I’ve enjoyed the ‘24 Songs’ project of 12 singles this year, 30 years after ‘The Hit Parade.’
And this, another Wedding Present Christmas song for the collection, is a highlight. Love when the guitars kick in.
Viewing entries tagged
wedding present
2016, despite being 2016, was a pretty good year for music.
In reverse order, my fave 50 albums:
50 Savages - Adore Life
49 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree
48 Weaves - Weaves
47 Wye Oak - Tween
46 Invisible Boy - Invisible Boy
45 AlunaGeorge - I Remember
44 The Joy Formidable - Hitch
43 All Saints - Red Flag
42 Blood Orange - Freetown Sound
41 Boys Noize - Mayday
40 Eliot Sumner - Information
39 Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits
38 Honeyblood - Babes Never Die
37 Katy B - Honey
36 Nice As Fuck - Nice as Fuck
35 Solange - A Seat at the Table
34 Sleigh Bells - Jessica Rabbit
33 Still Corners - Dead Blue
32 Warpaint - Heads Up
31 David Bowie - Blackstar
30 Banks - The Altar
29 Emma Pollock - In Search of Harperfield
28 Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked for Death
27 Frank Ocean - Blonde
26 Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker
25 Dinosaur Jr. - Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not
24 Jimmy Eat World - Integrity Blues
23 Bat For Lashes - The Bride
22 Tegan and Sara - Love You To Death
21 Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers - The Way It Is 2016
20 Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion Side B
19 The Frank And Walters - Songs For The Walking Wounded
18 Haley Bonar - Impossible Dream
17 Kate Tempest - Let Them Eat Chaos
16 The Anchoress - Confessions Of A Romance Novelist
15 Bob Mould - Patch The Sky
14 Bon Iver - 22, A Million
13 Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
12 Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers - Rehab Reunion
11 Minor Victories - Minor Victories
10 Mitski - Puberty 2
Your Best American Girl is already an indie classic but there’s much more than that here.
9 Beyoncé - Lemonade
Another remarkable achievement.
8 Angel Olsen - My Woman
Her most absorbing album yet.
7 Daughter - Not To Disappear
Initial disappointment that this didn’t move on much from the (albeit excellent) sound of their debut now more than compensated by repeat listening. A grower.
6 Låpsley - Long Way Home
Everything about this album made sense when I saw Låpsley live this year. What a talent.
5 School of Seven Bells - SVIIB
The perfect, bittersweet farewell.
4 Shura - Nothing’s Real
Every single track’s a banger.
3 Poliça - United Crushers
Three albums in from my favourite band and I’m yet to hear a song I don’t love to bits. I saw them 4 times this year and wished it had been more.
2 Rihanna - ANTI
Intriguing on first listen and still revealing gems nearly a year on. In years to come ANTI is going to be revered as a masterpiece. People hating on Work could not be more wrong either.
1 The Wedding Present - Going, Going…
I’d fallen a bit out of love with The Wedding Present over the last decade. 2008’s El Rey and 2012’s Valentina had their moments but were disappointing. The subsequent “Cinerama” reworking of Valentina into an atrocious lounge jazz / easy listening / big band thing was so awful it was the first album I’ve thrown away and deleted from my library for years.
My expectations for Going Going… were therefore pretty low. The idea of 20 tracks at 1 hour and 20 minutes starting with 4 (FOUR!) lyric free moody instrumentals was going to be horrendous. A conceptual piece, based on a US road trip with videos for each song just made it sound worse.
Yet. Here we are.
Despite including the most diabolical song The Wedding Present have ever recorded (Secretary) it’s my album of the year.
It’s gorgeous. The production sounds like the Wedding Present again.
There are so many moments in an album that showcases Gedge’s talent for storytelling, melody and emotion but I’ll just comment on the last two songs, which are my favourites.
