Track Listing

1. Arrogance Gave Him Up
2. No
3. Bap De La Bap
4. Gloomy Sunday
5. Nude Spoons
6. Skipping
7. It's Better This Way
8. Party Fears Two
9. Club Country
10. nothinginsomethingparticular
11. Love Hangover
12. 18 Carat Love Affair
13. Ulcragyceptimol
14. And Then I Read A Book
15. Australia
16. Grecian 2000
17. The Room We Sat In Before

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66932 in Music
• Released on: 2000-09-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Associates' last album, Sulk, was their most fully realised. They were central to the New Pop revolution spiking the waters of the early 1980s charts, a stylish revolt against the joyless monotones of much post-punk music. On the cover of Sulk, singer Billy Mackenzie and musical half Alan Rankine are seen reclining in some hothouse, bathed in artificial blue and green light. Rankine's music was now equally "unnatural"--layer upon layer of synthetic uniqueness, its relationships to punk, funk and glam-rock no longer visible, while Mackenzie's vocals are grandiloquent without lapsing into Marc Almond-style camp cabaret. Yet there was something darkly peculiar about the Associates. "Party Fears Two" and "Club Country" were mutations of Haircut 100, extravagant yet haunted by doubt. "Alive and kicking at the country club/we're always sickening at the country club". Whatever drove the Associates, whatever was eating them remained a mystery, exacerbated by Mackenzie's suicide in 1997. --David Stubbs

Customer Reviews

Awesome
This version of Sulk is based on the original UK issue, with "Bap De La Bap", "Nude Spoons" and "Nothing In Something Particular" included, but happily also includes the old Diana Ross hit "Love Hangover" and "18 Carat Love Affair" (a vocal interpretation of "Nothing In Something Particular") which was one of The Associates' few chart hits. From the alternative Sulk issue, only "White Car In Germany" is missed and the version of both "It's Better This Way" and "Club Country" are slightly different. Of the extra tracks, "The Room We Sat In Before", a demo guitar and vocal version of "It's Better This Way" is outstanding. Very few bands, if any, were capable of matching, let alone exceeding the genious of The Associates at their peak, and this album is most definitely at their peak! Mackenzie's voice is astonishing (although "The Radio 1 Sessions" shows this in ever more detail) and the originality of Rankine's music and arrangements is superb.

This is the ultimate pop album, and should be in everyone's collection!

Welcome Back!
Some albums from the 80s condemn themselves to be forever incarcerated in the decade by using the fairlight or the fretless bass..."Sulk" labours under no such strife, and sounds more of this time than the day of it's release, with it's impact exacerbated by the fact that one of it's architects - the other-worldly voiced Billy Mackenzie - left this mortal coil in 97.,thus ensuring that it's brilliance will never be repeated.

The familiar one's are there - "Party Fears Two", which was mad, but not their best..and the incredible "Club Country"...Also the cacophonic "Nude Spoons", which sounds wonderful now, whilst in the 80s it just sounded a bit too much......

Other songs have matured wonderfully - "Skipping" is a hidden classic, whilst the demo "The Room We Sat In Before" improves on the finished article "It's Better This Way" by its starkness giving clarity to the full character of it's lyrics...

I'm hoping that in the glut of re-releases that subsequent albums such as "Perhaps" and maybe even the hitherto unreleased "The Glamour Chase" may see the light of day!

Insanity, clarity, calamity
Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy... The tragedy of Billy Mackenzie's passing is something which only those who bought the Associates' albums will understand for its gravity. I was fortunate enough to see them play live in the early Eighties and my cynicism (I bet his voice is all studio trickery...) evaporated once I heard the voice which could range deep enough to entertain whales and high enough to entertain dogs get into its stride. Lightweight? Hardly. Sure, one or two of the tracks were single-fodder, but they were an anachronism in the charts. Billy sang as though he was bringing the listener tales from some far away weird-scape and delivered his lines in an impassioned plea for agreement or understanding. I agreed with him, but I wouldn't pretend to fully understand - sometimes "It's Better This Way..."