Track Listing

1. Because You're Frightened
2. Model Worker
3. I'm A Party
4. You Never Knew Me
5. Philadelphia
6. I Want To Burn Again
7. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
8. Sweetheart Contract
9. Stuck
10. Song From Under The Floorboards

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #109881 in Music
• Released on: 1988-10-03
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Classic album#3 from Devoto & co...
'THE Correct Use of Soap' (1980) was Magazine's third LP, and slightly poppier than the bleak predecessor 'Secondhand Daylight' (1979) and was the last to feature the wonderful, late John McGeoch (who would join Siouxsie & the Banshees).

Things open on a high with the suitably manic 'Because You're Frightened' which has McGeoch employ a trademark guitar-jangle as Devoto spits paranoid poetry. This is followed by 'Model Worker,' which has a fairground-quality (is it me or do several of the tracks have a sound somewhere between dub & plastic-soul?) & offers the lovely, still pertinent line: "I'm not too worried by hegemony/I know that Carter will look after me..." (Carter was traded for Reagan on the superior 'Play'-version). 'Model Worker' even uses the word "osentatious," which is as wonderful as Wire using the word "albeit" the previous year...

The partyline-pop continues with 'I'm a Party' which brings Dave Formula's keyboards to the fore in a less teutonic-fashion than his dominance on 'Secondhand Daylight' (The Correct Use of Soap ought to be contrasted to Adamson, Formula & McGeoch's contributions to Visage around this time). McGeoch offers a suitably manic-contribution to the pop-song/anti-love song 'You Never Knew Me', which continues the Kafkaesque qualities of 'Permafrost' ("I had no idea what you want/but there was something I meant to say"- that certain-uncertainty)& features a female backing-vocal that not all may appreciate. 'Philadelphia' opens with a very 'Young Americans'-style guitar- joining the bleak death-disco of the late 70s/early 80s influenced equally by Chic as Joy Division: 'She is Beyond Good & Evil,' 'Death Disco', 'Changeling', 'Slow Motion', 'Fearless' etc...(it also contains that wonderful refrain, "Maybe it's right to be nervous now...").

'I Want to Burn Again' is another of my favourite Magazine-songs, a bursting six-minutes of joys making it clear that McGeoch was a precursor of Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood (perhaps the best fusion of Formula & McGeoch?). This is followed by a spaced-out version of Sly & the Family Stone's 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)' which is up there with Talking Head's take on Al Green's 'Take Me to the River' & Japan's pulsing take on Marvin Gaye's 'Ain't That Peculiar.' A case of an individual cover of a classic and one to join their Beefheart & Bond cover versions as great fun for a compilation...

Single 'Sweetheart Contract' puts the album back on an oblique course, Adamson's sublime bass jarring against Formula's sweeping-synths as McGeoch's guitar rails away and Devoto reminds us, "I was dominant for hours..." 'Stuck' lets Adamson cut loose in a Herbie Hancock-'Headhunters' style fashion and sounds like a jam- bizarre to think Magazine were a soul-act here! (this is up there with key Bowie-moments of the 70s: 'Stay', 'Look Back in Anger', 'Fame'). The album concludes on what is possibly Magazine's finest track 'A Song from Under the Floorboards' - where Devoto nails Dostoyevksy's 'Notes from the Underground' to a pop-song that nods toward Cockney Rebel's 'Make Me Smile' (listen to the backing vocals). The lyrics pretty much define Devoto's character & remains the missing link between Cohen and Morrissey as definition of an outsider.

'The Correct Use of Soap' would be the last great Magazine-studio album- follow-up 'Magic, Murder & the Weather' is one of those 'Adventure'-style disappointments (though live LP 'Play' with ex-Ultravox guitarist Robin Simon is suitably wonderful). It remains a budget-price classic and the third necessary album to own by Devoto & co; though a reissue/remodel might be welcome and could also include joys like 'Twenty Years Ago' & 'Upside Down' from that era.

Great but wait for the reissue
This stonking album is easily Magazine's best, though the first two are also highly recommended. There is no filler. For the uninitiated, I guess they've been influenced by the likes of Bowie and Roxy, and in turn have influenced many modern acts, but Howard Devoto's voice and lyrical sensibilities are unique. In the aftermath of punk (and with Devoto coming from the earliest Buzzcocks line-up), Magazine were unafraid to use guitar solos and lush keyboards, and instrumental dexterity in general, but this record wouldn't have been possible before punk. Devoto is clearly a well-read young man but the lyrics are still catchy as hell - on A Song From Under The Floorboards he manages to turn Kafka's "Metamorphosis" into a 3 minute pop song.
It's very unfortunate, therefore, that the currently available CD of one of the greatest post-punk albums dates back nearly 20 years to the palaeolithic era of CD mastering and sounds thin and weedy. Wait for the reissue to come out in March 2007.

A RARE TREASURE
This third album by the legendary band Magazine is generally considered more accessible than Real Life or Second Hand Daylight. There’s something almost classical in the arrangements and the playing although the music still has the punk edge, especially on songs like Because You’re Frightened and Model Worker. You Never Knew Me with Laura Teresa’s atmospheric backing vocals is particularly graceful and moving. Ever the poet, Devoto rhymes “philadelphia” with “healthier” on the song of that title. I Want To Be Burn Again has its eerie moments and the arrangement, especially the swirling cascading synths, reminds me of what Peter Murphy would do later in the eighties. The Sly Stone cover Thank You (Fallettin Be Mice Elf Agin) could probably be termed “plastic funk” by analogy with David Bowie’s plastic soul on Young Americans. But the highlight of the album for me remains the weird atmospheric Song From Under The Floorboards, a magical number with mysterious hypnotic appeal. To me, it’s on a par with Devoto’s strange masterpiece called Rubbish on the Luxuria album. Devoto is a man of many talents but unfortunately not prolific enough. This album is therefore to be treasured.