Hedonistic fantasies (probably at least) crop up again in the positive filthy ‘Sex Dwarf’ with its talk of “Disco Dollies and black leashes”.

Sex Dwarf – Soft Cell (1981, Some Bizarre Records)

It’s {ahem} hard to ignore the sex and drugs, there are songs are about sex shops, perversion, dodgy movies, all of which are not exactly backwards about {ahem} coming forward.  Which is all well and good, but it’s the songs that are about relationships that are the most alluring and the most striking.  I’m talking of course about the album closer ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’, which ok, might be still be about sex with a stranger (a sex worker I think), but the melodrama that plays out on tape is astonishing, there are references to a club called the Pink Flamingo, we know it’s raining, we know that the narrator has only just met this person and we know that they are struggling to keep away from each other.  The way that Almond croons his way through is nigh on perfection, an atmospheric one for the road if you like.  It’s my favourite Soft Cell song and the twelve inch version is one of the finest extended versions of any song anywhere.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye – Soft Cell (1981, Some Bizarre Records) and just because it’s amazing and features on the deluxe edition of the album, here is the twelve inch version

We have to mention ‘Bedsitter’ as well – if only for that twisty synth that sounds like an electric guitar that underpins the entire song.   It’s bloody marvellous but again the twelve inch version pushes it from its bloody marvellous status to somewhere close to majestic, even if Almond’s proto rap raises eyebrows.

Here is the twelve inch version, just in case.

‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’ is a great album, sure the stuttery electro sound and the humour might be a little dated now but it is a record that still sounds brilliant when you play it.  Marc Almond’s vocals are still incredible, and the impact it had on music back in the early eighties paved the way for so many others.

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #5

Remain In Light – Talking Heads (1980 Sire Records)

“Trying to act casual”

Points 119

Highest Rank 1^st

Cross Eyed and Painless – Talking Heads (1980, Sire Records)

There was a lot of love for ‘Remain In Light’, it received the third most nominations in the selection process and throughout the voting process it never once left the Top Ten.  The reason for this is that ‘Remain In Light’ is a totally ace record.  An album that saw a band show that without a doubt that there was more to Talking Heads than them just being a post punk band with bug eyed crazy dancing frontman.

‘Remain In Light’ is the album, of course, that features ‘Once In A Lifetime’, one of the bands most well known tracks.  It is a song that is underpinned by a really simple basslines (two notes at best – but its brilliantly effective) and a drum loop.  On top of all that you have a stop start guitar, random noises all of which move around to give David Byrne’s “You May Find Yourself…” lyric enough room to bounce its way into your memory permanently.   It is a song by the way that never fails to fill a dancefloor.

Once In A Lifetime – Talking Heads (1980, Sire Records)

Two members of the MJM agree with me by the way about ‘Once In A Lifetime’, which should be enough to convince you of its brilliance.  Here’s the first.

“Once In A Lifetime’ is an unquestionably brilliant song like no other but personally it feels slightly out of place when placed with the likes of ‘The Great Curve’, ‘Seen And Not Seen’ and ‘The Overload

‘The Great Curve’ is as it happens one of my favourite Talking Heads songs, it is one of a number of tracks that feature Adrian Belew, who acts as an additional guitarist.  The way his solo on ‘The Great Curve’ dives and twists is a thing to behold.

The Great Curve – Talking Heads (1980 Sire Records)

And here is the second

“Bought this back in the day on the back of loving “Once In A Lifetime’”. 

Musically, ‘Remain In Light’ is a slight departure from what Talking Heads produced.  There is a more global feel to it as well as huge step in a more pop direction – Byrne is sort of attempts a rap of ‘Cross Eyed and Painless’ – an attempt which I switch from thinking is genius to ill advised – still it’s a great track regardless – so its probably genius, right? At the very least it highlights that Talking Heads were a forward thinking band.  Some of that might be down to the involvement of Brian Eno at the production desk  I suppose but mostly its down to Talking Heads just being a great band.

I’ll hand back to one of the MJM’s again, who yet again sort of agrees with me,

“It’s hard to believe that ‘Remain In Light’ was released in 1980 or the distance that Talking Heads had travelled since their debut album in 1977.   Whatever your take on the Byrne/Eno dynamic and what they brought to and took from Weymouth, Frantz and Harrison, this is an incredible Talking Heads Album”.

Which is precisely what it is – an incredible album.

The Overload – Talking Heads (1980, Sire Records)

Now next week we enter the final week of this series (I don’t know about you but it’s been really enjoyable if you ask me) and our Top Four.  Monday starts with a guest posting, the last one in the series, so we are welcoming back The Robster, who will be gracing us with a review that featured many years on his own Is This the Life? Blog. 

