When the angels sing

Tin Can Pot, the Prefab Sprout dedicated music blog, brings us news of one of those "I can't breathe' moments:

Cue fanfare

Brilliant, brilliant news.

That bloke with the salt and pepper beard that Paddy McAloon was always writing lyrics about must really be up there.

I feel a Kitcheware music marathon* coming on.

Hat tip to Tin Can Pot

*The sprouts; Hurrah!; Kane Gang & Martin Stephenson

Link Posted Out Of Necessity

Brilliant music blog find via the 5P blog, and it does exactly what it says on the tin lid:

"Dedicated to the songwriting of Paddy McAloon.
In this blog I have attempted to create an overview of Paddy's work outside of the currently available material of Prefab Sprout and also covers of his songs by other artists." [From Tin Can Pot blog.]

Paddy McAloon has to be one of the best songwriters of the last 25 years. What happened to all those unreleased albums that he'd said he recorded years ago? Some of us are still waiting.

Posts/tracks that caught my eye in this dedicated blog include:

Radio Love - The B side to Prefab Sprout's 1983 single, 'Lions In My Own Garden(Exit Someone)'. Naturally enough, God is mentioned in the lyrics but what is surprising is that though it wouldn't have sounded out of place on the Sprout's debut album, Swoon, the song comes across as much more polished than any track from that particular album. Why was it hidden away as a b side?

Kylie Minogue's cover version of 'If You Don't Love Me'. Though I still prefer the original - I think it's one of Prefab Sprout's most underrated songs - I still have a lot of time for this cover version. Sounds brilliant just stripped down to piano and vocals. Just a shame that, just like Kylie, it's too short.

'Rebel Land' from a 1985 John Peel session. Prefab Sprout did a Peel Session? Now that I think about, I guess it makes sense. Signed to Kitchenware Records and with tracks like 'The Devil Has All The Best Tunes', they always had that element of left fieldism to their music, but I first heard them on Radio 2 when Radio 2 was still, erm, Radio 2 . . . Jimmy Young, Pete Murray and a Pre-ironic Terry Wogan. Why the hell I was listening to Radio 2 at the age of 12 I have no idea, and why the hell 'Don't Sing' was put on the Radio 2 playlist leaves me puzzled - Paddy McAloon's musical reworking of Graham Greene's 'The Power and the Glory' - but whatever the case, it meant that I got into Prefab Sprout from the get go. PS - Loved to hear the 1985 Peel Session version of 'Cars and Girls'.

The Editors are now 2 for 2 in my book. Couple of years back they did a more than respectable cover version of REM's 'Orange Crush', and they've come up trumps again with their version of 'Bonny', from Prefab Sprout's sophomore album, Steve McQueen. If only the Editors would give up the songwriting lark, there's a decent pub covers band hiding inside them.

Lisa Stansfield singing 'When Love Comes Down' is more a curio than a recommendation. She recorded it for a 2005 album but it sounds incredibly dated. Sort of track that AVPS Phil usually recommends as his fav (old) track of the week on his blog. Must be the first time I've heard a Lisa Stansfield track in about 15 years. I preferred her on Razzamattaz.

Check out the blog. Twenty years from now there'll be a National Holiday on Paddy McAloon's birthday.

Bulletins Posted Out Of Necessity

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (31)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 31st of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1166 friends!

Recent blogs:

The making of "killing machines"

Why governments can't just spend and spend

The Continuing Trade Cycle

This week's top quote:

"But capital not only lives upon labor. Like a master, at once distinguished and barbarous, it drags with it into its grave the corpses of its slaves, whole hecatombs of workers, who perish in the crises." Karl Marx, Wage Labour and Capital, 1847.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Keep From Trucking

Via the Pretending Life Is Like a Song music blog - and for completists only - comes Prefab Sprout's "Faron Young (Trucking Mix)"

Take the opening track from one of the best albums of the mid-eighties, and smother it with a meaningless tinny remix, and you have all that was harrowing about pop music in the dark ages of 84-89 (save a few exceptions that I can't be arsed to list here).

I don't blame the record company; Paddy McAloon has to take the occasional brickbat alongside the fulsome plaudits. I lost count of the number of times that Prefab Sprout and the record company remixed and re-released "When Loves Breaks Down" before it finally crept into the top forty via an appearance on the Wogan Show. Paddy Mac knew what he was doing, and it was simply the opening chapter of him selling his musical soul before going that final stretch and passing songs onto Jimmy Nail.

You know the drill: download the mp3 within the next ten minutes, otherwise you'll lose out.