For this next entry in my band profile series, I'm going to change gears from the older bands I've written about in previous entries and focus instead on a band that I was lucky enough to discover and be a fan of while career was still active. The band is Mansun, who consist of, above from left: Andie Rathbone (drums), Paul Draper (vocals, rhythm guitar, songwriting), Stove King (bass guitar), and Dominic Chad (lead guitar, backing vocals). Coming on to the scene in the mid-1990s at the height of the BritPop/Cool Britannia era that defined the decade in England, Mansun were completely out of step with the rest of the scene. While bands like Blur, Oasis, Suede, Pulp, and other lesser groups were ubiquitous throughout the decade and released singles and albums that defined their generation, Mansun were more the brooding, slightly off-kilter outsiders who crashed the party and found themselves with a string of highly successful records in the charts. They managed to outlast BritPop, but just barely, eventually succumbing to pressures both internal and external and splintering early into the new millennium.
Mansun formed in Chester, England in 1995 when Draper and King brought in Dominic Chad and decided to form a band. Using a drum machine, they recorded some demos and released their debut single, "Take it Easy, Chicken" in late 1995. The band was initially called Grey Lantern, but then switched to Manson for their first single before settling on their eventual name of Mansun. They came to the attention of DJ John Peel and eventually signed with Parlophone Records. At their debut gig in August 1995, they'd drafted Carlton Hibbert in on drums and Mark Swinnerton on drum machine programming. Swinnerton left after a few months and the four-piece line-up released some more singles before Hibbert was sacked, after feuding with Chad, in spring 1996. Julian Fenton filled in on drums until Andie Rathbone joined in August 1996, solidifying the line-up. Their debut album, Attack of the Grey Lantern, was released in early 1997 and knocked labelmate Blur's critically acclaimed self-titled fifth album off the top of the charts. The album is a concept album looking at various bizarre characters amidst life behind the scenes of the village they inhabit, all from the perspective of the Grey Lantern who observes it all. The Stripper Vicar, Dark Mavis, Egg Shaped Fred, Penelope Cheapskate, Fatima Toothpaste, and other residents populate daily life in the town, as it's revealed that the vicar is a stripper and that Dark Mavis is his daughter. The end of the album concludes with the death and funeral of the Vicar as the entire town gathers to pay their respects. Beginning with the beautifully sweeping opening track "The Chad Who Loved Me" and ending with the long chanted fadeout of "Dark Mavis," it's a fantastically grandiose album, where every song segues into the next...the entire record comes off like a technicolor movie for your ears. The songwriting and band performances are top-notch, and the album hangs together as a cohesive whole masterfully. Beyond this, there are several excellent tracks that work as standalone songs outside of the album's concept, including"Wide Open Space," "Naked Twister," "Mansun's Only Love Song," "She Makes My Nose Bleed," and others that would become staples of their live act (which will be discussed later in this piece).
After the touring and promotion for the album was finished, the band began recording their second album. However, at the time Draper was suffering from writers block; because of this, rather than bringing completed songs to the sessions, he brought forth dozens of song fragments. Stitching these together and making the album from scratch in the studio, the result was the critically acclaimed but (relatively) commercially flawed album Six. It's a sprawling, dense, and harrowing album full of twists and turns, hidden bits tucked in every corner...a true headphones records and to the 1990s what the White Album is to the 1960s. With its elaborate album cover filled with hidden references to the lyrics and the kaleidoscopic texture of the songs (again, without breaks between tracks), the album had a definite psychedelic and progressive rock feel and had little to nothing to do with BritPop. Throw in the fact that there was even an interlude partway through where the album was split in half like a vinyl record ("Witness to a Muder, Part II"), and you're left with a masterpiece that was perhaps too ahead of its time given the moment in 1990s Britain when it was released. There were, however, several successful singles from the record including "Legacy," "Negative," and "Being a Girl." While the album was met with confusion in its time, it has since rightly been hailed as the pinnacle of the band's recording career and it is often invoked as one of the lost masterpieces of 1990s rock. Due to Six's relative failure, Parlophone insisted that an outside producer oversee the sessions for the third album, the making of which was not a particularly happy time for the band. They were pushed into a slicker, more commercial-sounding direction and the resulting album, Little Kix, while solid, lacked the spark of their previous efforts and was quite uneven. The band hate it and fans are split on it...in my opinion, half of the album is great and half should be swapped with the B-sides for the album's singles, which are stronger tracks!
