Zer0

You’ve got to love a short album. A twenty-nine minute and twenty- one second collection of songs that says all it needs to say over the course of twelve short pop songs and then gets the hell out of there. It’s the perfect way to hit the spot and never outstay your welcome. When I say ‘pop song’ I don’t mean the bollocks that clogs up the charts and infects your mind through endless radio play torture. I’m talking about the other kind of pop, the good kind; the way The Ramones wrote pop songs, the way Big Star wrote pop songs, The Cure, The Buzzcocks, and The Replacements etc. This is the kind of frame of mind the Lemonheads occupied here their fifth album It’s a Shame About Ray.

‘Rockin Stroll’ kicks off the album with a brief song about viewing the world and people through the eyes of a baby or toddler. This kind of sense of fun and innocence gives the album a light-hearted feel but there are other moments elsewhere on the album which in contrast give a less innocent look at adult life. With this album the band left behind their noisier punk roots, toned down the electric guitars and combined these with acoustic guitars to give the music a gentler and mellower sound. This being the band’s major-label debut for Atlantic you could accuse them of selling-out but the more easy-going sound gave their songs more clarity and purpose. It’s a formula that works so well on this album especially on the fantastic run of songs on the first half of the album ‘Confetti’, ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’ and ‘Rudderless’. One of the most interesting songs on the first half of the album is ‘My Drug Buddy’, and is a good example of the less innocent side of this album. The song itself has a nice mid-paced and uplifting feel but the lyrics seem to deal with the happiness of drugs and the happiness of doing drugs with a good friend. This song could seem somewhat harmless but it’s actually about scoring speed and is tragic in a way as it was soon revealed that Evan Dando was addicted to various drugs including speed and crack cocaine. There is however one striking image that the song portrays and that is the bond between Evan and his female drug buddy, especially in the lyrics “She’s in the phone booth now. I’m looking in. There comes a smile on her face”.

A lot of Evan Dando’s songs on this album seem to be written about characters and his relationship with these characters. He likes writing about his friends and about people he has met that have had some positive impact on him in some way. ‘My Drug Buddy’ is an example of this but also the title-track ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’ which was written about a guy he met in Australia who calls everyone “Ray”. There’s also ‘Alison’s Starting to Happen’ which was written about Smudge bassist Alison Galloway and the excitement and fun that she brought into Evan Dando’s life as a friend. It’s these simple things in life that seem to impact him the most and inspire him to write these songs. ‘Alison’s Starting to Happen’ as well as ‘Ceiling Fan In My Spoon’ also display some of the band’s punk roots with their fast and lively feel, yet they still seem like short, simple and sweet two-minute alternative-pop songs. The song ‘Hanna & Gabi’ shows a folkier side to the Lemonheads with its gently-stummed acoustic guitars, pedal steel and Evan Dando’s melancholic vocals. But overall the album has a high level of consistency and its short running time ensures that the album is filler-free and leaves you wanting more.

It’s a Shame About Ray is the Lemonheads' most successful and most well-known album, probably because of a certain Simon & Garfunkel cover which was included as an extra track without the band’s permission when Atlantic issued it again in 1993. Even Evan Dando admitted it was one of the weakest songs he ever recorded and that the band were basically forced into recording it by their label. The song spoiled the album’s otherwise perfect song flow and is certainly best left out of the picture. It is however an album that I always revisit from time to time and I certainly never get sick of it. The production might seem very 90’s nowadays but the music still holds up remarkably well and the bright, lively feel of the album reminds me of summer, something that seems distant now that winter is right on top of us as I type this.

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