From: www.ridinghood.squarespace.com

After their 1989 break-through ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ Del Amitri set about unassumingly building a career. Each successive album opened up their music to a moderately wider audience, culminating in an impressive US Top 10 chart position for ‘Roll To Me’, achieved seemingly without effort in 1995, a time when British Bands found it notoriously hard to gain a foothold in that territory.

Then, in 1997 they released the album ‘Some Other Sucker’s Parade’ and… committed career suicide.

However, Some Other Sucker’s Parade’ (SOSP) is Del Amitri’s finest album to date and the only truly great album they ever made.

Their previous long players, while undeniably accomplished, were generally rather uneven affairs, especially compared to SOSP. They contained admittedly many highlights, but seemed strained, even contrived as a whole, as if the matter had been given just too much thought.

This strain can be attributed to self-consciousness, specifically: a constant awareness of their own extreme idiosyncrasy: they never managed to lose sight of the fact that they were attempting to do something extraordinary. I mean, seriously: how did a Scottish country rock band manage to score even one hit in the Nineties anyway, let alone a whole handful?

The continued success of Radiohead in particular (their polar opposites) must have been a constant source of worry for them. How did Radiohead, as well as Oasis and Blur, manage to have more successful careers with songs not half as good, they must have asked themselves. What are we overlooking? – Rather than blocking out their surroundings and creating music honestly, Del Amitri seemed sometimes too concerned with ensuring the wool remain pulled over the press and public’s eyes. Who can blame them?

The success of ‘Roll To Me’ must have come as a great relief. Perhaps they set to work on SOSP with renewed confidence in the validity of their endeavour. The album is almost a point for point refutation of the Radiohead ethos, rather than the work of a good band, capable of writing good songs, trying desperately to poach fans from more successful contemporaries.

Indeed, while they show themselves masters of everything at which Radiohead are hopelessly inept (writing, arranging and performing songs,) they demonstratively show disdain for everything at which Radiohead excel. What to make of that cover, for starters: Justin and Iain look like a pair of homeless drunks. Iain in particular pushes hobo chic onto a whole new level. (As the Beach Boys also discovered to their mortification when they had themselves photographed feeding goats on the cover of ‘Pet Sounds’, the public does not habitually recognise masterpieces by their lack of glamour.) Besides this, the album sounds as if it was recorded live using only one microphone. It always makes me laugh to see a mixing engineer in the credit list. What did he do: push up the fader?

On SOSP, Del Amitri were finally playing to their strengths. They had reached the stage where they could comfortably write and perform 14 songs of similar scope and magnitude. And while there is nothing on SOSP so sublime as ‘Roll To Me’ (surely: the last ever great pop song) there is among the 14 songs not a single dud.

Justin inhabits throughout a role with which he is comfortable. He was, during their successful period, certainly the photogenic type, but had no real taste for cultivating his personality into marketable proportions, preferring instead to act onstage and in videos like an awkward goofball, charming, but ultimately too aloof for the masses. The unnerving sense, marring previous albums, that he is forcing himself to keep one eye on the kids and making the odd token concession is absent from SOSP, the lyrics expressing at all times only a mature and melancholy Romantic resignation.

Iain Harvie makes no attempts to be a cutting edge guitar hero (something which he had tried with varying degrees of success on the previous album ‘Twisted’,) and instead remains stunningly tasteful and appropriate for the duration. The whole thing just sounds…well: relaxed.

Perhaps they were just too tired to continue competing with the likes of Radiohead, and decided simply to make a good record, without regard for fashion or trend. If the success of ‘Roll To Me’ is anything to go by, they must have reasoned, we might get lucky. They had not taken into account the measureless spite and bile that publications such as the execrable NME can muster for rock bands that achieve success without their sanction and for anything that can all too easily be recognised as a Radiohead anti-dote. When Del Amitri performed the first single from SOSP, ‘Not Where It’s At’, on TOTP, their performance involved jumping around and laughing.

Perhaps SOSP was from the start conceived as a suicide attempt. Perhaps the very title ‘Some Other Sucker’s Parade’ represented an admission of defeat, calling time on a career that had largely run its course anyway, and abandoning the field to some other sucker, but leaving future Radiohead clones with one last untouchable blueprint for excellence, a magnificent last hurrah for a dying tendency. For make no mistake: when ‘Some Other Sucker’s Parade’ flopped, what essentially failed to connect with an audience was - Britain's last great songwriter.

