Lloyd Cole and the Commotions

created by wharfinger

(thing) by wharfinger (6.4 y) (print) ? (I like it!) Sat May 20 2000 at 12:56:59

An English band which seemed very promising in 1984-1985, when they released their first two albums, Rattlesnakes and Easy Pieces. It's hard to think what genre to lump them into; they were a college radio band (so to speak), but they weren't "punk", they weren't synth-new-wave, and they weren't the Smiths. Cole was always too ironic, self-aware, and funny to be Morrissey. They weren't Echo and the Bunnymen either: They were literate and they could play their instruments. They had hooky, overintellectual songs with clean electric guitars and a keyboard player who leaned towards organ and piano. Their bass player and drummer were both cool, but they never quite seemed to be in the same band. The bass had a fine R&Bish sense of things but the drums were somewhere else and it didn't gel. This is only a minor complaint; they were cool, and the arrangements were detailed and thoughtful. They used a string section on a number of songs, which at the time seemed brave.

I think the closest thing to a "hit" they had (in the very limited mid-1980s college radio sense of "hit") was "Brand New Friend" from Easy Pieces.

After the two albums mentioned above, they slid badly. Lloyd Cole is still alive and well and living in NYC. He just released another less-than-earthshaking solo album this year; I didn't notice whether or not he's still comparing every goddamn single one of the neurotic women (TM) in his songs to old movie actresses. Years ago, he floated to the surface on whatever Matthew Sweet record it was that Richard Lloyd and Robert Quine got exhumed on. But hey, Cole made two damn good records that don't sound dated fifteen years later, and that's a lot more than most of us will ever do.

(idea) by mirko (4.9 d) (print) ? (I like it!) Thu Feb 28 2002 at 7:44:28

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions were actually much different from other bands in these times. I was an hardrocker in these times, the "Iron Maiden" kind (little progressive, loads of yells), I was quite impressed by their music which appeared to be odd to my fellow "new wave" friends.

In France, their biggest hit was doubtlessly "Lost Week-end" and I'd still listen to it with pleasure.

printable version
chaos

The House of Love	The City of Lost Children	The Lost Weekend	Southern Culture on the Skids
The Inverse Square Law	Phil Collins	Leonard Cohen	Operetta
Ancient Egyptian Forms Of Travelling	Comotion	Pete Townshend	Cole
time	college radio	Speedboat	The Flowerpot Men
Sandie Shaw

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