Monday, July 8, 2019

The Auteurs - Now I'm a Cowboy (1994)


Top-shelf Britpop with a seething anger bubbling underneath at all times. Been on a bit of a Britpop kick of late, but since I pretty much only know the biggest names in the game, that means I've just been listening to His n Hers, Different Class, and Dog Man Star over and over. So hit me with them hidden gems plz.

Track listing:
1. Lenny Valentino
2. Brainchild
3. I'm a Rich Man's Toy
4. New French Girlfriend
5. The Upper Classes
6. Chinese Bakery
7. A Sister Like You
8. Underground Movies
9. Life Classes / Life Model
10. Modern History
11. Daughter of a Child

There's nothing wrong with inherited wealth
If you melt the silver yourself


You might also like:
The Beautiful South -
Welcome to the Beautiful South (1989)
The Tears -
Here Come the Tears (2005)

15 comments:

  1. Man, YOU are my source for hidden gems.. so how can we (readers-of-your-blog) possibly help you? :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. You might like 'Skin Touching Water' by Delicatessen from 1995 or 'The sound your eyes can follow' by Moonshake from 1994
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fatima Mansions 'Viva Dead Ponies' has to be up there for seething 90s perfection.
    Bit of a shame Haines and Coughlan have abandoned their seething for art house balladry these days.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey man, totally unrelated, but I'm a brazilian that really likes what you do here, which since I discovered it last year has become something like a map of sorts of musical explorations for me. Anyways, have you heard of João Gilberto's death? He was, for me and for many others, something like maybe one of our 2 or 3 greatest artists ever, and a magnificent being. I remember you posting something from Astrud, are you familiar with João also?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Navigator's 'Nostalgie' (1998) is surely a hidden gem.

    ReplyDelete
  6. i'm sure you have heard it but if you haven't mike paradinas' first album i think was "mu-ziq vs the auteurs" and it is one of the most beautiful albums ever made. also one of my favorite brit pop lesser known albums is Kitchens of Distinction - Strange Free World and The Boo Radleys - Everythings all right forever

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @julius orange

      That's funny, when I saw this Auteurs post the first thing I thought of was the Paradinas rework of The Auteurs - one of my favorite Paradinas/u-ziq releases! I was going to recommend it to D.S. (the blog owner) but now I don't have to ;) -Here's to great music!

      Delete
  7. Anything by Luke Haines, so Auteurs, Black Box Recorder, or his recent solo stuff. But the hidden gem you're asking for is Baader Meinhof. Also by Luke Haines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader_Meinhof_(album)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I mean, Supergrass is the cream of the crop for me. Super Furry Animals, The Bluetones, Ocean Colour Scene, The Coral, Shack, Michael Head. Not exactly "hidden" gems, though. Shack's album, Waterpistol is amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The Baader Meinhof album is definitely second only to 'After Murder Park' in the Haines oeuvre. You might like 'Pioneer Soundtracks' by Jack or 'Lorelei' by Monograph if I'm not too late to get your attention...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Check out Rialto, The Dandys, and Tiger.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anything by Space. Spiders, Tin Planet, Suburban Rock'n'Roll, Attack of the 50ft Mutant Kebab... kitschy electronic-infused madness, with an obsession with serial killers and true crime. Eclectic, too. They seem to attempt a different genre for each track on each album. Plus, if you see them live these days, they've inexplicably mutated into a psychobilly ska-punk revue.

    Also good as britpop goes:

    Sleeper (especially love their second album, The It Girl, which has Nice Guy Eddie, one of the best songs ever written).

    The Boo Radleys (it takes guts to call your album Giant Steps, but their opus is more than worthy).

    Lilys (may not have actually been British. But they pivoted from hazy shoegaze to crisp 60s-influenced pop for their 1996 album Better Can't Make You Better, and it's a gem).

    My Life Story (soaring symphonic love songs, with strings! Like, imagine if Brett Anderson had an orchestra instead of Bernard Butler, and a box of chocolates instead of heroin).

    Oh, and the solo albums by the Suede boys are very, very good. I particularly like Bernard Butler's People Move On (the track Stay is a masterpiece) and Brett Anderson's Black Rainbows (if you want pure pop goodness) or Slow Attack (if you want something more elegiac).

    Finally, they're not really britpop, but Super Furry Animals never recorded a bad song. Gruff Rhys's solo stuff is fantastic too, particularly his Hotel Shampoo album.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The La's - The La's. In the run up to Britpop, crossing over from Madchester. Lots of good recs on this page.

    Elastica - Elastica. Girl band at the height of Britpop. Crisp and punchy. Hardly a hidden gem for those at the time, but not much sighted these days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That Elastica record is so great. Pretty sure a lot of people think of them as a one-hit wonder, which is a real shame.

      Delete