Psychocandy
The Jesus And Mary Chain
1985
Album Summary
Psychocandy is the debut studio album by Scottish rock band the Jesus and Mary Chain. It was released in November 1985 on Blanco y Negro Records. The album is considered a landmark recording: its combination of guitar feedback and noise with traditional pop melody and structure proved influential on the forthcoming shoegazing genre and alternative rock in general. The band moved from its abrasive sound with the release of their second album, 1987's Darklands.
Wikipediathis must've been hard to understand in 1985. i love it. the howling proto-guitar-wash running underneath everything, the kinda holdover-from-punk-rock tone they have, all mixed with the super calm, almost dead vocals, make for a fantastic soup of noise and love. it's like if daniel ash went to sing with lou reed, and i love it.
I’ve heard just like honey. But not much else from this band. Now I know where Black Rebel Motorcycle Club gets their schtick. I feel like this is perfect post punk, heavily distorted, the vocals blend like an instrument almost taking a back seat to the guitars. It’s like slow motion Ramones—“you trip me up” literally sounds like “blutzkrieg bop” in half time. The distortion and heavy vocal reverb makes for a hypnotic feel as the band jump a back and forth between soft and heavy. You can see the roots of shoegaze here, it’s like Sonic youth without all the avant garde shit. Only complaint is that it was a touch repetitive, could’ve cut like 3-4 songs. Loved it. Added to Spotify library.
Am I insane? This album makes me so fucking angry. The distortion is so OTT it makes most songs unlistenable. Seriously, I had to switch my earphones to make sure my speakers weren't broken. If they blasted this in Guantanamo Bay it would be classed at cruel and unusual punishment. What makes it worse is the songs under the added effect sound pretty decent.
On hearing this when it was first released I was a little disappointed that I wasn't blown away quite as much as I was with the first two singles. But they were such highs that it would always be hard to compete. This was a game changer when it came out in 1985 and has stood up to the test of time. JAMC never consistently reached these heights again.
thrashing around on your guitar is shit. Play...more...slowly stupid rock cunts
First impression: I think Lost in Translation could be a top 5 all time movie for me. Sure it's touching, funny, understated, but the unsung hero is the soundtrack. Was enjoying but halfway through knew I was missing something...it was volume. Once the bluetooth speaker was off and the headphones were in, this album transformed. Rich reverb soaked wall of guitar. Simple poppy melodies. Perfect. Done. "A" record. P.S I think there's a musical family tree that seeds with the Ramones, branches to The Jesus & Mary Chain, leafs to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and ultimately dies and drifts to the ground with BRONCHO.
4.2 + I've revisited this record several times over the years, and have consistently left confused. There's hardly a music critic that doesn't fawn over it. Several things are immediately apparent and good: (a) the blown out guitars give a dry brightness, providing a fuzzy texture that swallows up most other contrasts in the middle, it makes me feel like standing in a desert at high noon with the sun illuminating everything in hot white with no shadow, (b) the songs themselves are simple, happy and poppy, almost 1950s bubblegum, which I suppose explains partly how they're able to keep the sound from going completely off-kilter, (c) it's impossible not to hear this album's fingerprints on "Loveless" and other shoegaze albums that would follow. Within the context of 1985, this album probably felt like a juggernaut and 35 years later it still sounds so fresh. For me, I feel like JAMC lean too heavily on the fuzzy, trebly, squealing guitar sound, and at turns I find it unpalatable. Songs like "In a Hole" hurt my ears. Still, I get why critically this album's a stunner and in small doses there is so much that speaks to me personally. It's a record that I currently admire more than love.
Ah, The Glasgow Beach Boys, love the abrasive use of Wall of Sound techniques to give that '60's feel with a grittier 80's post punk realism. Love "Just Like Honey" & "you Trip Me Up" A good choice for the list seeing as what the lads went on to do with Bobby G! I would have this in my collection
Already knew a few of these. Famously ripped off the Fall on a number of tracks, but I'm not sure those were the ones I particularly cared for.
Liked it a lot. Very vibey, easy to get lost in the distortion and reverb. Some highs, some lows, some inbetweens, good for fair weather and foul.
The first track of the album 'Just like honey' is the most played track of the album and this band all time, but it does no justice to this album and what it has to offer to the listener. The album was cohesive and the noise and monitor feedback sounds used as an extra layer and helping the album keep this cool and 'I don't care' sound. I really like it!
Very good, and clearly very influential, sometimes a bit much on the ears though.
Wow. It’s like a cross between the velvet underground and nirvana. Pretty unique. Their sound isn’t pleasant per se, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I haven’t really heard anything like this.
