The superb "Grand Prix" album is considered perhaps the truest group effort, their democratic approach truly bears fruit, and it's indicative of the disc's uniform excellence that the first Blake composition, the lovely "Mellow Doubt," doesn't even surface until track three, by which time McGinley's "About You" and Love's harmony-rich "Sparky's Dream" have already firmly established the set's ragged-but-right tenor.
Unfortunately the new drummer Paul Quinn fails to recreate the buoyantly reckless abandon of the sacked Brendan O'Hare, otherwise the album captures complete creative synergy -- in particular, "Don't Look Back" is Love's watershed moment, a gorgeously wistful love song highlighted by wittily lovelorn lyrics like "I'd steal a car to drive you home," as good a pick-up line as anything in the annals of rock & roll.
Althought there were certain fillers just like "Verisimilitude", this doesn't matter with Blake's
contributions are still the highlights "Neil Jung" and "I'll Make It
Clear" are simply perfect pop songs, but Grand Prix is ultimately the
product of a band at the peak of its collective powers, not as much a
landmark as Bandwagonesque but every bit as good on its own terms.
It remains their high watermark., especially because it was released at the height of Britpop, due for this, it was criminally overlooked for the likes of Echobelly and Menswear. Yet you’d struggle to find a more perfect pop album than this, 42 breathless minutes, it condenses the best bits of the Byrds, Big Star and early Beach Boys into thirteen, sun drenched tracks.
From the opening rush of About You and Sparky’s Dream through to the slower, reflective Verisimilitude and Going Places, Grand Prix is an album about being hopelessly, head-over-heels in love.
Maybe musically the template is familiar, but lyrically it’s their most mature work to date with Gerard Love’s line in Don’t Look Back and it was a reminder that the Fannies were maybe too smart for the mainstream.
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