Customer Reviews

Contenders

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Pop and politics don't always mix well together, but this album is a stunning exception. Like all great soul music, Contenders evokes a mood and tells its story beautifully within the limitations of the pop song format. The haunting vocals and spidery guitars frame the heartfelt lyrics to maximum effect. This isn't a great album because of its political content; it's a great album because it's great music coupled with fantastic storytelling. Even if Lenin doesn't get your motor revving, don't miss out on Contenders.

The lyrics are powerful, both musically and politically. The Perry brothers are not afraid to say and explain their views, and do so to a rocking beat. If you are politically aware and a music lover, but don't have this album, then you are all wet!

This is such a brilliant album I almost cried when I heard Waiting for the Redbird, the follow-up album by the rump left by the Perry brother's split in the ranks of Easterhouse. It is a beautiful blending of unyielding revolutionary sentiments, artful songwriting, competent guitar work and vocals, and the kind of red, raw anger and dark, black despair (peeking out from behind a noble effort at hopefulness) that doesn't even consider giving quarter. For the (perhaps) handful of us who are drawn to the rock medium for our propaganda efforts and wouldn't give the bourgoisie so much as a pleasant nod of the head if they paid us, who might have thought we'd exhausted our lifelong opportunities to see the two joined together effectively when punk rock died in 1980, this is a near perfect album. Perhaps only Phil Ochs "The Ringing of Revolution" can hope to beat out Easterhouse's lyrics: "Where is the man who's speaking out for me? Community leaders want more black shopkeepers, the union's a say in the jobs sold away, and I'm told that my homes in a nuclear free zone, but that ain't much help when there's bills to be paid. Police accountability, non-nuclear war strategies have made the fight a mockery." This album would be worth several times over its cost, just to play that at full volume at some Kerry-supporting liberal Leftist poser!

Easterhouse's one record of note attempts the impossible and fails beautifully. The guitars climb grandly, the lyrics reach for inspiration, and the whole thing falls like a pebble into the ocean. Andy Perry's polemics will rub wrong if you detest Irish republicanism or have a bust of Maggie Thatcher on your mantle -- next to your cherished framed snap with Big Ian on the front line. While the album does attack Labour hypocrites who forsake the downtrodden for graven image worship of the Saxon kind, the call to topple the swine doesn't ever mute the superb guitar work, which is yet another shade of overachieving Manchester. That blighted pox on the map sure spun gold amidst hayracks of dross. Most eighties music is now unlistenable. Thankfully, albums like this one have real conviction and emotion, not some forced bathos, the kind that now passes for passion: think Creed. Easterhouse made one great record. That was enough.

This is a great album of powerful 1980s jangly, political pop rock, and well worth purchasing. There's some great songwriting in evidence, with strong tunes and passionate lyrics.

Having said that, a couple of caveats. Given the sound quality of the CD, it's clearly been mastered from the original vinyl. You will hear the odd crackle and pop in the quieter passages, and the sound is a bit thin. Also, the CD sleeve has a misprint for the song titles -- the song "Lenin in Europe" is actually "Lenin in Zurich".

As a leftist student 20 years ago, this unabashedly socialist album was the perfect antidote to the Reaganism and Thatcherism that seemed to have consumed many of my peers. In 2008, even though many of the references are dated, the revolutionary spirit rings true -- now more than ever, given the dire state of the world. What's truly sad is that no one has the guts to make a record like this now. Get this, to wash the taste of Bush, Blair, and Brown out of your mouth.