Hi all, and welcome to the Siouxsie listening club. Weāll be kicking off this Sunday, the 23rd with the Scream.
Looking forward to listening with you all, from first time listeners to the hardcore fans.
This is going to be interesting for me as Iāve never really clicked with her work despite being a Goth in Uni, so Iām looking forward to diving into her discography.
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Never listened at all despite being a massive Cure fan. Very excited to start!
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ooooh I am going to try and join in with this! Love a bit of Siouxsie.
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Iām bang up for this!
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Woo!
Really looking forward to this. Like a few others, Iāve not spent anywhere near as much time with the Banshees as my musical pedigree would suggest. Iāve been a huge fan of The Cure since 1985 and am generally well into post-punk, particularly the gothy side. I am far from unfamiliar with their work, and indeed have listened to quite a few albums and pretty much like everything Iāve listened to. I have plucked a few tracks from some of their first 4 or 5 albums to fill out my 78-93 playlist. But I am yet to work through their back catalogue in a dedicated fashion.
This is despite ā or perhaps because ā there is one Banshees album that I have adored for many years, and listened to many, many times: the absolutely sublime live album, Nocturne. I guess I probably felt that it amounts more or less to a best-of, and so thereās no need to bother with the back catalogue. This is, patently, an absurd notion, and I am really looking forward to the prospect of going through each album in turn, listening to it at least a couple of times, and getting to enjoy, as though they were new releases, some undoubtedly fantastic albums from one of my favourite periods/genres of music.
Thanks uncle for creating the occasion for me/us to get to know Siouxsie a little bit better. Canāt wait to get stuck into it.
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Hey @UncleRetrospective can I officially kick it off in the midnightpunk album listening party on Saturday at 9pm? I wonāt mirror the thread for its entirety in that thread but itād be nice to too and fro occasionally.
Will be listening to all the albums and posting here, looking forward to it.
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Sure. I canāt make it but feel free to jump in. 
Iāll post the introduction write up on Saturday rather than Sunday, then off you go.
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Good stuff, will do. Might lend a few more ears. Iāve started already and I had never heard the 2nd album and itās a great, great albumā¦ but I wonāt get ahead of myself.
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I just realised I havenāt explained how this listening club is going to work for people who havenāt joined in before.
Weāll start on Sunday with the next album on the list, vote for our favorite track on Wednesday and score the album on a Friday. Iāll build a best of playlist as we go along.
We wonāt be covering The Creatures in the main club but Iām open to covering them at the end. Weāve already touched on The Glove in the Cure club.
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Looking forward to it! Iām familiar with the first 5 albums but havenāt made it to anything after that, and Iām due for a revisit of the first 5. Seems it was 2010 before I jumped in and started listening to them. I remember a friend getting a best of CD for her birthday around 2005, it was played in part and I definitely knew some songs. However much like a lot of 80s goth, post-punk, and synthpop bands, I was aware of them during my teen years (early-mid 90s) but was more focused on other genres and the industrial side of dark music. A Cure remix CD was probably the earliest thing I got (mid 90s), a New Order best of in the late 90s, some Depeche Mode best of in the early 00s. It wasnāt till the late 00s I started digging into albums. Anyway here we are. Itās bat season.
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And after all that talk, itās Time. Letās start at the beginning.
The Scream
The Scream is the debut studio album by British rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees, released on 13 November 1978 by Polydor Records. The album is considered a landmark recording: its innovative combination of angular guitar with a bass-led rhythm and machine-like drums played mostly on toms, made it a pioneering work of the post-punk genre.
The Scream was recorded in one week during August 1978, and mixed in three weeks with Steve Lillywhite co-producing.
Music historian Simon Goddard described the music on The Scream as a āclaustrophobic abyss of angst and angularityā, saying it was part of a triptych of albums layering the foundations of post-punk.
More than one month prior to its release, DJ John Peel broadcast the album on BBC radio 1 from an advance copy on a cassette, from the beginning to end, with no interruptions. "Thatās the one boys and girls,ā he says when itās over. āThatās the one.āā
The Scream was named āthe best debut album of the yearā by Sounds. Reviewer Peter Silverton gave the album 5 stars out of 5. Melody Maker described the sound as āstrong, abrasive, visceral and constantly inventive, with a thrust that makes the spaces equal partners to the notesā, with the critic comparing the albumās textures to that of Wire and Pere Ubu.
