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Product Description
Digitally Remastered 2002 with 4 bonus tracks
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Almost utterly forgotten because that had no hits and were difficult to pidgeonhole, the Pink Fairies were actually a great band from an era when post-psychedelic hippy rock was evolving into prog and heavy metal. In many ways, the Fairies were the UK's answer to the MC5, a power trio that DIDN'T attempt long bluesy jams or indulge in mind-numbing rifferama but DID prefigure not only early Motorhead (before they succumbed to HM) but punk rock. The Fairies were loud, mean and nasty but they had some humour and subtlety to play with too. Street-cred didn't come any better at the time: the band were bona-fide underground heroes who even made Hawkwind seem like commercial chart contenders. They flirted with radical politics and often played for nothing...
From this debut album the manic rocking "Teenage Rebel" could easily be placed five years later on a record by the Damned or Generation X (but without the drum solo!). They weren't a band that could be comfortably marketed on record and scored mainly through their anarchic live shows. "Never Never Land" does, however, contain some of the band's finest material, especially so this lovingly restored CD with its bonus tracks - highlight of which is the incredible debut single "The Snake", perhaps the greatest unknown headbanging anthem that was ever cranked out of a battered Marshall stack. BUY THIS FOR "THE SNAKE" ALONE AND HEAR 90% OF THE HARD ROCK ACTS OF THE EARLY 1970s PUT TO SHAME!!!
Pink Fairies hit that same street-level hard-rocking style on "Do It", find a jazzy groove on "War Girl" and even indulge in a little cosmic dreaming on "Heavenly Man". "Uncle Harry's Last Freak-Out" was obviously something that made more sense live (and two versions at around 10-minutes apiece may be a bit over-whelming). The Pink Fairies were mad, bad and dangerous to know but their records (for all their uneveness) are definitely worth owning if you're interested in an era when real red-blooded unsanitised rock and roll bands were allowed to outrage our ears...
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
So these chaps use to play for free outside the pay to get in festivals. I would rather have rolled one up and just listened and watched this band! They got a contract and on this fab debut, improvised jams that they were use to, became an LP, if you like to hear music free flowing then I recommend this to you. super long guitar jams and no widdly diddly solo`s. It is a dam good album ,there are a few slowies just to let you have a quick breather!then GO,and its back to the biz to think it 1st came out 1971 ish!!A classic time capsule.
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This, the first of The Pink Fairies records, was released in 1971 and then followed by What A Bunch of Sweeties and Kings of Oblivion. All three have recently been re-released with additional bonus tracks. The Pink Fairies arose from the remnants of Mick Farren's band, The Deviants. Farren was a leading light in the alternative scene of the late 60s, and ten years later was writing for the NME during the punk explosion (for more details see his excellent biography Give The Anarchist A Cigarette). The Fairies themselves were still on the road in the late 70s, and their single Between The Lines was one of the first releases on the Stiff label. The booklets that come with the reissues make a major point of crediting The Fairies with pre-dating punk rock. I'm not sure about this - apart from drugs, what else did hippies and punks have in common? Answer - they couldn't play their instruments very well. OK, The Beatles and Paul Weller, amongst many others, weren't great when they started, so this really isn't the point.
There isn't much on Neverneverland that suggests instrumental virtuosity, and this isn't the point either. There are two drummers, Twink and Russell Hunter, bassist Duncan Sanderson, guitarist Paul Rudolph, and very few keyboards. Apart from Twink they all try to sing which is perhaps why almost all the tracks are fun, especially now, listening with 30 year's hindsight (sight?). No doubt about it, Do It and Teenage Rebel are almost punk songs, but many of the other tracks find The Fairies flirting with hippy oblivion - the guitar soars whilst the vocals drift. This applies to Heavenly Man, War Girl, Never Never Land, and Track One Side Two, but even these tracks have an underlying rockiness. The harsher side of their music comes out on Uncle Harry's Last Freakout. You get two versions of this, with and without vocals. The vocals give the 10-minute version a bit more edge, but swamp some of Rudolph's finer moments. Listen out for the electronic bleep that should focus your concentration as Uncle Harry starts to drift away! War Girl is a personal favourite, with whispered vocals that definitely work, Say You Love Me is a fine pop song, even though it carries many of the trademarks of its time. It might have made a more successful single than either Do It or The Snake. The second of these shows that The Faires liked a laugh. The lyrics could have been written by one of Benny Hill's scriptwriters, but it's fun, rather than offensive, and the words don't really harm the only one of the 4 bonus tracks that offers anything new. You then get editted versions of Do It and War Girl, and finally poor old Uncle Harry stretched out to 12 and a half minutes. With these extra tracks Neverneverland extends to 70 minutes, but this may be a case where more is actually less. Even I find it difficult to listen to The Fairies for more than an hour! In small doses - and Do It which opens the album is a good sampler, if you don't like it, don't do it - there is enough here to make this CD well worth buying - if you like guitar driven rock played by hippies with a sense of humour.
