The Charlottes
There's a dearth of some seriously amazing bands from the 80's and 90's on the web. Typing The Charlottes into 'The Hype Machine' yields just a single track, for example. Well, it did until now. Finally getting hold of their sole album, and listening to it for the first time in about ten years, has been a revelation.
I guess 'Lovehappy' sits in the middle of a post-shambolic twee indie-pop/pre-shoegazer moment in history. Albeit a moment that probably lasted about 22 days. This is kind of reinforced by drummer Simon's eventual graduation to prime ethereal mopers Slowdive. He should've stuck where he was.
Lovehappy is one of those perfect LP's which struggles to weigh in at the half hour mark. It pisses all over more highly regarded female-fronted, fuzzy guitar pop acts of around the same period like, for example, The Primitives. They're also that rare thing - a decent East Anglian band.
'Are You Happy Now?' beats Primal Scream's 'Velocity Girl' to the title of shortest indie-pop classic of all time. 'In My Hair' is just stop-start genius.
The Charlottes - Are You Happy Now?
The Charlottes - In My Hair
The Charlottes History
1 comments:
Thanks for the great tracks. They have a second album, "Things Come Apart," which is really fantastic. And, amazingly, it is available via iTunes (probably other places, too...?).
Dan M., Boston
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