#9 All You Good Good People – Embrace
Original Release Year – 1997 (me aged 21)
The Golden Era. The Student Years. Back when tuition was free, beer was cheap and Things Could Only Get Better™.
There was a period where BritPop was where it was at, which began for me at school in 1993, when I started buying Select Magazine. This was on the frontline of BritPop, with the famous front cover of Suede’s Brett Anderson next to the line “Yanks Go Home!” Back then I didn’t think much of Suede, but I did like the compilation tapes and CDs, and the fold out posters. Eventually the whole genre was polarised between those who liked Oasis, and those who liked Blur. I went to school and university in the Midlands, so it was OK for me to like both.
Mercifully I began to shun the cheesy pop and dive deeper into “indie”. Club Shine at the Student Union, renamed “Club Shite” by friends, was a weekly release, a chance to mosh with friends to One To Another by The Charlatans (I have a friend called Jen that I haven’t seen in ten years who will always be my spiderwoman).
In amongst all this appeared Embrace, who claimed to be better than Oasis, a crafty move at antagonising the Gallagher brothers. The McNamara brothers were hardly likely to set the world alight, but I remember hearing this wall of sound for the first time and being blown away. The very idea of having a full-blown orchestra on a debut album seemed bonkers to me.
All You Good Good People originally came out on vinyl, 500 copies that were snapped up instantly, and was so significant to the band that it was re-released, then remixed for the album, then re-recorded at Abbey Road. From the opening timpani roll to the epic climax, I couldn’t get enough of this track, and even now the pulse gets going when I hear it.
Original Release Year – 1997 (me aged 21)
The Golden Era. The Student Years. Back when tuition was free, beer was cheap and Things Could Only Get Better™.
There was a period where BritPop was where it was at, which began for me at school in 1993, when I started buying Select Magazine. This was on the frontline of BritPop, with the famous front cover of Suede’s Brett Anderson next to the line “Yanks Go Home!” Back then I didn’t think much of Suede, but I did like the compilation tapes and CDs, and the fold out posters. Eventually the whole genre was polarised between those who liked Oasis, and those who liked Blur. I went to school and university in the Midlands, so it was OK for me to like both.
Mercifully I began to shun the cheesy pop and dive deeper into “indie”. Club Shine at the Student Union, renamed “Club Shite” by friends, was a weekly release, a chance to mosh with friends to One To Another by The Charlatans (I have a friend called Jen that I haven’t seen in ten years who will always be my spiderwoman).
In amongst all this appeared Embrace, who claimed to be better than Oasis, a crafty move at antagonising the Gallagher brothers. The McNamara brothers were hardly likely to set the world alight, but I remember hearing this wall of sound for the first time and being blown away. The very idea of having a full-blown orchestra on a debut album seemed bonkers to me.
All You Good Good People originally came out on vinyl, 500 copies that were snapped up instantly, and was so significant to the band that it was re-released, then remixed for the album, then re-recorded at Abbey Road. From the opening timpani roll to the epic climax, I couldn’t get enough of this track, and even now the pulse gets going when I hear it.
Ahh, happy days. I remember snapping up Embrace records and thinking what great songs they wrote but unfortunately what a useless singer they had. Still, it was infinitely better than Country House.
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