Forever (2000) - Spice Girls

It's 3 for 3 baby. Here's the final part in my little triptych, a review of the Spice Girls' third and (probably) final studio album. Or, to better convey the route I'm about to take, an article called 'How production can make or break an album/band/career'.

With the exception of Goodbye (conceived and released over a year before the rest of the album took shape), Forever marks a departure from the Spice Girls' longtime producers of Absolute and Stannard & Rowe. And, boy, don't we know it. Chasing a more 'mature' image, and to help usher the Spice Girls into the 21st century, they sought the assistance of famed r&b producer Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins and his brother 'Uncle Freddie' to help manifest the majority of their third album. Together, the duo doused Forever in their particular brand of lowkey, staccato electronica and faux picked guitar sounds programmed like a player piano, not to mention the arbitrary, rhythmic mutterings from the producer, unnecessarily annotating the lead vocal performances as they occur, presumably aiming to sound like what the singers hear in their own headphones while recording. It is a massive shift in direction, not just in the actual sound, but in the values that brought the Spice Girls to the forefront of pop culture - for nothing the band ever put out before bore such heavy-handed watermarking by a musical contributor other than themselves.

So where do I stand on the issue of production tags? Well, while I feel it is extremely important for credit to be correctly attributed and given where due, I find production tags to be the audio equivalent of a blot on the landscape; a musical eyesore. I just remember what an idiot Jessie J sounds reciting "Coconut Man" and "Moon-head" at the start of Price Tag, and that's really all I need to vote firmly in opposition to them. Ultimately, though I believe in transparency around who is responsible for what in music, it should not come at the cost of the music itself. Therefore, if a producer wants to lay his signature onto a track, it should be done in the production itself, not by branding their name all over the songs.

This brings me to my biggest fault with Rodney Jerkins - Darkchild has such, SUCH a distinctive sound, such instantly recognisable timbres, beats, patterns to his work, especially in the y2k era, that he simply does not need to stamp his name all over it. It's him, clearly, so who the fuck else would it be? Just like how you know immediately when a Hex Hector remix is playing, it is the same with Darkchild. Except Hex Hector manages it with, as far as I'm concerned, a hell of a lot more dignity and integrity.

Add the Spice Girls to the mix, and the can of worms is prised all the way open. These are the Spice Girls, the torchbearers of Girl Power, whose whole career up until this point has been about female empowerment and not relying on men for shit. And here they are, being overtly creatively submissive to a man who is hellbent on plastering his name all over their record. All because they want to pursue a trendy new sound that, frankly, doesn't suit them. The Spice Girls were not, are not, and never will be the British answer to Destiny's Child; they are playing in different ballparks. So collaborating with Darkchild was never going to be the best course of action - they effectively alienated their fanbase. A fanbase that was already raw, feeling betrayed by Geri's exit; if anything they should have doubled down on their trademark pop sound and unique branding, not ricochet off into a world of soulless programming (there are 0 instrument credits for tracks 1-8, not a single one).

And they certainly should not have allowed a man to mumble his own name over the top of their vocal performances. Geri would never have stood for that.

1. If You Wanna Have Some Fun
2. Goodbye
3. Wasting My Time
4. Get Down With Me
5. Oxygen
6. Time Goes By
7. Holler
8. Let Love Lead The Way
9. Weekend Love
10. Right Back At Ya
11. Tell Me Why

Total Points: 38/55
Average Score: 5.09

Rating-wise, it's nowhere near the heights that Spice hit - but how much of this is down to production choices, and how much is just down to the quality of the songs themselves? Well, it's no coincidence that my 2 highest scorers are Jerkins-free affairs, as is the highest scoring of the album's 4 minimalist, down-tempo r&b ballads, Oxygen.

