Some Other Sucker's Parade

by Del Amitri



JAMES says:

Hopes were high for Del Amitri with ‘Some Other Sucker’s Parade. Their last album, ‘Twisted’, had been a critical success (well, I liked it), and they seemed about to make the big push into mediocre but well known MOR rock band. Like Crowded House, maybe. But not quite that big. Anyway, the point is, they didn’t, largely because of this album. ‘Some Other Sucker’s Parade’ isn’t bad, and I’m sure it has it’s fans, but it lacks the edge that made ‘Change Everything’ and ‘Waking Hours’ quite good, I suppose. It just seems to reek a bit too much of middle age desperation, not a good reek by anyone’s standards.

It starts off with ‘Not Where it’s At’, where singer Justin Currie wonders why the kids don’t dig him, and instead are off listening to shouty music. Well, not in so many words he doesn’t, but that’s the general vibe. After that there are about 13 songs which kind of blend into each other. ‘High Times’ has a nice high pitched singing bit, and ‘Medicine’ is memorable for having a line dropped from the single version after Princess Diana died (I could never work out which line could possibly cause any offence. Maybe it was ‘Stupid Junkie Whore/I’m glad you’re dead/Princess Diannnnnnnnna’), but apart from that you put on the album, then it finishes, and nothing really happens in between.

It’s a shame, really, because Del Amitri had the talent to produce something more than this. ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ and ‘Driving with the Brakes On’ are as fine heart-breaking songs as you’ll ever find, and their Scottish World Cup Song ‘Just don’t fuck up quite so badly this time, please, please, do it for wee Timmy’ was a refreshing change. They could write also brilliant lyrics like ‘I turned on a T.V. station and/Lip-read with the sound turned down/It was Pro-Celeb mouth-to-mouth resuscitation/With Esther Rantzen/Playing the one who's drowned’ from ‘You’re Gone’. And Justin Currie inspired me to grow my first pair of sideburns all those years ago. I still get the urge to hear their songs, and one of the first things I did when I got back from honeymoon was listen to a Del Amitri album. Not this one though.

This was basically the point when Del Amitri stopped being a band that you could just about like without embarrassment and instead became some weird wannabe country band with song titles like ‘One More Last Hurrah’ and ‘Last Cheap Shot at the Dream’. Now, the only other person I can find who likes Del Amitri is also a big Wet Wet Wet fan.

Sigh.

5.6/10

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