It may strike as rather silly first, with what you glancing the start of a tl;dr article right now and expecting the sort of fawning that retrospectives tend to have, but I do not feel particularly passionate about Mansun. I wouldn’t count them among my favourite acts and my listening habits involving them revolve around the occasional phase or a mood rather than constant love. They never created a masterpiece in my opinion despite offering two very solid contenders for that title. I like them quite a bit but I don’t feel a passionate drive towards them, if you get what I’m saying.

But they were nonetheless something special and that’s something that makes them very interesting and a joy to listen to even without a driving passion. They were an extremely ambitious band as witnessed by the nature of their albums, some calling them the britpop equivalent of prog rock. They were varied; their three albums each have a completely different nature to them. Their lyrics were dense and bordering between nonsensical and obliviously sensible, a fact that the band themselves took the piss out of on the hidden track of their debut. They had big hits – their debut stayed in the UK charts for ages and even scored a #1 position – but they’re but a small footnote these days, more akin to a cult band than hitmakers – and even their hitmaking status is limited to Great Britain only, the rest of the world not much remembering them.

But they were a special band with their very own magic.

I do not claim to be a Mansun expert, but I’ll give my best shot as we travel through their small discography and hopefully spread the word around a bit.

A few basic facts first. The lineup: Paul Draper on lead vocals and guitar, Dominic Chad on guitar and most of the backing vocals, Stove King on bass and Andie Rathbone on the drums. Draper did most of the songwriting and in some occasions even performed other members’ parts in the studio; he was also the one responsible for the lyrics. The UK band’s life began in 1995 and the disbandment occured in 2003. While all sorts of other elements kept popping up in their music, they were always first and foremost a guitar rock band, letting the six stringer soar over the band’s quirky arrangements.

ATTACK OF THE GREY LANTERN (1997)

After a few non-album singles, Mansun burst into scene with a very ambitious way that already signaled that the band had something different up in their sleeves: a concept album.

Half of it, anyway. Attack of the Grey Lantern started out as a continuous story about a superhero, the titular Grey Lantern, and his adventures in a small village full of weird people. Halfway through to the whole thing Draper got bored, or ‘ran out of steam’ as he put it, and the rest of Mansun’s debut was filled with songs of a less conceptual nature. These two things were then mixed and mashed together and the result is the half of a concept album as it is today.

Musically Mansun already demonstrated their ambitious nature by this point. While in its core Grey Lantern is heavily a guitar album, contemporary dance elements keep showing up. The psychedelic Beatles-ripping “Taxloss” ends its life as a dance anthem, “Mansun’s Only Love Song” is full of record scratching and drum loops and synthetic beats keep popping up throughout the album frequently enough to make you wonder what Rathbone did half the time in the studio. It’s never going so far that it could be called synth-rock – the flavours are simply flavours. It however does lend the album its own characteristic quirk, which is then married with Draper’s eccentric vocal melodies and Chad’s trademark guitar soars.

Attack of the Grey Lantern ended up being a hit album, much thanks to the hit single “Wide Open Space” and its subsequent club remix. It’s also a success in the general opinion, held as one of the two classics the band made. It’s a very 90’s sounding Britrock album – partially thanks to the very 90’s electronic beats and the guitar production – but stands out from the rest because of its somewhat loony nature. It never lets the quirky nature take control however. Grey Lantern is also one of those albums where the hidden track is really worth it: the self-mocking “Open Letter to the Lyrical Trainspotter” is one of the album’s best songs. The songs in general sound excellent, from the elegant strings of “Dark Mavis” or “Chad Who Loved Me” to the dance-rock of “Stripper Vicar” or “She Makes My Nose Bleed”.

MP3: Mansun’s Only Love Song
MP3: Wide Open Space

Taxloss (with its (in)famous video)

SIX (1998)

Like with so many bands, the debut album was the work of several years of songwriting and picking the best of those years. Coming towards the second album, Draper had a writer’s block and the band as a whole wondered what to do now. Bits and bobs had been written but nothing concrete had appeared. Then in a random, mad stroke an idea was born: let’s mix and match all those bits and bobs.

So come forth Six, the ‘Dark Side of the Moon of Britpop’. A 70-minute epoch where each song, most of which are either really long or really short, has at least two completely different parts (usually more) somehow welded together, with punk rock segueing into post-rock atmospherics or electronica-fied Tchaikovsky, or just parts of completely different rock songs mashed together, all of which are served with lyrics about identity, life, its meaning and its occasional pointlessness while at the same time referencing scientology, Winnie the Pooh, Marquis de Sade, religion and being emotionally raped by Jesus – usually within the same song. And there’s an interlude fusing opera and spoken word monologue starring Tom Baker.

It should never work but it does. Six is often heralded as a little-known classic of the 90’s and one of the best British album of that period, and even moreso as Mansun’s masterpiece. What on paper sounds like a nightmare straight out of the mind of a madman, comes out as a brilliant slab of deliciously bizarre modern prog on the album. The constant style and mood switches make Six a deliberately schizophrenic experience. It’s brilliantly dense. The most absurd thing that it’s still an extremely easy album to approach and it doesn’t take long to open at all. Six is absolutely loaded with hooks and infectious melodies. Some of the instrumental sections are mesmerisingly beautiful (the middle of “Cancer” for instance, and then the rest of the song after that), and several songs carry killer choruses, only they’ve been surrounded by long instrumental sections and random breaks, causing most of them to go through gigantic slicing work in order to fit radio – most notoriously the 8-minute “Being a Girl” only ended up having its first two quickly rocking minutes in its single release while the moody buildup and breakdown of the rest of the song was removed altogether.

