Album Review: Teenage Fanclub - Thirteen (25th anniversary/2018 vinyl reissue)
I think I’ve bought the fourth album from Teenage Fanclub, Thirteen, a total of four times in my
life—roughly once every eight years.
The first would have been a little less than a year after
its original release in October of 1993; it was the summer of 1994, I was 11
years old, and I had spent my summer watching a lot of music videos on MTV—“Cannonball” by The Breeders and “Bull
in The Heather” by Sonic Youth were include among those I saw regularly. Toward
the end of the summer, I had planned on buying Last Splash and Experimental
Jet Set, Trash, and No Star on cassette.
I can recall watching an interview with the Deal sisters—Kim
and Kelly—from The Breeders, on MTV News, and in the interview, one of them
expressed a love of Teenage Fanclub. This was in a world long before streaming
an album in its entirety on Spotify, or on YouTube; long before previewing bits
of each track in the iTunes store. I heard the band name Teenage Fanclub, and
thought, ‘Well, I better check this out too, I guess,’ and with my other
cassette purchases at the end of the summer, I added the band’s most recent and
readily available effort, Thirteen,
to my pile, knowing absolutely nothing about the band.
I’m not sure what happened to those tapes—they are all long,
long gone now, probably nowhere near a state of decomposition, taking up a
small amount of room in some landfill in rural Illinois. I recall, for a fact,
that I was definitely not ready for that Sonic Youth album—I mean, even at 35,
I sometimes question if I am really
ready for certain Sonic Youth albums—Experimental
Jet Set among those included.
But I think I got a lot of mileage out of Thirteen.
I have a vague memory of what would have been the second
time I purchased a copy of Thirteen;
if my memory is, in fact, correct, this would have been a used CD, procured
over Thanksgiving break during my sophomore year of college—so late November of
2002. What I can’t recall now, however, is why I would have been so moved to do
this at this point in my life, and if this is a real memory—what happened to
that CD.
The third time I purchased Thirteen would have been in the summer of 2010; again, a used copy
of the CD. However, this time, I managed to snag some kind of limited or
special edition of the album that tacked on an additional six tracks at the
end. It was during this time that I began working at the radio station in our
town, putting together an hour-long show, every weekday afternoon. To build the
show, I had to continually think about music—exploring all genres as well as
different time periods—and it caused me to do a lot of thinking back to things
I listened to when I was younger.
A specific song from Thirteen
popped into my head one afternoon—“Radio” (but of course)—and I drove to the
used CD store in town to see if they had a copy. I get the impression that,
much like R.E.M.’s Monster, Thirteen is one of those early to mid
90s CDs that you will almost always be able to find a used copy of.
The fourth time I purchased Thirteen was just very recently—the vinyl reissue of the album,
released as part of a massive campaign from the band and Sony Music, remastering
and issuing the band’s ‘Creation Years’ records—including their 1991
breakthrough Bandwagonesque, as well
as three record released in the years after Thirteen—Grand Prix, Songs From Northern Britain, and Howdy!
In comparison to the glowing reception of 1991’s Bandwagonesque—Spin magazine famously named it the best record of the year,
beating My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless,
Nevermind by Nirvana, and U2’s Achtung Baby for that title—Thirteen was, apparently, maligned by
critics upon its release, and considered a huge disappointment in terms of a
follow up.
In the Pitchfork review regarding all five reissues from the
campaign, Sam Sodomsky—a staff writer and occasional critic for the site, and for
what it’s worth, I usually take issue with a lot of his reviews—said Thirteen has a ‘reputation far worse
than its music,’ which is a bit of a backhanded compliment, and then goes on to
call the album ‘sloppier’ and ‘gnarlier’ than its predecessor; and that, at the
time of its release, it was considered to be ‘brainless’ and ‘derivative.’
Both Bandwagonesque
and Thirteen are the last two albums
that would find the band operating with a more grunge oriented sound; they
traded it in for something that was less angsty, and instead, more shimmering by
1995’s Grand Prix; and they’ve
mellowed out quite a bit on their2010s output via Merge Records.
But I would never call Thirteen
a ‘gnarlier’ album, or say that it is sloppy. Yes, the band still relies on
distortion pedals for a majority of the record, but if anything, Thirteen is a collection of tightly
constructed songs (13 of them, but of course) that blur the edges between
jangle pop, or ‘alternative,’ and grunge rock—and a bulk of these songs are
much more compelling and focused than anything on Bandwagonesque.
Or, maybe I’m unfairly biased because of which album I heard
first. While Thirteen had drifted in
and out of my life, and ears, many times, it wasn’t until later in 2010 when I
thought to even track down a copy of Bandwagonesque;
and sure, it’s a fine album—but over the last eight years, I know I’ve listened
to Thirteen more.
* * *
Thirteen begins
with a snarl—because of course it does. It’s a guitar-driven ‘rock’ album, and
it’s a pure product of its era. Though, 25 years later, a surprising thing,
upon hearing this record, yet again—this time from 180-gram vinyl, is that time
has been awfully kind to it. In some
respects, it sounds dated, yes, but it has aged surprisingly well—which, I
think, only speaks to its charm and merit.
Opening with the sprawling epic, “Hang On,” yes, the record
starts with a snarling, distorted electric guitar, and it only continues to
build as the thundering percussion comes in, as well as the low, rumbling bass
line. However, it’s all just a rouse; as the tempo gets unnervingly fast, “Hang
On” seems like its on the verge of exploding before it even gets off the
ground—but it doesn’t. The song crests, and while those distorted guitars are
still chugging along underneath, things become exponentially less aggressive or
‘hard’ sounding when the vocals slide in and the song ‘actually’ begins—a
rollicking, kaleidoscopic pop song that, across its five minute running time,
eventually finds its way into a flute solo, of all things, that makes way for
the song’s lengthy instrumental ending, complete with a swirling string
accompaniment.
