Jollification

It probably says a lot about me when I tell people that our fourth upcoming Vinyl Session features a new album. Ha! New! It came out over 25 years ago, yet, in my head, I think of it as a recent release. Ian Broudie reached peak Lightning Seeds when he unveiled Jollification to a public already balls deep in the Spice Girls, TFI Friday and all things Britpop. 

But Broudie's masterpiece from 1994 is so much more than cool Britannia. Yes, it's a quintessential English pop record packed to the rafters with catchy singles, but dig a little deeper and it's tender and reflective too. And with standout vocal cameos from Terry Hall and Alison Moyet I can honestly say this is one Thursday night I'm really looking forward to. Come and join us for some great music and lively chat. I'll keep a seat by the door for you...   

Lightning Seeds - Perfect (1994)

Listen!

A friend of mine from Scotland emailed me this morning: a Corona catch-up, if you like. In my reply I rather ramblingly told her what my coping mechanisms were. I won't bore you with them here; anyway, regular readers could probably figure out most of them for themselves.

However, I forgot to tell her about Tim's Twitter Listening Party The idea is simple: every night during at 10pm during Lockdown the Twitter community listen to an album in its entirety. The sessions, overseen by Tim Burgess, are curated in real time by band members who provide intimate insights into the making of the albums and answer questions posed by those 'in the room'. I've done two so far - Jollification (Lightning Seeds) and Steve McQueen (Prefab Sprout) - and I found them totally uplifting. For what it's worth both these long players proved to be very poignant in my life around the time they came out - 1994 and 1985 respectively. Ten year cycles and all that.

A complete list all of future runners and riders can be found here and the link to Tim's Twitter feed is here. I can't recommend the project highly enough. And even if you don't own hard copies of the albums, just hook up your Bluetooth speaker to Spotify at 22:00 and you're good to go!

Prefab Sprout - Goodbye Lucille #1 (1985)

In 1985 I was still known as Johnny; this song followed me everywhere

Lucky You

A whole month of World Cup action recently came and went and I managed to keep this sleepy digital backwater a football free zone for the duration. Likewise today, on what is Ian Broudie's 60th birthday, I'll try not to mention that song; you know which one I mean.

Ian Broudie has written some cracking songs over the last thirty years or so. His band the Lightning Seeds was really nothing more than a vehicle to take the songs he'd written on the road and play them live. Like a lot of musicians he's much more at home in a studio working by himself, writing, recording, refining. The Lightning Seeds was just a name above the door. When he recorded the tracks for what would become Jollification, apart from some additional vocals by Alison Moyet and Terry Hall, Broudie played every note of music himself and, of course, produced it. Quite literally a one man band.

Jollification came out slap bang in the middle of the Britpop boom and could be seen and heard rubbing shoulders with the likes of Oasis, Blur, Dodgy (who he also produced), Ocean Colour Scene et al. The fact that it spawned four hugely successful singles should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Except, maybe, the slightly morose, slightly awkward scouser who wrote them all.

This one has, for a number of reasons, become something of an ear-worm just lately. Lucky You may not have set the charts alight, but nearly 25 years later it's till ringing in my ears; lucky me.

Lightning Seeds - Lucky You

Almost perfect

We're having a shindig tomorrow. We don't throw parties very often, so I'm really looking forward to dressing up, splashing some Brut 33 on and playing mein host for the night. It'll be perfect, I know. Well, almost; despite there being some very special people on the guest list (and there are, believe me), one person who I really wanted to be there there sadly can't make it. He rang me today from the bed he's not shifted from in the last seven days: the quack's ruled him out of action and told him he's going nowhere for the foreseeable. Get well soon Steve - I need you up here.

Lightning Seeds - Perfect