I don’t have my finger on
The pulse of my generation
I just got my hand on my heart
Know no better location

first I wanted to disagree - but then : Britain's last great songwriter. damn!

love this interesting article, it's funny and tragic. both
thanks sebastian

Lovely, brought a tear and a grin.

As this is also my fav album I concur.

Whether you think it's accurate or not, it's a plainly bitchy article, especially regarding his opinion of Radiohead, which seems to be more the source of his ire than his love of SOSP.

Disliking another band is a different issue to accusing them of being unable to write, arrange or perform songs.  It's pretty clear that Radiohead are still around for a reason, and it's not that they were ever fashionable (weird, intellectual, awkward song structures, scattershot lyrics - yes, how mainstream).  They write incredible music and have taken their fans with them as they've experimented.  Justin crappity smacks around for years between records and then seems pissed off that people don't automatically accept it.

There can be no doubt that The Bends is better than any album the Dels ever did - OK Computer similarly thrashed any Dels record for a very simple reason: quality control.  If there wasn't so much shite on each Dels record (excepting CE, but the production on that is so corny that it nearly drowns the material on occasion), they'd stand up better.  

The writer makes a mistake that Iain Harvie was trying to be cutting edge on Twisted - as if playing retro rock riffs and Stones-esque solos was ever cutting edge - that had been going on for years already.  Making a tough record with elements of the Stooges about it isn't really cutting edge, and the automatic drop into pub-rock on the rest of the album diminished his point anyway.

His whole point seems to be that, by virtue of being utterly conventional, the Dels were somehow totally against the grain of the times - which is utter shite.  There was a massive resurgence in song-based music at the time, led by Radiohead and Oasis, amongst others.

And Justin as Britain's last Great songwriter?

Jarvis Cocker, Thom Yorke, Imogen Heap, PJ Harvey all immediately spring to mind.

What a crock of shit.

Sebastiaan - if you wrote this then I apologise, but I agree with David on this one.

I really dislike the constant comparison with Radiohead, the turgid writing and comments like ‘Roll To Me’ (surely: the last ever great pop song).  Eh!?

SOSP 'aint one of my favourites especially but I think 'career suicide' is a bit harsh.  I'm too tired to pick out other bits I don't like.

But do you disagree David?

(sorry - it just slipped out - I knew Joe would want to say it if he was here)

yeah it is a bitchy article and radiohead isn't the writers favorite band, that's pretty obvious.
SOSP isn't my favorite record, and when it comes to Great songwriters he did forget Lloyd Cole too -
but it is somehow well written.I laughed and cried.;)

a lot of disagreement from my side too - if you want to look at it in a "serious" way. :)

.. but there is some truth in it, david!

I hope you are not another version of Joe.

All down to taste of course, but I utterly despise Radiohead (and all the subsequent copyists) and reckon Justin could produce better music than Thom Yorke with the very wind from his arse.

Twisted is my least favourite of the "Big 4" Del albums for many of the reasons David outlines, and I can't really choose between SOSP and CE for my top del album. They both have 12 great tracks on them (SOSP is, IMHO, two tracks too long) and I actually like the production on both equally. Crisp, clean and radio friendly on CE, Street Legal-stylee electric soup on SOSP

Though Waking Hours is their best produced album, it has a couple of fairly lame songs that haven't stood the test of time.

Thanks, guys, for your responses. It was not my intention to come across as bitchy, sorry; I merely tried to write something that, while making some points that have struck me about the group over the years, would capture the Del Amitri spirit. I am Dutch and have a tendency to pose things too sharply. I am delighted that some of you (Susi and Tintagel) got a sense at least of the effect I was trying (perhaps not very successfully) to achieve. A tear and a grin, indeed: that is the Del Amitri world-view. That is why I love them. Forever.

Sebastiaan.

www.ridinghood.squarespace.com

susi wrote on 03/19/08 at 01:49:05:

.. but there is some truth in it, david! I hope you are not another version of Joe.

Not sure how there could be any comparison with Joe: I disagreed with something and explained why.  i didn't attack anyone's post, just made clear that it's hardly a well-balanced argument.

If SOSP failed, it was because the ship had sailed for the Dels, not because of some career suicide.  The album art looked as utterly throwaway as could be imagined.  Two blokes in a room: that doesn't stand for honesty, it stands for a lack of inspiration - something that's rife throughout the album.

