Hot Rox Avec Lying Sweet Talk: Northern Britain is the Place I Come From

By attending that wedding ten years ago yesterday, I missed seeing Radiohead and Teenage Fanclub at the Warfield one night later (ten years ago today). Back then, both bands had just put out new albums (OK Computer and Songs From Northern Britain), and it sounded like a fairly compatible pairing, but the two albums met different fates after their release.

OK Computer was instantly hailed as a masterpiece, the greatest album since electricity, and it was obvious that Radiohead would soon be graduating above Warfield-sized venues. Songs From Northern Britain was met with a collective shrug of "they're still around?" from the general public, and dismissive two-star reviews from publications like Rolling Stone. It was like the old big thing versus the new big thing.

In the early 1990s, Teenage Fanclub was the band being hailed with huzzahs. Bandwagonesque was SPIN's 1991 album of the year (despite a dismissive two-star review in RS) , and the Fannies (I hate that nickname!) were on the verge of being the next big thing. And they would have made it if those meddling grunge kids Nirvana didn't beat them to it!

Teenage Fanclub made a few more great albums after that, and Norman, Raymond, and Gerard all progressed as songwriters, but their ongoing consistency killed their indie cred as the decade progressed, until SPIN's 1991 "band of the year" didn't even gain an entry in SPIN's 1995 Alternative Music Guide. Their profile was at an extremely low point in July 1997.

In 1960s terms, OK Computer was Sgt. Pepper's while Songs From Northern Britain was the Band's Music From Big Pink. not an album that changes the world, just one that makes it a better place. In the past ten years, I've probably played OK Computer around 20-25 times (roughly twice a year. I play most album zero times each year, so that's above average). It's clearly a great album and a masterpiece, but it's something I have to be in the mood to hear, and have 48 minutes of downtime to hear it.

In that same time, I've played Songs For Northern Britain more than 200 times (roughly ten times a year). That doesn't mean that it's ten times better than OK Computer, just that I find myself in the mood to hear it ten times more often. For me, it's like being in the mood to make kung pao chicken versus being in the mood to breathe.

The album's reputation got a boost when Nick Hornby included two of its songs ("Your Love is the Place I Come From" and "Ain't That Enough" ) in Songbook, his compilation of essays on different songs. In one essay, he compares "Ain't That Enough" to Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop".

"Frankie Teardrop" is ten-and-a-half minutes of genuinely terrifying industrial noise, a sort of aural equivalent of Eraserhead. Teenage Fanclub's "Ain't That Enough" on the other hand, is a three-minute blast of Byrdsian pop, packed with sunshine and hooks and harmonies and goodwill.
I like the Teenage Fanclub song better.

Now that I've heard "Frankie Teardrop", I agree with Nick, and also like "Ain't That Enough" better. In short, I need more sunshine, hooks, and harmonies, and less terrifying industrial noise. Hornby's essay on "Your Love Is The Place I Come From" talked about his need for hopeful music, and songs don't come any more hopeful than that. It's a teenage love letter, dangling preposition and all.

Here are three songs from the album, both of Hornby's selection plus "I Don't Want Control Of You". This is one song by each of the songwriter (Gerard Love, Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley), but everyone sings so well together and the songs are all so consistently great that it's hard to tell who wrote what without checking the credits.

Teenage Fanclub - Three Songs from Northern Britain