Thursday 15 March 2018

Something Bunny: Dubstar – “Disgraceful” (1995)

Dubstar’s classic 1995 dream pop album ‘Disgraceful’ manages to fill its songs with pain, heartbreak, hope and despair. But it does it in the nicest, softest way possible. Did we mention the crypto-fanny on the front cover? Yes, it looks like a vagina. The album’s rather good too, by the way.

How best to sum up "Disgraceful", the 1995 debut album by dream pop crew Dubstar? As we’re about to see, there is a lot to say, and it’s very good. But let’s focus on the most obvious thing – the crypto fanny.

Because, on the cover, is, well – let’s just say you don’t need much of a dirty mind to spot what’s being implied here. It practically leaps from behind a (particularly hairy) bush, going RAAAAAAAAR. I dread to think what the rabbit ears represent.

It wasn’t even the original cover, which had a fluffy pencil case filled with a folded over balloon in it. The resulting ninja fanny was so blatant, it gave you a diploma in gyno just by gazing at it. It also looked a lot like the Eye of Sauron, which adds a whole new Freudian subtext to Lord of the Rings.

This and the cheerfully awkward, faux-kitsch design on the sleeve and lyrics book, was a perfect fit. (You have to rotate it to read some of the lyrics.) Subversion was Dubstar’s game here. And you can’t get much more subversive than that cover, staring at you innocently from the shop shelf…

FANNY HILL

But we’re not here to discuss, erm, vaginas, at least not like that. In many ways, of course, Disgraceful is a strangely modern album, in this age of #MeToo and the world finally accepting what was blatantly obvious in the first place. 1995 wasn’t a nice place to have, well, a fanny (ninja or otherwise) then, and nothing much has changed since.

Track two, Just a Girl She Said, which significantly was co-penned by vocalist Sarah Blackwood, is a case in point. Like all the best pop music, it hides a lot of darkness ‘neath its jauntiness.

Under a jolly, faux-accordion swing and Blackwood’s bittersweet vocals, a lot lurks. “Kiss me in darkness, turn out the light / Pretend you’re with someone else tonight” she croons. It wouldn’t be so brutal if it wasn’t sung in the sweetest way possible.

“And you cannot buy me and you cannot use me”, the song adds, “but I know that you want to try.” On the one hand, a feminist tract, and on the other, tinged with the ugly, pawing menace of male desire, it wouldn’t be so brutal if it didn’t sound so… nice.

FANNY SERVICE

The rest of the album carries this discrete venom and has a lot of fun with it. Techno-calypso mutant Elevator Song and the very catchy Anywhere can be read as either very romantic or very needy, depending on how you read the lyrics. Or you could just let yourself get carried along by the sweet and sour hooks.

“If the man you’ve grown to be / Is more Morrison than Morrisey” says The Day I See You Again, where the narrator hedges their bets with eyes that “try to pin me down”. The most haunting song on the album, it’s the one point where the sadness flows out and a funereal tinge takes hold of the keyboards.

Not Once, Not Ever, with its near choral quality, is, meanwhile, a coda of sorts, where the lessons have been learned the hard way, and at too high a price. Covers Not So Manic (by Brick Supply) and Billy Bragg’s St. Swithun’s Day are performed with a grace and lightness that blends them and the band’s sound together seamlessly. In the latter’s case, of course, the cover eclipses the original.

FANNY CRADDOCK’S DISGRACEFUL HAIRY PIE

The title track ends it all with a faintly epic, psychedelic vibe that raises the mundane concerns of life and love to a higher plane. Going back to the opener, Stars, which was rotated on MTV until the tape wore out, there is little more to add, other than it is a wonderfully ethereal and (whisper it) creepy song that celebrates life while (whisper it) reading it the last rites.

It’s no wonder, then, that Lacuna Coil covered the song, but bludgeoned its subtle magic with a few too many goth metal guitar riffs. The beauty of "Disgraceful" is that it always hits every note with enough force, enough gentleness. Some call it ‘dream pop’, but like all the best albums, and especially the best pop albums it is so much, much more.

It’s love, it’s death, it’s disappointment, it’s hope. And it could have been recorded yesterday.

SHEEPSCORE: BUY NOW!!! (5 out of 5)

Available now on Parlophone.

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