Oh dear! Suddenly I've found myself not having posted for 3 days. This week seems to have flown by. Anyhow, I want to start a couple of blog entries under the umbrella title of 'b'sides since 1990. And today I want to share a couple of my favourite tracks from the early part of this period. I say 'b' sides in the loosest sense of the word, of course, because the CD revolution seemed to have disposed of the flip side in favour of either:(a) Some ridulous set of remixes by people I've never heard of bearing stupid names like 'DJ Spongebob' or 'Hell Boy' etc. (They also have equally ridiculous names like the 'upside down, inside out mix' or 'Osram lightbulb mix').
(b) 'Live' versions at some dingy club in backwatersville.
(c) An 'EP' featuring maybe one good track and then two fillers that give the word 'filler' a bad name.
The first track is from The Manics 1994 release of She is Suffering. Taken from the album The Holy Bible you might argue that this was the last great Manics album. While I can't say I care for the live version of Suedes The Drowners that pads out the single (see (b) above) - I do like this track:
Manic Street Preachers - Love Torn Us Under (mp3)
The second item is from shoegazing favourites Ride. With one or exceptions I think a lot of the early 90's 'wall of sound' stuff has weathered very poorly. But Ride, My Bloody Valentine and to a lesser extent Chapterhouse all produced some worthy songs. Especially the ones where the vocals were not put so far back in the mix to be unintelligible. The 'b' side is from the 1992 single 'Leave Them All Behind'.
Ride - Grasshopper (mp3)
Buy Manics stuff here and read about the upcoming tour here
Buy Ride here
2 comments:
I once had a daft name....Fatboy Jim, The PunkSoul Brother. My sidekick was DJ Saddo. We played together at a friends 40th birthday party....
The regular DJ whose equipment we were using was appalled with what we played. the birthday boy and most of his guests liked it.
It is a rare, rare thing to find a band that does good b-sides these days. I find that if I find one that does then I tend to buy every single the band ever release.
What stopped me was having to buy three versions of the same bloody single just to accumulate all the b-sides.
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