Artist: Super Furry Animals
Release Date: July 23, 2001
Alternate Route to Vulcan Street
Sidewalk Serfer Girl
(Drawing) Rings Around the World
It's Not the End of the World?
Receptacle for the Respectable
[A] Touch Sensitive
Shoot Doris Day
Miniature
No Sympathy
Juxtapozed with U
Presidential Suite
Run! Christian, Run!
Fragile Happiness
All songs written by Super Furry Animals
It may seem from the artists I have mentioned in my blog so far (the Beatles, Queen, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Genesis, the Police, etc.) that I am stuck in the past as far as my musical tastes are concerned. There is some truth to this, for a number of reasons, e.g., I have been living in Asia since the mid 1990s and so get a little less exposure to new artists in the English-speaking world, I am interested in music history and so tend to look back more than forward, and I get enough variety in my listening pleasure out of all the older artists I listen to, so I can’t really be bothered to investigate newer artists. But there are a number of newer – or at least post-1990 – artists that I listen to, such as Radiohead, Muse, the White Stripes, Shakira, Amy Whitehouse and Outkast, just to name a few. One of my favorite (relatively) recent artists is the Welsh band Super Furry Animals. They are one of the few who I have liked sufficiently to make an effort to collect nearly all of their albums.
One thing that is interesting about the Super Furry Animals is that there is no real consensus among fans and critics as to which is their greatest – or most important or most significant – album. In this sense they are more like, say, Genesis than Queen, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan or the Beatles, all of whom have one or a few albums which are almost universally cited as their best. For SFA, as they are sometimes called, several albums have been called both their best album and their worst by different reviewers (opinions of Genesis albums, particularly the 1980s ones, are similarly varied). I myself like all of their albums to one degree or another, and I would have trouble picking one as my favorite. So for my first SFA review, I will just do the first CD of theirs I bought, their 2001 album Rings Around the World.
Rings Around the World was the Super Furry Animals’ fifth studio album, but it was their first on a major label. Several publications called it “near perfect” or their “best album to date”, though NME said it was “their worst”, even if that still meant it was better than a lot of other bands’ work, and Allmusic, despite a generally positive review, considered it less inventive than their previous albums. It was chosen by Mojo as the best album of 2001, which is where I first heard of it (and the band). My curiosity sparked by the Mojo review, I download MP3s of a few of the tracks off a P2P service. I liked them a lot, and so I went out and bought the CD (incidentally proving that music sharing can actually increase music sales – I wouldn’t have bought the CD if I hadn’t been able to download and listen to some songs first). While as I noted above I have since bought most of their other releases, some of which I like at least as much as this album, I still enjoy this one a lot.
As a number of reviewers and SFA themselves have noted, with a major label budget the band could indulge themselves, resulting in an eclectic, glossy production which ran a wide gamut of sounds and styles. While some critics and fan seem to feel the lush production meant the album had less of an edge than some of their independent releases – and I can understand their point of view, as lo-fi albums like Mwng appeal to me just as much as this one – I like complicated productions if they are done well, as I think is the case here. It gives the album a great deal of variety, which is something I always like in music. One of my favorite tracks, “Receptacle for the Respectable”, actually goes from prog rock to melodic pop to death metal in four and a half minutes, and also features Paul McCartney chewing celery in homage to his doing the same on the Beach Boys’ song “Vegetables”. Though no other single songs cover such a wide range in styles, there is still plenty of variety to be found elsewhere on the album. Another standout track, “No Sympathy”, starts out with acoustic guitars and Crosby, Stills and Nash-style harmonies (though it’s hard to imagine CSN singing “you deserve to die-ie-ie-ie…”) and then breaks down into jagged techno. The hit single “Juxtapozed with U”, another track I particularly enjoy listening to (though I know some fans of the band don’t care for it), is a very catchy “plastic” soul tune. Influences cited for the title track, “(Drawing) Rings Around the World” (which I also like a lot, though it is perhaps a tad repetitive) include Status Quo, the Beach Boys (clearly a big influence on the album as a whole) and ELO. Other notable tracks include “Presidential Suite”, which has an entertaining set of lyrics about the foibles of Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin attached to a chorus with a great melody, the 1960s pop-style “It's Not the End of the World?”, and the sharply ironic “Run, Christian, Run”.
One of the great strengths of this album, and for that matter of much of the Super Furry Animals’ work, is the strong melodies, most of which are the work of lead singer and chief songwriter Gruff Rhys (though the others have also written some quite melodic tunes, particularly on 2005’s Love Kraft). All of the songs mentioned above have excellent melodies – in fact, all the songs have good melodies, and many have very good if a bit wacky lyrics. The album’s eclecticism helps keep things interesting, especially since you never know when things will take a sudden left turn. On this album in particular SFA's influences are readily apparent, and yet they manage to update and adapt them in a way that sounds fresh. While this may not necessarily be the best or most representative Super Furry Animals’ album, I can attest to the fact that it’s a good place to start.
Note: I didn’t attempt to do a song-by-song review this time around, though maybe some day I’ll come back and tack one on.
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