Here is a lyrical clue as to what that might be – but if anyone knows the Robster, I think you can probably guess what it is without a lyrical clue.

“There’s a problem, feathers, iron”

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #6

Everything Must Go – Manic Street Preachers (1996, Epic Records)

“Tribal scars in Technicolor”

Points 115

Highest Rank 1^st

Kevin Carter – Manic Street Preachers (1996, Epic Records)

Today’s guest posting comes from Mr L and he is going to tell us about why ‘Everything Must Go’ is his favourite 4^th album. About seven years ago Mr L and I went down to the Eden Project and saw the Manic Street Preachers celebrate 20 years of ‘Everything Must Go’ and rather fittingly, it poured down.   Anyway, to make up for that that Mr L has written this from his sunbed on the Turkish coast, where I am told he is doing a passable impression of Ray Winstone in ‘Sexy Beast’.

A guest posting from Mr L

I wasn’t a massive Manics fan, I liked some songs like ‘Faster’, ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, ‘Theme from MASH’ & ‘La Tristessa’, but the Manics whole albums didn’t push my buttons fully.

The Manics were in the news in 1995 when band member Richey Edwards was reported missing. I was interested in the NME coverage & really hoped Richey was found. But as 1995 passed by, with no positive news, Richey was presumed dead, with his car found parked near a well know suicide spot the Severn Bridge. Richey was the main song writer along with Nicky Wire, so I honestly thought the Manic were finished. I could not have been more wrong!

In early 1996, I was looking for a new sound, my go to bands (Prodigy, Suede, Underworld, Orbital, Radiohead, Supergrass, Beastie Boys) all seemed to be between albums, and I had just moved into a new flat in Wimbledon in April 1996.  When I heard ‘A Design for Life’ on the radio for the first time, I instantly fell in love with this song.  It seemed to become the soundtrack to my new flat and I was really forward to the album being released in May 1996.

A Design for Life – Manic Street Preachers (1996, Epic Records)

‘Everything Must Go’ didn’t disappoint me and it’s an album, that just touched me at that moment in time. It was full of interesting tracks, subject matters and crowd pleasing singalongs. With an anthemic rock style sound, which was more commercial feeling, that fitted with the Britpop movement, that was prevalent at the time. It was a stark contrast to previous Manics material with the drums, being crucial to the new sound and with Mike Hedges (The Cure/Siouxsie & The Banshees/U2) on production, they produced something truly exciting and uniquely sounding at the time.

Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier – Manic Street Preachers (1996, Epic Records)

The opening track ‘Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier’: Is truly one of the best album openers. It is written about how the UK accepts American culture and worships it. Brilliant!  Elsewhere on the album you get songs that are named after quotes from by American poet and novelist Sylvia Plath (‘The Girl Who Wanted to Be God’) and it is an anthemic track again & I adore it!

The Girl Who Wanted to Be God – Manic Street Preachers (1996, Epic Records)

You also get ‘Kevin Carter’ which is about the life of South African photographer, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his photograph depicting the 1993 famine in Sudan (images which eventually overwhelmed him to the point that he took his own life). Despite the tragedy that surrounds the song, the Manics make it upbeat, and it contains the best trumpet section you will hear on an indie/rock track. Please let me know if you have found one better (Lazarus? – swc).

‘Kevin Carter’ was one of a number of singles taken from ‘Everything Must Go’ – the lead track was obviously ‘A Design for Life’ which explores working class identity in Britain.  It’s still a relevant track today & was the anthem of summer 1996 on the radio & MTV. It is a track that I never get tired of listening to.

What I feel was unique about this album, was that so many tracks sounded like big singles and only a few like ‘Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky’, ‘Removables’ & ‘Interiors’ are just great album tracks.

Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky – Manic Street Preachers (1996, Epic Records)

‘Everything Must Go’ ends with ‘No Surface, All Feeling’ which a giant sprawling guitar screeching monster, with James Dean Bradfield’s vocals totally on point. Utterly amazing ending track. Listening to the album again, it’s hard to think that the material is 27 years old. The album doesn’t seem to have dated at all & I regularly revisit the album.  Fair play to the Manics for producing their finest material (ooh, that’s debatable, ‘The Holy Bible’ is a better album if you ask me – SWC) and a classic album, after such tragedy, losing a close friend and band member. They still place 25% of their music royalties in an account for Richey!

Excellent stuff, thank you so much Mr L. 