Goodbye features more out of necessity than choice, being the only single without a parent album, and it really doesn't belong. It feels rather tacked onto the end, more like a bonus track on top of their established set menu of 10. That said, its one of the best moments of Forever, with a full-bodied sound, robust harmonies and soulful delivery, encapuslating what feels like a whole CD's worth of truly heartfelt feeling into its 4 and a half minutes runtime. It is topped only by If You Wanna Have Some Fun, a much funkier portrait of stripped-back r&b than what Darkchild favours, here brought about by the far less stoic and systematic Jam & Lewis. Notably, it is the only song on the album with a palpable sense of fun, which feels like a wild thing to say about the Spice Girls. Half of their back catalogue can be filed broadly under the heading 'fun', so what happened? Sophistication and fun are wholly compatible; this track proves it. It's bouncy but not in a hollow, tinny way (see: Get Down With Me), and it boasts the most personality exhibited by the girls since Spiceworld. On top of that, it's also extremely catchy.

Wasting My Time and Get Down With Me are two songs that manage to hold up in spite of their production, though the former definitely suffers less from the stark, dry formula that Darkchild bestows upon the soundscape. Both songs are upbeat and distinct enough to stick in your head after a listen-through, though it can be hard to remember which is which; a lot of the songs have similar sounding names. This is less of an issue with the writing (though it still is slightly; where's the variety of subject matter and distinction of themes?) and more of an issue with the monotonous sound cast over all of Forever by, as I keep reiterating, the production. Don't get me wrong, I love a concise musical vision, but would you rather have many different plates of delicious tapas or multiple plates of the same one type of tapas? Variety, as they say, is the spice of life, and we're here left with quite a bland meal. The Plain Girls, rather than the Spice Girls.

Songs that unfortunately aren't granted the same, slightly more positive fate are Tell Me Why and, the biggest disappointment of all, Right Back At Ya. I literally have nothing to say about the former. I do not remember anything about it, and it was only yesterday that I last heard it. But Right Back At Ya, I know in full, every lyric, every ad lib, the entire rap, because the leaked original pop version, produced by the team behind Say You'll Be There, Absolute, is part of my regular Spice rotation. This version is, in short, the direction that Forever should have been taken in. The sound is familiar but clearly evolved, the content reminiscent but fresh, referencing the past but ultimately saying "we're still here, we've still got it, we're coming back stronger than ever before." And Uncle Freddie's feeble attempt at reimagining it to sit alongside the likes of Holler doesn't cut it. All life has left Mel B's vocal cords in this inferior version, and it falls as flat as a pancake.

Another disappointment is that the incredible W.O.M.A.N, performed live alongside a take on the original (better) version of Right Back At Ya during their 1999 Christmas In Spiceworld concert* is nowhere to be found. The swishiest, most disco-tastic they ever sounded, this would have been a far more preferable and palatable route for them to take than what actually occurred. Lyrics such as 'now we're industry players, wearing g-strings, looking mean and putting music to beats' represent everything the girls had within their grasp for the taking. Furthermore, its middle 8 is one of the best, if not THE best, I've ever heard, in any song, ever. And no, it would not fit in, among what we eventually got with their third album, and that is exactly why I'm so frustrated! It would have added some juice, some charisma, some electricity, some fun, some actual spice back into the Spice Girls - is that so much to ask for?

*These performances are free to view on the Spice Girls' official youtube channel, at long last. I highly recommend checking them out and discovering what could have been. If nothing else, at least check out the 2 audience engagement peaks on W.O.M.A.N for the aforementioned apex of middle 8s and proof that Victoria can sing.

And then there's those 4 minimalist, down-tempo r&b ballads I mentioned, of which Oxygen comes out on top due to it's ethereal uniqueness and the fact it was the second of Jam & Lewis's two contributions. All 4 epitomise a very turn-of-the-millenium niche sound; the quietest of sine leads, the most over-reliant use of windchimes for 'atmosphere' and the meagrest implementation of percussion possible. Once again, it's variety that could have saved these rather similar 4 tracks, and in previous albums it's what helps separate the slower songs and give them each a distinct flavour. Think of 2 Become 1 or Too Much; they're afforded more personality because more personality was put into their creation, and the girls always made room to try different things out and experiment. Here, experimentation is absolutely off the table, and all 4 ballads (to be clear, I'm excluding Goodbye despite its lower tempo due to what I said about it feeling more like a bonus track and its lack of direct relationship to the rest of the album) are the generic and bland type that you can find on any other cookie-cutter girl band's album from this era of r&b. Oxygen is just a little more interesting than the rest.

