Saturday, August 16, 2025

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 142 Echo & The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain -

 


A man's got to do what a man's got to  do. Apaarently if you're English (and that's what I am technically although I wasn't born  here), that means trekking out to your local because, God be praised ! It's the start of a new football season. I'm not so enamoured with the National Sport as I once was. But I know my place so I was there just before half twelve and watched forty five minutes of goalless football with the lads before coming back and collapsing into bief sleep and then listening through to - Ocean Rain for the second time today.

It's a beautufully housed sleeve and a gracful record amd band move that took them truly into the charts for a couple of seasons. They became Pop Stars with an edge. My feeling at the time about Ocean Rain was that it didn't excite me as much as Crocodiles, Heaven Up Here and Porcupine  had done. 

Over the years I've warmed to it considerably though the lyrics still strike me as less Existential whuch I had always liked, and more a bunch of roses and a  packet of milk tray for your latest flame. This might be more of McCulloch's album which may be why he obviously loves it so much. The previous two had probably beem edged by Sergeant while Crocodiles was a true team effort.

 There's certainly not a weak track on here and it has plenty of beauty and bite but it strikes me as more Smash Hits than NME. Make of that whatever you will. The fifth eponymous record was a mismove, an attempt to break the States. Then Peter De Freutas died , effectively bringing down the curtain on the band, as a band.. .

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