The album peaked at #24 for two weeks on the UK Albums Chart,[4] and at #169 on the US Billboard 200 for six weeks.[5] The three singles from the album – "Def. Con. One", "Can U Dig It?", and "Wise Up! Sucker" – were among the band's most successful to date. The album received critical acclaim, with praise for its invention, humour, and self-contained style. Cherry Red Records released a two-disc deluxe edition of the album in 2011 that includes unreleased bonus tracks.
Background and recording
The Stourbridge-based Pop Will Eat Itself started in 1986 as a Buzzcocks-influenced indie rock band.[6] Though initially associated with the C86 scene, their rougher, rockier sound led to them being championed by the music press as one of several grebo bands that were emerging from Midlands, with the word "grebo" itself having been revived by the band. Band member Graham Crabb said: "We revived this '70s [slang] word for dork or nerd, and the press had to build this movement around it to describe everyone with long hair and a nasty guitar sound."[3] The band thought their musical style was "pretty much going down a cul de sac" until they found numerous other "more interesting" influences. Crabb reflected: "We just started listening to a lot of new stuff, stuff we hadn't heard before. We saw Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys come over and play, and they blew us away."[3]
Having been inspired by groups such as Age of Chance,[7] the band immersed themselves with sampling, drawing material from artists as disparate as Iggy Pop and James Brown, while Crabb would quickly join Clint Mansell as the band's second frontman after his previous tenure as the band's drummer, while a drum machine took that place. The success of the band's debut album Box Frenzy (1987) led to increased interest of the band's second album.[6]
This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! was produced by Flood, who one critic felt brought his notable production talent to the fore of the album, helping shape it into becoming "its own sprawling but self-contained universe."[8] Dave Pine engineered the album with assistance from Karl Broadie.[9] Nonetheless, numerous songs on the album feature different engineers and producers; for example, "Can U Dig It?" was produced by David Steele and Andy Cox of Fine Young Cannibals and formerly The Beat,[10] while "Def. Con. One" features production by Robert Gordon and turntable scratching from DJ Winston, both influential figures in the birth of Sheffield bleep techno.[9] "Wild guitar" is contributed to two songs by The Buzzard, while "Stun guitar" is played by Frank Booth on "Preaching to the Perverted."[9]
Music
Public Enemy were a key influence on This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This!
This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! features the band's unique "mesh and mix" of pop culture from the United States and particularly the United Kingdom, and combines metal guitar riffs, disco backing and conspicuous drum stomps.[11] Influences of rap, heavy metal and the band's early influence of punk rock are spliced with numerous "found" auto artefacts "collected from all over the junk-culture landscape", including Motown snippets, advertising slogans and the "play-by-play call of a John Elway touchdown pass.[3] Throughout the album, there are what AllMusic's Ned Raggett described as "intriguing surprises", including multiple moody goth and post-punk elements.[11] The music press found the band's sound hard to categorise. Band member Graham Crabb explained: "Nobody's really come up with a description of what we do, and we're quite happy about that. It gives us absolute freedom."[3]
With the album's heavy usage of sampling, Trouser Press called the album a sound collage and noted the influence of the band's affection for Blade Runner's "sci-finihilism" and the innovative comic books of Alan Moore.[2] Joe Boehm of the LA Times agreed the album was an "assaultive" sound collage, writing that the eclectic album is a "funny smorgasboard in which a seemingly endless array of pop styles and media messages are sampled, tasted and either spat out or savoured (Rick Astley, nuclear warfare, fast food and alcoholism fail to meet the taste test; science-fiction fantasy and pop styles that are noisy, emphatic, and identified with troublemakers win the blue ribbon)."[3] Robin Reinhardt of Spin noted the influence of Public Enemy,[12] and Crabb would later state that the influence of Public Enemy's second album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988) was "stamped, trodden and embedded" within This Is the Day.[13] Band member Clint Mansell elaborated on this:
We definitely like the format of Public Enemy's album in the fact it all runs together. It doesn't really stop. Some tracks are intermingles and things like that. Our songs '16 Different Flavours of Hell' and 'PWEI Is a Four Letter Word' are sort of short, cut up things. That's something we took from Public Enemy because we really liked it. Sampling is just something we're into really. We were described as being a piece of blotting paper because we soak so many things. I suppose that's what we do. We're open to a lot of influences and music is changing all the time.[12]
