User Pick #123: 4 A-Sides by Scritti Politti [Skinny]

[sp4cetiger]

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4 A-Sides by Scritti Politti

Chart: Top 20 Greatest Music Albums by Skinny
Rank on User's Chart: 5
Year: 1979
Rank on BEA Overall: 10,323
Average Rating: N/A
Summary Info: A four-song EP by British pop band, Scritti Politti. Sometimes referred to as the "Pre-Langue EP", it contains four tracks from their second Peel session.

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[Skinny]

I can see by the startling reaction in this thread that this EP is universally loved. Anyway, Scritti Politti are fucking awesome, perhaps the most unfairly forgotten/misinterpreted band to emerge from the British post-punk scene. They're usually lumped in with the likes of Duran Duran as a band who went in search of unadulterated pop bliss (which, in fairness, they did later on), but their early work sees a band far closer in sound to The Fall or Gang of Four. Mark E. Smith once enviously noted that they had "the best rhythm section in England", and there's definitely a major Can influence on their sound, which could be described as chaotic punk-funk. Take the ever evolving opener 'Bibbly-O-Tek', in which two separate vocal lines fight for superiority throughout, creating an opaque shield over the lyrics which only odd sentences and brief cut-and-paste mission statements can peek through ("we take no interest in means of production"; "wrap a coat around you - wrap language round a coat"). Or take 'Doubt Beat', which starts off as a tangle of wiry guitars with no apparent reasoning behind them before unexpectedly springing out fully-formed as one of the most catchy and melodic songs of the era, or 'Confidence', which takes that famous Motown stomp and peels away everything until all that's left is a gloomy skeleton, talk of being stuck "inside these bedroom walls", and a song that preceded the current 'self-aware white kids do R'n'B' bandwagon by some thirty-odd years. And then closer 'PAs' brings all those elements together, the wiry post-punk guitars, funk basslines, the melancholy (and occasionally obscured) vocals, the cryptic sloganeering and calls to arms, the effortless mix of the cerebral and the fundamentally fun. Early Scritti Politti were one of the best bands of all-time, and it's a shame that they are so readily forgotten/ignored. If you fancy listening to this, it's available on the 2005 compilation Early, which gathers all of their singles and EPs released prior to their debut proper Songs To Remember, by which time they were a totally different band altogether. If you only listen to one new-to-you album today, you could do a lot worse than choosing Early (this particular EP makes up tracks 8-11).

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Early by Scritti Politti
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