431. Kaiser Chiefs – “Employment”

As mentioned somewhere else here, I have shown sporadic interest in bands who might fall under the Britpop banner.

I was an enthusiastic fan(to varying degrees) of the Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets and the Wonderstuff .  I did own some Blur on cassette, and eventually picked up some Oasis.

I less au fait with the more recent aspirants to Britpop royalty. I missed the Arctic Monkeys bus somewhat. I was there early on for the Kaiser Chiefs however.  Perhaps it was their clever decision to name themselves after a South African soccer franchise, but mostly likely it was the gushing praise they received in the press upon birth.

The praise was justified, as these guys cornered the market for wryly intelligent power pop for a few moments, conjuring up images of the Kinks, along with their more recent brethren.  The songs go well with a pint, and would get many a bad-haircutted pasty lad onto a dancefloor:

As is often the case with debuts, this CD has an abundance of clever, original singles.  Indeed, a more experienced or jaded band might have spread the ideas more thinly from song to song. Oh My God is a surprisingly slow build single for example:

There’s enough on this album to reignite a British bromance…

File under: Good job lads

408. Inspiral Carpets – “Life”

For a brief period in late 1989 and early 1990, I was a card-carrying member of the Madchester mob.

Egged on by NME and RRR’s “New, Used & Abused” programme, I faithfully acquired LPs, 12″s and even t-shirts from a raft of British bands fronted by moptopped types.

While my first love was definitely the Stone Roses lads, the work of The Inspiral Carpets left a greater impression than most of their other contemporaries.

I point the finger of blame at Clint Boon, the guy squelching away on the organ and lifting each track into a more vital and exciting place than they probably would be if solely reliant on the more typical guitars etc.

Having said that, lead singer Tom Hingley has a voice very well suited to this genre, and he plays off against said organ lines very well.

The passage of time has not harmed the aural power of this album, and I’ve relished the revisit… but looking at this video-clip I do question what I was thinking when I thought these guys had some sort of sartorial smarts:

Perhaps they were taking fashion tips from the great Emo Phillips:

File under: Life with a pudding bowl haircut