ILWTT.01 "It Wasn't All Bad": A Creation Records Compilation

Fantasy compilation album time. Some people count sheep to help them go to sleep, but we invariably tend to doze off whilst trying to divine which tracks to put on some playlist or other. This one, our Creation "best of", occupied us for quite a few winter nights, given the reach of Creation's discography.

There *is* an Official Version of the Creation story. It's called "Upside Down", a double-CD compilation spanning 34 tracks, but... the vast majority of it is really very bad indeed. For those younger readers who keep hearing us oldies bang on about Creation in almost the same nostalgic vein as we praise Subway, Sarah etc, it would be a terrible letdown to hear. Pretty much every Creation compilation released along the way managed a higher hit-rate, and "Doing It For The Kids" did so for £2.99. Only two tracks on "Upside Down" are truly amazing, and that's because they're both by the Jesus and Mary Chain (one of them being the title track, whilst the other, "Some Candy Talking", didn't even come out on Creation, so its inclusion is frankly cheating). The only pleasant surprise, track listing-wise, is probably that the Jasmine Minks' early and jolly "Think!" single gets a run out.

So we set about compiling our own, rival Creation 'best of' CD. The rules were quite simple, namely the strongest 70+ minutes that we could come up with, based on one track per band. We're conscious that we, just like the compilers of the Official Version, have ignored many of the oddities and infamies - Baby Amphetamine, Ronnie Spector, the Creation, Mishka, Kevin Rowland, Crazy Eddie and QQ, Les Zarjaz, the records by the wife, the records by Andy Bell's wife - all of which were very much part of the somewhat idiosyncratic Creation catalogue: but there simply wasn't *room*, not this time, anyway. (Also, several of them, on re-listening, proved to be really not very good at all, meaning that the public were probably right at the time not to buy them).

For the uninitiated, our own policy is simple: we won't provide podcasts or download links, not that we would know how to anyway. Music can be a pleasure to track down, is a joy to appreciate and, frankly, we still cling to the evidently stone-age belief that, within reason, it is a treat worth paying for.

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1. The Membranes "I Am Fish Eye"

2. Five Go Down To The Sea "Silk Brain Worm"

These are combos whose shortish stints on Creation have been somewhat neglected by history, but these are muscular and very enjoyable tunes from their sole releases on the label. Not only do they remind us of Creation's early links with the "Death To Trad Rock" scene, and show that Creation once had a sense of *fun* rather than concentrating only on being achingly cool, but, in retrospect you can see from these tracks (a) how much the truly great Bogshed owe to the Membranes and (b) what the more highly-prized Stump owe to their compatriots FGDTTS. If that makes Alan McGee the father, in a way, of Bogshed and Stump, then that is probably something we should give him credit for, whether he would like that or not. (Technical note: the lyrics being yelled on the Five Go Down track suggest to us that it may in fact be "Aunt Nelly" rather than "Silk Brain Worm", but for the moment we'll stick with what the Creation Soup track listing suggests).

3. Biff Bang Pow! "Love's Going Out Of Fashion"

They may have been the house band, but as we all know BBP! came up with some decent stuff now and then, and in a range of styles (much as we winced when they over-wallowed in sixties nostalgia). The appeal of this song, for us, has always been the way that there seem to be about eight melodies going on at once, guitar lines that criss-cross, intersect and dance with no little abandon. We can even forgive the harmonica that repeatedly intrudes.

4. My Bloody Valentine "You Made Me Realise"

Please don't take this relatively unimaginative choice as meaning we didn't enjoy MBV's later records or, indeed, their earlier ones: we adore "Strawberry Wine", "We're So Beautiful" and "Sunny Sundae Smile" as well as digging "Loveless", "Tremelo" etc. But "Realise" represents a neat mid-point for a pivotal Creation band (of whom there were not, let's be honest, too many), and the audacity of the bit in the middle which sounds like an aeroplane taking off still excites us to this day. In stark contrast, most other Creation bands that were flavour of the month in our school corridors around this time (the likes of Swervedriver, obviously, but even, on re-listening to them, the once-hallowed Ride and Slowdive) have really not dated too well.

5. The Jesus and Mary Chain "Upside Down"

6. Meat Whiplash "Don't Slip Up"

7. Slaughter Joe "I'll Follow You Down"

Pre-shoegaze, if you like. "Upside Down" is of course the daddy, the best song Creation ever released. It's accompanied here by two contemporary J&MC copyists. "Don't Slip Up" in particular is somewhat underrated, in our view, even if the Reid brothers' East Kilbride neighbours Meat Whiplash would then disappear from the radar, resurfacing as the disappointingly clean-sounding Motorcycle Boy and with none other than ex-Shop Assistant Alex Taylor on vocals. Slaughter Joe's "I'll Follow You Down" is a more slavish early-J&MC tribute, but perhaps the best of Joe Foster's attempts to nestle in their slipstream. (His "Pied Piper Of Feedback" CD comp has a few more - "Napalm Girl" burning fairly brightly - as well as the rather different, diffidently pretty, feedback-free and string-spun retro ballad "She's So Out Of Touch", a lost gem which feels like it could have been recorded twenty years earlier).

