Colossal Youth | Loppylugs

Submitted by Glyn Lewis on 14 February 2013 - 10:51pm

Cover:

Artist:

Young Marble Giants

album-ID:

a_30

Nationality:

Year:

1 980

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Searching For Mr Right*Include Me Out*The Taxi*Eating Noddemix*Constantly Changing*N.I.T.A.*Colossal Youth*Music For Evenings*The Man Amplifier*Choci Loni*Wurlitzer Jukebox*Salad Days*Credit In The Straight World*Brand - New - Life*Wind In The Rigging

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_13

Now-num:

Spotify-URL:

2RxRqnbGX9P2xF9XtHc5lW

Grooveshark-URL:

Colossal+Youth/185717

Short-title:

colossal

nominator-ID:

u_1

Meeting-date:

Wednesday, 30 July 2008

MusicBrainz-URL:

2db1887d-64b4-3868-af26-e6b48654d856

Wikipedia-URL:

Colossal_Youth

Spotify-link-type:

album

Discogs-URL:

Young-Marble-Giants-Colossal-Youth/master/41768

Allmusic-URL:

colossal-youth-mw0000308450

BBC-URL:

q4p2

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89

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Daring, clever, original, beautiful, wonderful, colossal

1-6-9-11-13-14-15

This is a startlingly original and brave album. Young Marble Giants may have influenced various bands in the 80s but the sound they make here is very much their own and Colossal Youth is pretty much a genre in itself. It's got the raw, under-produced instrumentation, the fragile, female vocals and the ridiculously short track length which all became hallmarks of 80s indie but the minimalist arrangements, the quirky organ playing and very early drum machine sounds make this a very unusual and striking sound. This is music stripped back to the essentials and allowed to be heard note by note.

Beyond the sound they create, there are so many good songs on here, I could have picked them all as my favourites. The arrangements are so lean and the songs so strong, I could imagine them being covered by bands in any number of different genres. Ask yourself what the obvious influences of YMG are, maybe you'll realise there aren't any and what a monument to original thinking this was.
70

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
63

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

An inspiration of it's time, though badly dated now

This album was clearly an inspiration to many bands who followed throughout the 80s and 90s. You can hear the influences in numerous indie/alternative/arty bands from recent times, such as the likes of Stereolab and Saloon, who clearly admired and recreated the disctincive electronic and organ sounds that this band made their trademark.

The problem is, that because the sound has now been re-hashed on so many occasions, that this band now sound rather dated, which of course is natural when your music is based upon the modest electronic offerings of the time.

Overall this is an enjoyable listen, and respect must be given for the originality of it's time.