What Was Missing From The Tulip Frenzy 2011 Top Ten List: BRMC and The Vaselines
Usually by January 1, we’ve been turned on to several bands we missed that should have been on our Top Ten List. This year there wasn’t a lot on the Uncut list that we would have put on ours — c’mon, Joanna Newsom #1? Not quite as bad as Portishead the other year, but yick — and as it turns out, our only regrets were not having been able to have put in Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or the Vaselines.
BRMC released both an excellent studio album (Beat The Devil’s Tattoo) and an exceptionally vivid live album. Why didn’t they make it? Why don’t we take ’em seriously enough? Hard to say. Maybe it was the way their entry point seemed too derivative of the Jesus and Mary Chain. For some reason, we don’t take ’em seriously enough, yet we listen to their music, a lot. A friend once referred to Oasis as a guilty pleasure, and I understand, though I’ve never doubted Oasis’ essential greatness. I don’t think of BRMC as a guilty pleasure; I think of them as a superb band, and if you doubt just how great they really are, go to their website and for a pittance download their live album.
The Vaselines are another story altogether. Tagged by no less than Kurt Cobain as his favorite band, it took a generation for them to get back into the studio, and after listening to Sex With An Ex, we’re sure glad they did. Funny, wry, tuneful, smart, the Glaswegian duo reentered the scene without leaving a greasy contrail. Too bad there wasn’t room for ’em on the TF Top Ten List.
Tulip Frenzy 
October 12, 2014 at 1:25 pm
[…] Dum, and what a follow-up it was. We were, alas, a little slow on the pick-up and had to list in 2011 as one of our previous-year’s regrets the fact that it hadn’t made the Tuli…. Since then, Sex With An X has been a regular presence in our earbuds, and we play it anytime we […]