Famously, Teenage Fanclub were best known for being the one British band to openly embrace American alternative during a moment where it was extremely en vogue to be British. While the group is Scottish by origin, they found themselves falling in with the Creation Records crowd, and soon enough their classic LP was born, Bandwagonesque (1991). Sharing a sensibility with a much more groomed style ala Big Star but also with a very archaic harmonic references to groups like the Byrds or Buffalo Springfield, Teenage Fanclub brought together a very savage sense of elegance buffered and floored with a steady and even method of raucous punch. On Bandwagonesque, the group embraced the pre-grunge holler of the Seattle scene, but apply a very tight and thoughtfully harmonious energy to that sound, reflecting a truly European and Anglocentric flavor. Songs like “Pet Rock” and “What You Do To Me” are power-pop gems, whereas the album closer “Is This Music?” pokes fun at the dreampop style, popular amongst their fellow C86 scene-mates, and imbued with irony that fellow label-mates My Bloody Valentine, who would go on to bankrupt Creation with their own dreampop and shoegaze histrionics. But Bandwagonesque doesn’t refuse its nature, and in the end its a much more Eurocentric album than the long-hair and torn jeans that the members sported might have seemed; grunge was never a fixture of Teenage Fanclub, but rather an cynical-but-friendly jab at the fact that anyone can play guitar, but if you can write good songs, you’re set.
Listen to “What You Do To Me” (Live on The Word, 1992)
Download “Bandwagonesque”
