šŸŽµ How Good Are They Really šŸŽµ Spacemen 3/Spiritualized

Areā€¦are we listening to the same album? Iā€™m going to listen today to make sure I havenā€™t missed the proper haircuts for all these years

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A very tough crowd today on dis. I thought they would be getting lots of love
Suffered in the baking heat for what felt like hours to get a auditori ticket at prima a few yearsago but it was worth it to experience a perfect Show. Lots of quality as well beyond lagwafis, though their new stuff is just rehashing old stuff.
Easy 5

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Yeah sorry man. Iā€™ve tried a few times because of the love it gets on the boards, but Come Together - thatā€™s the vibe I get.

For what itā€™s worth Iā€™m currently listening to Playing with Fire and quite enjoying.

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Itā€™s a rip of a live stream I think, so video quality isnā€™t great, but the audio is okay - Ladies and Gentlemen live in full at Radio City Music Hall (performance starts at 3:30):

boring as feck
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Yeah, probably a bit of an exaggeration but it was a big letdown for sure. particularly after that great start.

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theyā€™ve got like unanimous 5s, people even admitting theyā€™re unwarranted 5s, what else do you want? :smiley:

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Debbie Harry once said that *Playing With Fire" was the most psychedelic album sheā€™d ever heard. I always loved that, and sheā€™s either not far wrong, or just right anyway.

I would say Playing With Fire is a masterpiece of an album. The deep bliss and pure psychedelia within it is totally unique. It is a late night album that, when it connects - goes right to your soul. It does not hold back when it drives and scorches. It soothes with honestly fried gospel. Suicide is a track like few others, it sounds so sparse and light - but is so deep and layered, like falling into a dream and being held there.

Playing With Fire, for me is by far their best work. An album I cannot recommend highly enough. Other than that I only really like and still listen to The Perfect Prescription.

Iā€™ve never truly given Spiritualized a lot of listening time and see them as somewhat of a diluted take on Spacemen 3 missing one of the key ingredients (Kember).

As such, Iā€™ll go with a 5 for Spacemen 3 and a 3 for Spiritualized.

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tbf thereā€™ve been a few 2s/3s, especially early doors. Think people (myself included) sometimes read the first 10 posts in a thread and base their opinions on ā€œhow itā€™s goingā€ on that

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Iā€™m spitting truth and you canā€™t handle it!

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Actually saw your lad playing ladies and gents in full down in butlins and it was maybe the most dull set Iā€™ve ever seen, completely didnā€™t get it

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Culled a singles list from their Wikipedia release list, not sure if itā€™s complete but CBA to make a more exhaustive/correct one. Can see why @anon19035908 didnā€™t bother with oneā€¦

  • Anyway That You Want Me
  • Feel So Sad
  • Run
  • Smiles
  • Feel So Bad
  • I Want You
  • Medication
  • Good Dope, Good Fun / Lay Back in the Sun
  • Let It Flow
  • Broken Heart
  • Electricity
  • I Think Iā€™m in Love
  • Come Together
  • Abbey Road EP
  • Stop Your Crying
  • Out of Sight
  • Do It All Over Again
  • She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit)
  • Cheapster
  • Soul on Fire
  • Sweet Talk
  • Hey Jane
  • Little Girl
  • Iā€™m Your Man
  • A Perfect Miracle

0 voters

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I guess I should start with the fact that my wife walked down the aisle to the song Ladies and Gentleman, so Iā€™m pretty fond of it :smiley:

Iā€™m not sure when I fell in love with Spiritualized but it was a while after Ladies came out. The noisy, droney stuff put me off to start with, but there was enough pretty in there to win me over.
I remember seeing them on the Let it come down tour and the opened with Cop shoot Cop which is just insane, it is one of the best gigs Iā€™ve ever been to.

The last 2 albums havenā€™t been great but Iā€™ll let him off because of how much I like the rest of his music.
I only had the Perfect Prescription for Spacemen 3 but never got into it, so will abstain on that.

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Yeah, the orchestra is beautifully integrated because thatā€™s how JP wrote the songs. It was probably the guitars that were added afterwards!

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Imagine your wife leaves you to be with Richard Croft.
The harmonica in the Abbey Road version of Broken Heart is what that sounds like.

I was at that Albert Hall gig, and it was one of my top five gigs of all time

BUT, everything other than Ladies & Gentlemen (and maybe the Abbey Road accompanying EP) seems a bit superfluous IYKWIM. I bought a couple of albums after that, but not much since. A strong 4 from me.

Think I went along to see Spectrum in Liverpool in 2008, went with a mate not knowing anything about the music, he played to about 50 people and it was just this incredible noise. He played revolution, which led me to seek out Spacemen 3. Devoured everything I could find from them after that. That blend of psyche, gospel, spaced out, transportative music just really hits the spot for me.
Playing with Fire is their masterpiece but their the whole back catalogue is really strong.

I remember finding out S3 were from Rugby which was really surprising to me (i grew up in a smaller town 10 miles away). I then found out I went to same school as Pierce (and Will Carruthers) which blew my mind a bit. Iā€™d left home by that point but no-one I knew ever spoke about them.

Musically it was incredibly dull growing up around there and my misconception was it had always been that way, not so. This blog (later turned into a book) is excellent and charts the early years of S3 and the scene around Rugby/Northampton at that time, people might be familiar with the Jazz Butcher from the same period:

Found out my mates dad was in one of the bands mentioned and he had a few stories about playing gigs, The Black Lion, supporting The Fall etc.

Spiritualizedā€¦ I really like but donā€™t love, Ladies and Gentlemen is brilliant and there are moments on their other records that are truly great but it has never quite clicked the same as Spacemen 3 for me.

Similar to midnightpunk, itā€™s a 5 for the Spacemen, but gonna up it to a 4 for Spiritualized.

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ā€œTaking drugs to make music to take drugs toā€ was pretty much the coolest sentence 17 year old me had ever heard and I bought the CD comp of the same name off the back of that alone.
Never really got into them though.

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