Old School Dropouts

Connells | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 6, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Black Park Records
• ASIN: B00005Y7F0
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,004 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #58 in Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo-Fi > Jangle Pop

Track Listings

1. Bust

2. Gladiator Heart

3. Back in Blighty

4. Radio

5. Put Down

6. Airlift

7. All the Time in the World

8. Rusted Fields

9. Hello Walter

10. Washington

11. The Bottom

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sad Swan-Song From Criminally Overlooked Band, October 30, 2003

By 

Pop Kulcher "Pop Kulcher" (San Carlos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Old School Dropouts (Audio CD)

Pop Kulcher Review: A two-year-old release I finally got around to picking up a few months back, I mention it here just by way of a sad commentary on everything that's wrong with the modern corporate music business. The Connells were one of the finest and most painfully overlooked bands of the late 80's and 90's. With a jangly Southern pop song akin to R.E.M., and an even greater sense of simple popsmithery, there is simply no rational explanation for the failure of this band to garner significant radio attention. I've played them for friends and family of every musical stripe, and nobody's found them anything short of charming. But years of commercial ignorance took their toll. The band got dropped from their label, and finally called it quits a couple years ago, but managed to squeeze out one last album on a no-name indie label. It's clearly a no-budget affair. There's a major typo on the back cover, resulting in all the track numbers being incorrect. More significantly, the production (at least on a few tracks) is the pits -- this may be the worst-sounding album outside of mid-period Guided by Voices. (Of course, as someone who would rather listen to a band's demos than an overly-polished mainstream rock album, I don't find it hard to get past this.) But even poor production can't hide the merits of a beautiful, infectious pop song, and this album's full of them. Maybe not as unforgettable as early albums like Boylan Heights, but surely as good as their prior album, 1998's Still Life. You see bands like the Connells die an ugly death (and other fantastic 90's acts like Luna, Bettie Serveert, Wilco, etc. dropped by their labels), and you can't help but be disheartened by the sad state of the rock & roll industry. Buy this, hum along, and maybe feel just a little bit better.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Correction!, February 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Old School Dropouts (Audio CD)

This is not really a review but a correction to Popkulcher's review. The Connells have NOT broken up! True, touring has taken a backseat to families and dayjobs, but the Connells are still making music and playing the occasional local or regional show. In fact, they are working on material for a new album! So don't give up on The Connells just yet.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sounds fresh in an old-school sort of way, August 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Old School Dropouts (Audio CD)

I'll preface this by saying I have been a Connells fan since my college days in the late 80s. They began their career with impressive quintet of awesome sounds - Darker Days, Boylan Heights, Fun and Games, One Simple Word, and Ring. Things got quite messy with Weird Food and Still Life. Old-School Dropouts is the best music The Connells have put out since Ring in 1994. It is a real shame that the big labels have not bought into their sound and when they split with TVT records and decided to produce and record on their own the difference in audio quality seems quite apparent. I suspect much of this is by design - to give it an artsy, retro angle. Still, that does not take away from the quality of the material. Gladiator Heart and Back in Blighty are masterpieces that belong right up there with anything they have done. There are several other outstanding tracks. It's not their best cd, but it's better than their last two. How the rest of the world missed the Connells I will never know. We fans are quite content to know that they are the kings of the undergound scene. With great albums and awesome live shows with a true college party atmosphere, I hope they decide to stay young and forego dropping out of the old-school entirely.