The Proclaimers - C/D-S/D

i think "sunshine on leith" is such a great album.
it lost impact with the time, but it still has some great melodies on it.
pity they had to compete with another pair of scottish reid brothers.

I saw them live in the Princess Charlotte just before they had their ten minutes of international megastardom. They were fantastic - just the two of them, really belting it out like their lives depended on communicating with the audience (contrast with other bands at the Charlotte whose main communication with the audience was "we're going to end our set with ten minutes of thrashing and feedback, fuck you for watching us"). Almost as good as the Three Johns. And "Sunshine on Leith" is one of the very few religious songs I can stomach (Van M, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan excepted, of course).

I really, really rate their first album. But I thought - although they were still good songwriters - they lost their uniqueness after that.

What made them unique?
1)Just two harmonising voices and a guitar - as spare as folk music or a 'wee wee Free' church service. As soon as they got a band that went out the window.
2) a willingness to 'let go' and scat in apparent semi-rapture. While Sunshine on Leith is indeed one of the few good pop 'God is great' pop songs, they said the same thing in an abstract way in some passages of their first album. Even more impressive, this, when set in a context of songs written with a New Wave-inspired tightness and energy.

I saw them live around that time: those two lads in glasses blew the audience out of the hall as if they were the Clash. If the Clash and Van Morrison had any common ground, it was the early Proclaimers. If that's your idea of hell, you won't like them!