Teenage Fanclub tonight. The Scottish Alt/Indie/Jangle/Power group in session in Paris for Bernard Lenoir at Radio France International, otherwise known as The Black Sessions.
Teenage Fanclub got started in 1989 and as of today, some ten albums later, are still going strong. With a long and varied career, the band have sustained pretty well, even though they go through drummers like laundry.
This session, from November 16,1993 comes during the time of their third album Thirteen, which was released in October of that year. Riding on the coattails of Bandwagonesque which was their commercial breakthrough, released in the UK and US – it put the band on the map in America and established them as a potent entity in the race of bands to look out. Thirteen would continue that success, even though the album itself suffered scathing reviews at the time (something about putting people on pedestals to only to try and knock them off).
Truths to tell, Teenage Fanclub have bounced around in musical styles quite a lot over their tenure. Initially blanching at the notion of the Alternative label, they preferred to think of themselves as a mixture of a lot of styles. Someone once remarked they seemed to be a chaotic cross between The Beach Boys and Nirvana. Although, over time the band smoothed out the chaotic edges, becoming more commercially viable as the result. They still have that essence of chaos lurking freely around in their musical veins. And with 10 albums and two compilations later, they’ve covered a lot of musical ground.
Slipping in popularity in the US over the years, and eventually dropped by their U.S. label Geffen, they’ve maintained a strong showing everywhere else in the world. Their latest album, Here was released in the U.S. on Merge records last year.
If you missed them the first time around, and have just recently gotten acquainted (or re-acquainted), there is something from their early period to give you an idea what they were up to in 1993.
Play this one loud – it works best that way.
