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Judging A Cover By Its Cover: The Big Pink “A Brief History of Love”

December 4, 2009 by John Foster

Fuck I am old.

I really am.

And so is The Big Pink.

Volume please: I am tempted to slag off this record for being “retro” – and trust me – it is retro.

The cheeky bastards named their band (and website) after another famously retro celebration.

But it is the fact that the members actually experienced the music the first time that allows them to replicate it so lovingly and most importantly – improve on it’s deficiencies by swallowing an entire period of music whole, while spitting back out a toothy smile of diamonds.

Who needs those old Madchester records when you can give the players real songs and beats and take away the drugs – but not the experience? In a lot of ways, this is the album they all could have made, if they took the pills before they were in bands instead of when they found a little fame. It is tight and focused and never loses grasp of hitting you hard with the beats, but not at the sacrifice of the song -  a marriage few have ever been able to master (not that they haven’t all tried.)

Who doesn’t shout along with “Dominos” and it’s repeating “these girls fall like dominos! dominos!” and shake shake shake?

If you said that you don’t – then you are a dirty filthy liar. Plain and simple.

“Crystal Visions” makes a snotty kaleidoscope entrance that is sure to have Noel Gallagher tearing his moptop out and “Too Young To Love” announces that the Chemical Brothers have been beaten in an alley and all their beats stolen while the coppers can’t case the scene with these damn strobe lights going off. Reach for the sky indeed. A door to door search for Ian Brown is on.

Then those drums for “Domino” kick in. I don’t need to say any more about that.

Believe.

“Love In Vain” is the song that Primal Scream could only make in reverse. Strolling from a night out with “Screamadelica” to find comfort in the guitar sitting in the corner and a copy of “Sonic Flower Groove.” Something like “At War With The Sun” is a typical title for such feelings of grandeur and the straightforward rush makes you curse Ride for falling off the rails in 60’s revisionism when they could have streamlined after “Nowhere” (with Alan Moulder mixing, as he is here) and made a beeline to your exploding heart. The Big Pink wants that pulsing little beast – but more to own than to love.

“Velvet” is the ultimate rave tent singalong from the edges. Watching the shadowy make outs and never blinking. Rock music for dancers. Hymns for the blissfully aware.

The wash (and it envelopes you completely) of guitar and glacial pace compounds the huge syncopated thump of the simple clicking drums (turn me up bitches!) You have to give in (as there is no giving up.) “Golden Pendulum” lays out the MBV squeal into glossy hip hop drum tracks and a synth swirling swing. Breakbeats to make both Kanye and Kevin Shields jealous is a pretty damn tall order, but they pull it off.

“Frisk” reminds you that the worst the band can offer still pisses all over Kasabian.

The title track carries the inevitable duet, but the male presence is overwhelming while placing all of the pressure on his departing lover, and the laddish feeling that sneaks in to the lyrics makes you wish for a tad more poignancy, but that is hardly the focus here. The 808’s buzzing in “Tonight” quickly remind you that a funk breakbeat makes all the darkness go from your head to your glass to your dealer and then to your eyes closing and your ass shaking and it’s… it’s… bliss man.

Closing by re-imagining Gillespie’s Stone’s fetish as a shoegazer love affair, “Count Backwards From Ten” is the slow burning guitar number that seems expected. And while it isn’t the strongest track, it does a damn fine job of highlighting the sounds that make this record work for the aural junkie nodding out.

Note to the early 90s. Burn baby burn.

Brits with a big record collection stolen from your house made a killer album – we get it – but what does it look like? Well, if you were going to make a record from that era and you had to pick a designer, it certainly would have come from the v23 stable. Chris Bigg is the man bringing that classic 4AD feel. His deft touch with the layout holds together the art direction the band takes credit for. The real star, of course, is the photography of Marc Atkins.

The collection of ethereal beauties – most baring their breasts – could be interpreted as having a sexist streak to the packaging. But Atkins treatment and detached study is only highlighted by his credit for the images of the “ladies.” This is no Happy Mondays brazen centerfold. In fact, the woman barely seem real in their ghostly white flashes of light and plain forms awash in scratched and bubbled film. The haunting cover image is so blown out that she is defined by the shadow of her forearm against her porcelain body. Mouthless, with one eye blurred. Disturbing and troubled – yet drawing you near – but not too close.

Mixed with the hooded figure on the tray, stretched into a crucifix naturally – the juxtaposition might be expected but it’s perfect none the less.

Now is this Bigg’s finest work, matching the devotion on display in the songs? Not hardly. The images are interesting, but they lack that dynamic weirdness that perhaps Vaughan Oliver would have pushed them into with a simple (or is it so simple after all?) crop. In some ways, the same images on the previous singles held more power. Maybe the collected carries less sway. I appreciate the thinking behind using a bright pink for the song titles in the booklet but that doesn’t mean that it works or is readable. There are a few other major missteps. The disc label is of no consequence and all involved should have known better than to try to screenprint a black and white toned image of that sort of mess. There are a few concerns with the grid – most noticeably on the back tray where the line seems to run from the left of the “f” in “Brief” down the periods following the right justified numbers and then to the keyline – which has a hanging circle P – so not only does it not line up any longer, but the whole thing is sort of floating at the bottom without an anchor. The type in general on the back is clunky and far too large given the more nuanced innards. Sloppy for man known for such details.

Having said all that, my eye drifts to the cover and I see that the label has gone the extra mile and added a gloss varnish around the photo edges and to the band name and it sort of makes up for all of the issues. With “Domino” blasting out my car windows as I head downtown at 3am with $200 in my pocket, it makes it all okay. Its going to be okay.

For those keeping score at home: Music 8.5 Design 7.0

John Foster owns his very own design firm, Bad People Good Things and is the author of For Sale: Over 200 Innovative Solutions in Packaging Design (HOW), New Masters of Poster Design (Rockport), Maximum Page Design (HOW) as well as a collection of handmade graphics entitled Dirty Fingernails for Rockport to be released on October 1st and a monograph on Jeff Kleinsmith for Sub Pop Records

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