The Wombats: A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation

Week 15

THE PITCH

I was thinking about how you like She's So Lovely by Scouting for Girls, which features on the soundtrack for the movie Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, one of the most important movies for any British girl aged between 9 and 12 in 2008. That song, and this whole album, are representative of such a specific era of British indie pop – between like 2004 and 2009. The era of Whatever People Say That I Am, That's What I'm Not by Arctic Monkeys, Costello Music by the Fratellis, Inside In/Inside Out by the Kooks as well as Franz Ferdinand, The Vaccines, Two Door Cinema Club and sooo many others. If you listen to any of these you'll recognise them from when me, Marianne and Liv are in charge of the cooking music. So why this album by The Wombats in particular out of all these excellent, nostalgic choices? Well, firstly I just love this album. It's so funny and lyrical and silly. It's like a 90s coming-of-age movie but in song form. We have our main character lamenting that his life isn't like the movies, lusting after an older woman, getting drunk and dancing to fend off despair, going on a bad date, seeing his ex at a wedding. This is an album to listen to while you wash up, while you drink wine and make pasta on a Friday evening, while you clean the bathroom on a Sunday afternoon.

Elspeth Nicholson

MY RESPONSE

The first time I listened to this I was in the car with Marianne and I had to ask her to pipe down because she was belting out the lyrics so loud I could hardly hear the song. And on that first listen, I could see all the things you say here: the music is crying out for you to yell the catchy lines; the lyrics are funny and quirky; the stories it’s telling are the complicated stuff of youthful relationships and the frustrations of unrequited lust. I love the tone of those stories, not melancholy, more cheesed off, like everything going wrong for him is inevitable.

I was a little taken aback by the first track, Tales of Girls, Boys and Marsupials, because this odd little a cappella song wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I wondered if the rest of the album was going to turn out to be quirkier than I was expecting. But with the next track, Kill the Director, we’re straight into thrashing drums and guitars and there we pretty much stay. Don’t get me wrong, I like the energy, I like the pace, I like the guitars and the drums. But it is relentless. At the beginning of Here Comes the Anxiety, he sings, “This is the darkest song I ever wrote,” and I thought, ‘Here we go, now they’re going to do something different,’ but when the chorus kicks in, he’s back to shouting again. The default seems to be to build up to a point where there’s a repeatable chant-line and stick with it. It’s a perfectly reasonable way for a song to go, but some variety would be nice.

I don’t love Matthew Murphy’s vocal style either. I like that I can hear all the words but he has such a flat sound and it seems effortful, like he’s shouting rather than singing. In a few of the tracks (Lost in the Post; Let’s Dance to Joy Division; Little Miss Pipedream), there are little bits of backing singers and I like the contrast between his voice and theirs.

I do love the words. I like the way they play around with clichés and pop culture references (especially the very British ones: Eastenders, Oliver Reed). School Uniforms made me laugh so much – it seems spot on about being a teenage boy. The thing about her growing and him staying the same! ‘I don’t even know the location of the bike sheds’! And of course that line: ‘Short skirts, long hair, my hormones flying everywhere’. Funny, funny stuff.

I know the three of you have been into The Wombats since you were teenagers and it sent me off down a wormhole of music I used to listen to when I was thirteen or fourteen or fifteen. Almost all of it involves catchy, shouty, often funny lyrics – there’s a thing. The late seventies/early eighties ska revival (Madness, The Specials etc) was very good for shouty lyrics. You’ve got to love this bonkers song by The Beat. That ska thing lead to my one short-lived music-related fashion moment when I had a Harrington jacket and penny loafers which I wore either with a pair of trousers with a pleated waist and narrow bottoms or with a calf-length pencil skirt (so annoying to walk in). There are no photos, I’m pleased to say, but subsequently that skirt morphed perfectly into a Clare Grogan/Gregory’s Girl look with the addition of a beret…

WHAT ELSE I’VE LISTENED TO THIS WEEK

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging soundtrack

Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

Yo La Tengo Fakebook

The La’s The La’s

The Jam Sound Affects

XTC English Settlement

The Cure The Head on the Door

Squeeze Greatest Hits

The Kinks Village Green Preservation Society

Vampire Weekend Contra

Joni Mitchell Blue

Blondie Parallel Lines

Christy Moore Ride On

Sting The Dream of the Blue Turtles

The Specials The Specials

The Police Regatta de Blanc

The Wombats Glitterbug