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The Raincoats (album)

Summary

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.

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

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 edit

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 edit

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 edit

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 edit

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 edit

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [3]
Christgau's Record GuideB+[11]
Mojo     [12]
NME9/10[13]
Q     [14]
Record Collector     [15]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide     [16]
Select4/5[17]
Spin Alternative Record Guide10/10[18]
Uncut9/10[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 edit

Publication List Year Rank Ref.
Paste The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums
2016
41
 [29]
PopMatters The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums Ever
2020
6
 [26]
Treble The 100 Best Post-Punk Albums
2018
39
 [30]

Track listing edit

"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 edit

The Raincoats:

With:

Technical credits:

References edit

Citations edit

  1. ^ Ortega 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d Ubaghs n.d.
  3. ^ a b c Dougan n.d.
  4. ^ Ronai 2010.
  5. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Fitzgerald 2020.
  27. ^ Spice 2019.
  28. ^ Pelly 2017.
  29. ^ Jackson 2016.
  30. ^ Treble 2018.

Sources edit

  • "The Raincoats self-titled debut reissued". Fact. n.d. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  • "The Raincoats: The Raincoats". NME. 23 October 1993. p. 37.
  • "The Top 100 Post-Punk Albums". Treble. 22 October 2018. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  • Bernstein, Jonathan; et al. (22 September 2020). "The Raincoats, 'The Raincoats' – Rough Trade, 1979". Rolling Stone. 398 in "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Archived from the original on 28 April 2021. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  • Christgau, Robert (1990). "R". Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s. New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 333–357. ISBN 0-679-73015-X – via the Internet Archive (registration required).
  • Cobain, Kurt (November 2003) [2002]. "Top 50 by Nirvana". Journals (1st pbk. ed.). New York: Riverhead Books. p. 271. ISBN 1-57322-232-1 – via the Internet Archive.
  • Collins, Andrew (October 1993). "The Raincoats: The Raincoats". Select. No. 40. p. 97.
  • Dougan, John (n.d.). "The Raincoats – The Raincoats". AllMusic. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  • Earles, Andrew (2013). "Kurt's Top 50 Albums – The Raincoats – The Raincoats (Rough Trade, 1979)". Nirvana: The Complete Illustrated History. By Earles, Andrew; Cross, Charles R.; Gaar, Gillian G.; Gendron, Bob; Martens, Todd; Yarm, Mark. Voyageur Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-7603-4521-4.
  • Fitzgerald, Colin (10 April 2020). "The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums Ever: Part 5, Joy Division to Gang of Four". PopMatters. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  • Goldman, Vivien (1 December 1979). "New Raincoats Don't Let You Down". Melody Maker.
  • Jackson, Josh (13 July 2016). "The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums". Paste. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  • Kot, Greg (2004). "Raincoats". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). New York: Fireside/Simon & Schuster. p. 673. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  • O'Brien, Lucy (January 2020). "The Raincoats: The Raincoats". Mojo. No. 314. London. p. 105.
  • Ortega, Aaron (25 February 2014). "The 10 Post-Punk Albums Every Music Fan Should Own". Dallas Observer. Voice Media Group. Retrieved 5 September 2020.
  • Pearis, Bill (12 August 2021). "Get The Raincoats iconic self-titled debut on exclusive, blue vinyl (limited to 100)". BrooklynVegan. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  • Pelly, Jenn (2017a). The Raincoats. 33⅓. Vol. 128. New York & London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-5013-2301-0 – via Google Books.
  • Pelly, Jenn (25 January 2017). "20th Century Women Got Early Punk Right". Pitchfork. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
  • Pelly, Jenn (26 September 2017b). "The Raincoats' Debut Album Is a Classic DIY Document". Pitchfork. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  • Reynolds, Simon; Press, Joy (1995). The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'n' Roll. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-80272-1 – via the Internet Archive (registration required).
  • Ronai, Francesca (28 May 2010). "The Raincoats play The Raincoats @ The Scala, London, 20.05.2010". Bearded. Retrieved 5 September 2020.
  • Segal, Victoria (January 2020). "The Raincoats: The Raincoats". Q. No. 406. p. 117.
  • Sheffield, Rob (1995). "Raincoats". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. New York: Vintage Books. p. 320. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  • Shooman, Joe (8 November 2009). "The Raincoats | The Raincoats". Record Collector. No. 370. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  • Spice, Anton (4 September 2019). "The Raincoats' self-titled debut gets 40th anniversary reissue". The Vinyl Factory. Retrieved 19 August 2022.
  • Steward, Sue; Garratt, Sheryl (1984). Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: True Life Stories of Women in Pop. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-240-7 – via the Internet Archive (registration required).
  • Strauss, Neil (1996). "The 100 Most Influential Alternative Releases of All Time". In Schinder, Scott and the editors of Rolling Stone Press (eds.). Rolling Stone's Alt-Rock-a-Rama: An Outrageous Compendium of Facts, Fiction, Trivia, and Critiques on Alternative Rock. New York: Dell Publishing. pp. 3–8. ISBN 0-385-31360-8 – via the Internet Archive.
  • Tyler, Kieron (27 October 2019). "Reissue CDs Weekly: The Raincoats". The Arts Desk. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  • Ubaghs, Charles (n.d.). "The Raincoats - The Raincoats | Music Review". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  • Ubaghs, Charles (26 October 2009). "The Quietus | Opinion | Black Sky | Post-Punk Distilled: The Raincoats' Debut Album 30 Years On". The Quietus. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  • Watts, Peter (January 2020). "The Raincoats: The Raincoats". Uncut. No. 272. London. p. 44.

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