On "Preaching to the Perverted", Crabb sings "So we steal, so what? So far so good, we're Robin Hoods."[3] "Wise Up! Sucker" contains a "sharp, mocking backing vocal" from Miles Hunt of The Wonder Stuff.[8] One of the songs which "really taps into the heart of PWEI’s science-fiction obsession",[15] "Inject Me" features a breakbeat and "murky" beginning,[8] With its "shady" and "creepy" sustained narrative, it starts with what appears to be a "first-person reverie of some slacker junkie", with the song's introductory lyrics whispered by Crabb, whose voice becomes more paranoid and sharper when the verse begins, with science-fiction-style lyrics forming the rest of the song, though one critic noted that "it's unclear whether the whole SF scenario is happening only in the narrator's addled brainpan."[15] The beat is sampled from "Jimbrowski" by The Jungle Brothers, itself sampling the beat from Funkadelic's "Good Old Music".[15] The lyrics of the propulsive "Can U Dig It?" are largely a list of things the band loves, including Dirty Harry,[8]DJ Spinderella,[8]The Twilight Zone[15] and V for Vendetta.[15] Jason Heller of Tor.com said the song contains most of the album's geek culture references,[15] while Trouser Press compared the song to "We Love You" by the Psychedelic Furs, itself "a catalog of cool."[2]
"Def. Con. One" samples Siouxsie Sioux, Rod Serling, the Beastie Boys, as well as paying homage to the Stooges and "Funkytown by Lipps, Inc. in a "seamless dadaist stew."[2] The song is a "portrayal of armageddonJudge Dredd style."[8] "Not Now James, We're Busy…", described by Raggett as "wickedly bizarre",[8] began as a joke regarding hip hop groups that would continually plagiarise beats and riffs from James Brown's discography, but turned into a song recounting Brown's police capture in 1988 after a car chase.[3] Several months after the album's release, Big Audio Dynamite released "James Brown", a song with the same subject matter on their own sound collage-styled album Megatop Phoenix. Crabb said: "We were really surprised, 'cause some of the lyrics are so similar. We used some press clips to get the lyrics right. Perhaps B.A.D. did the same."[3] "Wake Up! Time to Die…" features feedback and "collapsing inward drones."[8]
The artwork of This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This! was designed by design agency The Designers Republic. It was the second project the agency created in terms of "creating worlds, like 'the world of Pop Will Eat Itself'."[16] It incorporates themes of Doomsday imagery, radiation, the Doomsday Clock, and the planet being destroyed. Ian Anderson of the agency reflected: "There were still lots of politics about nuclear weapons, so this was kind of political, but not anything specific, more an entertaining prediction."[16] The studio's tendency to recycle cultural icons is readily established in the album artwork, which parodies several familiar corporate logos and icons "to generate layers of new messages."[17] Anderson called the artwork a mixture of "medieval information technology – digital (Mac and Amiga) vs. mechanical (paste-up and graph paper)."[17] The album packaging also marks the first appearance of the band's popular robot-head logo.[17] Steve Mason of AllMusic felt the packaging was inspired by an earlier Designer's Republic album sleeve, that of Age of Chance's One Thousand Years of Trouble (1987).[18]
The agency developed a logo for the band "and then used it like a national emblem."[17] The band's iconic T-shirt of the period featured an edited version of the trademarked Pepsi logo, changed to read "PWEI" with the phrase "Sample It, Loop It, Fuck It, Eat It" surrounding the logo.[14] A copy of the vinyl version of the album, complete with the packaging, as well as the case and inlay for the cassette version, are housed in the Victoria & Albert Museum collection.[19][20] Also on permanent display at the museum are the packaging for the single "Wise Up! Sucker", which is based on different spines of blank VHS tapes. Anderson explained: "Really, it’s another consumerist thing, it doesn’t have any of the meanings that people have attributed to it […] I was just sitting at home looking at my shelves when I thought of it. There is a reason though: I liked the tapes' cases more than I liked what was on them, so it was about why you'd buy into one brand over another."[16]
Release and promotion
The Watchmen-themed "Def. Con. One" was released by the band's early label Chapter 22 on 1 July 1988, reaching number 63 on the UK Singles Chart.[21] Later in the year, the band were signed to major label RCA Records, who released This Is the Day...This is the Hour...This Is This! in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1989 and in the United States and Japan on 18 July 1989. Not all the samples on the album were licensed, as the band found musicians and labels to be "awkward" when they asked to sample their material, whereas "[i]f you don't ask they hardly ever notice you've used them." As such, writers Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola noted that it was unusual the album was released on a major label, musing that "it is hard to believe that the record company was clueless about its content."[14]
With the band on a new label, "Can U Dig It?" was the first official single from the album, released on 9 February 1989 and charting at number 38 in the UK Singles Chart, becoming their highest-charting single yet.[21] "Wise Up! Sucker" became the final single from the album on 1 April 1989, subsequently charting at number 41 in the UK charts.[21] These were followed by the release of the album itself, which peaked at number 24 on the UK Albums Chart and stayed on the chart for two weeks.[4] Meanwhile, it also charted at number 169 on the US Billboard 200, and stayed on the chart for six weeks.[5] Throughout 1989, Pop Will Eat Itself toured numerous countries in support of the album.[3] On 25 September 2011, Cherry Red Records released a special edition of the album that features a bonus disc of rare and unreleased tracks.[22]