So is Forever a bad album? I still don't know how to answer that. It is, for me, easily their worst album. I think it was destined for the label of sub-par the moment they decided to put all their eggs in the Holler basket. The switch from what everyone knew and loved was just too much sonic whiplash, no matter how trendy or refined the new sound was meant to be. Sure, it could have been saved if the trajectory that was set by W.O.M.A.N and the original Right Back At Ya had been followed (not to mention the feisty leaked demo Give You What You Want - I sure wish they had!) but then I imagine half the tracks would have been entirely different ones and, at that point, am I really talking about the same album?

That said, declaring Forever as ill-fated isn't entirely fair. It performed well, though obviously not lineup-of-5 well, and features several renowned beloved tracks. I even still count a couple among my all-time favourites. But at the same time, it's no coincidence that their least spicy, lowest energy, most subdued effort is the one that heralded the end. Of course, they would return as a full set of 5 in 2007, complete a sell-out tour and capitalise with a Greatest Hits that featured a highly underrated promotional single (and star in some great adverts for Tesco). And re-return in 2019 without Victoria (which, fair enough to her, she's found her niche in fashion and probably didn't need the stress or the money) for another big tour. So it's not even as if Forever represents a lasting, slightly soured impression of the girls. In reality, it came along only about 20% of the way through the time between their initial formation and their most recent project.

But, for this mini-arc on The Sound System, it is indeed the end! Thanks for sticking with me (if you did) - I kind of just went with the renaissance of a hyperfixation and this is what ensued. Who knows what will happen next!

BEST ~Second Session~ (2006) - Koda Kumi

Compilation albums are usually out of contention for my review format. What's the point of fussing over what is already considered the 'best of' an artist's work, in an environment where the contents were never planned as part of the same project, and myriad themes, moods and genres co-exist in aggregate despite never being conceived together? Normally, there wouldn't be a point, because I'd have nothing to observe and write about, and any rating would feel hollow and superfluous. But what if there existed an album that was technically a compilation, but one by design and almost necessity, implemented as the final manifestation of a unique and deliberate project? Well, let me introduce you to BEST ~Second Session~ by Koda Kumi, a 'best of' that turns the 'best of' format on its head.

In late 2005, relatively freshly established J-pop artist Koda Kumi embarked upon her 12 Singles Collection project, where a new single was released each week from December 7th to February 22nd. This plan had 'publicity stunt' and 'cash grab' written all over it, or at least it would have if her primary audience was found in the western world. But for the 'Japanese Christina Aguilera' (I do not remember where I read this comparison, but I definitely saw it somewhere), who was more sophisticated and voice-driven than your typical idol, this was the perfect way to capitalise on a culture who loves their pop icons and amassing a personal collection, but also to show off as a singer and creative talent. With each single's artwork featuring Koda boldly styled in a colourful, avant-garde take on a costume from a different country's culture, the visuals were every bit as beguiling as the idea itself. It could be dismissed as a gimmick, were it not for the fact that the music is genuinely rather good.

1. Someday
2. D.D.D. (feat. Soulhead)
3. Kamen (feat. Tatsuya Ishii)
4. Love Goes Like
5. Lies
6. Birthday Eve
7. Wind
8. Candy (feat. Mr Blistah)
9. Ima Sugu Hoshii
10. Shake It Up
11. You
12. No Regret
13. Feel
    (Exempt from total score: Introduction To The Second Session)

Total Points: 45/65
Average Score: 6.93

Something I love about popular music from the naughties - especially that with an r&b influence - is how instantly identifiable it is; so often, there is such a distinct and incriminatingly dating sound. This certainly shows up throughout, unavoidably so in Candy and Love Goes Like, but because of how all the music is so sweeping and radically unrelated in style, whilst still somehow maintaining its shape as a uniform project, the datedness doesn't set in. Or rather, it is cushioned, by the through thread of Koda's immaculate voice, the ultra-modern (modern but decidedly not futuristic) sound of each track's instrumentation and, to the credit of Koda's management, the image projected through the videos and artwork. Eclectic, vibrant, exciting, but always Koda through and through - that is what this album is, to the eyes and ears alike.

