Classic Albums: Y by The Pop Group

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Written by William

OK, things look like they’re going to get a bit odd for the start of April because after yesterday’s post and now Wednesday’s post with The Pop Group. Which if you’ve never heard of them before they’re so far away from pop, it’s pretty funny band name. I do have the coming posts over the next few days planned out for the whole first week of this month and just going to included a huge pile of weird stuff or just crazy shit. By Friday I’ve let you in to know the kind-of reason for all this madness. I use all these words above in the nice possible way, you know? I totally love all these album and just have to include them in my Classic Albums pile but I guess it’s a bit of a warning because it’s totally out there music, if not heard it before?

My little intro to this band was by way of Nick Cave yet again, if I remember right he name dropped the song/single We Are All Prostitutes. The album called the letter Y quickly for me became my own fave of the band’s back catalogue, if you wanna check out it all it’s on their Bandcamp page well, minus this Y album for some reason I don’t know why? There’s the old and the new or the original 70’s stuff and then the reunion from the last few years too. I think Cave’s point was if my memory’s right was they were the most exciting and challenging music group in the U.K. scene when he arrived with The Birthday Party in 1980, were almost all the others were over-hyped music press/papers rubbish. I’ve included two promo video clips of the time with She Is Beyond Good And Evil and The Boys From Brazil, don’t you just wish you were there?

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The Pop Group in late 70’s on the English cliffs somewhere? Maybe it’s in Bristol where they hail from.

Now I’ve already included a couple of both Aussie and American punk albums/bands so far but not an English one yet. They’re labeled now more post-punk even if they were working around the same time as the punk explosion. The Pop Group was never as mainstream as pretty much any other English bands at that time, never signing to a major label in front of Buckingham Palace then getting sacked which was media bullshit anyway. So I guess I’m saying where every other album lists like this has the Sex Pistols bollocks nevermind album or The Clash calling London album or whatever, this album is my pick above everything else going on the U.K. in the late seventies. Other labeled words that get thrown around this band/album is things like avant-garde, experimental etc. As far as other lists both Pitchfork Media ranked it at number 35 on its list of The Top 100 Albums of the 1970s and The Wire magazine included in its The 100 Most Important Records Ever Made.

Now when The Pop Group reformed a few year back they did do an Aussie tour but didn’t come over to the west coast so I’ve still haven’t seen them live, I should flied over to see them really because they haven’t come back since then. Living in Perth W.A. you miss all these type of acts live unfortunately. The members in 1979 the year of the album Y were Bruce Smith, Gareth Sager, John Waddington, Mark Stewart and Simon Underwood if you wanna check out everything else each bloke has done since then too, it’s all pretty great listening too. 

So got to ask everyone, anyone who else loves Y by The Pop Group or is another release you like better? Or this the first time listening? Or what? Please a reply if you wanna!

Y tracklisting and times:

1. She Is Beyond Good And Evil – 3:23
2. Thief Of Fire – 4:35
3. Snowgirl – 3:21
4. Blood Money – 2:57
5. We Are Time – 6:29
6. Savage Sea – 3:02
7. Words Disobey Me – 3:26
8. Don’t Call Me Pain – 5:35
9. The Boys From Brazil – 4:16
10. Don’t Sell Your Dreams – 6:42

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All my Classic Albums posts are in that link or they’re all linked below too!

So the idea here is simply for me to write a post about each of my favourite albums that I consider total stone cold classics!

Please do leave a reply below and tell me what you think about this album and/or artist or whatever you’d like to say about it?

3 Comments

  1. That’s two albums in a row from you that I’m also thinking of eventually covering on my site. I’m guessing the theme you’re going for is weird stuff, which is a subject close to my heart. Keep ‘em coming, man.

    I think this is The Pop Group’s best album, and being a huge Birthday Party fan I was excited to discover another band with a similar sound, although the Pop Group had more of a funk and dub influence. I remember Mike Watt from the Minutemen saying they were like Captain Beefheart crossed with Funkadelic, and I think that’s a pretty fair description. I saw them live on the recent tour you mentioned, playing in a Freemason’s Hall of all places. I thought the new album Citizen Zombie was just OK, but they’re still great live. They performed a lot of the classic old stuff as well as newer material, and it was a lot more dancey than they come across on record, which made it a really fun time.

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