This is not an album that I feel should be one of the albums anyone needs to hear before they die. I have nothing against noise rock or lo-fi, but this album is not one of the best examples of that. The band obviously takes their inspiration from punk and the sound of groups like Velvet Underground and such, so it's not like they were the first or the last, and this album is not the best example of it either.
It took a while to get through this. I've listened to Darklands a lot and enjoy it, though this is less moody and a lot more fuzz feedback. It it interesting to have it blended with pop harmonies, so I give them props even though it isn't an easy listen (i feels longer than 39 minutes).
not bad, but fairly bland to me. had a hard time really differentiating these tracks or getting into them on a larger level...could be bad headphones though
Fully turned distortion pedals gnash into a wall of dream pop soundscapes. Songs call back to Troggs, Kinks, and Turtles hits. Contrast of harsh fuzz and bubblegum pop feels like listening to a Phil Spector album while a dentist fills in cavities.
I wanted to like this but Christ, they included some unpleasant noise in there.
If you took Phil Spector’s wall of sound and replaced the lead instruments with wood shop machines you might get something like this. The opening beats to “Just Like Honey” sounded like a 60s girl group was about to sing, but instead we hear an ethereal male voice and a distorted, jangly guitar. I kind of liked “Just Like Honey,” but my ears started squinting almost immediately. “The Living End” continues on in this vein… I’m guessing the recording session went something like ‘DO YOU HAVE TO RUN THE TABLE SAW WHILE WE’RE TRYING TO RECORD OUR ALBUM?! Yes? Oh well fuck it go ahead and roll the tape.’ I’ve been known to enjoy distortion effects but I was not enjoying this much. I will say that listening on a good pair of headphones actually helped a little on a few of the songs. There are plenty of catchy hooks, beats and bass on this that I enjoyed (“Never Understand” was catchy - if someone would only turn off the grinder in the background). At times the distortion was more tolerable (“The Hardest Walk”, “Cut Dead”, “Sowing Seeds”), but I don’t see more of this in my future.
Like a more depressing Stone Roses. Nothing to get excited about and nothing stood out. I’m being made feel like the guitar playing is progressive and ground breaking. Am I so out of touch? No. It is the children who are wrong. I found myself quite agitated by the end of this album. It was a laboured slog trying to get thru it and the ambiguity around where one song ended and the other began really added to frustration. One of the worst yet.
"Just boost everything above 3k 10dB." - Producer (probably). Mix was tough to listen to, vocals were buried behind instruments and swimming in fx. Not a fun listening experience
This is fucking my ears in the best way possible. The Reid brothers. Legends.
Love this. Not sure it should work but it does and gets better with age
so fuzzy one of most beautiful songs (ever) has the refrain “I’ll be your plastic toilet” Perfection
This album is expansive in a way that I wasn’t expecting from an 80s post punk/alternative band. The melodies were well developed and memorable as well. This album provided the groundwork for the shoegaze movement as well, which I’m a huge fan of. The guitars are over distorted and fuzzy but the vocals are clear. Though this album can be characterized as noise rock, it’s strong melodic tendencies elevate it to something else entirely.
really beautiful shoegaze a bit too screechy, I get that that’s the point but no matter what volume I put it at, it felt like I either couldn’t hear it or I was hurting my ears still super beautiful album, 9/10
Beautiful crafted 1950s and 1960s style classic pop songs slathered in epic walls of white noise. Cool as they come indie perfection. Must be played loud enough to make ears and eyes bleed.
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dead good. i went to see JAMC play psychocandy about 10 years ago and it was the first night on the tour. they started off by playing some of the big uns off their other albums and they sounded awful, like as bad as any gig i've ever been to. it filled me with pure dread that i was probably not going to have the stamina to see it through and lose a much loved band in the process. however, as soon as they started the psychocandy section it was fucking perfect, sounded brilliant. don't know if they were sharking us or if they just hadn't played the other songs in ages but i'm yet to see another band go from so bad to so good in a single set.
Classic debut by the Reid brothers - their use of feedback crossed with 60s Spector girl groups was pioneering and was a major influence on noise rock and shoegaze. Future Primal Scream vocalist drums on the album. This album is not for the faint of heart - the feedback sometimes dominates the instrumentation so if you have sensitive ears, proceed with caution! The album opens with the classic Just Like Honey (used memorably in the film Lost in Translation) and also contains Never Understand and You Trip Me Up. Some versions include Some Candy Talking, another of their best songs, though this wasn't on the original tracklist. So if you like your pop songs noisy, turn this one up loud and enjoy!
Love this band and album so much! First discovered the Jesus and Mary Chain when they opened for NIN at a show I went to 5 or so years back. 80s hidden gem!
Weird and noisy, and uncomfortable to listen to at points, but also awesome and unique. An influence on loads of bands I love, and interesting as the first album by one of the great, but underappreciated, Scottish bands.
