Friday, September 10, 2004
The Sun Is Often Out

Sometimes it's the things or the people who could have been or should have been that are a lot more interesting than those who are.Your first love,the beautiful girl/handsome guy you see everyday but never had the chance to talk to,the overseas posting you were given but rejected are but examples among numerous others.In music,there are also its fair share of could have beens and should have beens:Nick Drake,Jeff Buckley and to a certain extent,the short lifespan of Nirvana,whose revival of punk led to the abysmal likes of Green,Sum 41 and various other bands with numerics in their names.The ashes of Britpop and the nonsensical New Wave Of New Wave movement also left its share of casualties,although I'm not particularly enamoured of this period of British rock.Too much rubbish came out to ride on the popularity of this fab.Out of this period also rose the three biggies:Oasis,Blur and Pulp.The Longpigs came out during the end of Britpop and never quite managed to ride on the coattails of this musical fab.And they were a mess as well.But what a glorious mess.I am writing a review of their 1996 debut:The Sun Is Often Out for this post.They only ever made 1 other album,the 1999 followup,Mobile Home.And they never made it big although they dented the Brit charts from time to time.A could-have been.Or a should-have been.

I'd have to make a qualifier as to why I liked them above Oasis and Blur...but not Pulp.Pulp is glorious.I loved Oasis's debut,Definitely Maybe.It was a breath of fresh and brash air at a time when Brit rock was posing more than rocking...refer to Suede (although I liked early Suede whne Bernard Butler was still in the band,sample Animal Nitrate.Pure melodic bliss.Rubbish lyrics)and the shoegazer bands.But they then became a poor imitation of themselves after Morning Glory when they became too big for themselves.I never appreciated the Britness of Blur and their arty fartiness.But they were good songsmiths and knew how to craft good pop songs.Until they decided to go all weird and sacked Graham Coxon.Now,they're just Damon Albarn's sideshow monkeys.As for Pulp,their standard never did slip really.As good today as they were before.But without the everyday "Common People" sensibility and replaced by pop star angst.They still stayed mostly true to themselves and for that reason alone,I like them a lot.The Longpigs,they married great singalong melodies with some fine lyrics.And they could play quite a bit too.I will have to admit I liked their sound an awful lot.

The Longpigs broke through in 1996 with the poppy The Sun Is Often Out.I don't know how many copies it sold but they are no Oasis in terms of sales.Beginning with their first single Far,I liked them from then on.Far was a glorious piece of clanking garage melody.Not a lot of you would have heard it but some of you may like it if you heard it though.There were various other songs on this album which operates on much the same loud,boisterous sound:Lost Control,She Said and Jesus Christ.The softer moments included the touching ballad On and On(which by the way was featured on the MI2 soundtrack)and Dozen Wicked Words.Both are great ballads that deserve a wider audience although knowing my bias,I would argue the same for The Longpigs as a whole.Not just certain songs.

To do a review of an album that's almost 10 years old is more than a little dated but it's still better late than never.At least people who have never heard of them might be aware of them now.And to be honest,it's also because I can't get excited about most rock bands these days because they are assembly line carbon copys.Standard issue angst like Linkin Park.One exception is BRMC.Check them out if you want.It's funny when one of the best bits of music I heard this year is from 80s rap greats,Beastie Boys but I won't review them.Keane is pleasant too but is not rock per se.The lumping of all band music into one big "Alternative" branch is one of the most idiotic things I have ever seen the music industry do...besides tackling online music file sharing through lawsuits.

Some critics used to say that The Pigs(I decided to shorten it from Longpigs as it's more tedious to type)were too melodic and poppy for their own good.Funny they never made it big then.And they haven't written their best song(my opinion) yet as well.That'd be The Frank Sonata from the second album.Anyway,their words were always too edgy to be a mainstream band.Their angst a little too articulated.People can't take anything less direct than Linkin Park these days and that's a pity.I don't even know what the band is up to now because there have not been any reports of them.Well,it's just another day in the life of an indie band then.Form and then play and then get a cult following and then record an album or two and then break up and then become newspaper delivery boys.

In truth,there are a million and one bands out there,which probably deserves attention but never gets any.The Pigs are but just one of them.There is about a hundred other bands and albums I could bring out to attention though it'd be extremely tedious.So it ends here.