From here it was sadly downhill for the band; their planned fourth album was to be a back-to-basics affair, stripped down, rawer, and self-titled to boot. However, internal tensions throughout its gestation led to King being sacked after the final tour in 2002, and the band called it a day in 2003. But the story didn't end there; vigorous fan petitioning led Draper and Parlophone to release the final album sessions in 2004 as a 3-CD box set, entitled Kleptomania, that also included a disc of rarities and a greatest-hits disc as voted on by fans in an online poll. Listening to this set, it's reinforced how much of a shame it is that the band split when they did, as the 4th album tracks have a raw, gritty energy that bristles, and while the trademark Mansun sound is stripped down, it doesn't mean they've gone completely low-fi...the beautiful atmospheres and textures their best work has is still present, and to great effect. A further compilation, Legacy: The Best of Mansun, was released in 2006 and contained all of the band's promotional videos and a new mini-documentary on the band, on the bonus DVD included in the set. Since then, it's been quiet from the band, with rumors of Paul Draper's solo album, as well as rumors of a full band reunion, popping up over the years. Nothing has happened although those of us who have been passionate fans of the band have never stopped loving the band and their music, to the point that there will be fan convention held in Chester in August 2014, where rare Mansun memorabilia will be on display, there will be several Q&A sessions with people from the Mansun camp, and the first Paul Draper solo track will be premiered!
As for Mansun's influences, in an era where their contemporaries were citing 1960s and 1970s legends like the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, Small Faces, T Rex, and David Bowie as musical touchstones, Mansun, while sharing the Bowie influence, drew upon different inspirations, including 1980s New Wave, Duran Duran, ABC, and Magazine among others. Along with being musically apart from their peers, Mansun were also quite striking in their appearance, eschewing the Fred Perry/Adidas/neo-Mod stylings of BritPop in favor of a darker, Gothic/Romantic look that had more to do with the Doors, the Velvet Underground, and 1970s punk than any of the more colorful and florid looks making a comeback in the 1990s. Whether it was Chad wearing a dress, the band wearing eyeliner, or Paul with the word "STRIPPER" scrawled across his chest with lipstick, there was more of an edge to their look than the mainstream bands of BritPop. This melding of their look and their music was perfect and manifested itself to great effect not only in their promotional videos, but in their concerts. For as great as Mansun's records were (and still are), they also were one of the best live acts of their era, putting on shows of incredible power. The songs took on a harder, heavier edge in a live setting, with many of them stretching out to ten minutes or more, including storming numbers like "Take it Easy, Chicken" and "Taxloss," which were two regular showpieces of the live act. Additionally, they drew upon their rich catalog of B-sides, many of which were as good, if not better, than album tracks. They had a handle on dynamics, where quieter passages were used to great effect to build tension and excitement before the music would explode over the audience...one only has to hear a live version of "Electric Man" or "Comes As No Surprise" to hear what I mean. And instrumentally, the live stage gave them a chance to stretch out and flex their chops, none more so than Andie with his thunderous drumming flying all over the drum kit, and Chad with his stinging and soaring solos and his mastery of effects pedals. Some songs were transformed from their majestic studio incarnations into powerhouse performances, including "Naked Twister," "Mansun's Only Love Song," and "Everyone Must Win," while longer concept pieces like "Television" became truly epic when played live.
After the touring and promotion for the album was finished, the band began recording their second album. However, at the time Draper was suffering from writers block; because of this, rather than bringing completed songs to the sessions, he brought forth dozens of song fragments. Stitching these together and making the album from scratch in the studio, the result was the critically acclaimed but (relatively) commercially flawed album Six. It's a sprawling, dense, and harrowing album full of twists and turns, hidden bits tucked in every corner...a true headphones records and to the 1990s what the White Album is to the 1960s. With its elaborate album cover filled with hidden references to the lyrics and the kaleidoscopic texture of the songs (again, without breaks between tracks), the album had a definite psychedelic and progressive rock feel and had little to nothing to do with BritPop. Throw in the fact that there was even an interlude partway through where the album was split in half like a vinyl record ("Witness to a Muder, Part II"), and you're left with a masterpiece that was perhaps too ahead of its time given the moment in 1990s Britain when it was released. There were, however, several successful singles from the record including "Legacy," "Negative," and "Being a Girl." While the album was met with confusion in its time, it has since rightly been hailed as the pinnacle of the band's recording career and it is often invoked as one of the lost masterpieces of 1990s rock. Due to Six's relative failure, Parlophone insisted that an outside producer oversee the sessions for the third album, the making of which was not a particularly happy time for the band. They were pushed into a slicker, more commercial-sounding direction and the resulting album, Little Kix, while solid, lacked the spark of their previous efforts and was quite uneven. The band hate it and fans are split on it...in my opinion, half of the album is great and half should be swapped with the B-sides for the album's singles, which are stronger tracks!