Though D.D.D. borrows its verse melody from the already frequently reimagined western mainstay Lady Marmalade, these are perhaps the least impressive moments of the song. With each other section, it transforms into a whirlwind of a pop track, breathing fantastical life into tried-and-tested chord progressions with earworm melodies and full-throttle, undying energy that make this the absolute pinnacle of all upbeat get-up-and-dance tracks. Even with the occasional r&b moment, pure pop is the predominant sound. But this exists as a spectrum within itself, and D.D.D. sits somewhere in the middle - right between the sugary, squeaky-clean bubblegum of Wind and Birthday Eve and the quirkier, heavily mixed and scratched Lies. All of these songs sound correct in each other's company, becoming a cross section of Koda's tastes and talents, and a real showcase of her dynamism.

My lower rated tracks are among the best known from this era - You, the lead single of the project, remains the best-selling of the individual releases and something of a signature ballad for Koda, while No Regret, which also performed well, found an extra lease of life as an anime opening theme. Though no less competent than the rest of the album, the former is a little on the bland side (especially compared to the heady and indulgent duet Kamen, a far more satisfying ballad) and the latter being rather hard and fast, very constant with its orchestra hits and techno-esque timbres, but without much resolution. Feel seems to combine both of the other bottom songs' flaws, being anomalously bland in an album full of sugar, spice and full-bodied flavour.

Finale track to both the album and the project itself (the orders of original release and compilation tracklist are different), Someday, makes for a dramatic and memorable ending. Rich string flourishes, teeter-tottering piano chord phrases and silky wah guitar bring together elements from disco, house and funk respectively, lending themselves to the most elegant j-pop imaginable. This makes for a timeless and grand sound, that stays with you long after you finish listening. Furthermore, each of these instrumentations feature elsewhere on the album, making Someday the most apt and gratifying way to end the proceedings and consolidate the whole project. It's everything a closer should be, and the perfect way to encapsulate the overall energy of the compilation without repeating anything or being too literal.

The cover photos for each of the 12 separate single releases

This capsule collection of music is an inimitable relic of its time in terms of concept, while the fruits of it are anything but, their overall coalescence managing to straddle multiple sub-genres and transcend time. Such a bold idea surely won't be attempted again, certainly not in the age of digital music and streaming. Because it stands out to me as such a singular entity, I've struggled to get into much more of Koda Kumi's music. Stepping outside the Second Sessions bubble I've somehow found myself within would almost feel a betrayal of my love for it. This probably has a lot to do with how unavailable her music was to me at the time it was made. My CD copy of this was imported from Japan, purchased over eBay for an amount I would not usually feel happy paying for an album I'm buying blindly, and it was almost entirely gambled on the promotional artwork (above) I'd seen online, and the fact I knew of Koda from when she sung the Final Fantasy X-2 theme. This gamble, of course, paid off for me - but, for so long, it was the only access I could really afford myself to her music. Now, of course, I have Spotify, Youtube, full 2025 internet access. I could even follow her on instagram probably. But it's scary to venture out of this project's bubble when I look around from within and see something verging on perfection. Sure, I've been critical, but it really does sparkle to me. When I ranked it and saw the score, I was initially surprised, but when writing about it and breaking down the music, it makes so much sense to me that I rate it all so highly. One day I'll branch out and absorb a wider discography of Koda Kumi, but for now I'm more than happy to stay here and relish in the glory of this incredible and unlikely 'best of' album, that defies the very archetype it constitutes.

A New Morning (2002) - Suede

At the time of release, A New Morning was exactly that for Suede. The final product of a string of revelations, including a freshly sober frontman and an unforeseen need to replace the very guitarist who'd stepped in to fill Bernard Butler's shoes after Dog Man Star, the album would ultimately turn out to be a shift too far for Suede, and mark the end of their original run (bar a cursorily thrown together greatest hits the following year). In the liner notes of the 2011 expanded reissue, Brett Anderson reflects about the band wanting to "destroy their own myth" in creating the album, and by the 2018 documentary The Insatiable Ones has disowned A New Morning entirely, claiming it shouldn't have been made. There is a tangible bittersweetness between the album's beauty in simplicity and its unmistakable departure from direction. This wasn't what the public expected or, as it turned out, much wanted, from the band they thought they knew. But for me, there's a lot more to it than being a mere 'blot on the landscape', and I think it's important to examine A New Morning with the same fresh perspective with which it was created.

