Lovelife

Lush

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 5, 1996)
• Original Release Date: March 5, 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002N4Z
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #142,080 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

If you haven't caught up with Lush for a while, you may be astonished when you put this on. Songs. Hooks. Choruses. Singing--more or less in tune. Looks like Lush stopped glanced up from gazing at their shoes and saw that there was an audience wanting to be entertained. So they dug out their old new wave albums and got themselves inspired. The opener, "Ladykiller," is just that: a stone killer that sets the lyrical mood for the whole record--relationships gone sour, the way "boys" act, and how women can be strong. Real life or what? Musically, it's as though a picture has just finally come into focus. Lush always denied their poppy side. Here they've given it full rein, and the effect is glorious, catchy as hell, filled with clever arrangements, and only "Last Night" has any kind of spook quotient. Wonderful stuff. The new wave of new wave of new wave? No, just a new lease on life for Lush. Welcome back. --Chris Nickson

Product Description

Out of print in the U.S.! Moody and ethereal guitar-fueled 'shoegazing' band led by Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson. Originally released in 1995, this was their fourth album for the 4AD label. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Off-The-Beaten-Path Album, March 13, 2003

By	Randy Given (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a great off-the-beaten-path album. Years ago I got this for one or two songs and I find that I play it quite often, usually from beginning to end. There are surprisingly few albums that I do that with.

Their is a fair range of styles, but it basically is a girl-voice band with attitude, but style. The name "lush" is appropriate -- for the style and the playing. Kinda a laid-back lush playing.

The album starts out with an in-your-face rejection of womanizers ("Ladykillers"), but realizes that both sexes are doing the same things to each other. "Heaven Nobodies" is almost like that -- something snappy but you almost forget about the title before the song ends. "Shake Baby Shake" is almost a Kate Bush simple tune (ala the movie "She's Having a Baby"). "I've Been Here Before" is almost a morning-after to the "Ladykillers" opening -- a realization of what is going on around the scene. "Papason" and "Tralala" are more mellow and evening songs.

If there is one song that I play over and over, it would have to be "Last Night". It takes me back to evenings of watching "Miami Vice" with the driving down slick streets in a fast, sleek car -- an absent-minded mood with swooping backups.

Only to be rocked awake with "Runaway". I think they could have ordered the songs a little differently. The same goes for "Childcatcher", a good song in its own rite, but it almost should have been on a different album.

Oh, "Olympia". Now, that is softer than "Last Night", especially with the flute intro. This is clearly my favorite song from this album (but second most played). Your heart cries with slight pain and slight joy, especially as the strings come in. You feel "Olympia" throughout your body.

Definitely an album to recommend, but fairly safe that others have not heard of it. Give it as a gift -- they may be pleasantly surprised.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Forget it's Lush, June 4, 2001

By	Christopher Culver - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Many indie bands have an album that is so far removed from their earlier work that, in spite of its quality, it disappoints fans. For the Cocteau Twins, it was FOUR CALENDER CAFE, for Pale Saints it was FINE FRIEND. Lush's hour came when the foursome released LOVELIFE in 1996. The band's turn to a Britpop-like sound alienated many, and it is perhaps the lowest point in the band's all-too-brief career.

(However, critics who claim that LOVELIFE is the band's only shift from their shoe-gazing sound are ignoring the sublime SPLIT, which saw the band in a more industrial production.)

Nonetheless, LOVELIFE is a good album if one just shoves aside memories of Lush's previous albums. There are some really good songs here, such as "Olympia" and "Papasan." Most of the album is simple have-a-good time pop, like the opening track "Ladykillers" and the infamous "500," the band's tribute to the diminuitive Fiat Cinquecento automobile.

The album does have some misses. As funny as it is on the first listen, the Miki and Jarvis Cocker duet "Ciao!" drives one crazy on repeat hearings. "The Childcatcher" is disappointing for anyone who has heard the much better version on the limited edition ALL VIRGOS ARE MAD compilation.

Sure, LOVELIFE isn't the best rock album ever, and is disappointing in light of Lush's earlier output, but it's pretty darn good on its own.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not alone?, April 3, 2004

By	Saudade (Cebolla, Spain) - See all my reviews

This is one of my top albums, after I first heard it on the radio I knew it had to be mine forever. It reflects perfectly the feeling that floats around girls in fear of becoming spinsters, or the contumacy for Saturday outings in the hope of coming back home not alone. It contains the quintessential British superficial-deepness, neither wanting to think about the problems, nor letting you explode with joy (because you know there is something else behind the dancing queen).

And, of course, the duet with Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) is one of those sexy duets that deserve a place in pop history (almost as a kind of Gainsbourg-Birkin duet with country arrangements). I think there is a connection between those two British groups (Pulp and Lush), but you can find similarities in other groups that combine that apparent carelessness with melancholy (...).

If you are fond of bittersweet-but-catchy melodies, this is your record, but listen to it only once in a while. It has the power of making you want to dance while you're listening to it, and make you want to sob when the music leaves you...alone. So don't listen to it before going to bed, but before going out, and put on your sexiest clothes!!!