Review:

on 2011-03-04 CharlesMartel Said:

I have previously obtained a sampler album , one of those features which used to be quite common in the late seventies and early eighties, whereby labels would issue cheap vinyls with single tracks by a variety of different artists signed to the label as a taster. The first one, "Long Shots, Dead Certs and Odds-On Favourites" was actually fine collection of songs in its own right. Like that album, I did not pay for this one either - I think I won it in a radio competition in Bristol. Given that it came out at the height of the post-punk era, one might have expected that, given my musical taste, this would be the better of the two.

However, it would prove impossible, in the battle of the samplers, to top the earlier disk. "Pillows and Prayers" is definitely the weaker of the two. It has to be said that it is not that great a compilation. Yet, it has often gone down as being one of the best of all such sampler compilations of its, or any other era. It is strange then that I do not rate it so highly.

The Cherry Red label was (is) an independent label which signed a stable of artists who, at their time, were a mix of various types of indie, some new wave and a few acts who had been around a long time. This album featured a few artists who were to go on and make a name for themselves later - Everything But The Girl and Felt for example. But most of the bands and artists showcased on this album have disappeared pretty much without trace, though some like Kevin Coyne had been around for a while before and would last a while after and achieve some sort of cult status among devotees. As for the post punk element of it, well there are a number of post-punk bands on here, but none of them really rattled my cage in any significant way. The Monochrome Set, Five or Six and Eyeless in Gaza were all acts I had previously heard of but had felt no reason to explore.

Few of the tracks here are memorable. Some of the electronic pieces, such as those by Joe Crow and the Passage are okay, and the quieter pieces by Tracey Thorn, Ben Watt and Everything but the Girl (i.e. Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt combined) are pleasant without being anything else. That is a disappointment. In many ways it comes across as easy listening for people who do not want to think too much and who have a high tolerance for what is after all fairly mediocre indie early 1980's music. It is hard to get worked up about it and hard to find anything positive to say about the whole album. Unlike the other compilation sampler I have, none of the tracks in here rank among my top 500 songs of all time and none of them inspired me, even for a moment, to go out and explore any of the artists here any further.

Perhaps the three tracks which are worthy of some further note are those by Attila The Stockbroker, Quentin Crisp and Piero Milesi. The first is a monologue in the John Cooper Clarke style, a funny story about being threatened in a chip shop. But whereas Cooper Clarke could always keep a straight face, Attila could not and the monologue suffers by trying to be overly funny. The other spoken word track, by Quentin Crisp, a flamboyant homosexual and author of "The Naked Civil Servant" is notable only for it being by Quentin Crisp. Finally, Piero Milesi's contribution is an extract from his much longer ambient-electronic work, "Modi 2". Hardly a stunning recommendation all round then.
Rating: 3/10