Not every song on Thirteen
is this bombastic, however, and the album quickly finds its footing as an
affable kind of alternative rock album with two incredibly energetic songs back
to back—“The Cabbage” and the blistering power pop of the aforementioned
“Radio.”
As Thirteen
progresses, if you listen closely to both the lyrics, and the music, as well as
look intently at the song titles, you see that this is a record brimming with
an incredibly dry and self-aware sense of humor—something that maybe listeners
and critics failed to see the first time around, or maybe simply didn’t
appreciate it. Strangely enough, in the little blurb about the record in its
iTunes store listing, it’s described as a ‘dark’ record—and I’ve never thought
that at all.
Titles like “Song to the Cynic,” “120 Mins,” and “Commercial
Alternative” are all knowing winks directed at the listener; even the music of
“Commercial Alternative,” with a soaring guitar riff right out of the gate,
sounds a bit satirical when you realize the built-in joke within the title.
There’s also the infectious “Escher,” another small bit of
humor hidden within the record, with its refrain—“I don’t know if I’m going up or down with you; Don’t know if I’m coming
going up or down with you, but I don’t mind.”
Critics described the album as ‘brainless’ when it was
released, and while I find that to be a bit much—I can see why some may have felt
that way. It apparently had something to do with the lyrics to “Norman 3”—one
of the singles released from Thirteen,
and one of album’s contributions by Norman Blake; the somewhat unique thing
about Teenage Fanclub as a band is that the songs come from three places—Norman
Blake, Gerard Love, and Ray McGinley—all of whom share lead vocal duties as
well.
Blake’s “Norman 3,” finds the singer repeating the phrase, “I’m in love with you,” like, well over
20 times—serving as the song’s refrain, I guess. I mean, it didn’t really
bother me too much as a kid when I listened to this album—it’s, like so many
others on here, an infectious song. But if you take a step back, sure, it’s
super repetitive, and more than a little cloying.
But not brainless.
It was also called derivative—mostly of Big Star—and mostly
because the album was named Thirteen,
a direct reference to the Big Star song, “Thirteen,” found on the influential
group’s debut album, #1 Record. This
was, apparently, a case where wearing your influences on your sleeve was
problematic.
There are things that don’t necessarily work, or at least
are less successful—despite the repetition and saccharine nature of “Norman 3,”
I’d argue that Thirteen has a pretty
unfuckwithable four track run from the moment it begins. However, “Song to The
Cynic,” and “120 Mins”—neither of which are bad
songs, but they are slow songs, or momentum-killing songs, and they bring the
pacing of the record down quite a bit, before it’s kicked back up with
“Escher.”
The album’s second side is also a little uneven, suffering a
similar pacing issue with the trudging “Tears Are Cool” and “Ret Liv Dead.”
However, two of the album’s most impressive moments are also found within the
second side—“Fear of Flying,” and the lengthy closing track, “Gene Clark.” The
former, sure, the song’s coda is a little monotonous (however, not as bad as
repeating “I’m in love with you,”
over and over again) but there’s something fascinating about how “Fear of
Flying” kind of switches gears—it begins rather downcast, with some surprising
lyrics: “This is your one way ticket, so
don’t fuck it up. Your flight is boarding, and you’re running out of luck.”
But it becomes something short of joyous by the time it reaches its rolling
conclusion.
The latter, arriving at roughly seven minutes, finds the
band exploring Neil Young and Crazy Horse levels of lengthy, noisy instrumental
noodling before seguing into the song proper—and as it slowly fades out, makes
for a slightly dissonant, sharply contrasting, and memorable conclusion to the
record.
The reissue of Thirteen
has been remastered from the original tapes at Abbey Road Studios; it doesn’t
make a huge difference sound wise
when you compare it to the original release, but you can tell that some work
has been done. As with most reissues and remasters of albums—especially from
this era—things are, overall, a lot louder, and there has been a little more
depth added to give the album not such a ‘flat’ sound, as was common with
production and mastering in the 1990s.
This reissue also includes a 7” single that features two
additional tracks—both of which are pulled from the Thirteen sessions, and were not included in bonus material on my CD
copy of the record. “Country Song,” which is exactly what it sounds like, is
previously unreleased, and would have more than likely stuck out terribly if it
had been shoehorned onto the album’s final track list; the single’s b-side,
“Eyes Wide Open” was released on a compilation in 2004, put together to benefit
and raise awareness about mental health in Scotland. It’s a short track, less
than two minutes, but is more akin to the rest of the material, or aesthetic,
the band had on Thirteen.
I’ve spent 24 years, give or take, listening to Thirteen; it’s not a perfect record, and
I don’t know if I’d go out on a limb and say it’s one of my all time favorite
records. But maybe it is? I didn’t even really bat an eyelash at the idea of
ordering this vinyl reissue—in fact, when the reissues were announced, my first
thought was ‘Oh, I should probably get a copy of Thirteen.’ It’s an album that I have come, over time, and many
tries, to enjoy—and to enjoy it for what it is. It’s a fun listen that
straddles the line between humor and taking itself too seriously, and it has a
sense of nostalgia built into it that, somehow, I’ve managed to carry with me
into adulthood.
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