By virtue of the fact that it is a little bit different, this, the follow up to "Novocaine For The Soul" gets the top slot this week. Featuring a
spoken word monologue over a heavy drum and (double) bass backing, and a sung chorus over a sample from an old Gladys Knight And
The Pips song, this sounds like a song David Lynch would make a film out of, especially as the lyrics deal with the Underbelly Of America (tm).
Not brilliant, it is nevertheless effective and still stands out this week.
"Stepmother" is the first b-side and opens with the line "your stepmother hates my guts" and goes downhill from there. Remaining
extra track is "Manchester Girl", a piano-led ballad. Eels seem to be one of those bands that have good singles, yet b-sides (and I'm
assuming LP tracks) are pretty poor. Still, a damn good single.
Rating: 8/10
The Rest
Old-fashioned (i.e. it sounds a bit like Nirvana) it may be, but "Sink To The Bottom" is still a shiny thing. Using the
old grunge standby of quiet verse and loud chorus filled with guitars, it is still effective due to the fact it revolves around a catchy hook.
I've heard better and I've heard worse, and this sort of stuff should really be dead and buried by now, but it still strikes a (power) chord.
The first b-side "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" overshadows the main track with its foggy production and scuzzy guitars swathed
over a beautifully harmonic song but the other extra track "Kid Gloves" is best forgotten, as it sounds like the sort of song that would
feature on the Friends soundtrack LP.
Rating: 8/10
This offering from lanky drug-addled space cadet Bobby Gillespie and his band (now with added
Mani) sees the band back on full-on dance trip mode. Featuring whispered vocals from Commander Bobski as he floats around the inside of his own
head on a voyage of discovery, "Kowalski" is a big slab of trancey dub with smatterings of Chemical Brothers-like samples punctuating
the track like gunfire. Perhaps trying just that little bit too hard to be hip (Kowalski was some character from an old 70s underground
road movie), this is no classic like "Loaded" was - indeed in this post-Chemicals and Underworld age, it's not that remarkable at all.
But hey, Bobby takes lots of drugs so this must be good, right..?
B-sides are quite bizarre. "96 Tears" (originally by ? And The Mysterons) is vitually unrecognisable in its new drum n bass clothes and
"Know Your Rights" (a Clash song) sounds like Happy Mondays. The EP closes with the Automator Mix of "Kowalski" and is a bit...well,
boring really.
Rating: 6/10
Very nearly a good song, this is so dated and past its sell-by date even the shoddiest of corner shops would refuse to stock it. Back to the
bedroom, Steven.
The b-sides open with "Death Of The Neighbourhood II", a string-heavy instrumental that sounds like incidental music from a
bad art movie. Next up is "Shop Girl", a song where Jones has had the bizarre and quite stupendously bad idea to treat his vocals so
that he sounds like a clever-clever smurf. That'll be Pap Smurf then. Last up is the original 1991 demo of "You're Gorgeous", Baby
Bird's only good song.
Rating: 5/10
Oh bloody hell. This is awful. Why oh why oh why do little insignificant indie bands believe they are so smug and clever that they can
get away with writing patronising drivel like this about the "common people"? Do Spice Girls write songs about pale students with bad
skin that have never had sex?? Do Boyzone have a song called "Indie Twat"?? No. So why do bands like My Life Story (and Blur, who
are notoriously guilty of this) trot out nonsense like this? Bah. And it has the audacity to rhyme "marzipan" with "temazepan" in an
attempt to be as clever as Blur's "balzac/Prozac" couplet. Prats.
The b-sides are horrible slices of - no doubt hugely ironic - poppy rubbish. Go away. Go far far away.
Rating: 1/10
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