Customer Reviews

Free Peace Sweet

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

 

 

Listen to the best of British guitar pop between 1994 and 1996 and you'll find you've stumbled into one of modern music's goldmines. And this album is surely its most precious stone.

The tracks sparkle with a musical and lyrical optimism that is infectious. No respectable artist could get away with with such laughable lyrics of "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me", unless you put it to Dodgy's mix of harmony-soaked pop-perfect vocals and stampeding guitar/piano/brass backing.

Yes, all the soaring melodies could have topped the charts in the 60s, but Dodgy have written them in the 90s and have duly charged them up with raw energy that typifies the Britpop movement. Dodgy the definitive Britpop band? Well Oasis didn't have the cheerful candour that reflected the movement's 60s roots. Blur may have captured the Kinks' witty anthems, but Damon's cynicism hinted that they were only Britpop associates. Dodgy's music lies at the heart of what Britpop was - and this precious album reflects everything good about the music that echoed across the British Isles (before it was laid low by some more sombre outfits beginning with Radio and Cold). Take home a piece of history.

being an englishman living in the usa,and being a fan of the music scene their,i have had a lot of frustration keeping up with what is going on -on the other side of the pond. dodgy have been one of my favourite acts over the past five years and i have watched them grow as a band with each release. free peace sweet is there third album but first us release,unfortunatley this looks set to be the last release from the original line-up,as singer/songwriter nigel clark has left to pursue other interests.so anyway back to the matter in hand,if free peace sweet is to be there last album then a fine one it is. shades of the beatles thrown into a mix of 90's "britpop",there are easily 8 or 9 nuggets here to savour.if you want to see what all the fuss we call "britpop"is about,then you won't find an easier introduction than this.enjoy.

This was another of the big pile of CDs I bought on a trip to Scotland in 96. Even though I hadn't heard of them before that trip, I found myself playing this in my rental car more than any of the other CDs purchased. I think part of the charm of this CD is trying to figure out who Dodgy is borrowing from on each track. You can clearly hear early Who, the Kinks (Schoolboys era), the Beatles (Rubber Soul era) and other unmistakeable influences throughout the CD... but Dodgy makes it work without making it seem like stealing. It's not original, it's not even necessarily memorable... but this CD is a fun listen.

Stumbling around the internet, I knocked over a can from the 1990's and there was Dodgy underneath. Here's a band that seemed to have it all. Oasis and Blur should have had serious competition from Dodgy. Tight harmonies. Catchy melodies. Dodgy has it all.

[DW]

I've only just discovered Dodgy in the Spring of '09...many years after the fact. How did I miss out on them when they were around? Clearly, they were much better known in the UK than here in the States, and I think Blur and Oasis were stealing most of the "Britpop" era spotlight in their heyday. Well, while those bands were making headlines with their feuds, Dodgy were simply making great music. The "Homegrown" CD is mentioned in "Best Power Pop Album" lists, and rightly so, but I think "Free Peace Suite" actually possesses more gems than its famous predecessor. Rather than go through track-by-track, suffice to say this was a band with three very strong writers and vocalists. When they layer harmony upon harmony, they are sometimes reminiscent of the Hollies, with a twist of Robyn Hitchcock whimsy. Matthew Priest is a fine drummer, sort of a more controlled version of Keith Moon, and the guitarists are well-versed in Who riffs and power chords. Dodgy also show a strong sense of dynamics which hearkens back to another of my favorite bands, 10cc. In short, they had the whole package, and I'm wearing out their CD's in a hurry. Dodgy, sorry I missed you at the time, but well done!

I love Brit Pop and I love Dodgy! I have only become familiar with them the past year or two but they have definitely become a staple in my music diet. They are every bit as good as Oasis, Charlatans U.K., Blur and other Brit bands of the 90's. I think that if they continued to make music, they would've made some pretty big waves. I recently and happily found out that Nigel Clark is working on a solo career. I need to check him out!

This is one of those albums that has dug itself into my skin so far that it burrowed through and came out the other side, it stained me with its quirkyness, its brilliant sense of familiarity, it really is like a warm bowl of homecooking, even at its weakest points its only fault was that it didnt floor me.
I'm from California, and ive been Waiting to buy this album for quite some time, CD's can get expensive when they are imports from england with no release in the states, I downloaded some of the songs a long time ago but didnt realize this entire album would be so magically magnificent, I can honestly say that during the warmest moments of my life the last song on this album "homegrown" will always play in my head as a soundtrack, that is what music is for me, and what dodgy has given me with "Free peace Sweet"

That's all I can say...Brilliant. Dodgy are great. I spent my senior year in Scotland, and fell in love with the "Britpop" bands. Not that bollocksy like Boyzone, but with Dodgy, The Charlatans, and the like. I have this album as a second-hand dub from a mate in Scotland, and I listen to it a lot. It's brill. And "dodgy" is a slang word there for something a little shady, under-the-table. It's just Dodgy. Well Dodgy.