20th May - Super Furry Animals' Fuzzy Logic

Artist – Album: Super Furry Animals – Fuzzy Logic

Released:  20^th May 1996

Sounds Like:  The band don’t give a f**k about anybody else

The importance of grammar cannot be understated. For example, there are Supergroups, such as Derek and the Dominos, Humble Pie and Them Crooked Vultures; there are super groups, such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Spoon; and there are Super- Groups – Supergrass and Super Furry Animals. That’s not to say you can’t fall into more than one of these categories: Broken Social Scene and Cream are both collections of already established stars that just so happen to also be super. Likewise, whether they’re actually furry, or indeed animals, is up for debate, but SFA fully deserve at least the first of their third word label.

Performing guitar based rock and demonstrating a love for the sixties, the band quickly assimilated itself with the Britpop movement. However, being from Cardiff, they were far removed from their London/North West focused contemporaries, and the band quickly developed their experimental rock and psychedelic tendencies into much more interesting places. Next to the straightforward, catchy punk pop of ‘God! Show Me Magic’, there’s the indie anthem ‘Something for the Weekend’ and the beautiful psychedelia of ‘Hometown Unicorn’ and ‘If You Don’t Want Me to Destroy You’.

With a song about Howard Marks and the self same infamous drug smuggling Mr Nice making up the album cover collage, as well as lyrics such as “first time, I did it for the hell of it, stuck it on my tongue and then swallowed it”, prolific drug use is never from the menu. At times the songs are hallucinogenic and the album can be patchy – fuzzy if you will – but it remains one of the best debut albums of the nineties.

Albumaday... rating:  8/10

1.       God! Show Me Magic – 1:50

2.       Fuzzy Birds – 2:27

3.       Something for the Weekend – 2:34

4.       Frisbee – 2:21

5.       Hometown Unicorn – 3:33

6.       Gathering Moss – 3:22

7.       If You Don’t Want Me to Destroy You – 3:17

8.       Bad Bahaviour – 4:26

9.       Mario Man – 4:07

10.   Hangin’ with Howard Marks – 4:20

11.   Long Gone – 5:20

12.   For Now and Ever – 3:32              

Listen to ‘Hometown Unicorn’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zxXF0B_SyM

Also released on the 20^th May:

1997: Foo Fighters – The Colour and the Shape