Friday, August 6, 2021

#24 Arrows - Polly Scattergood


Original release date: October 2013.

I'm still not sure this is the Polly Scattergood album I meant to vote for. There was always going to be one but, as with some other artists on the list, which was never quite certain.

The thing is, as I mentioned in the opening post, it's been a while since I really listened to albums as albums. I do when I first get them but later, not so much. Then it tends to be on my iPod Touch, where I often just set the controls to Shuffle so it feels like I'm listening to a really good radio station.


I picked this one because it has Disco Damaged Kid on it but I nearly went with the eponymous Polly Scattergood from four years earlier. That has my favorite of Polly's, Bunny Club, the first song of hers I ever heard. 

There's something in that, the song that introduces you to a singer or a band. It can color your view on them and on the song for a long time. It's hard to say, sometimes, whether I like someone because I heard their best song first or whether I only think it's their best song because it was the first one I heard.

I don't suppose it matters much in the end. If I'd heard Disco Damaged Kid before Bunny Club I'd still have bought both albums.

2 comments:

  1. Ah, Polly Scattergood!

    One of the handful of artists I got to know through your blog. (Another that immediately springs to mind are The Monks, but I'm sure there are more. And The Monks are definitely outside of the 25-year rule.)

    I'd also go with Arrows. Not only because of the Disco Damaged Kid, but I also find Cocoon extremely mesmerising. And even though I generally don't care too much for most music videos, Polly Scattergood has a few fascinating ones. Cocoon's has this uncanny feeling of something being "off" that is slightly haunting. And even though Wanderlust is slightly too... noisy, for lack of a better word... for my taste music-wise, the video is based on a very neat idea.

    I haven't listened to In This Moment yet, though, so can't compare that one.

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    Replies
    1. I do love to hear from people who've actually "discovered" someone through my posts. Kind of what I'm doing them for, apart, of course, for my own pleasure.

      That series of videos she did last year at the height of the lockdown, which was then collated into one long piece, was very disturbing. I agree there's something off or rather off-kilter about a lot of her work. That's what makes it so interesting for me.

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