#546 & #547
1986 Houskeeping
The Times
Enjoy the Times
and
Up Against It
Genre: Power Pop/Mod Revival
Enjoy the Times
3.75 out of 5
Up Against It
4 out of 5
This is a doubleshot since The Times released two records in 86.
Highlights:
Where to Go When the Sun Goes Down
Dream Now (Young America)
Highlights:
WPC Boon
Mutiny in the British Empire
Requisite 80s cover: “Anarchy in the UK” is “Mutiny…”. Ball is using the song to further his storyline and his reworking of it actually slaps. “Eleanor Rigby” which is interpolated in “Last Tango for One”.
This is Ed Ball’s project and everything I read talks about his involvement with Television Personalities but I hated TVP’s last album a lot so I approached this with nervous trepidation.
The first record is a flamingly anachronistic set of mod revival tracks that reminds of records by the likes of Nick Lowe and Rockpile. Just fun songs that are also about something without hammering you over the head and don’t last too long so you never get bored of them. They aren’t great but, if you miss The Jam or The Vapors that’s the hole this is trying to fill. If you listen hard enough, Enjoy the Times is a pretty political record.
Vocally, Ball falls into that Ziggy Stardust era Bowie/Dave Vanian sound.
Up Against It is a concept album based on some screenplay about The Beatles and the Kennedy Assassination. Okay. What it sounds like is Utopia’s Deface the Music meets an Elvis Costello student.
I especially enjoyed the “Anarchy in the U.K.” reinterpretation of “Mutiny in the British Empire” which folds into “Escape!” which sounds like it could have fallen off Black Market Clash showing that Ball is more a student of the form and a commentator of the times than anything else. “Last Tango for One” is a redux of Eleanor Rigby and, dammit Ed. Why you make me wanna go listen to a Beatles tune? And then he echoes “Revolution #9” on “The War” and I can’t figure out what he’s doing or why. But he should be sued by…somebody. ;)
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