Monday, December 04, 2006

Modern English - Life In The Gladhouse 12"


For the critics who say that 'Melt With You' is the best song by Modern English, I say %@#!ing idiots. If anyone has taken the time to see life before the album After The Snow, they would know that the material put out by these guys was utterly brilliant! Mesh And Lace was an astronomically great album (given that you're into the gothy side of things), and the WHOLE After The Snow album is far superior. The worst song on there is 'Melt With You', though that's just MY opinion. I look at it like this, 'Melt With You' made the band quite popular, and inevitably changed their sound from the darker goth sound they had, to the happier "I'm gonna dance in the tulips" sound they changed to. A good example of how great After The Snow is as an album is this 12". The extended mix exemplifies just how different Modern English really were, and listening to the flip side gives you a glimmer of their previous dark side. 'Life In The Gladhouse' is such a good song, but of course it was overshadowed with the top-40 song I've been repeating over and over. The flip is a 11+ minute gothic rant, not quite as good as 'Swans On Glass' era stuff, but close. I'm also not saying that 'Melt With You' is crap, just given the bands previous releases, and the album it was released on, it just doesn't hold up as well. 'Melt With You' is a catchy song, and like the similar instance with Simple Minds, and will be forever remembered by a generation.






Track 1, Life In The Gladhouse

Track 2, The Choicest View





Grab the tracks here! Password-pwemb.blogspot.com





UK 4AD Records 1982, BAD 208



Personal rating 4.5/5

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I first heard of Modern English in Hong Kong. This is the very first ME 12" that I bought when I was into the "weird" thing era. You are right, it absolutely blew me away and I played it so much that it couldn't be played anymore, all within a short period.... Fortunately, it finally came out in the remastered version of After the Snow in the 90's.

Anonymous said...

This band was so great and so overlooked. I like all the albums with the original lineup as featured in your post. It's a shame that there isn't much else out there about them. I've even got stop start on vinyl which was the last good record for me from them. Thanks for posting.