Track 2: Orange Juice, "Holiday Hymn"
And now, for some indie pop from Scotland. No, not fucking Franz Ferdinand! Just the band that provided them inspiration for their entire dance-pop oeuvre! [1]
If you don't know Orange Juice: remember that song, "A Girl Like You", by a fellow named Edwyn Collins? It was quite popular in the mid-90s.
Well, anyway, Orange Juice were Edwyn's band in the late 70s/early 80s. They were—and are—critically acclaimed, but as is so often the case, not particularly popular in terms of record sales. And in fact, it's pretty much impossible to find their 2 first albums—"You Can't Hide Your Love Forever" and "Rip it Up"—anywhere.
"Holiday Hymn" is a cover of a Subway Sect song. It's from their (discarded) first album, Ostrich Courtyard, which was collected on the compilation The Glasgow School, released just this year, which also includes a bunch of their early singles.
This isn't my absolute favorite of their songs, but it's fairly representative: jangly guitars, somewhat wobbly & mournfully fey vocals.
Ah, those vocals. This review in the Guardian provides one of the best summaries ever of Edwyn's vocals:
Weaker tunes would certainly have buckled beneath Edwyn Collins' unique approach to vocals. A couple of months ago, the website where Grace Collins has courageously documented her husband's recovery from a cerebral haemorrhage reported that he had been singing again, adding that "his tuning needs working on". "Grace," one fan gently replied, "his tuning always did need work." In fact, you could spend all day throwing adjectives at Collins' voice on The Glasgow School and still not come up with a satisfactory description. Occasionally, he sounded like a Caledonian Bryan Ferry attempting to croon while balancing marbles on his tongue and stifling a fit of the giggles. Usually he sounded more peculiar than that.
[1] Though to their credit, FF do tend to admit it: they're basically the reason why The Glasgow School was released this year, because they're always promoting Orange Juice (or at least, the memory of same). Which is very sweet. Thanks, Alex Kapranos et al!
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