Great song, maybe their best
Best band name in history, important to remember that.
Upside Down is one of my favourite songs and Psychocandy is one of the all time great debut albums. Itās pretty much perfect. Darklands and Barbed Wire Kisses have a few decent songs. After that pretty much all shite (of what Iāve heard anyway).
First single and album are so good that the rest of it doesnāt matter though. 5/5
Border of 3 and 4. Liked a few singles but couldnāt 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 Honeyās Dead for the first time in ages. Itās a 5 from me
Huge FIVE for the JAMC.
I sort of got obsessed with the Mary Chain before Iād ever knowingly heard a note. I was at the airport to Spain as a very impressionable seventeen year old, Iād discovered music relatively late and aside from being into a couple of recent bands, Iād 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 journalistās passion for them that when I made it back to England, I put the covermount CD on that had āYou Trip Me Upā and it sounded better than described, better than I could imagine and went on to snap up 21 Singles and couldnāt believe how diverse they were and how each song sounded like a smash hit. Iād go every couple of days with a new favourite song.
I ran through all the albums over the next few months and couldnāt 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 Psychocandyās 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. Thereās 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 Lindaās 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 Iām happy about that.
Anyway, its a 5/5 from me.
Nice to hear them once in a while, some striking songs but Iām not terribly interested in what they do. Iāve 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 thatās about right. I donāt mean it negatively, itās bracing for sure, but hard for me over a full album.
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.
You are absolutely dreaming if you think Iām 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 āReverenceā. Magnificent!
Also the only band to be lyrically name-checked by both The Shins and Death Cab for Cutie. Thatās important, I think, but I couldnāt tell you why.
500/5
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.
Canāt 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):
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.
Iāve 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 donāt quite get from other bands.
Must be the band where my view of them seems the most removed from the critical consensus:
Psychocandy is massively over-rated. I mean, itās not a bad record but itās nowhere near their best and nowhere near the untouchable debut itās 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¦ doesnāt soundā¦ good. Psychocandy is shrill and trebbly and althought its sound is attnetion grabbing I donāt think it adds as much to the experience as the conventional wisdom/praise it often gets might suggest. The songs are good but theyāre not as developed as songwriters here as they would be on their real masterpieceā¦
Honeyās 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, itās 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: Honeyās Dead >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Psychocandy.
edit: Yay itās great to have these back! Thanks @Funkhouser
3
This is my favourite album sound of all timeā¦
Flood went to the same school as me
LOVE Cracking Up, itās top 5 Mary Chain for me
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?).
Ha - no, heās 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
*Som from My Bloody Vitriol was there at the same time as me however