And, as if on cue, itās the NME being wankers.
NMEās Julie Burchill was unimpressed, stating that the Banshees sound was āa self-important threshing machine thrashing all stringed instruments down onto the same low level alongside that draggy sub-voice as it attempts futile eagle and dove swoops around the mono-beat. Their sound is certainly different from the normal guitar-bass-drums-voice consequence. But itās radically stodgy [ā¦] loud, heavy and leveling, the sound of suet puddingā
Is she right? No idea. But letās find out shall we?
It looks like the Scream is 10 tracks long but some versions have Hong Kong Garden and The Staircase (Mystery). Iām more than happy for us to chat about them here.
To launch this listening club @midnightpunk will be hosting an album listening club for the Scream tonight.
If you can, please join him, theyāre always fun. Iāll be in the pub though. 
Iām excited for this as I donāt know their music anywhere near enough.
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Iāve just noticed this album is 40 next month. I should have waited 
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For me, The Scream is the best debut album of all time. It still sounds completely unlike anything else and there is not a note that Iād change. Magnificent.
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Been doing a bit of advance study for this music club, and have already listened to The Scream three times this week.
Side note: just about every comment I make itt will involve comparing/contrasting either with The Cure, or with the Banshees live album Nocturne, for reasons to do with my post above.
Quite impressed with The Scream. For some reason it was not one of the albums I bothered to check out a few years ago when I decided to dip into the back catalogue. As a debut, itās a fair bit more coherent and adventurous than Three Imaginary Boys. A few of the tracks are relatively uninspiring punk plodders, as is the case with 3IB, but it actually does a heap more to kick start post-punk than I was expecting. I expect Iāll be giving this a higher mark than I gave 3IB.
Jigsaw Feeling, Mirage and Switch are corkers. And the cover of Helter Skelter is great too (though I have to say that the live version on Nocturne is 10 times better. Love the sculpted feedback at the start of that version.)
Looking forward to hearing other peopleās thoughts.
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On first listen, I really liked it. Itās a very impressive debut.
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Doing it now means youāve timed it beautifully with the release of their All Souls compilation
Iām hoping to join in with this listening club but may start late.
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Timely reminder that the album listening club will go ahead for The Scream at 9pm tonight (Saturday 22nd October, U.K. time). More than welcome to join in the relevant thread which iāll bump now too.
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I feel The Scream is a great album as a debut album. It isnāt consistently great to me but it moves fast and is dark and ice cold. It certainly feels like it grows towards its ending and the music eventually rises to meet the vocal input.
You can hear Pub Rock that pre-dates it, in it, for sure. Yet they move things on and itās scary how many other bands you can hear in them that they influenced. Joy Division, Bauhaus, Elastica, loads more.
You can tell there is a star orchestrating things from the get-go, or at least it feels that way.
Iād probably score it a high 8/10.
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I donāt think i can quite replicate the enthusiasm of that hoopy frood @midnightpunk above sadly.
This has been my first experience listening to SATB and while i have definitely enjoyed the post/punky instrumentation, I really couldnāt get along with the vocals at all.
In a lot of ways it reminds me of my experience of listening to Patti Smith. I know that āHorsesā is a work of genius but i just canāt get along with her voice either.
Itās frustrating with SATB cos i actually hear a lot of early PJ Harvey in āThe Screamā and sheās a vocalist i love and Iām guessing must have been influenced by SATB now Iāve heard it but i canāt get past the vocals on here unfortunately, just doesnāt really work for me.
Will be interesting to see if either her vocal style changes or my feelings mellow in the next couple of records, thereās definitely enough of interest to keep me listening.
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My first time listening to this album in full for a long time.
I always thought it sounded Bleak and cold and very much of itās time but through headphones the guitars are much more melodic and warm sounding and the drums sound a lot more intricate than I recall.
I almost feel that Hong Kong Garden sounds out of place and too poppy against the rest of the album (wasnāt it added later?)
Iāve got a few track that are personal highlights but Iāll wait until voting to discuss. 7/10
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