This Is the Day…This is the Hour…This Is This! received critical acclaim.[25] Ned Raggett of AllMusic said the album was "brilliant" and "underrated", adding that "the band's sound has never been thicker and more detailed, and while the sampling and arranging are always clearly a product of their late-'80s times, like the Beasties did that year with Paul's Boutique, PWEI comes up with its own sharp synthesis."[11] He said that "the brilliant, shuddering singles alone" are worth the album's price, and commended Flood's production skills, saying he "brought his considerable production skills to the fore and helped shape an album that was its own sprawling but self-contained universe."[11] He later described the album as "Pop Will Eat Itself's crowning moment—an exciting, energetic, and very modern English response to the Beastie Boys' own culture-gobbling antics."[26]
Trouser Press were very favourable to the album, calling it an "aurally exciting sonic collage" and concluding that, "bright, vital and bitingly funny, this record teems with invention."[2] Jason Ankeny of AllMusic called it the band's masterpiece.[6] It was cited as the first of three consecutive groundbreaking albums by the band in The Rough Guide to Rock.[27] On the BBC's "Keeping It Peel" feature, they described the album as the band's "most effective outing",[28] while Jason Heller of The A.V. Club called the album an "electronic, sample-heavy classic."[1] At the end of 1989, NME ranked the album at number 22 in its list of the 50 best albums of the year.[29] Graham Crabb later reflected that the album was "probably our best piece of work."[13]
In his book Cinema Detours, Mike White said the album was the most notable of several examples of pop culture to use lines from the film The Warriors.[30]Brainwashed cited the album one of several late 1980s albums that "[turned] the sampler into an instrument of unparalleled complexity", noting that the band "were mining cartoons, commercials, and funk45s" on the album.[31] Ned Raggett also commented that the "fair dollop of moody goth/post-punk touches" on the album inadvertently predicted where the group Massive Attack "partially ended up."[8] Parry Gettleman of the Orlando Sentinel, meanwhile, said the album found the group "gorging themselves on grungy hip hop."[32] Jason Heller of Tor.com called the album the band's "opus" and "a writhing pile of punk, rap, samples, and geek-culture references." Particular praise was reserved for "Inject Me", saying "the Asimov reference and bleak, narco-apocalyptic atmosphere make 'Inject Me' a mini-masterpiece."[15]
Track listing
No.
Title
Writer(s)
Length
1.
"PWEI Is A Four Letter Word" (memory used 8927byte, 93.3BPM)
Adam Mole, Graham Crabb
1:12
2.
"Preaching to the Perverted" (memory used 9683byte, 100BPM)
Grebo was a short-lived subculture and subgenre of alternative rock that incorporated influences from punk rock, electronic dance music, hip hop and psychedelia. The scene occupied the period in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the United Kingdom before the popularisation of Britpop and grunge. The genre and its attributes were largely absorbed into industrial rock, which would emerge after the sub-genre's demise in the late 1980s, which then led to the development of industrial metal in the 1990s.
Pop Will Eat Itself are an English alternative rock band formed in 1986 in Stourbridge in the West Midlands of England with members from Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country. Initially known as a grebo act, they changed style to incorporate sample-driven indie and industrial rock. Graham Crabb describes their sound as "electronic, punk, alternative hip-hop, hybrid music for fucking, fighting & smoking cigars". Their highest-charting single was the 1993 top-ten hit "Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies!". After initially disbanding in 1996, and having a brief reformation in 2005, they issued their first release in more than five years in 2010.
Graham Crabb, also known as Crabbi, is an English musician, best known for performing in the industrial/dance rock band Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI).
D. I. Go Pop is the second studio album by English post-rock band Disco Inferno, released on 28 February 1994. After forming as a post-punk band in 1989, the band subsequently worked towards an innovative production approach that incorporated found sound elements through extensive use of digital samplers. The band released several critically acclaimed EPs in this vein from 1992–93, and recorded D. I. Go Pop concurrently with some of those preceding EPs, working with producer Charlie McIntosh. The album cover, designed by Fuel and featuring photography by David Spero, has been described as "one of the most indelible album cover images in the '90s."
"Everything Counts" is a song by the English electronic music band Depeche Mode from their third studio album, Construction Time Again (1983). A live version of the song was released in 1989 to support the band's live album 101. The original single reached No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart, whereas the live version reached No. 22.
Dos Dedos Mis Amigos is the fifth studio album by English industrial rock band Pop Will Eat Itself. It was released on 19 September 1994 in the United Kingdom by Infectious Records and in the United States by Nothing and Interscope Records. The album is somewhat different from the band's other albums, as it had more of an industrial influence and fewer samples were used. The cover art was created by longtime collaborators The Designers Republic. The album was the last before the band disbanded in 1996, until the reformed band released New Noise Designed by a Sadist in 2011, with a different line-up.
