London 0 Hull 4
The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death
The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death (1987)
Talk about your serendipity. I would have never discovered this band if VH1 Classic hadn�t played their video for �Happy Hour� and hooked me in. Imagine four incredibly geeky looking young British lads dancing in a fluid snakelike movement inter cut with clay stop motion animation. Yes it is as awesome as you are thinking. Well that song is not on this album, their second of the two they ever did. Hopefully I can get that one at some point but this one was the only album I could find in the store so there. The music here is even better than their videos though. I�m estatic I found these guys and everyone owes it to themselves to hear them. Perfect pop with a message. Oh by the way, their bass player, Norman Cook, went on to be Fatboy Slim.
The set kicks off with the title track which sets venomous lyrics condemning the Queen of England against a light poppy background with nicely placed horns. Yay horns! Anyways �I Can�t Put My Finger On It� has the lead singer (Heaton I suppose, being the lazy person I am I didn�t bother to look this up) saying that phrase rapidly over the choruses while everyone else chimes in. It really is upbeat and is hooky. Well most of the lyrics on this record are a form of social protest I suppose, I mean I get some of them but you had to be really into mid 80s British politics in order to understand most of these references. You can be sure Margaret Thatcher is being abused in some fashion though. �The Light is Always Green� is a nice slow ballad with a nice melody in the chorus. �The World�s on Fire� is back to the more upbeat tunes and is an attack on the church. I love me some blasphemy...as long as its catchy! Love that high pitched wail on the word �fire� in the bridge. Oddly an instrumental is here called �Pirate Aggro� which sounds cool because it combines pirates and the AgroCrag from Nickelodeon GUTS in its title. It�s a bit of a toss away though even if the organ and harmonica interplay is nice. �We�re Not Going Back� ends the first side and I love the bass line on this and the nice harmony in the always catchy chorus.
�Me and the Farmer� is an allegory of a farmer fighting against the man which of course represents the dramatic tension in England in the 80s and the eternal class struggle. Coal Miners strikes and Falkland Wars and all that. Didn�t Ronnie and Marge make a nice couple though? Let FREEDOM RING! �Five Get Over Excited� is another rocker in the vein of the others on the album. Those backing vocals in the chorus are a nice touch. �I am Leo and I�m hilarious.� Truer words were never spoken. And is that a tuba? Rock on! Ah a quiet ballad appears with �Johannesburg� which is my favorite slow song off the album. It�s lyrics are biting on the apartheid situation in South Africa. How can one not appreciate the line �So please don't feel you have to sway/Or move away from how you feel/And please say what you mean to say/And always stay with a heart of steel.� I�ll add this to the good songs about apartheid pile along with Peter Gabriel�s �Biko.� Well �Bow Down� is a brilliant look at a young man who is confused with the world he has been thrown in to, and questions what his parents told him about how the world really is. As a college student I can relate. Dig the horns once again and the piano in the background is awesome. �You Better Be Doubtful� warns the people of Britain to be, well doubtful, and catalogues in an oblique manner the evils of British history. Nice repeating guitar line on this and of course catchy chorus. At the very end they place the longest song �Build� which is almost five minutes. �Build� is a slower piano driven song where the line �bah bah bah bah build� will be stuck in your head for days. Nothing like rallying against the evils of industrialization (1960s British urbanization? OK then) while being able to throw in competing vocals in the chorus! Yes that made no sense.
Final Comment: Insanely catchy, mostly obscure, biting lyrics, tight short songs with great melodies, crazy dancing Brits. What more can you want really? Well to be available in stores. Go get this.
Score: **** �
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