There isn't much on Neverneverland that suggests instrumental virtuosity, and this isn't the point either. There are two drummers, Twink and Russell Hunter, bassist Duncan Sanderson, guitarist Paul Rudolph, and very few keyboards. Apart from Twink they all try to sing which is perhaps why almost all the tracks are fun, especially now, listening with 30 year's hindsight (sight?). No doubt about it, Do It and Teenage Rebel are almost punk songs, but many of the other tracks find The Fairies flirting with hippy oblivion - the guitar soars whilst the vocals drift. This applies to Heavenly Man, War Girl, Never Never Land, and Track One Side Two, but even these tracks have an underlying rockiness. The harsher side of their music comes out on Uncle Harry's Last Freakout. You get two versions of this, with and without vocals. The vocals give the 10-minute version a bit more edge, but swamp some of Rudolph's finer moments. Listen out for the electronic bleep that should focus your concentration as Uncle Harry starts to drift away! War Girl is a personal favourite, with whispered vocals that definitely work, Say You Love Me is a fine pop song, even though it carries many of the trademarks of its time. It might have made a more successful single than either Do It or The Snake. The second of these shows that The Faires liked a laugh. The lyrics could have been written by one of Benny Hill's scriptwriters, but it's fun, rather than offensive, and the words don't really harm the only one of the 4 bonus tracks that offers anything new. You then get editted versions of Do It and War Girl, and finally poor old Uncle Harry stretched out to 12 and a half minutes. With these extra tracks Neverneverland extends to 70 minutes, but this may be a case where more is actually less. Even I find it difficult to listen to The Fairies for more than an hour! In small doses - and Do It which opens the album is a good sampler, if you don't like it, don't do it - there is enough here to make this CD well worth buying - if you like guitar driven rock played by hippies with a sense of humour.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A great band
I had forgotten how good the Pink Fairies were. I have 2 or 3 albums on vinyl and remember seeing them on a few occasions in the late '60's early '70's. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. R. A. Jenkins
Pink Fairies - Never Never Land
Simply the best album ever released by them, and you get two renditions of Uncle Harrys Last Freakout as well.
Published 18 months ago by Nemesis
Dreadful Remastering
I totally agree with the review by C Quinn. I love this album, but it has been robbed of any dynamics and atmosphere by stupidly loud and compressed mastering. Read more
Published on 4 Feb 2010 by G. Moore
This is terrible.
Having loved an oblique involvement with the original recording owned by a friend I was so disappointed by this recording. Read more
Published on 2 Nov 2007 by C. Quinn
THE Best Rock Album (of 1971)!
The initial vinyl LP came out with it's cardboard sleeve covered by a removable plastic cover with part of the album artwork adhourned . . Read more
Published on 15 Sep 2007 by P. Ardron
Not really a review
I saw them in the Kings Theatre years ago in glasgow. They were wonderful. Listening to the album now brings back lots of happy memories
Published on 12 Oct 2005 by W Hamilton
Up the Pinx
The first and best of the Fairies albums, Never Never Land captured the band at their anarchic best . Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2005 by Dr. Alex M. Seago
A Good Debut
The first album from the Pink Fairies was a curious beast. Released in 1971, it has not aged as well as some of the other albums of the period with some tedious space jamming that... Read more
Published on 8 Sep 2004 by Lenny Banter
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