The conscious departure from the sticky, noise-congested sound that had gradually evolved throughout their previous four albums rings out from the very first song. Positivity exemplifies A New Morning's joie de vivre, a quality that Suede had left previously unexplored - the clear, chiming acoustic guitar a bright, eyes-open contrast to the twisted, electric distortion of Head Music. It tells the listener from the start that this will be an entirely new experience, and to the album's credit, the subsequent tracks follow suit, allowing sunlight to filter into the cracks that yesterday's Suede would have preferred clogged with grime. Gone are the city-immersed, jaded lyrics we've come to know, with Anderson now using natural phenomena as his primary muse; be it mentions of birds and fresh air or an ode to the magic of a rain shower, the essence of nature seeps its way into nearly every track and imbues them with life.

In a way, this refreshed perspective makes A New Morning the most 'alive' Suede release to date. No longer swathed in the influence of drugs and gritty urban surroundings, and unmarred by the dark, retrospective shadow of later, reformed Suede, this album is, to quote Untitled (a song that truly epitomises how I regard this album), a "wild flower grown through the concrete". With this vitality comes a focus on clarity, on seeing things plainly for what they are, and tracks like Lost In TV and Beautiful Loser are deadpan, disillusioned meditations on the heroin-chic, celebrity-obsessed lifestyle that Suede had previously represented and, to an extent, glamorised. The combination of these overt themes with uncomplicated lyrics of humble beauty and starkly transparent production gives A New Morning its own, unique strength. Though it may not be immediately apparent next to the rest of Suede's heavy-set electric-guitar-led projects, it has the power to stand alone as an overlooked marvel, achieving the very thing it celebrates in its content.

My rankings are as follows:

1. Lost In TV
2. Positivity
3. Untitled
4. Obsessions
5. Streetlife
6. When The Rain Falls
7. Beautiful Loser
8. ...Morning
9. One Hit To The Body
10. Astrogirl
11. Lonely Girls

Total Points: 33/55
Average Score: 6.0

Though there are no 'blue'-rated tracks, the strongest are the ones I feel most effectively portray A New Morning's ease and clarity, and that really celebrate the charm in the mundane. Lost In TV, Positivity and Untitled are almost inseparable in quality because of how well they each exemplify the album's straightforward radiance. In all three, the vocals are the most direct and delicate, the lyrics pure and raw, and the production clear and emotive. None may have the 'bite' of an outstanding Suede hit, but this album, almost by design, shines better as a whole experience than by splitting apart its individual segments. This is why there are also no 'red'-rated tracks - it is a self-supporting ecosystem, where the stronger elements share their strength with the weaker ones, rather than lassoing the spotlight and allowing their inferiors to wither.

At its weakest, songs like Lonely Girls and One Hit To The Body feel limp and lacklustre - they're the ones I'll sometimes forget how they go until I press play on them, and they perhaps contribute the least to the album's worldbuilding, thematically inconsistent as well as a bit pedestrian in sound. I find the string arrangement in Lonely Girls particularly uninspired - though appropriately spritely at its core, it feels like a pale imitation of the much sweeter, rawer strings featured in Dog Man Star's hidden gem The Power, and the effect is superficial in an album full of honestly. Meanwhile, Astrogirl and When The Rain Falls both suffer a similar problem of being 'almost' there - they have such promising starts, the quirky and articulate introductions and verses possessing a rare magic that gives way to underwhelming choruses. Though both anticlimactic in this sense, When The Rain Falls is somewhat saved by its overall atmospheric resonance - even with a bit of a feeble chord resolution (if it can be called that), it still conveys its message sublimely and leaves a lasting impression. Even the spoken word outro evades the fate of second-hand embarrassment on the listener's part, which in itself is a true accolade!

At this point, it feels like a trademark of mine to ponder over the ifs and maybes of B-Sides and bonus tracks, but given Anderson's inclusion of his own revised tracklists in the booklets of Suede's expanded album remasters, I feel it is especially appropriate to mention how substitutions like Simon and Instant Sunshine could have raised the overall standard of A New Morning. Replacing the few duds with slightly more solid efforts, and perhaps a little shuffling around for pacing (though I generally enjoy the gentle rising and falling, especially waking up to ...Morning after the late-night revelation of Untitled) could have given the record a little more oomph - though I disagree with Anderson's take that Cheap is criminally ignored, coming across as far less of a bold proclamation than it blatantly aims for. 