I'm all for reading articles with interesting viewpoints, but this one is more than a little off-base.  Disagreeing with it hardly makes me a curmudgeon - just honest and with a more neutral perspective it seems.

Also, I didn't include Lloyd Cole because I think he predates Waking Hours (my count as the Dels true beginning) - if we're going outside of my boundaries then there's not much competition to be had with Elvis Costello, who is simply better than any other living British songwriter today.

Sebastiaan wrote on 03/19/08 at 16:11:30:

Thanks, guys, for your responses. It was not my intention to come across as bitchy, sorry; I merely tried to write something that, while making some points that have struck me about the group over the years, would capture the Del Amitri spirit. I am Dutch and have a tendency to pose things too sharply. I am delighted that some of you (Susi and Tintagel) got a sense at least of the effect I was trying (perhaps not very successfully) to achieve. A tear and a grin, indeed: that is the Del Amitri world-view. That is why I love them. Forever. Sebastiaan. [url=www.ridinghood.squarespace.com[/url][/quote]]www.ridinghood.squarespace.com

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I don't think the article was badly-written, but it came across more that you think Radiohead are shit rather than the Dels are great.

BUT SEBASTIAN:

Justin and Iain look like a pair of homeless drunks.

this is a LIE, isn't it?


David, you're not quite wrong .

No, they do look like derelicts on the cover of SOSP.  Certainly as though they couldn't be bothered to support their own work.

I reckon the general horribleness of Del Amitri's album covers (CE aside) have always been pre-emptive means of explaining away subsequent poor sales.  It was why it was good to see the solo album packaged so nicely.

It is a beautiful piece of work - one of my favourites ever.  Someone gave that some real love.

Funny how David mentioned Lloyd Cole, the other great underestimated singer songwriter (by the huddled masses). It's a constant source of dismay to me that more people aren't listening or more importantly buying. It is the sales that keep them both creating after all. If they ever stop because of general bad taste we would all be so much more worse off.

SOSP is NOT my favourite Dels album - too many soppy songs for my liking - but I do enjoy High Times.  Not listened to it for years though.  Maybe it's time I dug it out again.
:-?

OK - so maybe it's better than I remembered......

I loved SOSP, saying that I loved all their albums and there has been very little that JC has produced that I never liked.

Joseph the Eighth wrote on 07/28/09 at 06:29:28:

I loved SOSP, saying that I loved all their albums and there has been very little that JC has produced that I never liked.

The same to me!!! Oh, I can't believe that I agree with Joe in something... ;o)

David wrote on 03/18/08 at 14:09:19:

Jarvis Cocker, Thom Yorke, Imogen Heap, PJ Harvey all immediately spring to mind. What a crock of shit.

I agree, Jarvis F ucking cordroy Cocker?  
Tell me this is a joke, the prick can't sing, he thinks he is funny and is the kinda bloke who works in a oxfam shop.

 

I’d even forgotten this guy had written such an idiotic, poorly scribed opinion piece about Del Amitri. If you want to go and write “op ed” pieces, at least make sure you can actually write with some semblance of style.

My point was simply that Sebastian was talking ill-informed, opinionated rubbish when he attests that Justin is the last great songwriter to emerge in Britain when Thom Yorke and PJ Harvey emerged following that period. In fact though, from His n’ Hers to This Is Hardcore, Pulp made records that were high quality from beginning to end.

Stop with the waffle, are you really trying to say the c o ck is a better song writer then Justin Currie?

Individual songs by Justin are far better than anything Jarvis Cocker has written. Jarvis produced more consistent material in the same relative period.

Three albums:

CE (92) to His n’ Hers (94)
Twisted (95) to Different Class (95)
SOSP (97) to This is Hardcore (98)

There are songs on each of those Dels albums that are superior to songs on the Pulp ones, but the Pulp albums are a better overall listen. Also, Jarvis penned three anthems in Common People, Do You Remember The First Time and Disco 2000 and did a far better job of capturing the 60s pop vibe on Something Changed.

Anyway, your question has no bearing on my point – the OP said that Justin was the last great British songwriter. He wasn’t. Is that difficult to understand or shall I explain it again?

I was never concerned what the other guy said, its your usual cr*p that annoys me.

