Cornershop: When I Was Born For The 7th Time

Well, you know, it MIGHT be me, but I kinda have this assumption that they didn't need Kula Shaker as a model.

Also, it seems to be falling off as I get further through the album. This guest rap is godawful!

PS, I love Kula Shaker.

did they re-form or something? ach, i can't be arsed going to find out. sorry.

A good couplet!

"Brimful of Asha" was a minor hit the first time around, but then Norman Cook remixed it, they re-released the single, and it was a UK #1 if I'm not mistaken (i.e. it was a major hit).

"When I Was Born" is a much stronger album overall than "Woman's Gotta Have It" (="Jullandar Shere" X 2 + a bunch of filler), however, "When I Was Born" kickstarted their determination to be a hip-hop band on record, often with uninspiring results. Live, they could BRING IT.

After a couple listens now I definitely prefer the "songs" to the jams. That whole "Turkey gravy...mashed potatoes" thing... what is this, a Bran Van 3000 b-side? "Sleep On The Left Side" is the definite standout - that bass groove! Man! And "Funky Days Are Back Again" is pretty great unless you take it literally and actually start imagining a 1996 populated by people wearing big shoes and getting funkee. To the extent that that happened I kind of want to forget about it...

Argh, I'm having flashbacks...

Obviously, the Indian inspiration they probably picked up elsewhere than through listening to Kula Shaker. :)

That line just seems too obvious to me (especially when people start singling it out).

my favorite is right after: "mine's on the 45"

What does this even mean? You mean the line itself is obvious, or the quoting of Cornershop's probable best-known lyric (incidentally, a great line) in a thread about Cornershop is obvious?

_Handcream For A Generation_ is basically more of the same, although a bit more rockist. Check it out, especially the insanely catchy equivalent to "Brimful", "Lessons Learned From Rocky I To III".

Their debut album is also excellent, but much less accessible. Really noisy chaotic SOMETHING-punk, but with the occasional Indian raga thrown in.

Woman's Gotta Have It: 6A.M. is the cat's pajamas. The rest is a happy accident, but melodically sound & more durable than most mid-90's indie fodder.

WIWBFTST: The hip/trip-hop interludes didn't age well, but the actual "songs" (save for "Candyman" & the cover of "Norwegian Wood") are pretty great. Tjinder and co. delivered the pop; & the pop mixed with the sitars; & the lone country ballad with an adroitness that seemed to exceed their actual musicianship. Perhaps the album was some sort of Primal Scream-esque orgy among the band and a bunch of auteur-producer/DJs. Whatever the case, I believe it to be the most enduring example of mid-90s-antigenre-soundcollage-hiphop-indiekitchensink. I still listen to it on occasion, which cannot be said for: Odelay, Bran Van 3000, or the first Plastilina Mosh album. I saw them in Detroit in 1998, and I recall being pleased, but I was very, very stoned (the same can be said for most concerts I attended 95-00).

The Oasis phenomenon: As Cornershop made their rounds with the BritPress at that time, I remember Oasis utlizing them as their show opener/credibility-enabler du jour. It was the sitars, obviously. One can proceed only so long as a pop band before said pop needs to be thickened with sitars. Or at least located in an area adjacent to sitars. Cornershop were briefly Noel's George.

Handcream: It sucked. Rocky I-III? A Primal Scream B-Side at best. And even if it had better hooks, how many times do you tolerate the awkward phrasing of "chicks with dicks." "Spectral Mornings" was nice, but that point already been driven home much more pleasantly by "6 AM.." & "We're In Yr Corner."

One more detail: Despite being underwhelmed by HFIG, I went to see them when they toured for that album in 2002. The band performed capably, but on multiple occasions - sometimes for extended periods of time - Tjinder stopped singing and playing his guitar mid-song and stared blankly at the ceiling, as if he were (to paraphrase Ween) "chewing bark, but not the leaves." I hope he's OK.

"Ben, you just show them how funky it can get when funky days are back in vogue again."

"Brimful of Asha" makes me happy to be alive!!!!!!~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

: )

god bless!

DO NOT WANT

Dude upthread talking about Cornershop being "Noel's George" is babbling nonsense to himself.

mohommad raffi!

two-in-ones!

Why does "Candyman" remind me so much of Damon Albarn and particularly the new Gorillaz album?

heck, the verse guitar riff to "coffee and tv" isn't very dissimilar to "brimful of asha"

ya but neither are most verse guitar riffs.

Ben, you just show them how funky it can get when funky days are back in vogue again

"Brimful" still sounds great to me

this whole album rules

A good CD to pick up in almost every UK charity shop

haha

I like your username

That's not a snarky remark - loads of people must have bought them hoping for more big beat anthems. I bought mine on Amazon for a few pence last year

The original Brimful is so much better than fatboy's remix. Reminds me of Roadrunner. If J Richmann had been a British Asian, that's what he would have written.

Definitely on the original BofA being greater than Fatboy's version.

Nice to see a few people above bigging up "It's good to be on the road back home again", as it is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. Paula Fraser's voice on that is so gorgeous. I can't believe I still have not got round to acquiring any Tarnation music.

But I am one of those people who prefer Handcream For A Generation or Woman's Gotta Have It to When I Was Born.

I saw them at Glastonbury once in the John Peel Tent. Once they played "Brimful of Asha" most of the people present left.

That Fatboy Slim remix jinxed what should have been a great career... their last four albums including this one have all been ace.

what's the "forty five" song?

And yeah, Handcream is clearly one of those great 'lost' albums.

"Brimful of Asha" is one of the best rock songs with no one playing bass.

This weekend I heard "Brimful of Asha" played out of doors on a large soundsystem, held up pretty good!

"Butter the Soul" must be one of the ones people in the thread see as filler, but for me it's all-time.

every six months or so i tell myself i'm going to listen to their post-7th time records, and then i just end up listening to 7th time for three days

I love this record still, and Women's Gotta Have It along with it. Whoever complained upthread about british bands being bad for blending great songs with filler jams is off the mark. I love those lose albums like this one, the first Badly Drawn Boy and the Beta Band EP comp. I wish bands today would drop trying to write those last few songs that'll never be as great as the singles, and just put some formless abstraction on instead.

I remember the first time I bought on Doc Marten's when I was around 13 I got gifted this cd:

https://www.discogs.com/es/Various-Dr-Martens-Music-Sampler/release/2391081

And Cornershop's Candyman and Moloko's Fun For Me sounded fantastic on my father's sound system, they were my two favorite songs for a while there. Funny I don't remember how any other song in the sampler sounds like, just those two. I think it was the second most popular song on this album, for a while, due to its use on an NBA ad.