I have always enjoyed music by artists who really know how to use noise. I don't mean simply being noisy or being loud, which anyone can do. I mean artists with an ability to take noise - notes, feedback, fuzz, distortion - and employ it as a musical instrument in its own right. On Psychocandy, The Jesus & Mary Chain really embraces noise in beautiful and unsettling ways, always pushing against what we think we should expect from music. A lot of artists have done this to varying degrees, but J&MC is beyond next level in their talent for it. This music is unabashedly noisy and somehow also gorgeously melodic when they want it to be. To be sure, this isn't meant to be an easy album. It's piercingly dissonant and probably has induced quite a few earaches over the past 35+ years. But the cumulative effect of what they've created really is like an inverse of the wall of sound idea. It's difficult, noisy to be sure, but surprisingly beautiful if you can just let the sound wash over you. I loved this album when it came out and am pleased to see that it has held up beautifully over time. Fave Songs (All songs, from most to least favorite): The Hardest Walk, Just Like Honey, You Trip Me Up, Cut Dead, My Little Underground, Something's Wrong, Sowing Seeds, Taste of Cindy, Taste the Floor, Inside Me, Never Understand, In a Hole, It's So Hard, The Living End
Thought this was going to be a 4 before listening to it again today, especially after Darklands proved to be plodding in places 35 years on. But this sounds just as sharp as it did when I bought it on release. A superb blend of the most basic elements, and I should listen to it more often.
I have already heard this a million times. Anyone who has never heard this before will probably rate it a 1, but back in 1986 this sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. My friends as I were obsessed with this album. Some hard bands were noisy, but this was just noise as music. But under the noise, there are genuine pop songs and hooks buried in there. This is the record all the showgazing bands of the 90s cited as an influence. In short, a masterpiece.
So cool to hear the prototypes of my beloved grunge and garage rock. Love love alternative 80s.
Amazing album. Way before its time and obviously very influential to the alternative wave that would follow. Love every second
Got slightly repetitive and some of the guitar effects were a bit much but other than that it's a solid album
Psychocandy is the kind of album music critics tend to fawn over. Why? Because it's really basic rock 'n roll, so they don't have to talk about music or deal with any complexities. In Psychocandy's case, they can prattle on about the innovation of drowning the songs in echo and distortion and how brilliant it was to fuse Beach Boys melodies with Velvet Underground sonic violence. Even better, they can laud the album for setting up shoegaze, etc. The thing is, for once, I basically agree with the critics. These basic, basic songs, which would sound like nothing if they were recorded straight, are like a warm bath for me. I luxuriate in the swirl of noise. I wouldn't blame anyone for dismissing Psychocandy as style over substance and repetitious to boot, but to me, for what they're going for, it would be hard to improve on. One last point: this came out in 1985, arguably the nadir of Anglo music, so Psychocandy gets points simply for not sucking.
Every song sounds like a variation of the 5 star opener 'just like honey' and that's fine by me.
Very good, but sometimes a bit too abrasive and distortion-y, even for me.
Jedna od definicija noise popa. Definitivno ako se ikad želi ući u taj žanr, ovaj će se album uvijek morat proć.
Powerpop + distortion = this. Surprised me in a good way, though there were a couple of tracks I'd like to permanently delete. Best track: Some Candy Talking
Killer mix of noise and pop music. It's wild hearing the influence of this album on such a diverse range of later music too.
I've long held that Jesus and Mary Chain songs mostly sound the same, and that is the case for this album. However, it's a great sound, and it's not grating over a whole album. And that sound is really the epitome of Gen X cool :)
Distortion. Extreme distortion. And, at times, heavy use of reverb. But some of the melodies are really nice. Standout: Just Like Honey. 3.5/5
Noisy post-punk songs that reveal in the dark moodiness. What makes this album distinctly unique is the sort of proto-shoegaze sound that would influence the greats like My Bloody Valentine. The large, swooping sounds from The Jesus and Mary Chain are undeniable, using reverb and distortion to wield bizarre songs of lust, adrenaline, and a myriad of other fleeting feelings. Fantastic, in a word.
Amazing! Love the screeching, nearly unlistenable, table saw sounding guitar that appears every now and then. A delightfully surreal atmosphere throughout. Very nearly 5 stars for me.
This album was really influential for me. IO started listening to Triple J about the time this came out, and so thought this was kind of normal. Later, I discovered it was not. The J&MC really picked up on the noise factor from the Velvet Underground (along with other influences, like the Beach Boys, girls groups, Suicide, Einsturzende Neubauten, and Phil Spector) to create a "high IQ, low technqiue" (to quote Lour Reed's NYT obit) pop musique. Not easy listening, but I like that. I like that a lot.
