ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #023

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#024– Elastica– ‚Stutter’ (Sub Pop ’93)

Dear friends,

for me, it was always Donna (the Adidas one above). Not Justine (front), but Donna. There, I said it!!

For those too young to know (or too backwoodsy to have undergone this dilemma in 1993), EVERYBODY was in love with Elastica back then, you would not believe how successful they were:

All of their first four singles went straight to the Top 20 from ’93 to ‘95, and their first album, released in ’95, broke records for the fastest-selling debut in the UK. Now, what must not be forgotten is that in those days Britpop was still twitching its already half-cold corpse here and then, consequently basically everything coming from the UK was thrown onto the Britpop freight train regardless, as long as it fitted at least a little bit in a musical context.

And in my humble opinion, this was Elastica’s big problem. At the end of the day, their music had always been too good to be exploited like this – and if you’re honest, the punk rock – post-punk- new wave – racket they made has never been the slightest ‘Britpopish’, if such a term exists at all. Yes, Justine and Justin were in Suede before and also Justine had a liaison with Damon Albarn out of Blur, which, obviously, the press went mad about. But does this justify to label their wonderful output as Britpop? No, it doesn’t, not for me!

Quite clearly the band didn’t disagree, ‘cos Britpop still meant money, so I assume they thought what I think these days … and kept quiet about it. Understandably so. Shortly after the debut album, which was released rather late, in 1995 in fact, Britpop was soon gone … and gone with it, by and large, were Elastica. They briefly came back to our attention when Wire as well as The Stranglers thought their songs were stolen from on the album (in their view parts of ‘I Am The Fly’ were to be found in ‘Line Up’, ‘Three Girl Rhumba’ in ‘Connection’ and ‘No More Heroes’ in ‘Waking Up’).

Me, I never heard any similarities, but then again I have never been a musician. I just enjoyed the debut album in all its glory and this song, their first single, is the stand-out track for me:

mp3: Elastica – Stutter

Now, ‘what happened to you and Donna’, I hear you asking? Well, nothing much, because shortly after Elastica broke up, Donna became a Christian pastor in bloody Totnes!! I mean, come on: you can’t think this up, can you …. another frustrating chapter in the endless story of my unrequited love life …

Ah well. Still: enjoy,

Dirk