In the early 1980s, Orange Juice practically invented the whole idea of indie with a string of singles for hipster Scottish label Postcard-- then went right out and glossed things up for Polydor on their debut LP. A lot of people were hurt, even pissed. That sort of jealous guarding of lo-fi sensibilities seems more rare today: Another Scottish band, Glasvegas, recently parlayed some scrappy, excellent singles into a major-label album, then hired Muse's producer and still got a 9/10 from the NME.
But a lot of people who got excited about the Long Blondes' four early singles in the middle of this decade were let down by their debut LP, Someone to Drive You Home. Perhaps the disappointment stemmed in part from the dearth of these sort of handmade, indie throwbacks in the UK these days-- bands with a keen sense of history, who still associate indie with things like 7"s (or button badges, or John Peel) in the first place. (Though maybe with a group like Los Campesinos! around that's loosening up a bit.) It could also, however, have been simply some heel-digging from people who missed the rawness and jagged edges of those early tracks, which became buffed and shined a bit on the album.
From a band as stylish and keenly aware of how to put themselves together as the Long Blondes, it's no real surprise though that they took advantage of the opportunity to pretty up their songs-- though that sheen has overwhelmed their more unique and appealing qualities on this year's Erol Alkan-produced "Couples". No such shine exists on the compilation "Singles". Of the dozen songs here, only three appeared on their debut album-- "Giddy Stratospheres", "Lust in the Movies", "Separated By Motorways"-- and these versions are, on the whole, a bit more appealing. "Giddy", in particular, when stretched to almost five minutes, prolongs and heightens the pent-up sexual frustration in the song. Elsewhere, I would have sworn when first looking at this tracklist that "Autonomy Boy" and "Appropriation (By Any Other Name)" had made the debut-- they're among the band's top-tier songs.
Each of those two is cut more from "Giddy"'s cloth rather than hewing close to short, sharp stuff like "Motorways" (heard here in demo form). Singer Kate Jackson excels on each when given the room to move around in a song, stretch her syllables a bit, get comfortable within a sonic space, and let her words and theatrical delivery do the work. On many of these early songs, she functions best like that, as she slowly develops and clicks into the persona that worked so well on Someone. She's best when she flits between wizened observer, buzzing like a queen bee taking stock of a scene's sexual and social politics, and home alone wishing she was doing something-- anything-- else. It's a familiar dichotomy-- a catty front to mask her characters' own sense of emptiness-- and she pulls it off with a hard, detached exterior and a soft, vulnerable core.
Other early songs skirt closer to rote exercise (the girl-group of "Polly", the lo-fi sloganeering of "New Idols", the pub-rock of "Darts", the jangle pop of "My Heart Is Out of Bounds"), with a few glimpses of the more fully-formed band in place to make them more interesting than they'd otherwise be. Still, the Long Blondes were at their best when Jackson-- IMing in the pub on her own, lamenting a night in, or lording it over a night out-- is the clear focus, navigating the world of aging hipsterdom like a UK companion to James Murphy or Craig Finn. All three writers are storytellers, but Jackson better crystallizes a specific persona, and in that way the Jarvis Cocker comparisons are dead on-- the more she encapsulates the post-internet indie queen fighting not to cede ground to the kids coming up from behind, the more compelling she is. And with a new generation of those UK kids possibly galvanized by Los Campesinos! and again hooked on the ephemera and attitude of indiedom, perhaps this record-- a set of scrappy, charming indie songs that draw on traditions of great UK guitar pop-- will find a new, more appreciative audience.
Either way, this is alas a bittersweet coda to the Long Blondes story. Earlier this week, the group announced it was disbanding, four months after guitarist Dorian Cox suffered a debilitating stroke. Cox, worried that he'd not be able to play guitar again, made the announcement himself on the group's MySpace on the day this record was released, tragically closing the book on the band just as listeners are given the chance to easily digest all of its recorded output.
