Life’s Too Good | Loppylugs

Submitted by Richard Norbury on 17 February 2013 - 9:43pm

Cover:

Artist:

The Sugarcubes

album-ID:

a_111

Nationality:

Iceland

Year:

1 988

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Traitor*Motorcrash*Birthday*Delicious Demon*Mama*Cold Sweat*Blue Eyed Pop*Deus*Sick for Toys*F+++ing In Rhythm and Sorrow

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_41

Now-num:

Spotify-URL:

1at2GIPfbUeGwewAUQr4lw

Grooveshark-URL:

Life+s+Too+Good/258048

Short-title:

lifesTooGood

nominator-ID:

u_14

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 27 March 2012

MusicBrainz-URL:

972b3962-49dc-3bbc-ab11-c6b8f7f0838b

Wikipedia-URL:

Life's_Too_Good

Spotify-link-type:

album

Discogs-URL:

Sugarcubes-Lifes-Too-Good/master/35191

Allmusic-URL:

lifes-too-good-mw0000196655

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reviewers-IDs data

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-2-

-25-

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-13-

77

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
70

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

Mum's gone to Iceland

3-8

Bjork introduces herself to the world with a bang, growl, and all sorts of weird and wonderful sounds.
70

reviewed by

Mike Beaton

The cheerful highs make up for the sometimes overly-quirky lows.

3-8-10

9

1988 ‘Life’s Too Good’ by the Sugarcubes is a slice of upbeat, slightly quirky, Icelandic pop, with Björk as lead singer on some, but not all of the tracks. Conventional wisdom has it that Björk was much better off without Einar Örn Benediktsson, and that The Sugarcubes could have benefitted from less of his idiosyncratic vocal stylings. But this isn’t the whole story. The Sugarcubes work well because of everything they are – and there is certainly a purer pop feel in Björk’s early work here, with The Sugarcubes, than in her later solo material. Highlights of the album include ‘Birthday’, ‘Deus’ and ‘Fucking in Rhythm and Sorrow’, and there are other recognisable tracks from the period, such as ‘Motorcrash’. In the end, it is true that there is too much of Einar Örn on some tracks, such as ‘Blue Eyed Pop’ – but on others, such as ‘Deus’ his contribution definitely adds rather than subtracts. In many ways, this album stands the test of time of time. Certainly worth a listen for anyone who knows later Björk, but doesn’t know this. If it remains a mixed bag, in the end the cheerful highs make up for the sometimes overly-quirky lows.
67

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Life's good in places

2-3-5

1-4-6-9

The masterpiece that is Birthday dwarfs this album and possibly the whole of the Sugarcube's career. They did well to not have their artistic judgement warped by its massive gravitational pull. They went on to do some interesting stuff and there are other good tracks on this album but we're only really here for one reason.

Overall this is a pretty patchy offering and some tracks are just plain annoying. I like the idea of some idiot tunelessly shouting out fey, poetic twaddle, as a partner to one of the most extraordinary voices in modern pop but the idea doesn't work in practice, and as much as he is integral to the sound of the Sugarcubes it is so much better when he stops.
60

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

1-2-3

It's all about Bjork innit. Interesting to hear her as part of a proper indie band before she got her solo stuff underway. Superb vocals by her, and three great tracks, but the rest of the album really falls flat. Also, the male vocalist isn't interesting at all.