Customer Reviews

Athens Andover

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Athens Andover" is a pretty unlikely collaboration between the English pub-rockers (punkers) the Troggs and superstars REM. The result is surprisingly succesfull. The sound is still very much the Troggs, but with a great touch of REM finesse.

Reg Presley's vocals are as good as ever, and the production beats anything the Troggs have recorded before. With Pete Buck, Mick Mills, Bill Berry, Peter Holsapple to help the Troggs the musicanship is top-notch.

Reg Resley is a fine ( occasionally brilliant ) songwriter. His songs "Together" and "Suspicious" are great , but his finest contribution here is "Don't You Know" , which is as good as his classic hits "Love is All Around" and "Anyway You Want Me"

Chip Taylor, who wrote the Troggs' break-through single "Wild Thing", has supplied the fine "Crazy Annie", a slow-rocker with the well-known Troggs beat-hook. I sure would have liked to see her dance!

Producer Larry Page wrote 2 of the tracks (with guitarist Daniel Boone) - the two straight-ahead rockers "Turned Into Stone" and "Hot Stuff"

Tone Shevlin wrote the nostalgic "Deja Vu" with several lyric lines from old Troggs history. Another highlight of the album.

The REM people wrote the dramatic cynical "Nowhere Road" ( great lyrics ) - this must be live-favorite.

A big shame so few people know about this album, and I certainly agree with Larry Page's liner-notes "A Landmark in R&R History"

Highly recommended!

I don't feel this album is as bad as the only other reviewer here suggests. I was a troggs fan in the 60's and was surprised to learn they made an album of new material as late as 1992. I just had to find out what they sounded like in the 90's. This album was a collaboration with REM and was recorded in Athens Georgia. I can't say the REM input did anything spectacular for them. It is not quite as hard rockin as the troggs could be. I don't find any songs with an edge, much experimentation or wildness. Reg Presley sounds the same only older. There are some social conscience lyrics mixed in with the typical trogg take on boy meets girl adventures. I give this album 4 stars for Trogg Fans and 2 to 3 stars for everyone else. I appreciate some of the references in the new songs to old Trogg hits. Yet, I found I appreciated the album more than just in the nostalgia sense. I truely enjoy over half the songs on the album, such as Crazy Annie. I bring this album out from time to time and play it for its own merits. There are no over the top great songs here, but there are many good songs. If your a Trogg lover then you would probably want this in your collection. If you aren't a Trogg lover, then this most likely wouldn't make you one.

"Athens Andover" is a pretty unlikely collaboration between the English pub-rockers (punkers) the Troggs and superstars REM. The result is surprisingly succesfull. The sound is still very much the Troggs, but with a great touch of REM finesse.

Reg Presley's vocals are as good as ever, and the production beats anything the Troggs have recorded before. With Pete Buck, Mick Mills, Bill Berry, Peter Holsapple to help the Troggs the musicanship is top-notch.

Reg Resley is a fine ( occasionally brilliant ) songwriter. His songs "Together" and "Suspicious" are great , but his finest contribution here is "Don't You Know" , which is as good as his classic hits "Love is All Around" and "Anyway You Want Me"

Chip Taylor, who wrote the Troggs' break-through single "Wild Thing", has supplied the fine "Crazy Annie", a slow-rocker with the well-known Troggs beat-hook. I sure would have liked to see her dance!

Producer Larry Page wrote 2 of the tracks (with guitarist Daniel Boone) - the two straight-ahead rockers "Turned Into Stone" and "Hot Stuff"

Tony Shevlin wrote the nostalgic "Deja Vu" with several lyric lines from old Troggs history. Another highlight of the album.

The REM people wrote the dramatic cynical "Nowhere Road" ( great lyrics ) - this must be live-favorite.

A big shame so few people know about this album, and I certainly agree with Larry Page's liner-notes "A Landmark in R&R History"

Highly recommended!

Athens Andover has a song called "Hot Stuff" on it. "Hot Stuff" is about sex. It has a riff that sounds like a tossed-off pastiche of tame Brian Johnson-era AC/DC out-takes. It has a chorus that sounds like a tossed-off pastiche of tame Brian Johnson-era AC/DC out-takes. It has lyrics like "I touch your skin/ please let me in/ nobody feels like you/ you fill me full of wild desire." The vocalist is a man named Reg Presley. He doesn't sound like Brian Johnson. He sounds like a wrinkled paper bag. At the end of the chorus to "Hot Stuff," there's this bit where he goes "you never know/ you've never made love." He tries to sing that line in an animal growl, to emphasize the fact that his pants are about to explode. It sounds like an old man trying to get out of a bathtub. "Hot Stuff" is maybe the fourth worst song on Athens Andover. All of the songs on this album that are better than "Hot Stuff" are only marginally better. When you write a song like "Hot Stuff," that's usually how it happens.

Oh yeah, and some of the guys from R.E.M. play on this album. You wouldn't know that if somebody didn't tell you.