Psychocandy announces itself with a bang with Just like Honey a psychedelic pop masterpiece. And there is some, but just a little, fall off from their. These guys turn up the distortion from time to time, but never such that the melody lines are lost. The more you listen the more get lost in their psychedelic jungle. This band and album countless trends to come; shoegaze and brit pop to name but two. Other highlights; Never Understand with its driving beat and distorted noisy guitars, The Hardest Walk harkening back to the best of the 60s pop and I just love the feel of Cut Dead. Great stuff. 4.5 stars
I used to be fairly one note with my music tastes and I got recommended this band (as I was trying to find something new to me) I only listened to like one song from them and forgotten them forever fast forward just over a year or so and here I am trying to review a full length album, day 107 let’s go… The album opens with Just like honey, this song is amazing like an awesome shoegazey march! The living end is a messy track sounding like they’re in a storm of screeching nonsense didn’t like this track much. I like taste the floor, the guitars are a little too distorted for me but still a great song in there. The hardest walk isn’t too overpowering in distortion and the vocals are louder in the mix (which I prefer for this band) yeah it’s nice. Cut dead isn’t what I thought it would be it’s just nice and calm, just what the album needs. In a hole is a good example of what a song can sound like all distorted/messy and still sound great! Taste of Cindy is a shortie but it’s not a bad song I actually quite enjoy this one. ( Technically not on the album) some candy talking is a must listen the best song on the album! We get a proper rocker with Never understand, the song is a little too screechy with the guitars but it’s still enjoyable. Inside Me has probably the best bass line on the album and the song is great but there’s too much extra noise. I’am a bit skeptical about the lyrics on sowing seeds ( especially for the time that it was made as if the album was modern you could see it as an attack on apple I guess) but it’s cool! My little underground is cool, has the usual issues but it’s cool. You trip me up is a banger yeah screechy but a banger! The penultimate track ( somethings wrong) is the longest track on the album and yeah one of the albums best! The album closes with with it’s so hard, this song is odd but not dreadful. There’s almost slightly too much screech for me but hey the songs were still amazing!
Interesting. Heard about this band a lot as a kid but never actually listen. Kind of remind me on Ministry minus the metal.
I’m almost giving it a five. It probably is a four, but just like honey is so good. Sucker for anything with a wall of noise layer. I really like that it’s the vocal style of more the the synth heavy stuff but then more guitar heavy musically so it felt more grounded and focused. It felt kind of like two different albums mixed together with some of the punk stuff
I like that they are Scottish. And I could listen to a few songs, but not the whole album at once. It doesn't feel punk enough, but I enjoyed it. Favorites: - In a Hole - The Hardest Walk
Starts off pretty mellow. So much distortion... kind of reminds me of a Rob Zombie/The Clash mashup. "In A Hole" - I though my HomePod was broken- nope just a very mean distortion pedal haha
The Jesus and Mary and Alice in Chains.... All of the Jesus bands run together. Am I the only one that has this problem? I think there was an article in an old Interview Magazine that tried capturing all of the bands that used the word 'Jesus' in their band name. The Jesus Lizard MC 900 Foot Jesus Jesus Jones Jesus and Mary Chain which I sometimes get mixed up with Alice in Chains. I can tolerate their music only in small doses, but I'm not a fan of Alice in Chains and have somehow always equated the two. Alice in Chains is super dated and doesn't translate to any era except for the Soundgarden-Seattle-garbage of the '90s. Though Jesus and Mary Chain blossomed during that same time they transcend different eras of music and time. Though this album is dated, it's still interesting to listen to. I'm a big fan of BRMC and I hear that a lot in this album and specifically on The Living End. The drone-y shoegaze-y vibes bleed from this album and the fuzzy reverb / feedback effects create an interesting feeling. It's almost as if they've figured out how to get time to just stand still. Just Like Honey is great, Some Candy Talking is too. There's a lot of distortion and feedback over some mellow singing / talking that creates an interesting juxtaposition. I can understand how some people would absolutely hate this and complain that all songs sound alike, but if you've got something good the last thing you'd do is change to something different.
I’ve complained that albums on this list have one song that is essential and the rest are pretty forgettable. This is on where the first track is undeniable and gives the whole album enough power to be called essential, even if the rest of it is not great. I can appreciate Psychocandy for the sound they pioneered, mostly for the other bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club who went on to make better music.
Texture can be a very powerful thing. Sometimes texture can even overpower the underlying structure. As in food, where you might enjoy the flavor of something, but if the texture is off-putting, it can ruin the whole experience. With that analogy in mind, I can see why this album causes some people to have strong reactions. I for one enjoy the combination of abrasive texture and bubblegum hooks. If they were purely abrasive through and through, it would simply be repellent, but, since they pair it with such sweet, vaguely nostalgic melodies, it becomes a really compelling mixture. I admire their ability to take these almost skeletal little ditties and build such dense atmospheres around them that they feel practically cavernous.
