Side One Track 6 - 3.08 An example of how this drumbeat can propel something from somewhere quite ordinary into something almost transcendental. Produced by James Dean Bradfield who also borrowed the drum beat during his time with Manic Street Preachers. Brilliant. This reached # 50 when released in the UK more than ten years back. It should have been # 1.
Garry MulhollandSunday 23 May 2004
The Observer
'Every now and again, a record appears that behaves as if the pop surrounding it simply doesn't exist. Look at the title of this song and the name of the band and you might safely assume that this will be shouty bloke agit-rock, of which there is always plenty. But it isn't - in fact, it so isn't that it makes one want to dust off a long-rejected phrase and believe in the idea of 'subversive pop' all over again.'You are the Generation that Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve' - to give it its full title - is a call to arms against consumerism delivered in an ancient but timeless language. It begins with one of the most blatant steals imaginable: a huge, portentous thud of kick drum and a slap of snare and tambourine that will always add up to the intro of 1963's 'Be My Baby' by the Ronettes, a pleading, weeping, girl group love song transformed into high art by Phil Spector. Who better to rip off for an anti-materialist song than the man once labelled the Tycoon of Teen?
Johnny Boy, a duo comprising Davo from Liverpool and Lolly from London, hook up Spector's echoing glockenspiels, acoustic guitars and fanfare brass to a gradually galloping rhythm and a melody of heartbreaking sadness and joy. Then Lolly's voice (part indie-girl fragility, part Shangri-La stridency) paints a picture of winter evening streets swimming with consumerist middle-youth 'heathens', complaining that things are getting worse, yet unable or unwilling to grasp their own cool-hunting complicity.'
Johnny Boy, a duo comprising Davo from Liverpool and Lolly from London, hook up Spector's echoing glockenspiels, acoustic guitars and fanfare brass to a gradually galloping rhythm and a melody of heartbreaking sadness and joy. Then Lolly's voice (part indie-girl fragility, part Shangri-La stridency) paints a picture of winter evening streets swimming with consumerist middle-youth 'heathens', complaining that things are getting worse, yet unable or unwilling to grasp their own cool-hunting complicity.'
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