Whoops! There Goes the Neighbourhood (album)
Encyclopedia
Whoops! There Goes the Neighbourhood was The Blow Monkeys
' 1989
follow-up album
to She Was Only A Grocer's Daughter
, released two years before.
The album, the fourth issued from the band, represented a further step towards the incorporation of more dancey elements, started with their third 1987
LP
, especially with the UK hit "It Doesn't Have to Be That Way", which, getting to Number 5, made that their highest-charting song ever.
The first single was "This Is Your Life", still a pop rock
/new wave
track, which didn't get higher than Number 70. The next version of the song, its 1989 remix, which turned it into a properly dance
tune, fared much better, reaching Number 32 in Great Britain
. After the flop of the second single, the politically oriented "It Pays to Belong", written following Dr. Robert's tradition of criticizing England
's political reality, which didn't enter the UK Top 75, the album found another smash hit single in "Wait", a Blow Monkeys' song, but in fact credited only to the lead singer, along with soul
interpreter Kym Mazelle
: the duet actually got to Number 7, making it the second most successful hit single for the band, after the above mentioned "It Doesn't Have to Be This Way", which climbed up to two positions higher, in January 1987.
The album, with its 10 tracks (on the vinyl edition), can be ideally divided into two parts, more or less corresponding to the two sides: the first displays more traditionally pop rock tunes (also embracing the first two tracks of Side 2), approximately lasting 3 to 5 minutes; the second presents instead more new wave-oriented tracks, the timings of which are much longer, 6 to 8 minutes. In perfect accordance with the group's habit of describing their homecountry's social life, most of the lyrics deal with such topics, though there is not a particular unifying theme here, as in the previous disc, which made that a real concept album, against Thatcher's iron politics.
The CD edition also included three bonus tracks, displaying both versions of "This Is Your Life", its B-Side, a rather estranged, almost out-of-tune song called "The Love of Which I Dare Not Speak", and an extended mix of the album track entitled "Squaresville", one of the most powerful tracks on the album, singles excluded, along with "No Woman Is an Island".
and God
, inviting them to "Come on down!" (as in the title of track 7), and, above all, it underlines the political flavour of the work, both featuring a quotation from Wilhelm Reich
, which goes like this:
and also granting fans and buyers in general, that:
The Blow Monkeys
The Blow Monkeys are a British new wave band that formed in 1981 as a new wave-oriented act. The first single, "Live Today Love Tomorrow" was released in 1982. They subsequently recorded more commercial pop rock hit makers, and finally became a dance group, shortly before splitting up at the...
' 1989
1989 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1989.-Events:*January 14 – Paul McCartney releases Снова в СССР exclusively in the USSR...
follow-up album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
to She Was Only A Grocer's Daughter
She Was Only A Grocer's Daughter (album)
She Was Only a Grocer's Daughter was the third album from British band, The Blow Monkeys, originally released in 1987.The album title is a reference to the then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, whose Conservative government was unpopular with several left wing, pro-Labour...
, released two years before.
The album, the fourth issued from the band, represented a further step towards the incorporation of more dancey elements, started with their third 1987
1987 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1987.See also:Record labels established in 1987-January-February:*January 3 – Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...
LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, especially with the UK hit "It Doesn't Have to Be That Way", which, getting to Number 5, made that their highest-charting song ever.
The first single was "This Is Your Life", still a pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
/new wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
track, which didn't get higher than Number 70. The next version of the song, its 1989 remix, which turned it into a properly dance
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
tune, fared much better, reaching Number 32 in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. After the flop of the second single, the politically oriented "It Pays to Belong", written following Dr. Robert's tradition of criticizing England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
's political reality, which didn't enter the UK Top 75, the album found another smash hit single in "Wait", a Blow Monkeys' song, but in fact credited only to the lead singer, along with soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
interpreter Kym Mazelle
Kym Mazelle
Kym Mazelle is an American dance-pop, Hi-NRG, soul, and house singer. She was brought up and lived on the same street as the Jackson family and knew Michael Jackson's mother and uncle.-Career:...