8. Emily "Mad Dogs"

Turning away from feedback and noise for a moment, we come to the undisputed heavyweight champions of being wrongly ignored, Emily. *Of course*, their swansong "Rub Al Khali" LP was amazing, a record that we would kill to see given a re-release. And yes, their "Stumble" 7" single on Esurient is a revelation every time, a stone-cold classic of the era that every household should own. But even their Creation EP, "Irony", deserves to be more fondly remembered than it is: not only does it re-work "The Old Stone Bridge" from their Sha-la-la flexi, but contains this lead track, "Mad Dogs": if labelmates the House of Love had recorded this breezy, cultured pop song, it would have been lauded to the skies.

9. The Pastels "Something Going On"

Continuing the somewhat Celtic flavour to our compilation so far (and there are several more Scots combos to come), this was one of the earliest Creation singles, and still our favourite song the band recorded for the label, a personal highlight from "Suck On". It captures, perfectly, the wonder of being struck by the moment. Just as we would be when we saw them 20 years later. Their latest LP isn't bad either, you know.

10. The X-Men "Do The Ghost"

The mysterious X-Men produced just the two 7"s for the label, I think, and this is the pick of the songs. Short, fast, catchy and fun, it's hard to find much wrong with McGee's antennae at this stage, as the boys explain through frazzled lo-fi rockabilly how to cut a rug and throw some groovy, ghoulish shapes. And, at the time, this was probably as close as the Creation roster had come to "dance music". Until...

11. Bass Bumpers "Can't Stop Dancing"

12. Sheer Taft "Cascades"

13. Hypnotone "Dream Beam"

OK, I admit it: I have become rather fond of much of the Creation dance stuff, even if some has dated almost as badly as the shoegaze bands. It certainly worked much better than crossover nonsense like "Screamadelica" (there, I've said it). Many of Creation's clubland-destined releases are amongst the label's better singles, and I'm still tickled by the idea that McGee decided to set up a dance label, and when asked what he would call it, simply said "how about 'Creation' ?"

The housey, in-your-face bass bounce of "Can't Stop Dancing" also features some entertaining and lyrically positive rapping, but it's probably the other two, acid house-influenced songs, that stand up best, with Sheer Taft remixed by Hypnotone, and Hypnotone remixed by Danny Rampling, whose fingermarks were all over many of Creation's dance 45s. If only Love Corporation's "Palatial" hadn't been disfigured by samples, no doubt it would have joined our list, and the (v. soulful) Sound of Shoom and Fluke 45s came very close to getting on to this compilation, too.

14. The Bodines "Therese"
 

Back to all of our comfort zones, we have Glossop's finest, the Bodines. They talked themselves up rather at the time, and then got entangled in a major label, but boy did they cut some killer songs along the way (seek out "Heard It All", "Clear" and "Skankin Queens"). "Therese" even survived its outing on C86, and still burns with vigour and janglism today, as well as sheltering a little more nervous energy than their later singles. The way Michael Ryan switches octaves with hardly a breath is pretty impressive, too. We never got to the bottom of whether or not the title was referencing Mauriac, though.

15. Jasmine Minks "Forces Network"

Having been blissfully unaware of the Jasmine Minks' early releases at the time it was only years later, when listening to those early Creation Soup volumes purchased secondhand in Replay Records, that we realised the Jasmine Minks were a far better band than so many gave them credit for. There was both humour and conviction in their lyrics, and musically they had more strings to their bow than just shambling, or throwing 60s'-tinged pouts and moves. "Forces Network" is something of a lost gem, we think: originally a B-side and now available on the "Revenge Of The Jasmine Minks" compilation, it's as spiky and belligerent as you'd hope a band from 1980s Aberdeen to sound, yet still full of surprisingly authentic C86ish charm.

We are also, whenever we mention the Minks, contractually obliged to remind you of their much later "I Heard 'I Wish It Would Rain'" single on Bus Stop, featuring Pam Berry: search it out, for it's as brilliant as it sounds.

16. Primal Scream "Velocity Girl"

Too obvious? Perhaps, but what a song (and the second track here which also features on C86). It's hard to explain just how much hearing this song appealed to me as a lonely, introverted teenager, but its brevity means that despite all the repeated plays, it simply never hangs around long enough to get old or tired. We've made our view on the Primals' wider career trajectory known before, of course.