The Jesus and Mary Chain from the early 90's didn't interest me all that much. Psychocandy is different. I won't say I love this album, but I was surprised how thoroughly enjoyable it was to listen to. I played it twice. I know a lot of people complain about the noise of it all, but I found it to be comforting. I can't describe exactly how it makes me feel, but something like nostalgic, but without that thing to feel nostalgic about. I don't know, this was a good one.
Interesting and unique album. Didnt love it, but I plan to come back to it.
abrasive 80s dream pop. 'Just like Honey' is a classic. prefer their album 'Darklands' though
I've liked some of the other music that I've heard from Jesus and Mary Chain, but this left me a little flat. I'm not sure what it was, but it didn't really grab me this time 3/5
Levy josta haluaisin tykätä enemmänkin. Tässä on monia hyvin toimivia elementtejä, mutta kokonaisuus jää jotenkin valjuksi ja biisit ei ole lopulta ihan riittävän laadukkaita.
I was about to berate them for sounding exactly do like The Stone Roses until I realised SR was five years behind this release. Regardless I'm not a huge fan, pretty uninspired writing and it was all a bit claustrophobic.
Interesting sonic document from the 80s, but I don't think I could return to it.
Correct, j’ai vu de l’influence d evelvet underground parfois. Pas une ecoute pour le vibe que j’etais et rprobablemntpas de reecoute. 3
This might be a once every three months... got a good sound about it, but not more than that.
Fuzzy jangly indie rock. The Stone Roses doused in feedback. Released in 1985 but sounds like it was straight out of the 90s. If I'd have listened in 1985 it may have grabbed me more, but given similar things came after, it doesn't seem as interesting or original as I'm sure it would have done at the time. Having said that, I quite liked it.
I know it was their thing......but the songs would be much better without all the feedback muddying the melodies
Levyn eka biisi on tietysti tuttu Lost in translationista. Joskus silloin aikanaan latasin tämän levyn, mutta ei oikein iskenyt. Vähän negatiivisella asenteella lähdin siis kuuntelemaan nyt. Kyllä tämä kuitenkin kolmoseen nousee, unenomaista tunnelmaa ja reilusti säröä. Sowing seeds jäi mieleen hyvänä biisinä.
Very noisy and can't really hear anything that he is saying, but I enjoyed it. Big Stooges vibes. In a Hole is a standout
Approachable punk band, I like it, but I would have to be in a specific mood to listen to this type of music. It is an exceptionally long album, for which I believe the one song that got them famous is Just Like Honey, which is excellent.
Love the distorted feel. Solidly catchy throughout, but nothing wowed me.
Generally vibey and I had no idea this record is from the early 80's. I always assumed they were a mid 90's band.
Este álbum cuenta con buenas canciones que tienes un buen ritmo pegadizo, me gusta pero no lo suficiente. (:
Meh, not great. Pretty average noisy post-punk. Nothing really stood out to me.
Теперь понятно, чьей музыкой вдохновлялся Егор Летов, когда сочинял альбом "Инструкция по выживанию"
Das ist schon besonders aber zum Teil auch etwas dumpf im grundbrummen
Very 80s rock vibe with a heavy guitar. I like it! Cut Dead is sooo easy to listen to. There is this like whistling guitar sound that I don't much care for in some of the songs like Inside Me.
Another band I have instant name recognition on but I don't know I ever knowingly listened to. I didn't hate this but thought the sound was a little muddled and overall pretty monotonous.
This is fine. Not really my thing but not unpleasant. I listened twice. Probably won't listen again.
I remember hearing of this band in my younger days, and I did recognize the first track on the album. Other than that, it was new territory...and I don't think that I will revisit that territory again. At first, I thought that I just might like the album. The sound was a little coarse, but not too difficult to listen to. Then it got kind of noisy...more than I like to hear. But I listened a second time, but I liked it even a little less...anxious for it to end so that I could find something else to listen to. I don't think I would storm out of a room if I heard it playing, but I would not choose to listen to the album again.