Tomorrow, we reach the Top Five and here is a lyrical clue to tease what album starts that Top Five

“Lost my shape”

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #7

Setting Sons – The Jam (1979, Polydor Records)

“There’s a row going on down near Slough”

Points 114

Highest Rank 1^st

Eton Rifles – The Jam (1979, Polydor Records)

A Guest Posting by The Vinyl Villian

Over at The (New) Vinyl Villain, I used the occasion of my 60^th birthday to reveal that ‘All Mod Cons’ was my favourite LP, placing at #1 in a Top 60 rundown.  One rule of said rundown was that no singer or band could appear more than once in any particular guise, which meant that Paul Weller could and did gain another placing courtesy of The Style Council, but that all of the other albums by The Jam were excluded.

It’s a ruling which denied ‘Setting Sons’ a place in the rundown, but thanks to this latest and brilliant idea here at No Badger Required, I can now take away my guilt by placing it at the very top of my list of best 4^th albums of all time.

Thinking about it, ‘Setting Sons’ might have actually finished second in my Top 60 rundown as there are days when I give it a listen and think it might be every bit as good as ‘All Mod Cons’, which, for the uninitiated, was the band’s third album, released on 3 November 1978.   ‘Setting Sons’ hit the shops on 16 November 1979, but the intervening 54 weeks had been a period in which The Jam released three fantastic hit singles, complete with some of their best ever b-sides – ‘Strange Town’/’The Butterfly Collector’ (9 March 1979), ‘When You’re Young’/’Smithers Jones’ (17 August 1979) and ‘The Eton Rifles’/’See-Saw’ (26 October 1979).

Smithers-Jones – The Jam (1979, Polydor Records)

I turned 16 years old in the summer of 79.  I reckon that’s always an age, musically, when musical tastes intensify and solidify.   Everyone grows up influenced by what their parents and extended family members listen to – being the oldest child, I had no siblings to bend or shape me, but I did have older cousins who played albums, cassettes and 8-tracks whenever I visited their homes.  But, as the teen years really kicked in, I was increasingly seeking out music that ‘spoke to me’ and which was alien to my parents and indeed older cousins, all of whom seemed obsessed by what we could now define as classic rock.  I was lucky that this was the era of ‘new wave’, when the rough edges of punk were smoothed off to create some ridiculously great pop music that sounded tremendous coming over the airwaves of Radio 1.

I’m happy to argue that 1979 was the greatest single year in the history of music (SWC rudely interjects – wrong!! 1995, was the greatest single year in the history of music, although the argument gives me a fine idea).  I once made a 60-minute mix tape for someone who was born that year.  There were 18 tracks all told, ranging in sound from The Clash to Earth Wind & Fire, with stopping points including Blondie, The Specials, David Bowie, OMD, The B-52’s. Joe Jackson and XTC. 

‘Strange Town’ was the song I included to represent The Jam – it came in the mix after ‘Transmission’ by Joy Division and was followed with ‘On Returning’ by Wire.  But in all honesty, I could have picked just about any of the songs released by the band in 1979 and been satisfied.

The Jam, like many other bands at that time, preferred not to fill their albums with previously released tracks which is why ‘Strange Town’ and ‘When You’re Young’ were excluded from ‘Setting Sons’. ‘The Eton Rifles’ was included, but it was generally accepted that every album needed a tie-in single as part of the promotional and marketing activities. 

What only became clear afterwards was that Paul Weller had been struggling a bit to come up with enough tunes to complete what had been intended as a concept album that homed in on the lives of three boyhood friends who find themselves reunited as soldiers fighting an unspecified war.  

In the end, four songs along that theme – ‘Thick As Thieves’, ‘Little Boy Soldiers’, ‘Burning Sky’ and ‘Wasteland’ –  can be found on ‘Setting Sons’, alongside another three Weller classics focussing on suburban life – the bloke on the receiving end of unwanted attention (‘Girl On The Phone’), the middle-aged woman whose life is empty (‘Private Hell’), and the young folk who live for the cheap thrills of the here-and-now (‘Saturday’s Kids’).  Then, of course, there’s ‘The Eton Rifles’, as political and angry a song as Weller ever composed, as he vented his spleen about the class divide that, sadly, was only going to grow increasingly wider after the election earlier in the year of a Tory government led by Margaret Thatcher.

Thick As Thieves – The Jam (1979, Polydor Records)

Girl On The Phone – The Jam (1979, Polydor Records)

Eight songs was never enough for an album at any time, and certainly not in 1979, which is why its other two tracks are a cover of a Martha and The Vandellas hit single (‘Heatwave’) and a fresh take on ‘Smithers-Jones’, in which the guitars, bass and drums are replaced by the violins, violas and cellos of a string orchestra. 

