Totally Shuffled-Prefab Sprout

extracted from my book "Totally Shuffled- A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod"

I wrote about Prefab Sprout more than once in Totally Shuffled, but this is the extract re them in particular:


August 18th

Prefab Sprout-Oh Joshua-McGurk Demo

 

I’ve already mentioned Prefab Sprout more than once during this year. Apart from The Fall and Bob Dylan, Prefab Sprout are probably one of the bands/artists who’ve meant more to me than anyone else over the years. It was inevitable that a track by them would come up on the iPod somewhere during this year, and at the back of my mind I’ve been wondering (since January 1^st actually), what I could possible say about them. 

It would be all too easy to fall into what may appear as over-the-top raptures about them. It could simply be seen as over-enthusiastic ramblings of an obsessed fan, eagerly wishing everything was post-punk 80’s once more. It would certainly seem like an exercise in nostalgia and a desperate attempt to convince the sceptical that Prefab Sprout/Paddy McAloon are the epitome of musical genius, unmatched by hardly anyone else in the past thirty years or so. The thing is, if you’ve never heard Prefab Sprout then, however much I go on about them, how much I try to convince you of their greatness is only likely to end up in disappointment. I am not such a skilled writer that my words could explain what they are capable of and what they mean to me. 

On the other hand, if you have heard them, I suppose you may be like me and therefore my words would be redundant or, bearing in mind that they haven’t been more than moderately commercially successful, you may just think that I’m completely wrong and misguided. So, there’s not much point I think, in trying to explain anything about what they mean. I don’t intend to leave it at that though. I can’t really just end it now by saying “there’s no point” and limiting Prefab Sprout to a couple of hundred words. Irrespective of all the above, they’ve meant so much to me since I first heard “Swoon”, their first album, on a quiet weekday afternoon sometime in 1984, that I can’t honestly leave it hanging here. Although not being an exhaustive list nor in any particular chronological order, here’s just a few things about myself and Prefab Sprout that may give an indication what it’s all about.

Hearing “Swoon” for the first time, having had it heavily recommended to me by my best friend and musical guru. I just didn’t get it on first, second or third hearing. I must have played it through at least a dozen times straight before something finally clicked and I realised exactly what he’d been going on about. To this day, this is still my favourite Prefab Sprout record, though ironically, it’s the one Paddy McAloon likes the least. No accounting for taste.

Walking down the street to see them live for the first of three times. This was sometime in 1985 and they played at Liverpool University. I remember wearing a pair of Levi 501’s, a white t-shirt and cardigan from Marks and Spencer and a pair of Doc Martens. (Back then I was intensely fashionable. Or tried to be. Nowadays, I don’t bother). 

A clear memory of the gig was that they played a number of songs from the then yet, unreleased Protest Songs album. As if it was only last night, I can picture Paddy McAloon, wearing a fedora and denim jacket, singing a song I now know to be “Horsechimes” and being totally blown away. This was possibly one of the best performances of a song at one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to-it was truly magical.

Going to buy the “Andromeda Heights” album on the day of release and getting drenched to the skin.

Being shocked at seeing a photograph of Paddy McAloon, in 1999, with long grey hair and an almost Gandalf-style beard. There had been no news of them for so long and it was like seeing one of those shots of Syd Barrett.

On finding out, with eternal thankfulness, that the internet was really designed to be a repository of all the music you never managed to get hold of, making it a mission to collect every single recorded Prefab Sprout track possible-b-sides, re-mixes, live shows, snippets off the radio, Swedish television interviews. By the time I’d progressed from dial-up to broadband my mission was almost complete. Although I already had every album and a fair few singles, I ended up with a 3CDr collection of all b-sides and demos in chronological order. I wouldn’t have normally been so arsey as to do anything with CDrs except scribble details on the disc and stick them in a jewel case or plastic sleeve, but for these I made an exception; I spent ages creating sleeve art and using software to make them look like a proper CD set. They’re still on the shelf, filed next to the official releases.

The sleeve notes to “Swoon” written by Emma Welles.

Waiting ages and ages for anything new to be released by them, surviving on scraps and hints from the internet and being staggered in 2000 to hear they were touring again. Getting tickets front row, dead centre, for their 2000 show at Liverpool Philharmonic. A massive sense of disbelief when they came on stage; I never thought they play live again.

At that same gig, when Paddy McAloon asked the audience if there were any songs that they wanted to hear, some wag, associating McAloon’s long grey beard with music from the 1970’s, shouting for Wizzard’s “See My Baby Jive”.

Reading Nick Hornby’s novel, “Juliet, Naked” about a middle-aged music fan’s obsession with an obscure rock star and seeing the parallels re myself and Prefab Sprout, as well as being a bit pissed off that Hornby had nicked an idea I’d been harbouring for a good while.

Thinking that “From Langley Park to Memphis” wasn’t their strongest album, hearing “Hey Manhattan” once again, and understanding that it beats most other songs by most other artists out of the park.

Paddy McAloon coming out with the (then) unfashionable line that Paul McCartney is one of the greatest songwriters of all time and knowing he was so right.

Finding this track-never subsequently recorded elsewhere- and three others that Paddy McAloon recorded when he was sixteen or so.

The overall intelligence, humour and humanity that you can see shining so clearly through Prefab Sprout, every step of the way.        

what "Totally Shuffled" is all about:

One track per day for 366 days on a broken iPod. 

366 tracks out of a possible 9553. 

From the obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex). 

From the sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse).   

From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music to The Monkees. 

From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz, classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between. 

This is what I listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to hear any more music again. Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated. Some artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of critical kicking. 

There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops, prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that I’d completely forgotten about. 

But with 40 years of listening to music, I realised that I’ll never get sick of it.  I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but I’ll never fall out of love with music.     

Get/read Totally Shuffled here

Kindle:
          

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA 

Paperback:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-/dp/149495687X