Category: Babybird

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

003 – BABYBIRD – ‚Goodnight’ (The Echo Label, ’96)

Hello friends,
more melody, I hear you say? Well, here you are – today’s choice probably is as catchy a tune as you will get in this series! A bit turgid and without having looked it up, I strongly assume it has even charted back then as well. This, of course, is no obstacle for a song to feature here, but it is unusual nevertheless for the balance of singles to come.

I first got aware of Babybird by a song they had on one of those ‘Volume’ – compilations, ‘Alan Ladd’. Only that they were still called Baby Bird then. The song was okay, I thought, but then they quickly disappeared from my radar. Until I first heard ‘You’re Gorgeous’, their hit single. It was played to death on the radio, even here in Germany. Which – again – normally isn’t a good sign, but I was very fond of it, I remember.

But not as fond as I was of today’s song, which is, in fact, Babybird’s first single:

mp3: Babybird – ‘Goodnight’

It just blew me away, I must say, and it still has the very same effect these days, after all these years. It made me buy their album ‘Ugly Beautiful’, but if memory serves, I didn’t like it very much. Perhaps I should give it a second chance?

But even if the album fails to me please me again, there’s always ‘Goodnight’ ….

All the best, enjoy,

Dirk

PS: and if hamirthehermit should be reading this: just send me a short mail (dirk dot huppertz at gmx dot de) and I will reply with a rip of the other side of The Akrylykz – single. And probably also with some useful information about where to find even more stuff by the band, partly unreleased …

FORGOTTEN BRITPOP CLASSICS (Part 8 )

from 29 September 2008

The back of this CD single says:-

“It’s creamy but inedible
It’s pop with a healthy hatred of all things normal
It’s a man on a car in a bikini – getting beauty sucked out of him
By a woman with a Nikon.
But more than that, much more than that
It’s the second single by Babybird”

So….its simply wrong that happy loving couples want this played at their engagement party or wedding reception…..in the same way so many have misunderstood the real meaning behind The One I Love by REM. What’s even funnier is when its used as background music on some sort of TV documentary/reality programme, chosen by some numpty or bimbo who only hears the chorus and thinks to him/herself….’oh, that’ll be the prefect accompaniment to the glamour shots we’ve got in the can….’

Babybird, in the beginning, was just the name used by singer-songwriter Stephen Jones, a native of Sheffield. I remember in the mid 90s there was a real buzz about him in the music press, based on something like three or four demo-type LPs that were doing the rounds. In due course he put a band together and got a record deal with a subsidiary of major label Chrysalis Records, and in September 1996, it looked as if all the hype was justified when this fantastically catchy single went Top 3:-

mp3 : Babybird – You’re Gorgeous
mp3 : Babybird – You’re Gorgeous Too
mp3 : Babybird – Hong Kong Blues
mp3 : Babybird – KW Jesus TV Roof Appeal

Disappointingly for all concerned, many of the best tunes seemed to have been left behind on all the demo albums, as the first ‘proper’ LP didn’t go down well with either the critics or public, and before too long, the band were being labelled as one-hit wonders.

I say disappointingly, simply because I think You’re Gorgeous was one of the best singles of its era – really catchy and radio-friendly but with such a twisted subject matter. It was the sort of lyric that fellow resident of Sheffield, Jarvis Cocker, would have been proud of.

JC

Many of the more informative and entertaining blogs come from the simplest ideas. Today’s Friend Electric is Charity Chic Music, maintained and managed by Charity Chic (or CC for short).

The first ever posting on the blog in November 2012 set out the philosophy:-

“The idea of this blog is to share music I have discovered in Charity Shops.

When real life kicks in and you can’t afford to buy as much music as you like or used to you are faced with a number of options:-

1. stop buying
2. buy less
3. buy less, hit the library and the charity shops

I’ve gone for option 3.”

It’s expanded a wee bit since then, taking in gig reviews and a range of themed postings including cult labels, southern soul and what must be a world first in ‘Bands I’ve seen in Helensburgh’ (a very small town at the end of the railway line some 25 miles west of Glasgow).

He will darken the doors off all sorts of charity shops in the hope of unearthing something for his blog, and I’ve stolen his words and music from a posting back in October 2013 partly as the shop in question is away up on the north coast of Scotland, not too far from the home town of my dear friend Jacques the Kipper, and partly as I agree with every word he says about the CD he featured:-

The Portsoy Thrift Shop Experience

Wouldn’t that be a great name for a band!

The thrift shop in the rather pleasant North East Scottish village of Portsoy has probably got the cheapest CDs that I’ve yet come across – four for a pound!

I could only see two that caught my fancy. In retrospect I should have grabbed another two and recycled the jewel cases.

This was one

This Sheffield band is a personal vanity project of one Stephen Jones and are famous for one track “Your Gorgeous” which reached number 3 in 1996 .

Anyone spending more than 25p on the album and expecting more of the same will be extremely disappointed.

According to the sleevenotes Ugly Beautiful is the search for perfection and is like trying to kill flies with scissors.

A pile of pants I say

Babybird – Candy Girl

Babybird – You’re Gorgeous

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More friends electric tomorrow