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EDIT INFOTeenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
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Album Details
- Artist: Teenage Fanclub
- Album: Bandwagonesque
- Label: DGC
- Year of Release: 1991
- ME Rating: Indie Classic
- Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-04-01
RecommendThe comparisons to Big Star, I'm sure, may have pissed this group of 4 Scots right off but I don't think you could blatantly pull off an album like this without ever tipping you hat to Alex Chilton somewhat. Teenage Fanclub's second album, first for major label DGC, is a true testament to the heartfelt emotions that can be contained in jangly power pop. The start out the album with the sprawling epic "The Concept" which sets the pace for the rest of the album. They wank a bit on the following track "Satan" Dino Jr style but they swing right back into the picture perfect power pop world with "December" and don't let up until it's over. Although TFC has ventured all over the pop sounds in their more recent albums (not saying they're bad albums either - check out the Byrds influenced Songs From Northern Britain), they will never be able to top Bandwagonesque.
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on 2011-12-12 CharlesMartel Said:
Scottish melodicists Teenage Fanclub are a band I have tried really hard to like over the years. Yet somehow, I just cannot seem to find anything in their music which clicks with me. I always expect more more pace, more jangliness, more energy but somehow they always seem to let me down. " Bandwagonesque" , undoubtedly their best release, is the closest I get to an affinity, but even that fades as the album progresses. However, the reason for that is not entirely what you may think.
You see the main problem with the album, I suspect, is that Teenage Fanclub are trying too hard to be someone they're not, specifically, the seventies outfit Big Star, specifically, that band's second album, "Radio City" . It is as if the band kidnapped Alex Chilton and forced him to write songs for them until they had enough for this album. If the title of the album refers to anything, it is the bandwagon surrounding the brief, localised revival of Big Star at the end of the eighties as a forerunner of jangle pop. However this revival was only among those in the know, so to speak. Perhaps Big Star were still forgotten enough back then for Teenage Fanclub to think no one would notice.
" Bandwagonesque " is a fine record in many ways. It is well-crafted and sounds tight and together. Some of the songs are pretty good as well, even for a not-really-that-keen-on-Teenage-Fanclub sort of person. But the extent of the mimickry of Big Star on the album has crossed a line begtween praise through flattery and downright plagiarism. I cannot find it in my heart to feel anything for a band who takes that sort of path with their music. It is unforgiveable and it betrays the fans who have bought the album, let alone betrays the artists who are copied. Occasionally, the band peers out from behind the mask they have assumed, such as on "Alcoholiday" , but most of the time they seem content in their assumed persona. Yet they lack Alex Chilton's bitterness and so come off sounding like knock off copies of something grander than they can hope to achieve.
I could at this point launch into a review of "Radio City" but perhaps I really ought to save that for another day. Suffice it to say that this album has not changed my view of Teenage Fanclub one bit. It gets marks for the songwriting and for the execution but it is never going to get anything for being such a blatant bloody rip-off.
Rating: 4/10