I first bought this album just before moving to Manchester. Hearing it sends me straight back into a bare white flat, owning almost nothing but a battered old CD and cassette player, and hearing this echo around the empty room. In "Psychocandy", the Reid brothers take both "noise" and "pop" to the extreme, in a way which is hard to appreciate initially. After a few listens though, the warm and welcoming hearts of tracks like "Just Like Honey" and "Cut Dead" start to emerge. The distortion and noise here are really going to turn a lot of people off, and the band are obnoxious enough to let you know they really don't care. For me, "Taste The Floor" and "In a Hole" are the most challenging sonically, where the fuzzed out, buzzsaw guitars are highest in the mix: it's not so much a production style as actively intruding on the songs by that point, and simply getting through is the hardest thing that I could do. Packed into the rest of the album are the sugariest of pop melodies and most simplistic of chord progressions. However distorted they are, tracks like "The Hardest Walk", "My Little Underground" and "You Trip Me Up" are bubblegum tunes at heart, and the noise becomes a device to make them noteworthy, more interesting. There are some more highlights, but ultimately there's little range to The Jesus and Mary Chain. Not only do they make the ballsy move of reusing "Just Like Honey" nine tracks later ("Sowing Seeds") but they would also later re-use "Something's Wrong"'s main riff in their follow-up album Darklands. Repetition is hardly a crime in rock - many rock-n-roll artists did the same with the 12 bar blues, and AC/DC and the Ramones had basically one song - but when it's this noisy, it's quite hard to stomach. I enjoy a lot of the songs in "Psychocandy", but it's one of those albums best saved for a certain mood.
Not a big fan of the noises and distorted guitar. Has some good songs so overall not a bad album. Favourite songs: - Just like honey - Some candy talking - Sowing seeds
Decent, and sometimes annoying. These guys got better on later albums when they didn't try to have so much feedback. Check out their 1987 album Darklands (fairly solid, April Skies and Happy When it Rains are highlights) or the song Head On on their 1989 album Automatic. Just Like Honey is cool and more on par with their later, more "subdued" stuff. The next 4 tracks are similar, not quite as good but decent. Things take a turn at In a Hole until Inside Me, way too much distortion and pedal use (Some Candy Talking wasn't so bad). That's where they go over the top like other cringey shoegaze pioneers like My Bloody Valentine. The last five tracks toned it down again (except You Trip Me Up and It's So Hard...nails on a chalkboard). So, one-third of the album was tough to listen to, the rest was alright and sometimes quite good (first track, The Hardest Walk, Sowing Seeds).
Cet album ne m'a procuré aucun intérêt particulier, ressemblant comme deux gouttes d'eau à de nomrbeux autres groupes moyens entendus jusque là. J'en profite pour adresser un message à Robert: nous traversons actuellement une crise du générateur sans précédent, et réclamons les Red Hot très rapidement, sans quoi nous n'hésiterons pas à migrer la population générateurienne sur l'un de mes générateurs pirates. A vos actes monsieur Dimery.
Vous avez probablement entendu parler de cette affaire récemment mais je suis entré en conflit avec le PDG de Spotify, le très gentil et néanmoins suédois Daniel Ek. Je vous explique ce qu'il s'est passé. Depuis quelques années, je paye mon abonnement à la plateforme au tarif étudiant. Et pourtant, ce mois-ci, 9,99€ m'ont été prélevés sur mon compte, il est vrai, extrêmement bien approvisionné. J'appelai pourtant Robert en lui demandant de me passer Daniel immédiatement. Une fois ce dernier au bout du fil, j'entamai une réprimande de plusieurs dizaines de minutes. Tout y passai : reproches, insultes, menaces de mort... Daniel vécut sans doute le pire moment de sa vie. Quelques instants après avoir raccroché, je reconsultai mes prélèvement et le tarif avait été corrigé.
I think this record was quite innovative when it came out and that's why it found itself here in this list. There's some nice songs and guitar tones, but I don't find much interest in the product as a whole.
I was scare at first, but I end it up founding this album pretty interesting. The only things is that I kept looking if my speakers were'nt broken !
I get it, it's a pretty daring record for 1985 and I can see why it's praised. But even at under 40 minutes, it got a bit tiring and samey in the second half.
Второй альбом этой группы для меня в списке. Он же дебютный. И он куда лучше показывает суть шугейзинга как жанра. Не могу сказать, что альбом понравился, но есть идеи, которые спустя годы разовьют другие группы.
I love that this probably made no sense when it was released. Got those distinctive 80s vocals with shoegaze-style distortion sounds. Pretty good, but I do kind of like the listenability of Darklands better.
'Just Like Honey' is a classic and is a 5/5. The rest of the album doesn't compare and is more of a 3/5. I'm rating based on the majority of the tracks.
Prefer the less abrasive sounding later stuff, though I like the songs.
Nice alternative band. Good non-tuned type sound with lots of feedback and spacey vocals.
Really good album. Just Like Honey is a great haunting track. Love it. The rest of the album has a great sound and I'm still getting used to it. For now, I think it's great. 3.5 /5
Malgré une structure pop, le côté noise fait en sorte que ça ne plaira pas à tout le monde. Personnellement j’aime bien ce mélange et j’aime beaucoup les couches sonores créées par les effets de guitare. Un album qui a définitivement influencé Nirvana et d’autres band. Cet album mérite bien sa place dans cette liste.