From here it was sadly downhill for the band; their planned fourth album was to be a back-to-basics affair, stripped down, rawer, and self-titled to boot. However, internal tensions throughout its gestation led to King being sacked after the final tour in 2002, and the band called it a day in 2003. But the story didn't end there; vigorous fan petitioning led Draper and Parlophone to release the final album sessions in 2004 as a 3-CD box set, entitled Kleptomania, that also included a disc of rarities and a greatest-hits disc as voted on by fans in an online poll. Listening to this set, it's reinforced how much of a shame it is that the band split when they did, as the 4th album tracks have a raw, gritty energy that bristles, and while the trademark Mansun sound is stripped down, it doesn't mean they've gone completely low-fi...the beautiful atmospheres and textures their best work has is still present, and to great effect. A further compilation, Legacy: The Best of Mansun, was released in 2006 and contained all of the band's promotional videos and a new mini-documentary on the band, on the bonus DVD included in the set. Since then, it's been quiet from the band, with rumors of Paul Draper's solo album, as well as rumors of a full band reunion, popping up over the years. Nothing has happened although those of us who have been passionate fans of the band have never stopped loving the band and their music, to the point that there will be fan convention held in Chester in August 2014, where rare Mansun memorabilia will be on display, there will be several Q&A sessions with people from the Mansun camp, and the first Paul Draper solo track will be premiered!
As for Mansun's influences, in an era where their contemporaries were citing 1960s and 1970s legends like the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, Small Faces, T Rex, and David Bowie as musical touchstones, Mansun, while sharing the Bowie influence, drew upon different inspirations, including 1980s New Wave, Duran Duran, ABC, and Magazine among others. Along with being musically apart from their peers, Mansun were also quite striking in their appearance, eschewing the Fred Perry/Adidas/neo-Mod stylings of BritPop in favor of a darker, Gothic/Romantic look that had more to do with the Doors, the Velvet Underground, and 1970s punk than any of the more colorful and florid looks making a comeback in the 1990s. Whether it was Chad wearing a dress, the band wearing eyeliner, or Paul with the word "STRIPPER" scrawled across his chest with lipstick, there was more of an edge to their look than the mainstream bands of BritPop. This melding of their look and their music was perfect and manifested itself to great effect not only in their promotional videos, but in their concerts. For as great as Mansun's records were (and still are), they also were one of the best live acts of their era, putting on shows of incredible power. The songs took on a harder, heavier edge in a live setting, with many of them stretching out to ten minutes or more, including storming numbers like "Take it Easy, Chicken" and "Taxloss," which were two regular showpieces of the live act. Additionally, they drew upon their rich catalog of B-sides, many of which were as good, if not better, than album tracks. They had a handle on dynamics, where quieter passages were used to great effect to build tension and excitement before the music would explode over the audience...one only has to hear a live version of "Electric Man" or "Comes As No Surprise" to hear what I mean. And instrumentally, the live stage gave them a chance to stretch out and flex their chops, none more so than Andie with his thunderous drumming flying all over the drum kit, and Chad with his stinging and soaring solos and his mastery of effects pedals. Some songs were transformed from their majestic studio incarnations into powerhouse performances, including "Naked Twister," "Mansun's Only Love Song," and "Everyone Must Win," while longer concept pieces like "Television" became truly epic when played live.
For me personally, the appeal of Mansun's music, besides its quality, is the fact that while it had identifiable touchstones, it was simultaneously so different and unique; the band truly had a sound all their own. In addition, many of their songs had an outsider appeal and dealt with topics that were more personal than what many of their peers were writing about at the time...I find them to be analogous in this way to other bands who had this natural outsider ethos and embraced it, such as The Kinks and The Smiths. Beyond that, the music and lyrics work so well together and have so many layers to them that repeated listens still reveal new things, and the songs always sound fresh and interesting, which is the hallmark of any great band. I can also find new ways to relate to the same song depending on circumstances or my mood, which makes for a rich listening experience.
Mansun are virtually unknown here in the USA beyond a small but devoted following. When I've tried to expose my friends to them, they almost always have no clue who I'm talking about...a few of them have recognized "Wide Open Space," which was the band's only (minor) hit song here, but that's about it. In a way, however, I like it this way...it makes the band more of an intimate secret here, something that can be held close to my heart and that I don't have to share with everyone else in the mainstream. And in keeping with the band's status as outsiders, that's absolutely fitting.
0 comments:
Post a Comment