“The fact that this album reeks of naivety and the lyrical obsession with young life in a small town makes the collision with the music industry all the more inevitable and gruelling to watch. ”
“The fact that this album reeks of naivety and the lyrical obsession with young life in a small town makes the collision with the music industry all the more inevitable and gruelling to watch. ”
Special Needs – Funfairs & Heartbreak
Funfairs and Heartbreak is the epitome of realism. There’s the realism that a band with so much promise, talent and character can still be dropped due to a record exec’s “change in strategy”. There’s the realism that optimism and a collection of great pop songs will never override the inter-band fighting brought on by such an event. Finally there’s the simple fact that, lacking a marketing push, their posthumous album has limped into the shops with only a handful of loyal fans to greet it.
In context it’s hard to listen to Special Needs’ epitaph without the constant wonder over what could have been. Five young musicians drawn from all corners of the British Isles limp into the capital, join together with the noble cause of creating pop music to believe in. Yet the fact that this album reeks of naivety and the lyrical obsession with young life in a small town makes the collision with the music industry all the more inevitable and gruelling to watch. These songs, culled from sessions for Alan McGee’s ill-fated Poptones label, are a mere snapshot of a work in progress and appear far from the finished dream. This, ironically, works to their benefit by allowing the listener to guess where the major label cash would have smoothed the edges and filled the gaps; tantalisation is always better than the full reveal.
Musically drawing on classic pop of the 1950s and attempting a modern take on Spector-esque harmonies the group hit on a sound both beautiful and crude. They may have been a reaction against their Libertines-esque contemporaries but they shamelessly steal that scene’s guitar bite in order to further their own cause. The result is an odd mix: call and response shanties are uncomfortable bedfellows to the Strokes-leaning scuzz of Stick Around. When successful the effect is astounding – the world of Winter Gardens is a stunning evocation of teenage fooling around and young love. Yet as with any reminiscence it’s always tempting to overlook the negatives – and this record has plenty. The Last Boy On The Swings proves that “My G.C.S.E.s” crooned, ad nauseum does not constitute a chorus – you wish that they’d paid more attention in class. Meanwhile, a number of songs are little more than makeweight pastiches of the band’s finer moments. But overlook such matters and this record is brief, brilliant shot of light and a passport to illicit pleasure and cheap thrills. The aural equivalent of getting drunk in park – you don’t want to do it forever but its fun while it lasts.
Words: James Waterson.