Our Little Underground: The Jesus and Mary Chain Song by Song

The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish rock band consisting of the Reid brothers (Jim and William) and a revolving door of other players, drum machines, and keyboards. They're known for their extensive use of guitar feedback and heavy distortion mixed with well constructed and catchy melodies. Their early work was a pioneering influence on the shoegaze genre. Early performances notoriously and frequently ended in riots.

Jim became the lead singer after losing a coin toss, although William would occasionally sing lead, most notably on the hit "Blues From a Gun."

My intention with this thread is to do a song by song overview of their entire catalog in which we, the participants, can rate each of the group's songs. I'm sure you're all familiar with the format by now, one song a day. Tomorrow we begin with their debut single "Upside Down."

 

Are there many JAMC fans on here, I rarely hear them mentioned. Considering NME adored their debut so much. I also enjoyed the debut and the b sides compilation they had. Sidewalking was great. But I haven’t listen to them for about 30 years. Still got my vinyl copies of the first two though.

 

Huge JAMC fanboy here. I’m in for the thread. Hopefully we get good participation!

 

I’ll get this out of the way really quick before things get started…if you like JAMC and haven’t heard the Last Tourist album from year then you should immediately seek it out.

 

I don't think they're all that popular anywhere. Less so than all the critical praise would suggest. However, my last song by song was for The dB's and that was a very fun thread with only about six people participating most of the time. JAMC are certainly much more popular than The dB's.

By Spotify metrics JAMC have 988,648 monthly listeners. By point of comparison, The dB's have 15,811. Although the bulk of their records aren't streaming. And that guy's precious Echo & the Bunnymen have 1,709,853.

 

May as well just skip Psychocandy as it's such an obvious 10/10 every song....

 

I know either Psychocandy or Darklands is gonna come out on top of the album ratings. I'm curious to see which since Psychocandy has had some backlash on this forum.

 

Funny. I don't think of JAMC as anything like the Bunnymen. Both great of course.

 

I am the most casual of admirers. I only know Psychocandy and of Automatic, which I'm only familiar with through cover songs, mentions in other songs, and reputation.

Judging from my participation in the Beach Boys thread, which I was enthused about but petered out on, I can't say I'll be a regular participant in this thread, but I'll keep an eye on it and maybe catch or luck into an excellent new song or two along the way. Good luck, Mr. Chip. Hope you get the participation you seek.

 

I love JAMC but can't stand most of Psychocandy. The feedback makes my eyes bleed. Can't wait for the new one. I really enjoyed Damage and Joy

 

Always difficult for me to participate day to day, but will enjoy following along. Looking forward to the new album as well!

 

I’ve you’ve got the stamina and discipline to actually pull this off, I’m in! I mean…. back in 2019 we managed to do this with Duran Duran so…. why not?!

 

I’ve only revisited this last night and was surprised how good it is. Better than I gave it credit for in 2017.

 

I'm no Lance LaSalle, but this isn't my first song by song rodeo. I can pull it off, don't worry.

 

Genius claims that the JMC currently have 201 songs?! No idea if this is anywhere correct or including the brand new stuff. But it gives us an idea about the size of the project we are about to start.

I’ve got all albums, “Barbed Wire Kisses”, “The Sound Of Speed” and “The Power Of Negative Thinking” so I should be good to go?! Except for possible “Damage & Joy” era non-album tracks.

Going to start the day now with the Sister Vanilla album!

 

I admire anybody who has the dedication to even remotely pull this off! It people behave and play along nicely - and not randomly post stuff like “I love ‘Head On’” - this could be very nice!

 

I'm excited to check this one out. I bought Psychocandy when it came out, didn't really click with the production / sonic wall of sound sheen, but liked the songs themselves. Then checked out of JAMC and never looked back. Like the dBs thread, I expect to have fun and learn along the way, stepping through the recordings of a good band that I missed out on.

 

One of the greatest things John Hughes ever did was to clean up a version of The Hardest Walk, make it slightly more radio friendly for the Some Kind of Wonderful soundtrack and show everybody what was underneath the noise was power pop of the highest order.

I love the Psychocandy version as much but at the end of the day, the songs needed to be brilliant as well as noisy and they certainly were both.

 

Should have been a top 5 hit that song , wonderful

 

Don't get me wrong - this is great to do, I will follow along - appreciate the work on it! Can we do a Kitchens of Distinction one next !

 

Bring on the feedback! I don't know everything JAMC have released but I'm a fan of their first four albums. This should be fun.

 

You Trip Me Up is THE best song ever. No contest.

 

Here for this.

 

The Jesus and Mary Chain are a band that I have to stop before putting on and remind myself what I'm in for. I may have been somewhat drawn to that whole trying to be shocking, icy, rocknroll cool attitude as a punky teenager but I've developed less patience for it as I've gotten older (and more boring). I've listened to some vulgar bands over the years but they still occasionally unnerve me. Usually I laugh it off but on some days I'm-a just not in the mood for it.

Before we get rollin', I was surprised when I got the Edsel Psychocandy and heard the early demos. I had no idea they started with a drum machine, switched to live drummer, then went back to a drum machine for Darklands.

Watcha gonna do about "Up Too High"?

 

Well, Single Pigeon by Wings probably beats it……