- Jubilee offer: spend £10 or more on any product sold by Amazon.co.uk on or before June 6 and you can buy The Diamond Jubilee A Classical Celebration Album for just £2.50 Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Review
Cornershop originally took their name as an arch reference to the stereotype of the famously hard-working Asian shopkeeper, but these days you could probably describe the work ethic of Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres' musical partnership as 'It comes when it comes'. Seven years on from their last album, 2002's Handcream For A Generation, and 11 years since their glorious Brimful Of Asha single, buoyed by a Fatboy Slim remix, made it to the top of the UK chart, they now return with their fifth album proper, the bizarrely-titled Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast.
Long gone now is their passion for agit-pop rabble-rousing, as typified by 1993's clattery debut single, In The Days Of Ford Cortina à but actually, there's something implicitly political about Cornershop's current incarnation. Blending hallmarks of UK rock heritage - Beatlesesque melody, stack-heeled glam-rock, shiny Britpop - with rattling tabla, sitar, dholaki drum and Tjinder's rich Indian-accented croon, Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast imagines how the timeline of vintage British pop would have sounded had it not whitewashed out a lot of the foreign faces along the way.
Of course, you don't have to see it that way if you don't want to. You can just enjoy the tunes: Who Fingered Rock 'n' Roll, a sequinned 70s riffer with excess cowbell, exultant backing vocals, and hard-jamming sitar; the title track, a McCartney-esque narrative with soft horns and woodwind; and Free Love, Indian song and backwards keyboard over a determined, funky drum break.
Arguably, these days Cornershop are at their best when dispensing concise pop nuggets: you may lose track somewhere in the middle of the closing 17 minute The Turned On Truth (The Truth Is Turned On), which attempts to recreate the zoned-out jamming of earlier Cornershop epic, 6 am Jullandar Shere, but lacks that song's sense of urgency. As a long-lens fade out on a great album, though, it does the job. It might have been seven years in the making, but 'It comes when it comes' sounds like the sort of work ethic that bears sweet fruit. --Louis Pattison
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Leaving a Blue Nile like seven year gap between albums ( due to label wrangles more than any creative inertia ) Cornershop have returned for the first time since 2002's Handcream For A Generation. For a band whose early incarnations were famed as much for musical incompetence as anything else Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres latest album shows an impressive grasp of multifarious musical genres and an ear supremely well cocked for memorable tunes and attention grabbing detail.
Album opener "Who Fingered Rock , N , Roll" is so seventies glam it might as well wear a stripy tank top and a haircut to make Jason King blush. The T-Rex style boogie arrangement and lavish backing harmonies make it so copiously enjoyable you may feel they have peaked too early .Yet the unbound rolling funk stew of "Free Love " recalls a looser more relaxed version of the Beatles "Within You Without You " and "The Roll Of Characteristics (Of History in The Making )" is a commendable elongated broiling stew of trumpet, sitar and voluminous percussion but with a tight melodic vocal line that prevents it becoming too messy and ill-defined.
Occasionally the album is guilty of this though ."Operation Push " putters around not going anywhere and "Shut Southall Down" is just a pointless but mercifully brief flirt with portly bass , muffled keyboards and a incoherent voice over. The cover of Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn " is pleasant but rather superfluous too.
"Chamchu " , "Soul School " and "Half Brick " though , all offer tantalising and agreeable tangents on pop- throwing sitar, slide guitar and more glossy backing harmonies into the mix. The albums closing track the sixteen minute plus "The Truth On Truth (The Truth Is Turned On )" is an audacious hybrid with lovely female vocals cooing over tabla, sitar and elongated keyboard refrians."Redeem us " they sing in what amounts to a psychedelic gospel wig out.
With this album it's as if Cornershop have taken a long hard look at British pop music , not liked what they have seen ( who would ?) and decided to do something about it in the most vibrant and eclectic way possible. Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast amounts to a multifarious critique of where pop music is right now . It's the most unashamedly delightful album around at the moment with the possible exception of the outstanding Duckworth Lewis Method album or The Muumers magnificent Tale to Tell . No sour expressions after listening to this ..lemons or not.
Album opener "Who Fingered Rock , N , Roll" is so seventies glam it might as well wear a stripy tank top and a haircut to make Jason King blush. The T-Rex style boogie arrangement and lavish backing harmonies make it so copiously enjoyable you may feel they have peaked too early .Yet the unbound rolling funk stew of "Free Love " recalls a looser more relaxed version of the Beatles "Within You Without You " and "The Roll Of Characteristics (Of History in The Making )" is a commendable elongated broiling stew of trumpet, sitar and voluminous percussion but with a tight melodic vocal line that prevents it becoming too messy and ill-defined.
Occasionally the album is guilty of this though ."Operation Push " putters around not going anywhere and "Shut Southall Down" is just a pointless but mercifully brief flirt with portly bass , muffled keyboards and a incoherent voice over. The cover of Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn " is pleasant but rather superfluous too.
"Chamchu " , "Soul School " and "Half Brick " though , all offer tantalising and agreeable tangents on pop- throwing sitar, slide guitar and more glossy backing harmonies into the mix. The albums closing track the sixteen minute plus "The Truth On Truth (The Truth Is Turned On )" is an audacious hybrid with lovely female vocals cooing over tabla, sitar and elongated keyboard refrians."Redeem us " they sing in what amounts to a psychedelic gospel wig out.
With this album it's as if Cornershop have taken a long hard look at British pop music , not liked what they have seen ( who would ?) and decided to do something about it in the most vibrant and eclectic way possible. Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast amounts to a multifarious critique of where pop music is right now . It's the most unashamedly delightful album around at the moment with the possible exception of the outstanding Duckworth Lewis Method album or The Muumers magnificent Tale to Tell . No sour expressions after listening to this ..lemons or not.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Another great offering from Cornershop which deserves to be a massive success. It's a really upbeat album, guaranteed to make you feel happy. My favourites? The title track and the terrific cover of Mighty Quinn.
Format:MP3 Download
To me Cornershop ARE "Handcream for a generation".
What came before was, well, training & preparation. "Handcream" was absolute perfection. It stands to this day as THE party album, first-to-last track, non stop.
"Judy sucks a lemon", however, is simply uninspired. It feels & sounds way too evidently that Tjinder & co have tried to double themselves, seven years later. However, either their artistic vein has failed, or their motivation was less than artistic this time round.
Be that as it may, "Judy" is not worth a second listen. I'll keep playing "Handcream" as long as I'm alive ...
What came before was, well, training & preparation. "Handcream" was absolute perfection. It stands to this day as THE party album, first-to-last track, non stop.
"Judy sucks a lemon", however, is simply uninspired. It feels & sounds way too evidently that Tjinder & co have tried to double themselves, seven years later. However, either their artistic vein has failed, or their motivation was less than artistic this time round.
Be that as it may, "Judy" is not worth a second listen. I'll keep playing "Handcream" as long as I'm alive ...
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
They've done it again!
Whilst having to admit that this album isn't much of a progression from "Handcream for a Generation", I would have to ask why it needed to be? Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2010 by Mr. R. J. Murton
Great CD - Bad Packaging
I love the new CD. With that said...what's the deal with the packaging?!?! It comes in a package that resembles a CD single. Read more
Published on 29 July 2009 by Joe Hoskinson
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
