Albums by underrated artists that changed my life

2) Lush - Split (p) 4AD 1994



The beautiful and fascinating Miki Berenyi, playing a Gibson ES335 12 string, her favoured guitar.


Living in parochial Yorkshire in 1990, I was quite unaware of Lush and their reputation as being a crap band made up of art students and a former DSS employee, but whom were seen at all the best parties in London and earned a recording contract more for their trendiness than musical ability, given that I rarely paid attention to the gossip pages of the NME at that time. But in 1991 I went off to University and saw them play at my Uni and was just fascinated by the raw energy and ethereal vocals of Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson, the mixture of grungy My Bloody Valentine overdriven industrial sounds and the sweetness of the Cocteau Twins chorus and flange laden indie pop with buried vocals. Not to mention that I still have a crush on Miki to this day with her distinctive red hair and kick ass attitude and her beautiful porcelain white Japanese/Hungarian face that just draws you in. *sigh*

By the time I saw them play, they had tightened up their live performances and were now a plausible band on the college scene. However, after some nice EP releases (something 4AD were renowned for) and the mini album Scar, which came to my attention after the gig and got me interested (a compilation of which was later released to the USA market under the title 'Gala') , their first full featured album 'Spooky' (1992) was a bit disappointing, there were stand out cuts such as 'For Love', 'Nothing Natural', 'Laura' and 'Superblast' but much of the rest came off as second rate Cocteau Twins, produced by Robin Guthrie of that group which shared the same label.

The band went on the road in the USA in 92 at Lollapolooza to some success and went back into the studio in 1993 to record their sophomore album 'Split'. Working with Mike Hedges, their was a change in emphasis and the songs were much more emotional and honest and less cryptic than those on Spooky and the production sound was less emphasis on effects and more on the raw music - not to say it was a raw sounding record, Split had a polished feel but was not buried completely under swooshing fx like it's predecessor. The album started strongly with the amazing 'Light From A Dead Star' with it's angelic and more prominently audible twin voices of Miki and Emma, 'Kiss Chase' was a strong second track which deals with child abuse and the album then contains many classic tracks, with Miki mostly providing the harder edged songs such as 'Hypocrite' and 'Undertow' and Emma the more whistful and chimier sounds of 'Desire Lines', 'Never Never' and 'Lit Up'.

For some reason, the music press, who had devoted plenty of space to how bad they were in the early days and gossip on their partying, seemed to almost universally pan this album because it was a well produced and sophisticated album with great musical performances by Miki, Emma Anderson, drummer Chris Acland and bassist Phil King, saying they preferred 'Spooky' (which got mixed reviews but sold well for a debut album). The singles from Split (Hypocrite and Desire Lines) initially sold quite well but strange marketing ploys by 4AD (releasing both singles at the same time, which just confused and divided the sales) led to it petering out quite soon and then the music press were unjustifiably harsh on the album reviews.

A real pity because this album was in my opinion, by far the best of the 3 'proper' albums Lush put out and remains a favourite to this day. It had extra special meaning to me in Uni because a female friend of mine, for whom I had a unrequited love, loved it so much that she took over my copy and we had a good 18 months together as partners thanks to this album !!!!

Lush went on to produce a 3rd album, 'Lovelife', in 1996, an album that saw them modify their sound massively to fit in with the Britpop culture of Oasis and Blur. An album that did better than Split saleswise (but not as well as debut Spooky) and 3 singles that had moderate success on the charts in the UK - single girl, ladykillers and 500 (shake baby shake) all of which made the top 40 without breaking the top 20. This album had some nice cuts but lacked the emotion and depth of 'Split' and ultimately still failed to deliver any tangible success outside the UK. Drummer Chris Acland committed suicide in 1997, allegedly with major depression over the fact that Lush had not received the accolades and success he felt the band deserved and former bassist Steve Rippon said the band, in spite of 3 albums and international tours were barely living above the poverty line. The remaining band members followed their album title and 'Split' as a result of Chris Acland's death. Rumour has it that Emma was already planning an exit but this has never been confirmed.

Surprising, singer/songwriter Miki Berenyi (save a couple of guest appearances) dropped out of the music biz. Guitarist/songwriter/backup singer Emma Anderson has released 2 albums as part of the duo Sing-Sing to critical appraise but on a minor, independent level with little commercial impact.

Now watch these amazing YouTube videos...
1) 'Superblast' - one of my favourite Lush tracks, this video captures the raw sound and energy of the first time I saw Lush live, from the 1992 album 'Spooky'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19O6ZaZWTTI

2) 'Nothing Natural' - Emma's classic song, a real fan favourite also from the 'Spooky' album which has more of the 'Guthrie' production sound but is excellent anyway ! Pity this is the edited version that cuts out some solos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt6Ubq0gL_w&mode=related&search=%3C/b%3E

3) 'Kiss Chase' - one of Miki's standout tracks from the 'Split' album performed Live. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIJQdgvXU_g&mode=related&search=

4) 'Hypocrite' - a biting Miki punkish single from the Split album, with Miki looking SUPER HOT ! (swoon)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buz5D8OWmRc&mode=related&search=

5) 'Lit Up' - a fairly poor live video/audio quality representation of the breezy major chords of 'Lit Up', one of my favourite tracks on Split, following the brilliant but slowly paced 'Never, Never' the summer breeze that it is 'Lit Up' was genius! Emma composed this baby.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89HuXh8-cKM

6) 500 - Shake Baby Shake A song from 1996's 'Lovelife' album, you can see how the commercial pretentions became prominent from both the music and video. And Emma was probably a bit pissed off, seeing as this is her song, that Miki gets all the attention in the video ! A cutesy song with it's own charm but not up to the standards of any track on Split, IMHO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ7IKcCdVWQ

7) 'For Love' live on Dennis Miller had to leave a classic Lush track (not 500 !!), on the For Love EP and later, Spooky, from 1992. Love Emma's backing vox on this one. A Miki song that sounds like Emma wrote it !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV9ifjG8v10&mode=related&search=