Once again you try to back track on another stupid comment with more and more waffle. Some time back you said Khan was a crap boxer, he is now world champion. You did the same the other day.

This kind of intellectual backtracking which you do might work with the 18 year birds you knock around with in your Falkirk pub scene but anybody past the age of adolescent stupidity can see that all you do is talk utter boll*cks and because you dress it up in your smug conceited own way you expect people just to accept it. I see it for what it is i.e talking utter boll*cks.  

What you say makes no sense, all this nonsense about Cocker being more consistent then Justin is utter utter silliness, the only song that made any impact was Common People but it is a song of its time and will age very very badly, the other songs you talk about were were only half successful due to silly sh*t/brit pop fans jumping on the bandwagon.

The fact you state that Elvis Costello as the best ever sums it up to me, that c*nt can't even sing. You lost you argument there and then.

Your entitled to your opinion, that I don't have a problem with but when your opinion is brought up you always try to steer away from the very thing that you said.

My advise to you is instead of talking bollo*ks, grow some.

Are you lonely, Joe? I hear The Samaritans are very helpful for people that feel the sort of loss-based anxiety you do.

If you’ve read any sort of backtracking, it’s only because you can’t read properly. I’ll notarise the points I make:

•      The OP says that Justin is the last great British songwriter. He isn’t – I consider Jarvis Cocker, Thom Yorke and PJ Harvey as greats and they post-date the start of Justin’s career
•      If you don’t include Elvis Costello as Britain’s greatest living songwriter, then you clearly lack the sense required to have this discussion. On innovation, longevity, relevance and simple critical appreciation there’s no one near him in the past twenty years from these islands
•      There’s no steering away from what we’re talking about – you asked why I would consider Jarvis as a great songwriter, then you went completely off-tangent AWAY from the point you made and asked if I think Jarvis is a better songwriter than Justin, which has sod all to do with what we’re talking about
•      If you honestly don’t think consistency is a watermark for greatness, maybe you should look at The Beatles. No one talks about their greatness without discussing the fact that they made a string of albums in a ten year period that were consistently high quality. No one would have cared about them in the long term if they released Revolver and then nothing worthwhile ever after

I’m not even touching the Amir Khan comment. You know zero about boxing because, if you did, you would understand why he’s no great shakes as a boxer.

You really should learn not to match your witlessness against me, you never win and you end up looking more stupid than ever.

any of you ever hear of Sel Balimir?
Mike Vennert?
Justin Sullivan?
Phil Bretnell?
Alex Turner?
Simon Neil?
And countless other great song writers you lot have over there?

crappity smackING SPOILT YOU ARE!!

Justin Sullivan for sure -- my other favourite Justin.. Wee man of great talent...  and a real sweetheart too.. Met him in Vancouver after a very small club show.

I would have to look the rest of them up I am afraid.

"Hobo chic", hahaa.

SOSP is maybe the Del's attempt at assuaging the record companies' growing concern that they were falling out of trends and the times, you know, so write something more commercial, concise, consistently more palatable. Their past records were sometimes a harder sell, because the diversity of styles were fairly large, which gave them a more wider appeal to smaller groups, but perhaps the real acceptance by a larger/ wider group was for much smaller of a period of time. Because really, the other records went from rockers to soul, to country, folk, protest folk, slight funk, ballads, etc.

For what it is, it's DA's most consistently pop-py album, I think....or at least to my ears. It does what it does well, and I love it for that on that level.

It happens to most bands.....they have a certain period of time that they're more popular, and then their popularity starts to wane. I think that "Roll To Me" may have been unexpected, and that the record company wanted more of the style of pop that made "Roll To Me" a hit. "Cmon guys, just write more of these types of hits" type of thing...."stop wasting your time with these political diatribes". SOSP sounds like, in alot of ways- that the "adult alternative" genre that they were unfairly grouped into after the rise of alternative rock- was on the decline and suffocated alot of similar groups that were suddenly left with no real large audience after their core audience from years ago had forgot about 'em, and the newer fans that got into "Roll With Me", their interest began and ended there.

That, to me, is what SOSP encompasses....the dichotomy of realizing that you're getting older and maybe aren't as angry at the world anymore and settling down.....but maybe not knowing where to go after that. Or maybe just being more content and accepting of the world around you. The lyrics are still self deprecating and world weary, but I think that the Dels packaged it in something a little less perceivably angry.