However, even with these kind of tweaks, I don't think it would have changed A New Morning's fate. It was, and still is, the day to Suede's overwhelmingly prevalent night, and though these kind of alterations could easily have elevated the already fair critical acclaim a notch higher, I doubt they would have done much to sway listeners over to a new sound. I remember being bored to death the first time I listened to it, my expectations built up by their back catalogue, and the album coming across with all the personality of an early 2000's Ikea brochure in comparison. I felt like the band I liked so much for their virility and audacity had been neutered. But with each subsequent listen, I've acclimatised to A New Morning's universe, and I've realised this initial reaction (which, unfortunately, was all the majority of listeners at the time were willing to grant it) was based entirely on contrast. Its quality, emotional deliverance, and even song-writing are largely representative of the Suede I knew; I just had rediscover this in the light of a new day.

Menace To Sobriety (2000) - OPM

It's time for another review, but before I can proceed, there is first some important backstory that needs addressing. Think of it of an origin story for how I got to the point where I'm reviewing albums, for primarily personal benefit, in 2021, on a blog called The Sound System.

Let me set the scene: It's the year 2002 and you're a late-to-the-party boy of 11 who has just been gifted a personal CD player for his birthday. As someone who has yet to develop any kind of individual taste in music, you requested with it the things that everyone at school was listening to - S Club 7's Sunshine and the latest instalment in the 'Now' series, Now That's What I Call Music! 50. Still getting used to the audio format, more fascinated with the novelty of not needing to rewind anything than actually listening, you witlessly play Don't Stop Movin' on repeat, and the few singles from the compilation album whose titles you recognise. Naturally, Now 50 is a trendy conversation subject at school, and your friend Alistair, who you respect because he's popular but not cool (at least not too cool to talk to you), passingly mentions that track 12 is decent. Because your personality is underdeveloped and you apparently hang off the every word of anyone nice enough to humour you with their opinions, you run home after school and skip to OPM's Heaven Is A Halfpipe. And then, for perhaps for the first time in your life, you actually properly listen to a song, absorbing the sound of a skateboard panning from left to right in time with a tack piano sample and super-chilled guitar lick alternating between two simple chords. You listen to the layers pile on and peel off and, before you know it, you've autonomously decided, with no outside input, that this music is fucking cool. And this marks the first step of your musical journey, and developing a musical mind of your own.

As someone whose prior exposure to music is so negligible, you really know very little about how things are done in the music industry. But you sure are a tactile kid who loves to pull out the sleeves of your only two albums and pore over the pictures and liner notes! So it doesn't take long to notice the recurring phrase "taken from the album '______'" and see that, sure enough, a whole album of OPM songs exists, and it's called Menace To Sobriety. You're 11, you don't understand the punny title or know what sobriety is. You ask your dad to look for it next time he goes to the shops on his lunch hour, as he works in a nearby city with an HMV (you've already scoured Woolworths to no avail). Maybe the red flag was in the title. Maybe it was in the cover art. Or maybe it was in that little black and white sticker that your poor protective father decided to take so seriously. He's a very honest kind of guy, so where other fathers might tell their child that the record store simply doesn't have it stocked, or that it's too expensive, he does this: he buys the CD, listens to it through (he even checks out the bonus CD-Rom, removable only by lifting the jewel case insert to reveal a close crop of someone's rather ample cleavage) and tells you that, in his responsibility as a parent, he cannot let you have this album.

Never had it occurred to me that the scratches in the chorus of Heaven Is A Halfpipe were any more than a series of stylistic embellishments, or that a quarter of the middle 8 had been cut out of the compilation's version because it referenced drugs. I don't remember what happened next. All I know is that, for whatever reason, it didn't long for him to concede, and I don't believe I underwent any dirty tactics to get him to hand it over. Apparently my acceptance of his initial decision demonstrated enough maturity to change his mind. Straining to remember, I'm pretty sure I was forbidden from using the CD-Rom (which was of zero interest to me anyway, particularly when he told me that the music videos were full of people throwing up in toilets), and I swear he told me that I just 'wasn't allowed to listen to it much' - which is a weak bargain that can't possibly be enforced, but one that I took seriously given the trust he was placing in me.