Vileevils was an electronic dance duo, formed when the 2005 reunion of Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI) failed to become a full-time project. Singer Clint Mansell and guitarist Richard March were too busy with side projects to dedicate themselves to writing and performing new material, and so the remaining three members of the band decided to form the spin-off band Vileevils, utilising the Sonic Noise Byte material that PWEI had written following the reunion.
101 Damnations is the debut studio album by English rock band Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, released on 15 January 1990 through Big Cat Records. After playing in different bands, James Robert "Jim Bob" Morrison and Les "Fruitbat" Carter formed Bob and played their first show in August 1987, before changing the name to Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Over the next year, they played various shows across London before signing to Big Cat; with shows further north of the city in early 1989, a fanbase started building. The duo recorded their debut album with producer Simon Painter at Important Notice Studios, which was a garage on Painter's property, in Mitcham, South London. 101 Damnations is a punk rock and glam rock album that merges the styles of David Bowie and Pet Shop Boys, alongside loud guitars, drum machines and samples taken from films and TV shows.
Box Frenzy is the debut studio album by English rock band Pop Will Eat Itself. It was released on 26 October 1987 in the United Kingdom by Chapter 22 Records and in the United States by Rough Trade Records.
Cure for Sanity is the third studio album by English rock band Pop Will Eat Itself, released on 22 October 1990 by RCA Records. Upon its release, the album entered the UK Albums Chart and stayed there for two weeks, peaking at number 33, and re-entered the chart when it was re-released in July 1991, staying there for one week at number 58. In Australia, the album peaked at number 51 and spent six weeks on the ARIA top 100 albums chart.
Liquidizer is the debut album by British rock band Jesus Jones, released in October 1989 through Food Records. After various line-up changes, the members of the band moved to London, where frontman Mike Edwards would diversify his musical tastes. Guitarist Jerry de Borg joined soon after; in May 1988, Edwards acquired a sampler which would further his songwriting. With the addition of keyboardist Iain Baker, the band signed to Food Records by the end of the year. Initially enthusiastic about working with producer David Motion, recording sessions with him were fruitless. Craig Leon then produced Liquidizer in mid-1989, helping to give the album its signature tone, though the members would later be disappointed by the mixing.
"There Is No Love Between Us Anymore" is a song by Pop Will Eat Itself released on 7" and 12" vinyl in 1988, as the second single from the 1987 album Box Frenzy. An eight-track CD version featuring a small collection of non-album tracks was released in 1991. It is a mainly instrumental track, and the only lyrics that are not sampled are the title of the song. It samples the songs "When I Fall in Love" by Nat King Cole and "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers. A sample of Joanna Lumley saying "he loves me, he loves me not" from The New Avengers is prominent throughout the song, and the line would be revisited in Pop Will Eat Itself's 1989 song "Wise Up! Sucker".
"Def. Con. One" is a single by Pop Will Eat Itself released in July 1988 from the album This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This!. The single reached #63 in the UK Singles chart.
"Can U Dig It?" is a single by British band Pop Will Eat Itself, released in 1989 from the band's second album This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! and it peaked at #38 in the UK Charts.
"Wise Up! Sucker" is a single by Pop Will Eat Itself released in 1989 from the album This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! The single peaked on the UK Singles Chart at #41.
"Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" is a 1978 song written by Pete Shelley and performed by his group Buzzcocks. It was a number 12 hit on the UK Singles Chart and was included on the album Love Bites.
Anti-Nasty League is the seventh studio album by English industrial rock band Pop Will Eat Itself, released on 25 April 2015 by Rumjoint Records.
Now for a Feast! is a compilation album by English rock band Pop Will Eat Itself, released in November 1988 by Chapter 22 Records. It compiles their work before 1988, and has been re-released several times by different labels, each with a different selection of bonus tracks. The Cherry Red version, released as a 25th anniversary edition, contained almost every song released by the band while Graham Crabb was drumming, as well as several unreleased demos and versions, one live song, and three very rare demos recorded by Wild And Wandering, the previous incarnation of the band before their name was changed to Pop Will Eat Itself in 1986. The album is largely devoid of the grebo and electronic influences of later albums.
Very Metal Noise Pollution is an EP released by British Grebo band Pop Will Eat Itself between their albums This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! and Cure for Sanity. It was released in a very large range of different CD, vinyl, and cassette formats all containing the identical track listing. The EP reached 45 on the Official UK Charts.
"Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina" is a 1990 song by the band Pop Will Eat Itself from their album Cure for Sanity. The song is about Hungarian-Italian porn actress Ilona Staller also known as 'Cicciolina'.
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