Ash - 1977 (1996)
The best thing about this record is the beginning and the end. It took me a while to realise this at the time. What wasn't there to like about a band who were one year older than me, loved drinking, loved Star Wars and recorded themselves vomiting as a secret track? They recorded singles that stuck in your head and talked about Jackie Chan. I liked this album so much at the time that my band used to cover several of their songs.
Which is where I think the problem lay. Playing these songs repeatedly in rehearsals and in pubs took the initial joy out of them. I realised how formulaic some of the singles were. That they went on a verse too long or that they had a predictable key change at the end or that they were just repetitive. I grew to resent playing these at the open mike at the Nelson or to the day-release prisoners from Ford at the Gratwick Arms. Kung Fu stopped being funny and just got really fucking annoying.
Then, a few years later a friend pointed out the pointlessness of Ash fans at a music festival. She noted that it took a special kind of person to get passionate about something so essentially meh. To still be wearing the t-shirt by the 2000s for something that wasn't all that great in the first place showed a beige kind of commitment.
When I listen again to the first and final songs on the album, Ash could have gone in a heavier, nastier, darker direction. But they didn't. They joined the lightside. And everyone knows that the cowboys are square (Indians are best).
Chris
The best thing about this record is the beginning and the end. It took me a while to realise this at the time. What wasn't there to like about a band who were one year older than me, loved drinking, loved Star Wars and recorded themselves vomiting as a secret track? They recorded singles that stuck in your head and talked about Jackie Chan. I liked this album so much at the time that my band used to cover several of their songs.
Which is where I think the problem lay. Playing these songs repeatedly in rehearsals and in pubs took the initial joy out of them. I realised how formulaic some of the singles were. That they went on a verse too long or that they had a predictable key change at the end or that they were just repetitive. I grew to resent playing these at the open mike at the Nelson or to the day-release prisoners from Ford at the Gratwick Arms. Kung Fu stopped being funny and just got really fucking annoying.
Then, a few years later a friend pointed out the pointlessness of Ash fans at a music festival. She noted that it took a special kind of person to get passionate about something so essentially meh. To still be wearing the t-shirt by the 2000s for something that wasn't all that great in the first place showed a beige kind of commitment.
When I listen again to the first and final songs on the album, Ash could have gone in a heavier, nastier, darker direction. But they didn't. They joined the lightside. And everyone knows that the cowboys are square (Indians are best).
Chris
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