I’m very much enjoying the re-issued ‘Sulk’ by The Associates now sonically buffed up and presented on double CD with a bunch of excellent extra tracks, B-sides and demo versions. I know the singles but had never got around to getting that particular album – it is the very definition of a flawed masterpiece – the production is bizarre, busy and cluttered, there is some spectacularly bad drumming on it and even remastered it still sounds strangely murky and just sort of..wrong…and yet it also features a couple of chart hits (Party Fears Two and Country Club) and maybe the best way to hear these songs is on AM Radio half way up a ladder. It’s the sort of record that would give Steven Wilson a cold sweat, and yet it’s glorious. Makes me wonder if we worry too much about production techniques and rules about how things ‘should’ sound and just enjoy the oddness and idiosyncrasies of records like this.
The Associates
I remember when it came out someone in the NME saying it should have been called Swoon and the Prefab Sprout album called Sulk as the Assosciates record was so lushly, luxuriously produced!
I liked the singles but couldn’t get on with the album and only played it a couple of times. I was disappoint as I’d thought their previous album, the Affectionate Punch was wonderful.
I should give both a new listen.
Swapping album titles to fit more appropriately. That, my friend, is a thread idea right there..
The Affectionate Punch itself received a major makeover in the early 80s in the wake of their chart success, the effect of which was, I think, to make that record as ‘bizarre, busy and cluttered’ as Sulk.
I bought TAP when it came out in 1980 purely on the strength of Johnny Waller’s 10/10 review in Sounds, probably the only time I’ve ever bought a record completely ‘cold’. It took some getting into (I remember agonising about whether it was ‘new wave’ enough) but I still like it now. Transport to Central – that’s a song and a half.
I didn’t really take to Sulk in the same way, despite loving the Party Fears Two single. The song No (‘Tear a strip from your dress/Wrap my arms in it’) stands out for me the way Transport to Central did on the first one.
Re:”I bought TAP when it came out in 1980 purely on the strength of Johnny Waller’s 10/10 review in Sounds”
I did that, too!
I think it was available at a special low price for the first few weeks.
I’m glad I took a punt on it. Really good album. Favourite tracks: “Even Dogs in the Wild” and “A Matter of Gender”. Both fabuloso.
I only got to see the Associates live on one occasion. It was at the Hacienda in Manchester. I wasn’t sure that Billy McKenzie would be able to reproduce those incredible studio vocals in a live setting. But I needn’t have worried. He put in an incredible performance.
I’m a lazy music listener, If something doesn’t grab me early then I tend not to bother, music isn’t meant to be a chore. It’s why I’m partial to some fluff, 80’s instant pop nonsense is just fine with me, instant hooks and no effort needed. I knew of The Associates when I first heard Party Fears Two and Club Country but hearing CC and seeing Billy on TOTP it instantly became one of my favourite songs. I hovered up everything Associates I could find buying all their singles of a lad at college for £20. I listened and thought well ok, they were getting to Club Country and now it’s pop all the way. Then I excitedly brought Sulk and played it. Oh! Is that it? I remember it like yesterday. So for the one and only time in my life I invested real time and effort into forcing myself to listed and slowly but surely its sheer majesty, ingenuity, eccentricity and originality seeped into my soul. It’s a glorious, worth every minute listen. I have since made everything Billy touched a personal odyssey to enjoy however long it takes. Club Country is still one of my favourite songs, absolutely thrilling and Sulk is an album I treat myself to every once in a while I love it to bits.
It’s worth seeking out Billy at Ronnie Scotts performing some of the Sulk songs live too
Sunie’s regular reviews of the Associates in the Record Mirror was what got me into them – her vivid writings exciting my imagination of them before I had even heard them, enticing me to buy the Fourth Drawer Down single compilation. Tracks like Q Quarters, Tell Me Easter’s On Friday & Message Oblique Speech sounded like nothing on earth – still do.
That led me on to getting The Affectionate Punch, probably still my favourite album of theirs, with not a weak moment on it. My appetite for Sulk whetted by two magnificent singles and hearing the astonishing Skipping on the radio – if I’m honest, despite having some of their best ever moments, it’s a less consistent record for me, with No, Nude Spoons & Bap De La Bap sounding a bit half-baked to my ears. It’s a record I still have a lot of love for though.
The split seems somewhat inevitable in hindsight, though MacKenzie did produce one further cracker under the Associates banner, the highly underrated Perhaps (any album containing something as magnificent as Breakfast is worthy of your attention). Rankine released a couple of interesting solo records, (and produced the Cocteau Twins, making them sound like the Associates in turn), while MacKenzie continued to have flashes of inspiration – Baby, Ice Cream Factory, The Rhythm Divine (with Yello), Take Me To The Girl & Country Boy (from the unreleased until 2003 Glamour Chase) and most of the (sadly posthumous) Behind The Sun.
They were my band of the early 80s, in my mid to late teens, one that despite a brief period of commercial success, was destined to have only a small number of passionate followers.