The artwork for the album, and the fact that the ambitious and somewhat sprawling mini-rock opera ‘Little Boy Soldiers’, with its three distinctive parts, is very much its centrepiece, supports the idea of Weller looking to come up with the concept album, only to fall short.   It’s hardly a surprise as he was just 21 years of age when he embarked upon the idea and it would have been some achievement if he’d been able to come up with ten songs taking in the entire lifespan of friends, from their cradles to their graves. 

Little Boy Soldiers – The Jam (1979, Polydor Records)

In the end, it worked out for the best, as all of the non-concept songs can be held up as classics of the sort Weller had been writing for some time, going back to ‘All Mod Cons’ and the subsequent singles, and which would be maintained as the 80’s came round with the really big hits/anthems such as ‘Going Underground’ and ‘That’s Entertainment’.

I don’t expect ‘Setting Sons’ to come top of this No Badger Required poll, as there will be too many folk voting  whose own most formative years came well after the late 70s and who will favour 4^th albums that meant, and still mean, so much to them – oh, and the fact also that there are quite a few genuine classics from across all decades that have stood the test of time and are well deserving of high placings.

But for those of us of a certain vintage, and whose tastes have long revolved primarily around the post-punk sounds of superbly crafted guitar songs, accompanied by killer rhythm sections, this is up there as one of the best, perhaps let down by a bit of filler via the cover version.  Given that, it actually feels as if I should have written this for the ‘Nearly Perfect Albums’ series………………….

Marvellous stuff, thanks as ever JC. 

Tomorrow sees the second Guest Posting of the week, and that means it is a welcome return to the No Badger Required pages for Mr L.  Here is a lyrical clue to which album he voted at the very top of his 4^th Album list.

“Hi, Time magazine, hi, Pulitzer Prize”

Two

It was a drunken night out in Exeter City in the middle of October 2021 that made me want to start blogging again.  I had with three mates been to see Red Rum Club at the Cavern Club in Exeter.  They were the first band I had seen live in eighteen months, due to lockdown restrictions and they were pretty amazing.  You see in that eighteen months, I’d sort of forgotten what going to gigs was like and when I got home all I wanted to do was write down about how good ‘Calexico’ was and how you should stop what you are doing and listen to Red Rum Club.

Calexico – Red Rum Club (2019, Modern Sky Records, Taken from ‘Matador’)

It took me a month, and an underwhelming Damon Albarn gig in a freezing cold church in Totnes to finally put pen to paper and there at nearly midnight on a Tuesday evening in November, No Badger Required was created.

Polaris – Damon Albarn (2021, Transgressive Records, Taken from ‘The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream’)

Today marks the second birthday of this blog.  To be honest its lasted nearly eighteen months longer than I expected it to, because you see I thought I’d told all the stories that I could tell and I thought I’d written about my favourite albums enough and I thought I’d explored every feasible topic about music that could be explored – on that how does 20 Songs with ‘friend’ in the title sound, interspersed with stories about stupid things some of my friends have done…

All My Friends – LCD Soundsystem (2007, DFA Records, Taken from ‘Sound of Silver’)

Apparently, I was wrong though, because here we are.  Two years is young for a blog especially when there are others that have been going ten, eleven, fifteen years, blogs that continue to inspire, entertain and occasionally enrage me just as much as they every did.  If you are one of them, you are brilliant and I salute you. Please keep going.  

I’d also like to salute those of you who read this blog.  I don’t expect you to read it everyday but if you do – thank you.  If you read it once a month, thank you.  If today is your first time, thank you, as well, you have a lot of catching up to do.  If you are a member of the Musical Jury, then thank you especially.  It is my aim in life to hunt you all down and get you all roundly drunk (muggings, cancelled weddings, deaths, and 11^th birthday breakfasts notwithstanding) or if you don’t drink, take you out for trifle or something.

So, here’s to next year then….

On that, in January we have a choice to make. 

I have a BIG countdown in mind.  One that will last most of the year, one that will be great and contain loads of excellent music but I kind of love the uncertainty of the monthly themes, the chaotic randomness of it.  I also love using the Musical Jury so if no one minds, I’ll just carry on shall I with a different theme every month, I mean we’ve still got to do Rocks Greatest L after all.

15 Years – The Levellers (1993, China Records)

I’m also open to suggestions for themes, just in case anyone has any good ideas….

Oh and I might do another short story thing, you see I know this bloke called Wayne and he is being framed for a crime he almost certainly didn’t do….

Innocent (taylors version) – Taylor Swift (2023, Taken from ‘Speak Now (Taylors Version)’)