The Raincoats (album)

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The Raincoats
Raincoatscover.jpg
Studio album by
the Raincoats
Released21 November 1979
Recorded1979
Studio Berry Street Studio, Clerkenwell, London
Genre
Length31:26 (original release)
34:27 (1993 reissue with extra track)
Label Rough Trade - ROUGH3
Producer
The Raincoats chronology
The Raincoats
(1979)		 Odyshape
(1981)

The Raincoats is the debut studio album by English rock band the Raincoats. It was released on 21 November 1979 as one of the first records issued by the London-based independent label Rough Trade. The album is perhaps best known for its off-kilter cover of "Lola" by the Kinks. The album's sixth track, "The Void", was covered by Hole in 1994.

Contents

In May 2010, the band performed the album in its entirety in London. [4]

In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked The Raincoats at number 398 in its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". [5]

Background

In 1979, three of the four members were living in squats – Vicky Aspinall in Brixton, Gina Birch in Monmouth Road, Bayswater, where the band frequently rehearsed. The squatting culture informed the lifestyle and music of the band with an onus on improvisation and DIY. [6] The band conveyed an egalitarian ethos in their early live performances: each member was positioned to have equal visual prominence on stage, and the band dressed in everyday punk fashion no different from the ordinary "street clothes" of the audience members. [7]

Production

Upon the recording of the album, musician and visual artist Mayo Thompson of the Red Krayola was joined by Geoff Travis (founder of Rough Trade Records) to produce, Thompson suggested that Vicky Aspinall approach violin in the style of Velvet Underground viola player John Cale who was influenced by Tony Conrad. When asked by Ritchie Unterberger about producing the band, Thompson remarked:

It was one of those things. I came into Rough Trade one day and Geoff said, there's a band called the Raincoats, I want to make a record with them, I want you to go around and listen to rehearsal and help them out and see if there's anything you can contribute. [8]

Music and lyrics

Simon Reynolds and Joy Press wrote that the Raincoats' debut "bends and buckles rock form but doesn't break it," describing the music as "ragged, homespun folk-punk, with its elastic rhythms, reedy vocals and rickety structures." [9] It has also been described as consisting of "forward-thinking" experimental rock. [2] "Life on the Line" had the original lyrics penned by the original guitarist, Ross Crighton, about a suicide at Ladbroke Grove underground station. [10]

Release

The Raincoats was re-released by Rough Trade in 1993 on CD, with liner notes by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. The album was again re-released on 9 November 2009 on vinyl on We ThRee (the band's own label) in the UK and on the Kill Rock Stars label in the U.S. This edition included a free mp3 download and an extra track, "Fairytale in the Supermarket", as well as a special edition bonus CD, including live footage from 1978 and 1979 and a video of "Fairytale in the Supermarket".

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [3]
Christgau's Record Guide B+ [11]
Mojo Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [12]
NME 9/10 [13]
Q Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [14]
Record Collector Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [15]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [16]
Select 4/5 [17]
Spin Alternative Record Guide 10/10 [18]
Uncut 9/10 [19]

AllMusic praised the album, writing, "This music, even at its most dissonant, is stunning and captivating". [3] In 1996, the critic Neil Strauss named it among the 100 most influential albums in "alternative" music in a Rolling Stone book on the subject. [20] In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 398 in their list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". [5] In his posthumously published Journals , Cobain's list of his top 50 favorite records features The Raincoats at number 21. [21]

"An all-time great", [22] The Raincoats is seen as a landmark in indie pop, new wave, and post-punk music, [23] as well as one of post-punk's best albums. Charles Ubaghs, in articles for The Quietus and Tiny Mix Tapes , lauded the band and their album as exemplars of new musical exploration in the wake of the late-'70s punk movement. [2] [24] He dubbed it "a passionate new that screamed of possibility", noting the band's fusion of "oddball rhythms", use of the violin, and more that lead to "forward-thinking" music. [2] Its impact on independent music has also been noted. BrooklynVegan saw the group's sound clearly in future DIY scenes and bands within them, including Beat Happening, Vivian Girls, and Electrelane. [25] PopMatters credited them with shaping trends that would continue through bands Half Japanese and Beat Happening, like using lo-fi and "idiosyncratic" pop music elements. [26] The Vinyl Factory saw the record set the 1990s musical movement riot grrrl's groundwork. [27]

The Raincoats were referenced in the 2016 film 20th Century Women . Director and screenwriter Mike Mills praised their debut's "wobbliness", noting that the music's fragility gave it a "more human and inviting" aspect. He said that he attempted to feature these aspects into his writing. [28]

Accolades

PublicationListYearRankRef.
Paste The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums
2016
41
 [29]
PopMatters The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums Ever
2020
6
 [26]
TrebleThe 100 Best Post-Punk Albums
2018
39
 [30]

Track listing

"Fairytale in the Supermarket" was the Raincoats' first single, and has been included as the opening track on all reissues of the album since 1993.

All tracks are written by the Raincoats, except where noted

Side A
No.TitleLength
1."No Side to Fall In"1:50
2."Adventures Close to Home"1:54
3."Off Duty Trip"3:16
4."Black and White"2:29
5."Lola" (Ray Davies)4:04
Side B
No.TitleLength
1."The Void"3:52
2."Life on the Line"4:23
3."You're a Million"3:54
4."In Love"3:06
5."No Looking" (lyrics translated and adapted by the Raincoats from a poem by Jacques Prévert)3:06

Personnel

The Raincoats:

With:

Technical credits:

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References

Citations

  1. ↑ Ortega 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Ubaghs n.d.
  3. 1 2 3 Dougan n.d.
  4. ↑ Ronai 2010.
  5. 1 2 Bernstein et al. 2020.
  6. ↑ Pelly 2017b.
  7. ↑ Steward & Garratt 1984, p. 32.
  8. ↑ "Mayo Thompson Interview Part 2". www.richieunterberger.com. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
  9. ↑ Reynolds & Press 1995, p. 310.
  10. ↑ Pelly 2017a, pp. 105–106.
  11. ↑ Christgau 1990, p. 333.
  12. ↑ O'Brien 2020, p. 105.
  13. ↑ NME 1993, p. 37.
  14. ↑ Segal 2020, p. 117.
  15. ↑ Shooman 2009.
  16. ↑ Kot 2004, p. 673.
  17. ↑ Collins 1993, p. 97.
  18. ↑ Sheffield 1995, p. 320.
  19. ↑ Watts 2020, p. 44.
  20. ↑ Strauss 1996, p. 5.
  21. ↑ Cobain 2003, p. 271.
  22. ↑ Tyler 2019.
  23. ↑ Fact n.d.
  24. ↑ Ubaghs 2009.
  25. ↑ Pearis 2021.
  26. 1 2 Fitzgerald 2020.
  27. ↑ Spice 2019.
  28. ↑ Pelly 2017.
  29. ↑ Jackson 2016.
  30. ↑ Treble 2018.

Sources

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