Also mn oren de hele tijd dicht zitten. Het suist maar door. Maar best ok verder.
I'm sure I'd have liked this is I was 20 years old in 1985. It's not bad but it's nothing fantastic.
An ok album that is full of what I'd term gritty underground pop, thanks to the feedback and fuzz. All that feedback and white noise sound seems to almost be a precursor to the Grunge scene of the 90s. Best: Just Like Honey Worst: It's So Hard
Hadn't really every heard them before, not something I'm going to put in regular rotation but props to how original they are...the punk-ish, Phil Spector wall of sound but with feedback and static thing they have going on.
After a ⭐️ Darklands experience on album #6 (!), I was not hopeful for Psychocandy. I was pleasantly surprised. The feedback heavy sounds are quite nice. I imagine this was quite the innovative sound in the alternative/pop scene in 1985. I can hear some future industrial rock during In A Hole. Something’s Wrong is my favorite track. They don’t consistently carry the distortion I like throughout, but there is enough to carry my interest. Now having both TJAMC albums on the list, I conclude they are not total shite.
A tad more shoegaze than Darklands (3.5/5) — my intro to J&MC. Solid 3.
Nice opening song. Some songs cant decide whether they want to be mellow or hard i think. Kinda Stone Roses ish. idk didn’t really stand out to me but also wasn’t bad
It's not bad. In fact, for the time, it's pretty good. But the production quality is so awful that it takes a whole star off the review. I've never heard an album that's been compressed so hard in my life. The result is a painful pressure-wave of distortion. There are no dynamics. Everything feels like a fuzz-washed wad of power-pop that's been crammed into a tin can. And it's really a shame because the music ain't bad at all. A lot of what's on here is 5-10 years ahead of its time. It's telegraphing grunge before grunge was a thing. The production is just SO BAD. It's giving me a headache.
Theoretically I should love shoegaze - the vibe, tones, and rhythms are all derived from some of my favorite music, and inspired even more of it. But some of these songs are so repetitive that sometimes it’s hard to tell where one begins and another ends (or if they’re not just replaying a previous song - ‘Sowing Seeds’ particularly sounds like a retread of ‘Just Like Honey’) and you just end up zoning out. Which is the point, but I guess I just wasn’t in the mood for zoning out this morning. Would like to revisit it sometime in the future as there’s a lot here I love, but it just didn’t fully click with me right now. Fav Tracks: Just Like Honey, Cut Dead, Taste of Cindy
Non male. Forse un po' troppo riverbero e rumori di fondo per i miei gusti, ma nel complesso l'ho apprezzato.
This one had some moments where it felt like something special was happening or about to happen but that feeling went away pretty quickly. It ended up just being a middle of the road album.
I suspect this may need further listens to appreciate fully. I certainly found it a challenge but I liked that here was a band just ploughing their own field, not remotely interested in being easy to listen to, covered in distortion.
I like their general schtick of noisy-rock but the rest of the sound is just okay for me. It's kind of like the songwriting/singing of the 80s mixed with the 90s punk-noisey rock. Definitely some interesting things going on and it's good, but I wish I liked it more.
I didn’t listen to this band in 1985 because they weren’t in the Top 40 or in heavy rotation on MTV. I watched a lot of MTV and don’t remember them being played at all. Later on, when I did hear about them it was from a friend who was super pretentious and so I didn’t listen to them on principle. I like them. Sometimes a bit too much feedback but mostly a good balance of dissonance and melody. Also, I thought they were from Lancaster, PA. When looking them up today to verify that, I learned that they are not. They are Scottish and their genre was called Shoegazing. That’s a new one for me. The beginning of Sowing Seeds sounds like the beginning of Concrete Blonde’s Joey. I really like the band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and one of the reviews I read said that Jesus and Mary Chain was an influence on them, so thanks JAMC. Lastly, do you think it is possible that they meant to put Jesus Christ Superstar on this list instead of the Jesus and Mary Chain?
It's really fuzzed-up, the guitar kind of rides over top of the vocals which makes it a little hard to listen intently to. Maybe I need to give it more of a shot without headphones, just pretty difficult to listen to.
One-trick pony. Feedback guitar og skraldet lyd, uden bas og max diskant. Ender med at lyde som The Ravonettes afspillet på en radio på et badeværelse som ikke er indstillet ordentligt.
Not a big fan. Very liberal use of feedback, and it was too much. If I heard this when it came out, I may have liked it, but I have heard the same sound done so much better.
Not really for me. I can see the appeal of it for anyone into the the new wave/goth scene but it doesnt do it for me. 5 stars for the quality of the music but only 2 stars for how I relate to it.
I didn’t really enjoy this. A few of the more melodious, dream pop type songs were good but I just couldn’t stand the ones that were heavily distorted, washed out sounding noise. 2 stars.
