Teenage Fanclub - The Concept
"Says she don't do drugs but she does the pill."
Album: Bandwagonesque [3rd album]
Recorded: Liverpool, England
Genre: Rock, Alternative Rock
Album Release: November 4th 1991
Single Release: October 21st 1991 [2nd single]
Length: 6.07
Producer: Teenage Fanclub, Paul Chisolm & Don Fleming
Vocalist: Norman Blake [age 26]
Label: Creation Records, DGC Records
Music Video [shortened version]
Live on MTV in 1992 [shortened version]
Full version
Charts, Streams & Sales
Spotify: 5,800,000 +
YouTube Music: 2,300,000 +
Spin Magazine Best Records of the Year 1991: #1 (beating Nirvana - Nevermind)
NME 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 2013: #115
Credits
Details
- Blake, the singer, has said he wrote the lyrics 20 minutes before geting in the studio, which proved to be a good fit with the improvisitional producer Don Fleming. However, while the lyrics are simple the music is not. In an alt-rock, grunge filled 90s indie scene Teenage Fanclub took things in a different direction featuring a noticeable sixties inflection missing from their contemporaries.
Teenage Fanclub are clearly influenced by sixties music, as you can hear in the Beach Boysesque vocal harmonies, but their sound was more than that. Besides the beautiful vocals were long, heavy guitar solos that wouldn't be amiss in a Guns 'n' Roses song and the two were blended together seamlessly. They sounded fresh when other bands sounded like an imitation of an imitation. The songs featured epic arrangements when you expected a 3 minute radio hit and repetitive, almost electro-grooves when you expected an epic arrangement. The ability to surprise made it interesting. - Death Cab for Cutie singer Benjamin Gibbard released a cover of the entire album as it's his favourite of all time.
- 'Bandwagonesque' was heavily influenced by the American power pop band Big Star.
- The music video is shorter than the album track because Creation Records wanted airplay on MTV. The full, and much improved version, can be found above.
- Teenage Fanclub have three vocalists who each write and perform songs. Normal Blake sings on 'The Concept.
- Fans of the band call themselves "fannies".
- Kurt Cobain described Teenage Fanclub as "the best band in the world".
- Liam Gallagher described Teenage Fanclub as "the second best band in the world". He meant Oasis were first.
Artwork