While it can be argued that Six not a perfect album (it doesn’t fully support its running time and while the interlude is conceptually nifty, the novelty runs out fast and in that respect even three minutes is too long), a viewpoint yours truly agrees with, it’s very hard not to love it with so many immortal moments backing it up.

MP3: Six
MP3: Cancer

Negative

LITTLE KIX (2000)

While the first two albums carry somewhat of a legendary reputation and both frequently visit the top spots of all sorts of positively leaning album lists, Mansun’s third is often ignored, sometimes even vehemently disliked. “Disappointment” comes up very often when talking about it. What happened?

After the ridiculously complex Six, the band seemed to be heading towards a simpler sound – something more direct and straightforward both lyrically and musically. After two albums full of radically edited singles and entirely reworked albums for the American audience, the label saw their opportunity for a more marketable Mansun to come and the third album’s fate was sealed in what would be a painful recording session full of label interference. An outside producer was brought in to replace the dynamic duo of Mark Stent and Draper who had produced the first two albums. Songs that the band disliked, such as the now-infamous single “Fool”, were forced on the album on the wishes of the executives. The more direct, poppier sounded was married together with a perhaps overly-slick production. The finished album, titled Little Kix, alienated fans and caused the first internal cracks in the band: when Rathbone was asked about the reason for disbandment in a fan interview, Little Kix’s name was the short and to-the-point answer.

While Little Kix is undoubtedly the weakest link in the Mansun discography, it’s far better than its reputation presumes it is. It is a flawed album that sounds occasionally forced and it does carry some terribly weak songs, but it’s not entirely dismissable. The slick pop sound does sound wonky and out-of-character on several tracks but the band could still deliver. The opener “Butterfly (A New Beginning)” is a gorgeous, atmospheric swoon with gorgeous, gigantic keyboard walls and its runner-up “I Can Only Disappoint U” (deliciously ironic title in retrospect) is deservedly heralded as a classic single even by those who dislike the album. Later on the album you have the enormously uplifting “Soundtrack 4 2 Lovers” (proudly continuing on the atrocious typing decisions the album seems to be full of) that enchants with its cinematic string swoops, while by the end “We Are the Boys” turns the usual gender empowerment anthem upside down while creating a singalong hit-single-that-never-was. The chorus of “Electric Man” is another classic brit-rock moment.

In the end however, Little Kix does sound somewhat disappointing. Outside all of its obvious flaws like songs that miss the target or its slightly disjointed and awkward feel, its biggest flaw is that it doesn’t have the special Mansun-like quality to it. It has nothing to do with the more direct sound because songs like “I Can Only Disappoint U”, as well as several moments from the previous two albums, show that the band can easily pull it off without losing their inherent nature. It’s moreso tied down to the problematic, troubled birth of the album that most likely eventually just made the band stop giving a crap.

MP3: Butterfly (A New Beginning)
MP3: Soundtrack 4 2 Lovers

I Can Only Disappoint U

- – - – -

Mansun didn’t last long after the Little Kix promotional circus was over. The band wrote several new songs and went to studio with them, beginning the sessions for their fourth studio album but the band eventually crumbled and left the studio in the middle of it all, announcing their disbandment in 2003. While continuing pressure from labels and the damage it caused to their creativity were certainly to blame, part of it had most likely to do with the crumbling of the band’s internal relationships. The full story has never been released and the official statement is that the disbandment happened amicably, but some rumours point to the direction of the bassist Stove King and him allegedly stealing money from the band. Fan petitions for the release of the 4th album session material bombarded the band and the label and eventually Draper agreed with the label to release the material in a boxset. The three-disc Kleptomania was released in 2004 with one disc consisting of the fourth album sessions, another one featuring non-album singles, EP tracks and a collection of b-sides as chosen by the fans, and a third disc consisting of demos, alternative versions and other miscallenous rarities. I’m missing it so you can’t really get my opinion out of it, but all signs point towards it being an amazing treat for the fans.

There was a small resurfacing of Mansun hype in 2006 when Legacy: The Best Of appeared, consisting of all their singles and select album material. None of the members have released much anything ever since the band’s dissolvement despite involvement with music. Draper is, according to his own words, constantly working on his solo album but so far no concrete info has come out. It’ll most likely strike us when least expected.

While the ending to the tale of one of more intriguing, special rock bands of the late 90’s came to a sadly sudden end (who knows where their natural ambition would have taken them), it does have a bittersweet silver lining to it: it’s very easy to get hold of the band’s full works. The low amount of released combined with the weird status of not being a fully hidden cult band but not being overtly mainstream either, the prices tend to be rather reasonable whenever you find the albums and it doesn’t take long to get the whole set. It’s therefore very easy to get to know and fall in love Mansun. And a little bit more love is never a bad thing for good music.

Tags: Mansun

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 19th, 2009 at 7:19 pm and is filed under Retrospective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.