This is a band I've always wanted to like, but the distorted guitars just can't match up with the vibe, and it always just sounds unnecessarily noisy to me.
El showgaze mai m'ha acabat de fer el pes. Aquest àlbum és un dels fundadors d'aquest estil, el primer dels The Jesus and Mary Chain, i tot i que té un inici potent, es va desinflant i acaba atabalant una mica. Curiós descobrir que el seu bateria va convertir-se després en el líder de Primal Scream.
They used to perform live with their backs to the audience. Based on this album the audience should turn their backs on the band. Noise isn’t music.
Hmmmmmmm Yeahhhhhhh no MIGHT relisten in the future tho Final Thoughts: 2/5
Very of its time. I didnt hate it, but I couldn't sing you any of the songs! Bobby Guilespe of Primal Scream on drums seems such a funny concept when he can't even clap in time! Haha.
Some of the songs are good, some not. Just Like Honey, The Hardest Walk, Cut Dead are the only songs I really liked. The others were mostly unlistenable in all aspects. I struggled to get through the whole album.
Hvid støj, herrefedt, men lidt for meget pitch og hyletoner. Ville gå godt på 1000fryd, men lidt for meget støj til mig. Et par fede numre, især i starten af albummet.
This is one of those albums that reminds me I didn't grow up in the 80s or 90s. It's an album that sounds like the 90s, but was made in the 80s. I don't care for it honestly, Felt pretty bland. But it wasn't unlistenable. I get that some people might be really into it, but for me? That's a nah. Probably won't ever listen again.
interesting opener just like honey I like the progression of the singer and the music together in the first few tracks odd pop mix with lots of music feedback and noise You got me chasing honey bees in a hole is too much + Taste of Cindy guitarist allowed to go too far in a few songs but I think the rest was interesting enough to keep me interested 2.5
Electric guitar is a good thing, but the old saying was right after all: you really can have too much of one.
Meh. Same energy as Velvet Underground & Nico, which could be a good thing, but with the chaotic grating production of the Pixies.
its starts with decent noise rock/punk and then starts incoorperating these earbleeding screeches that just want me to turn it down
It’s obvious they like their distortions and feedbacks much more than I do. Couldn’t stand it by the fourth song
It's not for me. The waily guitars churning out the same two chords for an hour just gives me a headache
This time, the more I heard this, the angrier I got at it. I liked the first song, "Just Like Honey." I was looking forward to more of this. I thought it had a very cool 80s sound to it. I really liked the vocals. And then, so much horrible, ear splitting noise! I seriously checked to see that I hadn't messed up the playback with some terrible setting. I couldn't even hear the vocals! "Never Understand" sounds like the neighbor in the next door apartment is listening to a catchy song, the other neighbor is trying to log in to AOL, and 10 garbage trucks with bad brakes are emptying all the squeaky-hinged dumpsters behind your building. Why? It's a shame, it made me more and more sensitive to all the overuse of feedback noise in the album. A shame, because, underneath it all, I really liked the music.
If this album is some kind of lo-fi post-punk on purpose, I really didn't get it. To me, it looks like bad songs with the worst recording process. "Jesus and a Mary chain" looks better on paper than in the real world.
I enjoyed the more mellow tracks like Just Like Honey, Cut Dead, Sowing Seeds, My Little Underground, but the harder stuff like The Living End, In A Hole, etc I didn’t like as much. Overall, it’s just not my kind of thing, but I can 100% understand how this album would be very influential for a lot of punk and grunge bands and all that.
I bet I would have enjoyed this more if it wasn’t so distorted. As an audiophile (sometimes), this was a tough listen.
Pretty ok album. Blended together a lot though. Favorite Song: Just Like Honey
If you are into punk rock, I'm sure this is fabulous. A lot of it sounded like noise to me. If your song is overwhelmed by speaker feedback, I'm probably not going to like it much, but maybe that's just me.
On wikipedia, it says 'the music has been described as "bubblegum pop drowned in feedback"...' This seemed pretty accurate. In fact the feedback was so bad I could barely tell the songs. The noise was just too much. And can we talk about the recording itself? It sounded like it was in a garage, or an echo chamber. I could barely hear the singer. It was awful. I'm sure there's something there, maybe it's like the Sonic Youth the first time I heard them. I don't know, it just seemed like the band thought the waves of feedback would make them more endearing, but really it just annoyed me.
You know how you can tell your headphones are on the verge of breaking because everything sounds pinched and crackly? And how when this happens you get really pissed off because you go "damn now I need to go get new headphones because all this music sounds like total shit"? Well, what if your entire album sounded like that on purpose apparently?
Couldn't finish. Except for "Cut Dead", it was just an aural assault. Obviously, didn't add.