PUSH

Martin Grech

Well, imagine my embarrassment. I only have the 7” to review, so I put it on the record player at 45 rpm (as you do when you have a 7” single to listen to). I thought to myself, blimey, this is quite upbeat, I was told his stuff was slow and moody. It was only when he started singing that I thought something was up as he sounded a tad fast. Let me define “a tad fast” – it’s when it takes you a full verse and half a chorus before you discover it’s at the wrong speed. The music sounded fine though, how strange. Anyway, I reset the speed on my highly expensive record player to 33 rpm, put the key in, wound it up and tried again. Of course, the record itself doesn’t help. Oh no. There’s nothing to say what speed it wants to be played at. This time, the vocals sound a bit slow, but I’ll settle for that as my player won’t play at 39 rpm. Even at the slower (proper) speed, it’s still fairly upbeat, has a nice melody and certainly stands out (it’s got a Proper Song feel to it). Of course, it’s exactly the sort of thing that’ll drop out of the Top 40 after one week, but you knew that anyway.

SEEN THE LIGHT

Supergrass

Surprisingly dull. That was my first thought on hearing this. My second thought was “At least this record knows what speed it should be played at”. The 7” is a nice tasteful… er… grey, by the way. This song is by no means bad, but it is pretty unmemorable, almost like a retread of Alright. It seems a bit harsh that the best single they’ve released from the album is the one nobody can get hold of (Never Done Nothing Like That Before), still, there you go.