17. BMX Bandits "Serious Drugs"

Only the band that Teenage Fanclub could have been. Er, actually, as you know, the Bandits never really set the world alight in their Creation years, or produced anything to match the raw wonder of their first EP. Notwithstanding that, this remains a sweepingly mellow, musically grown-up and rather romantic single. It also pricks dim recollections of how the "controversy" engineered by its title, as well as the wide-ish airing of their "Kylie's Got A Crush On Us" single, even delivered the Bandits a smidgeon of media coverage at the time.

18. The Loft "Up The Hill And Down The Slope"

An ever-enjoyable mix of classic rock and chiming indie-pop, with lyrical wit and confidence and an especially caustic guitar break, this a reminder of how the Loft, ultimately, outshone Pete Astor's later Creation (and Elevation) outfit, the Weather Prophets. For the record they also outshone other post-band projects, Bill Prince's Wishing Stones and Andy Strickland's Caretaker Race. It is well worth seeking the Loft's "Once Around The Fair" compilation, which has everything you need including a superior version of "Why Does The Rain", later a single for the (somewhat precipitation-obsessed) Prophets.

19. Razorcuts "Flowers For Abigail"

You knew they were coming at some point, didn't you? At one stage, around 1989, Luton's Razorcuts were just about my favourite band, a fact I'm rather proud of my younger self for (not many groups have ascended over the decades to the giddy height of being my "very favourite band", which went from being Bucks Fizz to Japan to New Order to the Wedding Present to Razorcuts to the Field Mice to Brighter to Hood and thence, in a back to the future kind of way, to Sportique and Harper Lee).

Having said that, from this distance the Razorcuts' two long-players for Creation may be the band's ropiest works: there are some great tunes therein, but also some fairly formulaic Byrdsian things and a few over-saccharin ballads (we used to love "Brighter Now", for example, largely because its mere existence was a big V-sign to much of the NME's trend-led, 'scene'-obsessed nonsense; but now, it would put it kindly to call it cloying). Nevertheless, even after those peerless Subway and Flying Nun singles, there was *always* much to admire. And "Abigail" may not be their very best song from this era ("Steps To The Sea" would be our current shout), but its upbeat, almost boisterous feel, and the driving John Rivers organ solo make it fit well on a compilation designed to show the variety that Creation was capable of.

20. Felt "Rain Of Crystal Spires"

Definitely one of the better and most consistent bands on Creation, notwithstanding their fondness for random instrumentals, and even if there's an eminently arguable position that their earlier work on Cherry Red was better. Of Felt's five albums' worth of Creation fare, we hold a candle for "Pictorial Jackson Review", which had some lovely, flowing pop tunes even if it didn't break any moulds, but the earlier and superb "Forever Breathes The Lonely Word" was even finer, and is justly feted by the cognoscenti. This was the single from it, I believe, and it flows by sumptuously.

21. Pacific "Shrift"

Nobody seems to know anything about Pacific at all, and their somewhat generic name doesn't make googling for mention of them easy. But we're rather fond of their two EPs, their weaving-in of strings and brass and the singer's somewhat despairing drawl, especially "Barnoon Hill" from the first 45 and this, the New Order-ish title track from the second. The 12" is worth getting for the extended A-side, backed with two plaintive, delicate instrumentals, but we've plumped for the 7" edit here: the 7" single was, I think, one-sided, as part of Creation's "99p single" campaign of the time.

22. The Legend! "73 in 83"

Let's finish with the first song from the first Creation record. An extraordinary record, too: yes, mostly for how bad it is, but it's still of real historical interest as just the first, somewhat wobbly, stepping stone on a long journey. At a minute long, the Legend! half-rapping over McGee on drumkit, it practically defines the word "curio", but not only is there a certain cuteness at play: there's an element of truth in what lyrics there are, capturing the disappointment and lethargy of *something* - an infiltrated scene, a broken dream - and working more effectively than the man's later, more "refined" (relatively speaking) work. (Mind you, "Everything's Coming Up Roses" on "Ideal Guest House" was *ace*). Having read the biogs again, we can't shake the feeling that when Creation and Jerry Thackray finally parted ways, that was when Creation started to lose its vision.

By coincidence (we think), Creation would later move to offices at number 83, Clerkenwell Road. We strolled by there the other day: the building still seems to be there, west of the new Farringdon station complex, just on the edge of Hatton Garden. It's called "Griffin House" now. We wonder if anyone who works in that building today ever reflects on some of the musicians who would have dropped in there, on how Alan McGee would have listened to new records there, of some of the wild parties that were hosted there...

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We know there is so much else that we could have put on. We would be very grateful for any suggestions and recommendations as to Creation songs that we should try and listen to next!