Gedge’s love of the pop song and knack for classic songwriting was honed in the (proper) Cinerama years, and reached a peak for me in the gorgeous Perfect Blue from 2004’s return of the Wedding Present. I didn’t think he could match those moments again. He has. Rachel is melodic, sentimental, and just utterly joyous.
You might not top Rachel as an the album’s indie pop banger but you can follow it with the perfect album closer.
Santa Monica is magnificent. It is the most affecting song David Gedge has ever recorded.
The sense of finality is unavoidable:
It’s the last track of an album titled “Going, Going…”. It feels so much like he’s revisiting the last song (Octopussy) from his best album (1991’s Seamonsters). In the lyrics he also references a song from George Best, the first album.
Then there’s the last line. Oh boy, that last line.
I hope this doesn’t mark the end of The Wedding Present but if it is what a way to go out.
30) The Sundays - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990)
Someone wrote a pisstake letter to Melody Maker thanking the Sundays for recording a bunch of Smiths songs in a different key so they could sing along. lol.
Imagine if they did come back, though and Harriet didn't have that hairstyle. That wouldn't do.
29) Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle (1979)
One of the first albums I adored.
28) Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (2008)
'Experimental electronica' is a nonsense phrase but kind of works for Crystal Castles. They were fabulous live.
27) Oasis - Definitely Maybe (1994)
A lot of Oasis songs have been horrendous. All Beady Eye songs are horrendous. The brothers are often dicks. This leads to a lot of revisionism about early Oasis. I'm not having it. For the 2 years leading up to Knebworth in 1996, they were the most exciting band we had.
Great memories of attending the shoot for this Rock N Roll Star video in Southend.
26) R.E.M. - Murmur (1983)
It began here.
25) Ian Brown - Unfinished Monkey Business (1998)
When the Stone Roses split I was convinced Squire was the star to follow going forward. Then he gave me The Seahorses, and later his own awful solo albums which were even worse. I bet on the wrong horse.
When Brown released his solo debut, it pissed on The Seahorses in every conceivable way. 'My Star' remains one of my favourite ever Ian Brown related things, of which there are many.
24) Bruce Hornsby & The Range - The Way It Is (1986)
Because every list needs their 80s American Classic Rock.
Billy Joel was the reason I started to love playing the piano. Bruce Hornsby is the reason I continued. The master.
23) Madness - One Step Beyond…(1979)
At school, this was the band everyone liked.
22) Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome (1984)
With it's bonkers concept, extra long mixes and an oddly out of place but surprisingly good Springsteen cover, this is far more rewarding 30 years on than it should be.
A marvellous, unique band.
21) The Wedding Present - George Best (1987)
The band I've seen live more than any other. There would be far better stuff to come but so much jangly of its time indieness to enjoy here.
Footage from At The Edge Of The Sea - David Gedge's curated festival, which is now an annual late summer event in Brighton, opened by Cinerama and closed by The Wedding Present.
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, is a devoted fan of The Wedding Present, the Leeds indie guitar band whose songs of unrequited love led critics to hail them as natural successors to The Smiths in the late 80s. Ms Creasy reserves a special place in her heart for Seamonsters, the band’s 1991 album, an unflinching collection of songs detailing the bitterness and recrimination of relationships gone wrong, set to a backdrop of grunge-era distorted guitars. In what appears to have been a cathartic experience, Ms Creasy, a rising Labour star, has written an extended essay to accompany a vinyl 10” edition of the classic album, released next Monday.
Unexpected.
David Gedge:
Well I think the current band actually do Seamonsters better than the original line up. There’s no baggage or having to worry about being originally on it. It’s just timing really, there’s been quite a few changes and this Wedding Present is certainly rockier than what you may have seen four years ago or so.
He's not wrong. The current lineup is exceptional.
Last night's show at Cambridge was the best I've ever heard those songs.
The Wedding Present's 'Seamonsters' tour ends this week. It is my favourite album of all time and the band play it entirely, in sequence, at these shows. I'm going to see them again tomorrow in Camden. If you can, you should too.