: the duet actually got to Number 7, making it the second most successful hit single for the band, after the above mentioned "It Doesn't Have to Be This Way", which climbed up to two positions higher, in January 1987.
The album, with its 10 tracks (on the vinyl edition), can be ideally divided into two parts, more or less corresponding to the two sides: the first displays more traditionally pop rock tunes (also embracing the first two tracks of Side 2), approximately lasting 3 to 5 minutes; the second presents instead more new wave-oriented tracks, the timings of which are much longer, 6 to 8 minutes. In perfect accordance with the group's habit of describing their homecountry's social life, most of the lyrics deal with such topics, though there is not a particular unifying theme here, as in the previous disc, which made that a real concept album, against Thatcher's iron politics.
The CD edition also included three bonus tracks, displaying both versions of "This Is Your Life", its B-Side, a rather estranged, almost out-of-tune song called "The Love of Which I Dare Not Speak", and an extended mix of the album track entitled "Squaresville", one of the most powerful tracks on the album, singles excluded, along with "No Woman Is an Island".
Track listing
Words and music: Dr. Robert- "This Is Your Life" - 4:37
- "Wait" [Robert Howard with Kym Mazelle] - 3:08
- "No Woman Is an Island" - 4:19
- "It Pays to Belong" - 5:35
- "Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love" - 3:45
- "Squaresville" - 4:22
- "Come On Down" - 5:02
- "Sweet Talking Rapist at Home" - 7:38
- "Bombed into the Stoneage" - 6:01
- "Let's Emigrate" - 8:28
- "The Love of Which I Dare Not Speak" (CD Only) - 3:59
- "This Is Your Life" ['88] (CD Only) - 5:11
- "Squaresville" [Longer] (CD Only) - 8:02
Singles taken from this album
- "This is Your Life" (1988) [UK Singles Chart: Number 70]
- "It Pays to Belong" (1988)
- "Wait" (1989) [UK Singles Chart: Number 7]
- "This is Your Life" [Remix] (1989) [UK Singles Chart: Number 32]
Quotations
The booklet, as usual, highlights the various religious inclinations of Dr. Robert, who thanks either BuddhaGautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
and God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, inviting them to "Come on down!" (as in the title of track 7), and, above all, it underlines the political flavour of the work, both featuring a quotation from Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
, which goes like this:
and also granting fans and buyers in general, that:
Personnel
- Dr Roberts: wordsLyricsLyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
and musicMusicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
; vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
and guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s; co-composition of all stringsString instrumentA string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
and brassBrass instrumentA brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
parts - Neville Henry: saxophoneSaxophoneThe saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
s - Mick Anker: bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Tony Kiley: drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
and drum machines
Musicians
- Kym MazelleKym MazelleKym Mazelle is an American dance-pop, Hi-NRG, soul, and house singer. She was brought up and lived on the same street as the Jackson family and knew Michael Jackson's mother and uncle.-Career:...
: female lead vocals track 2 - Marius De VriesMarius de VriesMarius Van Wyk de Vries is an English music producer and composer. He has been behind some of the key albums and soundtracks of recent times, gathering five Grammy nominations, two BAFTAs, and an Ivor Novello award along the way.-Music Producer:...
: keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, computer programmingComputer programmingComputer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
, co-composition and scoring of all strings and brass parts - Brian Bethell: additional guitar
- Steve Sydelnik: percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
- The Kick Horns: brass
Production
- Dr Robert: production tracks 1 & 2
- Stephen Hague: production tracks 4, 6, 12 & 13
- Leon F Sylvers III for Studio 56 Productions: production tracks 3, 5, 7 & 8
- Julian Mendelsohn: production tracks 9 & 10
- The Blow Monkeys & Marius De Vries: production track 11
Staff
- Alistair Thain: photographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
- Barnaby's Photo Library: additional photography
- Michael Nash Associates: designDesignDesign as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
Release details
| Country | Date | Label | Format | Catalogue |
| UK United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
1988 | RCA RCA RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor... /BMG BMG Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann... /Ariola |
CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... |
PD 71858 |
| MC | PK 71858 | |||
| LP | PL 71858 |
External links
- Fencat Online: Dr Robert's Official Website