About this item

“James [Dean Bradfield] was always banging on about Big Flame and I could never understand it. But then I played a record of theirs at a slower speed by mistake on vinyl once, and suddenly I got the jazziness of it.” Nicky Wire, Manic Street Preachers

Working within a pre-determined lifespan, bIG*fLAME developed their own distinctive sound and style: super-fast, two-minute, non-decadent Mach 2 beats overlain by distinctive, spiky, loud, unorthodox guitars, and politically-charged lyrics.

John Peel described the band as “one of the two or three very best bands of Planet Earth”, and also called them “the best dance band since Glenn Miller and his Orchestra”.

Find out for yourself on this album which features all four Peel sessions recorded by the agitpop trio between 1984 and 1986 – 16 tracks in total, with versions of nearly everything they ever recorded. And a few things they didn’t.

Among the highlights are the covers of the June Brides’ indie standard Every Conversation (Phil Wilson, a big fan of bIG*fLAME, loves it), plus These Boots Are Made For Working – Nancy & Lee eat your hearts out.

Plus, of course, the notorious Wham! cover … Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go it ain’t. Well it is, but it’s also Testament To The Slow Death Of Youth Culture. Once heard, never forgotten.

There never was a bIG*fLAME LP because they didn’t believe in it. So we’ve struck it lucky here. All this, plus sleeve notes from Greg O’Keeffe and printed inners with photos and flyers etc. All the stuff you love from Precious.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Finally I can bin my crackly cassette versions of these sessions! This collection is long overdue and perfectly captures the energy and intensity of the legendary biG fLAME. I think it was probably on the John Peel show that I first heard them and they left an immediate impression on me, a 17 year old Smiths fan who was used to guitars that jangled, not snarled and spat! I'd heard nothing like it before: the jagged guitars, odd time changes and rattling drums (I think it was journalist James Brown that described them as amphetamine harassed - which made me laugh at the time and always stuck in my head. It's the perfect description.) It took me a few more listens to actually catch the lyrics too which were political but not sloganeering: clever and satirical. I was hooked! I saw them live numerous times and as you can probably tell, I loved them. Over time they would open my eyes and ears to a whole new world of music - everything from Gang Of 4 and The Fire Engines to The Pop Group and On U-Sound, stuff I may never have discovered on my own it the pre-internet days.
Check this album out - they could be your new favourite band!

TRACK LISTING

Debra
Man Of Few Syllables
Sargasso
Breath Of A Nation
All The Irish Must Go To Heaven
New Way
Chanel Samba
These Boots Were Made For Working
Earsore
Let's Rewrite The American Constitution
Cat With Cholic
Every Conversation
Sink
XPQWRTZ
Three On Baffled Island
Testament To The Slow Death Of Youth Culture