Sulk

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He also helped set up Electric Honey, an in-house label at Glasgow’s Stow College, which went on to release records by Belle and Sebastian and Snow Patrol, among others. The live tracks in the box set show that some of the songs were completely transformed once you got in the studio. Online since 2010 it is one of the fastest-growing and most respected music-related publications on the net. Alan Rankine, left, and Billy Mackenzie of the Associates performing at University of London Union, London, in 1981. As The Associates, the music MacKenzie made with Alan Rankine is almost too much to take in, on a conscious level at least.

In July, BMG will issue a special large format 3CD+vinyl LP 40th anniversary deluxe edition of The Associates‘ 1982 album Sulk.A. Underground (31) Labradford (2) Lambchop (1) Last (1) Leaving Trains (1) Lee "Scratch" Perry (2) Lee Harris (13) Leonard Cohen (2) Lime Spiders (2) Lisa Gerrard (3) Lo-Fi (25) Long Ryders (4) Lotus Eaters (3) Lou Reed (10) Loud Family (1) Loudon Wainwright III (1) Love (1) Love and Rockets (10) Low (3) M. Summon a Top Of The Pops clip of “ Club Country”, their second hit from May 1982, and the captions will suggest that the band used to record with cups of coffee taped to their heads, while “at least one of their songs was recorded in a bath. It was a glorious high to bow out on for Mackenzie and Rankine, who parted company soon after making the record. Two other hits followed, "Club Country" and "18 Carat Love Affair", a vocal version of the instrumental track "Nothinginsomethingparticular".

Problems started to surface within the group the following month when they began rehearsals with a nine-piece band for an upcoming tour of the US and Canada to promote the forthcoming release of Sulk in North America. Ian Pye of Melody Maker stated that the group's "melodramatic aspirations" needed a voice like MacKenzie's to be able to carry them out successfully, and said, "In parts, Sulk is really over-produced, the stamp of perfectionists, and while there's nothing to match the commercial appeal of their two [singles], this record has an almost timeless majesty that can only make Billy Mackenzie's rapturous grin grow wider still". Finally, Wild and Lonely and Mackenzie's solo album Outernational were repackaged with bonus tracks in 2006. A slightly less ambiguous lyric, still with plenty of obscure/obtuse references, but seemingly a condemnation of the elitist classes with its soaring classic chorus giving off a darkly dystopian message. Billy really comes into his voice in this album, and you can hear how much better he's gotten at using it since The Affectionate Punch.

BTW, I haven't listened to this album in quite a few years and had forgotten how solid it was -- a good introduction for anyone new to the Associates. No comes in with a wave of experimental noise before revealing itself to be a vast cinematic piece that could have soundtracked any Cold War movie.

The fact that every single note on Sulk matters, and that it is still the most extravagant, joyous, indulgent (in a good way), downright weird and most important pop record ever made, more than a quarter of a century after its making. Everything about this song has me transfixed, it did from the very first time I heard it and it still does to this day. O.Rang (5) 13th Floor Elevators (2) 1960s (45) 1970s (115) 1980s (198) 1990s (70) 2-Tone (5) 2000s (66) 2010s (47) 28th Day (1) 4AD (22) A. So there'd be a seven-inch metal snare drum as the snare and a five-inch copper snare as one of the toms, and then maybe a real deep nine-inch black beauty made out of ebony as another tom-tom. Growing up in the 1980s, a much derided decade, I've always been an advocate of pop: it's not a dirty word!

It’s like when you stick your hand out the window of a car and you’re going between 55 and 65 miles an hour and you clutch the air. Speaking to NME at the time of the album's release about the band's biggest hit single, Mackenzie said, "'Party Fears' could be about a whole lot of things. Next up come the two UK hit singles Partyfearstwo and Club Country, both of which had legendary appearances on Top of the Pops, the former opens with Eno-like ambience before that sublime piano-refrain comes in. Party Fears Two", in particular, is such an awesome single and its performance so daring and singular, that merely thinking about it is enough to make my skin tingle. The sonic approach to that record – start with the hook, throw in the kitchen sink and keep on building – suggests it could have been a victim of the production excesses which have rendered so many 1980s pop records unlistenable.