Since it’s the weekend, here’s a tiny, tiny quiz.
Here’s an extract from a review in the NME.
No clues: no year, no journalist name…
Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“So effortless, they sound as though they could do it sleeping, blindfolded, one hand tied behind their backs…it’s very, very boring. Their accountants will be pleased.”
Dark Side of the Moon ?
Coldplay – Parachutes
This is going to be fun!
I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s not what I first suspect. Probably an artist like Anal Cunt, Melt Banana or You will know us by the trail of dead.
But I will play safe.
My first guess: Genesis- And then there were three.
Hotel California?
A Pet Shop Boys album?
PSBs always got good reviews in NME. They were lukewarm about Actually but as I remember that was the reviewer getting a bit pissy with the cleverness of the lyrics, which let’s face it isn’t for everyone.
Restricting your contributions to commentary, Moose?
No cap br
Eh?
Get with it, grandad!
Go away, you small boys!
But the PSBs said it themselves: they were never being boring
Dire Straits – On Every Street. That’s a very boring album.
Just saw an article where Knopfler said it was the only album of theirs he could listen to.
Beatles
The only bad review the Fabs have had in there was for Anthology 1 which was memorably headlined “Twist and Shite”.
The 1987 CDs didn’t get reviewed at all, of course, but they generally didn’t review reissues then.
Something by the Fleetwood mac.tango in the night?
Is it Charles Shaar Murray on 10CC’s The Original Soundtrack?
I’m with Carl here – I think this is a strong contender.
It’s also a great album, but hey, the NME knew FA about music.
The record company did get lazy and slept through their own quality control when the CD came out – my copy has the album name on the spine as ‘The Origunal Soundtrack’.
Hi Vulpes I am with you – it is a great album.
One night in Paris was their masterpiece.
I would also go with Pink Floyd, but later than Dark Side of the Moon. Either A Momentary Lapse of Reason or Delicate Sound of Thunder (I’m nodding off even as I write these titles down).
I think they gave Momentary Lapse 2/10. Division Bell did better… it got 3.
You were soooo close…
Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms
It’s only a daft/fun question, and I’m sure nobody wants it to drag on for too long: however, I have to step out for an hour or so. Therefore, I’ll reveal all when I return…
…then I’ll provide the correct answer! Boom-tish!
“Nobody wants it to drag on for too long”??
Of course we do! This will keep us busy all weekend.
My second guess. Troutmask Replica. I’m sure the Captain’s accountants were delighted about that.
Yes, that’s true about the accountants but there is no way Zoot Horn Rollo etc “could do it sleeping, blindfolded, one hand tied behind their backs”. And it’s not boring!
If I’ve shut it down too quickly, @Kaisfatdad, feel free to start another!
It can be a weekend wonder!
Hoop-La! Oink! Oink! (Oh, hang on – that was Uncle Frank, not the good Captain…)
Could it be The Clash? Sandinista?
The Stones maybe? Goats Head Soup? I can’t remember how the NME reviewed it but I do remember they had an all time 100 greatest album poll and ran a competition for the best written reader’s suggestion for number 100 – the winner made a case for its being GSH.
I remember it well, being a superfan of The Goat. A young lady won all hundred albums nominating GSH. She couldn’t write about anything else. It was the only LP she owned.
As I recall they allocated position 100 to Tubular Bells, simply on the weight of votes, but gave the prize to the reviewer of GHS.
The Power Station or Avalon by Roxy Music?
Avalon is the 4th best Roxy album!
It’s not my review, dude! I inputted “effortless” and “accountants” and those were the two albums my computer spat out..
Arf!
The Effortless Accountants – TMFTL
Dire, Dire Straits – shoo in
Controversial. Edgy. That’s you.
Blue and lonesome
Simply Red Stars
The Police – Zenyatta Mondatta
Any of Kraftwerk’s last three studio albums?
Maybe “Some Girls” by the Stones?
Milli Vanilli? Certainly ‘effortless’ on their part, and made their accounts very happy.
*Accountants*
Ladies and gentlemen: the reveal.
It was a review of Pink Floyd – The Division Bell, by Tommy Udo, in the NME April 1994.
Some interesting suggestions above – but did the NME ever criticise The Clash?
Fair comment really.
Yep…
Wait – I’m confused – it was a Pink Floyd review of Tommy Udo’s The Division Bell?
Exactly that!
This is disconcerting – I’ve been wearing the t-shirt of life back to front …
@fitterstoke
At the very start of their career, seem to recall CSM making a joke along the lines of the Clash’s take on garage rock being best heard with the garage doors closed
That’s funny – but I’m still shocked and stunned…
Mind you, CSM would have known Strummer from the 101ers – maybe he expected pub rock!
My favourite CSM review was his Mojo Masterpiece screed for “Be Here Now” where he babbled on at length about how fantastic it was without apparently having heard it yet. Similarly, Julie Burchill’s gushing egg-on-face “review” of “Radio Ethiopia”, obviously written before she’d heard a note of it. Happy days!
Julie Burchill wouldn’t have wanted to sully the “almost painful authenticity” of her thought process with anything as mundane as actually listening to the review subject. Or would she?
Where did Burchill review it? It wasn’t in the NME.
That was another CSM review, because they famously took a quote from it for the subsequent advertising.
He didn’t like it at all, and trashed it. His final line was the sarcastic It should go gold.
This was then picked up by the record company.
@Carl
Serve him right for his smart arse one word dismissal of Lee Hazelwood’s Poet, Fool or Bum?
Thanks – that was fun! I had guessed PSB as well because I thought they were hinting at one-handed synth playing.
I believe NME had several pops at The Clash. There were definitely Clash naysayers around at the time, based on who knows what – could be anything.
Yeah, good point. The NME scribes didn’t always need a valid reason for taking a pop at someone…
Anyone got another quote and we can run it again?
Okay – who did they describe as “the man making one of the most interesting noises in the hit parade”? (I’ve nuanced the quote a little to prevent googling).
Come on! Come on!
Do you wanna be in my gang?
Nah. And nope. There’s a clue in the term “hit parade”, which carbon- dates it
Taylor Swift ?
Obsessed. You think you’re Billy Big Balls with this oh-so-humorous comment. You and your oh-so-phisticated acolytes should be shot in front of your families.
Joe Meek?
Well done! Given so little in the way of a clue, your answer is as imaginative as it is informed – also (*sadface*) wrong. But you’re right to focus on the noise element.
Sorry, HP, while I consider you a chum, I feel I really must call you out for your emotional appropriation of the term “sadface”.
In doing so you have succeeded in offending the many AWers, who for whatever reason, may be feeling slightly melancholic this Sunday morning.
Worse still, you have significantly added to the little black cloud of worries and woes that hovers over our various heads.
I can only say that I intended no offence – either personal or general – to the depressive diaspora and unreservedly apologise for the performative use of *sadface* with its implicit and toxic agenda of CHEER THE FUCK UP 😀😀😀😀😀😀
Charlie Drake. Or Rolf Harris.
Which, then? A wrong answer and you plummet through the trapdoor into a vat of Japanese tentacle goo.
I’ll say The Rolfster, as nobody ever called him.
Or tossed through a window made of real glass with a hardwood frame in Charlie D’s case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_WKGKZKXc
How much longer are you going to keep me dangling above the Japanese tentacle goo?
Sorry. Yes, you’re right, it’s loveable Aussie Cultural Ambassador Rolf Harris, being given the critical thumbs up for Sun Arise.
Donovan
Obssessed.