Bone Rolling Reviews 18 – Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque
Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 4 – 2 – 3.
Result: Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub.
Making good on the promises made by their debut, A Catholic Education, Teenage Fanclub created one of the few timeless classics of the 90s alt-rock heyday. Aptly—and cheekily—titled, Bandwagonesque has weathered better than many of its trendsetting counterparts. Time and distance set it apart from the glut of post-Nirvana bandwagon jumpers revealing it to be a truly enjoyable set of fuzzed-out, Big Star and Byrds-inspired pop-rock ditties in its own right.
I remember being lukewarm on the album at the time of its release. I was a bit of a Cohen/Dylan snob at the time and the idea of a song repeating the one line “what you do to me” offended my lyrical sensibilities. I also found the feedback noise of tracks like “Satan” to be contrived and half-assed. I now think both are, if not brilliant po-mo statements on popular music, excellent examples of what a melodic-leaning rock’n'roll record should be. Infectious, rawkus, sloppy and finely crafted, it’s perhaps the definitive time-capsule of alternative rock circa 1991.
Over the years my “meh” feelings towards the album have slowly transformed into a begrudging appreciation and then into respect and even awe. Where Nevermind, Copper Blue and Dirty have started (or some time ago began) to sound like dated relics of the era, Bandwagonesque keeps getting better. It has even somehow remained relatively fresh sounding.
It could be due in part to their devotion to their classic-rock influences. Most of the songs on the album wouldn’t sound out of place played by a Neil Young or an Alex Chilton but with Kevin Shields snuck into their backing band.
I think that’s really the secret of the album’s success. Though it’s called Bandwagonesque, Fanclub aren’t really bandwagon jumpers. They didn’t write songs to specifically fit the alt-rock format, they wrote timelessly great, sticky, pop-rock songs (“The Concept“, “Alcoholiday“, “December“) which just happened to be produced with enough feedback, fuzzy distortion and washed-out noise to fit in with the day’s fashions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Put in human terms, Bandwagonesque is like that wallflower in your freshman French class you ignore, who blooms in senior year, becomes the queen of the prom and you spend the rest of your life secretly devoted to. Only I’m not secretly devoted to this album, I’m quite public about my love for it. In many ways this is the “first love” I judge all new noise-pop records against.
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6 Comments | Comments RSS
That’s some classic alternative right there. Played that damn CD out my freshman year of college.
I had the cassette in my freshman year. I was convinced the tone bend at the end of “Alcoholiday” (?) was a pressing flaw until I bought the CD years later.
This album was in the final shortlist of 3 for my album of the week choice in a couple of weeks. I’ll cross it off now!!
Perfect album, never tire of listening to it. In my humble opinion, it’s British indie’s greatest achievement.
Ironic, that when it was released The Fannies were called unimaginative for “ripping off Big Star/The Byrds” and just a couple of years later Suede, then Oasis were “The future of British rock”!
I’m also a massive fan of their “Grand Prix” album which is less noise and more pop.
I’d love to see this pop up for Albumoftheweek! I’ve never really paid attention to this band because they seemed a boring radio thing. Maybe I haven’t heard the right songs.
Thanks for putting me onto this , it has been on heavy rotation this week , everything falls into place when you hear it.
Glad you’re enjoying it Rob. Isn’t it great when a band/album you’d previously dismissed turns out to be really good?
Now you’re listening to “Bandwagonesque” I won’t be feeling guilty when I don’t make it my album of the week!