FEATURE:
Second Spin
Stereophonics - Performance and Cocktails
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AS the Welsh wonders that…
are Stereophonics are releasing a new album in March, I wanted to revisited an album of theirs that I feel is underrated and did not get the acclaim it deserved when it was released. Performance and Cocktails is the second album from the band. Released on 8th March, 1999, I think that it is a really solid album with some great tracks. There are a couple of Stereophonics classics on Performance and Cocktails. The Bartender and the Thief and Just Looking are great. In fact, throw into the mix Pick a Part That’s New and Hurry Up and Wait! It does have a couple of weaker tracks. I think the album sort of sags towards the end and is a little top-heavy. Even so, it is brilliant album that does not rely on you being around when it was released. One can pick it up today and appreciate it. I am going to come to a couple of reviews for Performance and Cocktails. Prior to that, Wikipedia have a section on the striking album cover:
“The cover photograph was taken by Scarlet Page in autumn 1998 at a football pitch under the Westway in London, and was inspired by an earlier Annie Leibovitz photograph of a couple kissing outside a prison. The British journalist Tony Barrell did extensive research in 2007 to find the female model in the foreground. In the Sunday Times on 11 November 2007, he revealed the previously unknown identity of the model as 27-year-old mother-of-two Lucy Joplin. In an interview with Barrell, Joplin explained that the "faraway look" in her eyes was the result of an evening consuming absinthe and opium, and that she was paid just £75 in cash for the shoot. The name of the then 23-year-old male model is Kipp Burns on loan from Mannique models, King's Road”.
It is a pity that there was not more respect for Stereophonics’ excellent second studio album. I remember buying it as a teen and really getting into the songs. Maybe some felt that the band slipped since their 1997 debut, Word Gets Around. This is what NME observed in their review:
“This second album exemplifies many fine things about Stereophonics - their gut-level understanding of pop metal, the power-trio visceral impact of their sound, and most of all, Kelly Jones' lyrics. Because that's the one area in which they're not scared of their older brothers belting them around the head for creatively stating something more than the obvious. Kelly Jones dares to tell stories, which is something his impressionistic contemporaries could learn from. He deals in the beauty, sadness and bad craziness of commonplace things everyone else thinks aren't worth a second glance. Witness the angry refusal of 'Hurry Up And Wait' to take what you're given, or the soured-dreams vignette of 'She Takes Her Clothes Off'.
But elsewhere, the signifiers of mediocrity are all too evident - the pseudo-profundity of meaningless song titles like 'Half The Lies You Tell Ain't True', the pedestrian rhythm, and the tendency towards ooompah-chucka folkish jaunts. All those songs need now is Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals and a Number 24 hit is theirs for the taking. Stereophonics will doubtless carry on making really quite good records and filling flag-waving summer gigs for the next few years. But whether they have the courage, the vision, the charisma or the originality to be more than that is a question only they can answer”.
I am going to conclude soon enough. I want to draw in AllMusic’s response to an album that I think ranks alongside the very best from 1999. It was a year where we received top albums from Beck, The Roots and The Chemical Brothers:
“In December 1998, the Stereophonics released the single "The Bartender and the Thief," which became an unexpected explosion on the charts, peaking at number three in the U.K. In March 1999, the band's sophomore effort, Performance and Cocktails, was released to impressive sales -- it was reportedly outselling Blur's 13 when that album was released. A second single, "Just Looking," also peaked within the U.K. Top Ten, making the first half of 1999 a very unexpectedly busy time for the Stereophonics. Never a favorite to become a hugely successful Brit-pop band, their noisy, raw hard rock came into favor after the more produced and calculated sound of Brit-pop had become passe. Unfortunately, however, this disc isn't quite as consistent as the debut. Part of the reason why Word Gets Around was so appealing is that there was a sense of urgency that, on this release, seems to have disappeared. There are more ballads than before, and some of the rockers don't burn with the intensity that they did on the last album. This doesn't make Performance and Cocktails a bad album, though; fans will be very pleased that the Stereophonics have released another slab of indie-flavored hard rock. Some highlights include "T Shirt Sun Tan," the acoustic "She Takes Her Clothes Off," and the poppy "Pick a Part That's New." (Japanese versions of this album include three live tracks, but the quality is mediocre and the performances are unspectacular, making this version of the release for hardcore fans only.)”.
If you are a fan of Stereophonics and have not heard Performance and Cocktails in a while, then definitely check it out. If you are not familiar with the band, I think that this album is a good starting point. Arguably, they would release more critically acclaimed work, yet I feel that their sophomore album is worth spinning. It got a little bit of a kicking from some, though there were some good reviews. I love the album’s first half. The second is a little bit patchier, but there are still some gems to be found (A Minute Longer is a great track). I would encourage everyone to spend a bit of time immersing themselves in the wonder of Kelly Jones (vocals, guitar), Richard Jones (bass guitar) and Stuart Cable (drums). I shall wrap it there. One of my favourite albums from the late-1990s, I am still digging the anthems on Cocktails and Performance. With some of Stereophonics’ best songs all in one place, this is an album that you…
NEED to hear.