As it goes, only the most blatant profanities showed up on my radar - the majority of the 'explicit content' went right over my head. For example, for several years, I genuinely thought Dealerman was about counterfeiting clothes, because I took the opening lines literally and didn't pay attention to the rest. Lyrical content doesn't tend to grab me in the way all the other musical elements do (this will come to be a recurring factor in my reviews), so unless there's a really succinct thematic connection with the music itself, I zone out of what is being said, and instead focus on how it's being delivered. And it just so happens that the most debauch songs that my father was hoping to shield me from were the ones that appealed less to me musically. Whether one factor informed the other on a subliminal level is impossible to say, but here I am, 20 years on, with no gang or drug habit, and a song ranking that very closely resembles the order I'd have picked as a kid:

1. Heaven Is A Halfpipe
2. Fish Out Of Water
3. Brighter Side
4. Sound System
5. Unda
6. El Capitan
7. Reality Check
8. Better Daze
   
9. Undercover Freak
10. Stash Up
11. Dealerman
12. Trucha
    (Exempt from total score: Interludes Punanny, Rage Against The Coke Machine & 15 Minutes, hidden track The War On Drugs)

Total Points: 38/60
Average Score: 6.33

Menace To Sobriety is full of simple chord sequences that teeter back and forth, thumping breakbeats and turn-of-the-Millennium record scratches. There's great variety in guitars; everything from rich, steely strumming, to ska-style, upbeat stabs, to fills of fuzzy, skate-punk-esque noise. This palette of textures is used to great effect, upping the ante step-by-step as Better Daze reaches its climax, or adding fantastic conviction to the bridge of Fish Out Of Water, the album's other main standout after Heaven Is A Halfpipe. Crisp, sincere harmonies of 'ahhs' compliment the franker tone of Brighter Side's chorus, while the optimism expressed in underdog anthem Unda is matched with upbeat guitar accents and a spirited saxophone (of all instruments!) solo. As I've mentioned before, I love when music does exactly what it says, when the lyrics match the sound, and nothing exemplifies this synergy more than Sound System (which has been popping into my head ever since I named this blog). This reggae-infused track really is the party atmosphere its lyrics are describing, that is begging to be blasted on a 'sound system in my backyard' with the intention to 'wake up the town'.

The album's greatest asset is that its music is never compromised, even when the themes aren't there to be taken seriously. Even something as tongue-in-cheek as an ode to Captain Morgan's Rum is set to a kicking backing track, making sure that less solemn topics are never pushed into straight up joke territory. The weakest points come in the form of interludes (sidenote: thanks to OPM I've added the word 'coke' to the band Rage Against The Machine in conversation more times than I've said it correctly) and the acoustic hidden track, which (on my copy at least) is inexplicably censored after an album full of impropriety. Thankfully, these don't impact the score, but the somewhat droning chorus of Trucha isn't to my taste, and comes across kind of damp compared to the rest of the record.

Menace To Sobriety does not have critical acclaim or, from what I can tell, much of a retrospective cult following. Perceived as a something of a one-hit wonder, OPM never went on to hold the attention of the worldwide musical spotlight their debut single granted them. Why this is, I cannot say - I'm not savvy to the contextual factors, such as marketing, band history or record labels. But as far as the content of this album goes, there is sufficient substance and well-engineered balance to show that they had their collective finger on the pulse. Its full of self-awareness, wit, charisma and an outlook that dryly bridges the gap between darkness and joy. It's such a straightforward effort that it barely warrants an analytical review like this - it defeats the point. It's not music made for evaluating, it is music made for enjoying and extracting the essence out of life's ups and downs. I wanted to write about it because it's clear today that it had quite an impact on my formative years, but the high regard in which I hold it isn't just born out of nostalgia, but out of genuine appreciation for its quality. If nothing else, I've done my bit on shining a light on an album you might never have considered may exist.