šŸŽµ How Good Are They Really šŸŽµ The Jesus And Mary Chain

Great song, maybe their best

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Best band name in history, important to remember that.

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Upside Down is one of my favourite songs and Psychocandy is one of the all time great debut albums. Itā€™s pretty much perfect. Darklands and Barbed Wire Kisses have a few decent songs. After that pretty much all shite (of what Iā€™ve heard anyway).

First single and album are so good that the rest of it doesnā€™t matter though. 5/5

Border of 3 and 4. Liked a few singles but couldnā€™t get into Psychocandy when I tried. Having said that it is probably 10+ years since I last made an attempt - will stick some on today and see where I land

Having a thoroughly enjoyable time listening to Honeyā€™s Dead for the first time in ages. Itā€™s a 5 from me

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Huge FIVE for the JAMC.

I sort of got obsessed with the Mary Chain before Iā€™d ever knowingly heard a note. I was at the airport to Spain as a very impressionable seventeen year old, Iā€™d discovered music relatively late and aside from being into a couple of recent bands, Iā€™d stuck to tried and true career spanning greatest hits, my dad bought me a copy of Uncut, which ran a feature of the 100 Greatest Debuts of All Time, just as Rhino was reissuing the first 5 Mary Chain albums, Psychocandy ranked around #15 and a 10 page retrospective / interview was featured.

I loved the sound of this band and the journalistā€™s passion for them that when I made it back to England, I put the covermount CD on that had ā€œYou Trip Me Upā€ and it sounded better than described, better than I could imagine and went on to snap up 21 Singles and couldnā€™t believe how diverse they were and how each song sounded like a smash hit. Iā€™d go every couple of days with a new favourite song.

I ran through all the albums over the next few months and couldnā€™t believe a B sides collection could sound that good (Barbed Wire Kisses). Songs like Happy Place assigned the flip side?!

My dad (who got into them after I burned him 21 Singles) often says if this song was given to Harry Styles to cover, it would be # 1 all over the world.

The John Peel sessions which removed the layers of Psychocandyā€™s feedback to reveal perfect pop songs that then made way for Darklands (arguably the better album, but its apples and oranges).

Far Gone and Out forever reminds me of a specific moment; I was a skinny teen making up for lost time by going out and meeting people and one sunny afternoon I was dressed all in black and this song came on my iPod and I felt so fucking cool I thought I was in a movie.

Luckily for me, they reformed and performed at Coachella within the year, I got to see them at the Brixton Academy that September and had such a great time, I got chatting with several fans from the original formation afterwards. I saw them again at the Roundhouse the next year and since then sporadically over the next decade - including Primavera and New York.

Munki is underrated, Stoned and Dethroned is just lovely, their non-LP singles are each terrific. Thereā€™s two more B sides collections, a big 4 disc box set that includes plenty of unearthed demos (just checked Spotify and so much great stuff is absent). Their sister Lindaā€™s record Little Pop Rock by Sister Vanilla is worth checking out. The post-reformation album from 2017 is ā€¦ alright. Lots of those songs existed previously in other forms.

Great band, great memories. Not the best live band (I remember them being excellent when I saw them in 2007-08 - it was like looking up on my heroes perform sermons!), but I rate them highly for playing an entire second set of really obscure deep cuts on that Darklands 30 tour last year. Got a mate that I only seem to see when the Mary Chain rides thru town and Iā€™m happy about that.

Anyway, its a 5/5 from me.

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Nice to hear them once in a while, some striking songs but Iā€™m not terribly interested in what they do. Iā€™ve not heard Psychocandy for a long time but my memory of it was like listening to a radio and an angle grinder at the same time. Just listened to You Trip Me Up again and thatā€™s about right. I donā€™t mean it negatively, itā€™s bracing for sure, but hard for me over a full album.

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Want to like them more than I actually do like them. Kind of a one trick pony whose trick I get tired of fairly quickly. 3 though for some legit excellent tracks.

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You are absolutely dreaming if you think Iā€™m ever letting the Mary Chain die. The pride of East Kilbride. Come for the infamous Psychocandy, stay for the birth of melodic indie rock on Darklands, and stand mouth agape as they challenge the very tapestry of 90s guitar music with such thoroughly groovy diversions as ā€˜Reverenceā€™. Magnificent!

Also the only band to be lyrically name-checked by both The Shins and Death Cab for Cutie. Thatā€™s important, I think, but I couldnā€™t tell you why.

500/5

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By far my favourite - pick any one of about six bangers off it. Was in a massive Alan Moulder / Curve / Depeche Mode / Flood production phase, and a lot of the production of this was quite close to Dopperganger era-Curve.

Canā€™t get me enough of the scorching hot clang, echoed distortion and two-tone bassline on Sugar Ray (the definition of hot and sweaty for me):

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DONā€™T SHAKE THOSE HIPS

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love this track. bought it on 7" when it came out. hilarious that they were still writing lyrics like that at 40-ish. brilliant bone headed riff too.

Iā€™ve given them a slightly generous 4 as I find all their albums a bit of a slog despite the moments of brilliance - really need to sort out a 15-ish track playlist by them - At times though they do scratch an itch I donā€™t quite get from other bands.

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Must be the band where my view of them seems the most removed from the critical consensus:

Psychocandy is massively over-rated. I mean, itā€™s not a bad record but itā€™s nowhere near their best and nowhere near the untouchable debut itā€™s often touted as being. The thing about it is the production but, unlike some albums which use distortion to smother pop tunes (e.g. the last couple of Low records or Loveless) the distortionā€¦ doesnā€™t soundā€¦ good. Psychocandy is shrill and trebbly and althought its sound is attnetion grabbing I donā€™t think it adds as much to the experience as the conventional wisdom/praise it often gets might suggest. The songs are good but theyā€™re not as developed as songwriters here as they would be on their real masterpieceā€¦

Honeyā€™s Dead is their best record and one of the best records ever. Everything about HD is on another plane to Psychocandy. Seriously. First of all the production. Where the distortion on PC sounds halfway between the whine of a wasp and incipient tinnitus, the distortion of the songs on HD is full and rich and multi-faceted. The songs are more varied, more powerful and more propulsive. Admittedly there is one track where the title and lyrics have certainly not aged well (although I was a teenager when I first heard it and thought it was cool af) but, that one quibble aside, itā€™s a monster of a record, an absolute triumph 10/10 record.

Imagine starting a record with this song and then only going up from there! What a record.

In short: Honeyā€™s Dead >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Psychocandy.

edit: Yay itā€™s great to have these back! Thanks @Funkhouser

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This is my favourite album sound of all timeā€¦

Flood went to the same school as me :smiley:

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LOVE Cracking Up, itā€™s top 5 Mary Chain for me

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You are now at least 100x cooler. Was he a contemporary? (and good choice of favourite album sound of all time, I love how identifiable both him and Albini are, how many other producers are there who have a signature sound do you think?).

Shamelessly stealing this riff too :+1:

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Ha - no, heā€™s about 20 years older than me! It was still nice when you go to a mega square grammar school to know that there are some actual legends* in the alumni list :+1:

*Som from My Bloody Vitriol was there at the same time as me however :neutral_face: