Track Listing

1. When Horsepower Meant What It Said
2. I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)
3. Lonely Girl
4. Sunset Borderline
5. Little Remedy
6. Castles
7. What If I'm Right
8. Superman
9. Human Jukebox
10. Time
11. Time

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9841 in Music
• Released on: 2006-06-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

From the Label
The girl that webcast from her basement in Tooting to thousands of people across the globe now releases her debut single ‘I wish I was a punk rocker (with flowers in my hair)’. Too broke to go on the road, 24 year old singer/songwriter Sandi Thom decided to set up a webcam in her South London flat and staged a three week world tour from the basement. She spread the word about the ‘21 Nights from Tooting’ tour via Myspace.com and her own site, inviting fans to watch the tour live on the web or in person at the very modest underground venue of her basement. Pulling in an audience of 70 on the first night, news of the gigs spread like wildfire on the internet and by the end of the ‘tour’ she had 100,000 web viewers from as far afield as Russia, the USA and Pakistan.

Drawing on a musical palette that varies from Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley through Carole King and Stevie Nicks to Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, Sandi Thom joins the dots between black and white music. The album Smile… It Confuses People seamlessly blends folk and soul strains and influences

CD Description
Debut album from young Scottish singer-songwriter, who allegedly landed a deal with RCA after webcasting gigs to tens of thousands of net users from her Tooting basement. This is a solid set of summery, acoustic adult pop, heavily influenced, like Thom's contemporary KT Tunstall, by female folk androck artists of the 60s and 70s. Includes the no.2 single 'I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)'.

Customer Reviews

Promised lots - delivered little
I, too, saw Sandi Thom's TOTP performance of "I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker..." and thought: "My! A decent new artist at last!" So I bought the album when it came out - most unlike me; I usually listen to them first in HMV.

The opening track was quite reasonable (despite starting like it was a rip-off of one of K T Tunstall's tracks from "Eye to the Telescope"). Then we get the single ("I Wish I Was &c.") - all still good.

Sadly, from that point onwards the album descended into pop mediocrity. Tight musicianship and well-produced, but boring. I was very disappointed, and annoyed I had been suckered by the media hype. The album, folks, is distinctly average and unremarkable - industry pop, and nothing at all in the vein of "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker...", which is the best track by a country mile.

Trust me - I've given this album a lot of my time, and several airings. My opinion hasn't changed. If you like bland average pop, buy it. If it's something special you're looking for, avoid this album.

In fact, buy something recorded in '77 or '69 instead.

Something both punks and hippies will loathe
Sandi sings "I wish I was a punk rocker...", which amuses me. Punk showed us that if a shambolic collection of amateurs who can barely play their instruments can get into the charts then any of us can do it. While I don't doubt that Thom knows her way around a guitar, what she can't do is write a decent song. If you do want to buy this album, I advise you not to read the lyrics, since they're the sort of thing a 12 year old would write in a school english assignment. Actually, I take that back as it's an insult to the intelligence of every 12 year old I know.

Several adjectives spring to mind. "Trite" is one. "Shallow" is another... "Vacuous"... "Drivel". I could go on. The problem with Sandi is that she wants to be a serious musician, but she has nothing worthwhile to say in any of her songs. Her stab at environmental awareness in the first track "When Horsepower Meant What it Said" is particularly laughable and sadly it gets worse from then on in.

Even the album title makes me cringe. That's the first time I've ever heard an record named after a car bumper sticker. Apart from the 1967 Rolling Stones album "My Other Car is a Porsche", that is...

If you like Katie Tunstall and all the other current crop of pseudo serious cod-rockers then you'll lap this up. If you can see through the latest media bandwagon then I advise you to save your money.

This album is not that bad at all
Some of the reviews below I think are unfair. This album is fun, it has some nice tracks and Sandi Thom can clearly belt out a good song. My only complaint is that it does only have ten tracks though so it could have been a bit longer. I would also agree that the band could show off a bit more and do some solo's or even Sandi herself could when she is playing an instrument. Still not a bad album, give it a chance.