Customer Reviews

Psychocandy

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

 

 

Two part review here. All right.
The album iteslf, here in it's origanel track listing from the vinyl, sounds great. The record is a damn near flawless mix of the Velvet Underground as fronted by Brian Wilson. The lyrical content is excellent, and the songwritting is top notch. if you are a rock and roll fan then you need "Psychocandy" right now. It is a five star record up and down, worthy of the mountains of hype that it has garnered since it's inital release.
The problem here lies within this re-issue packaging. Although I am happy that I could finally own "Psychocandy" in a decent form, living where I live it is nigh impossible to find any decent record that isn't a greatest hits comp, the packaging and presentation here left a little to be desired.
Rhino, the company behind this re-release, are usually top notch at reissuing older albums(take a look at their work on the excellent new Cure reissues), but on "Psychocandy" there are no extensive linear notes(some pictures and two page essay about the band are all that are included) and lyrics are nowhere to be found inside the booklet.
For those you have to flip the disc over and observe it's DualDisc content, which includes the lyrics for every song on the album, the album is remastered in 5:1 Surround and features three curious videos. Now I am no fan of the DualDisc format, and I am dissapointed that Rhino opted for this (as they did with the recent Talking Heads re-issues)as opposed to maybe a two disc set that would include the stuff I like, such as B-Sides, demos, live tracks, rarities etc. This is a personal qualm I know, and if you like the DualDisc format then you will be happy with what you get. But I have to speak for myself, and I was dissapointed and wanted something different.
But hey, now you know what you get here, right? This is worth picking up because the record sounds great and what you get is all excellent. I just wished, knowing what Rhino is capable of, there was a little more.

It's possible some people would include the Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy as one of the best alternative rock albums of the 80's. I remember at the time so many people thought they were the most exciting thing in punk rock, mostly for their stage shows where they refused to play to the audience and would often leave the stage after only 15 to 20 minutes. Forget the hype though, they were a noisy poppy rock band taking influence from the Velvet Underground.

This first album by the J&MC predates the buzzing noisy beautiful alt-rock of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless and Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. In retrospect, it is not a revolutionary step forward for rock, but was something different from what others in the punk and alternative scene were doing -- blending pop melodies with noisy droning guitar feedback and simplistic (but effective) drumming ala Mo Tucker in the VU. The songs are concise and catchy, but without the polish of the songs on their second album, Darklands. Some people prefer the rougher edges of Psychocandy.

The biggest drawback of this dualdisc release is that there is absolutely nothing special about the DVD side. The entire album is available again in stereo even though almost every DVD player can also play the CD audio side, which makes this a redundant/worthless feature. They should have done a 5.1 surround sound remix similar to the Talking Heads dualdisc rereleases! Also, the videos are the typical lousy band videos prevalent at the time, with the band members just moping about and pretending to play their instruments. Instead of printing the lyrics in the insert booklet, they are a DVD feature -- just what everybody really enjoys: turing on your TV to read text, again a waste...

So in final review, 5 stars for the edgy but poppy alt-rock that predates the Pixies, MBV, Smashing Pumpkins, et al, but 1 star for the lousy presentation and DVD features which averages out to 3 stars. Still, it was nice to finally replace my old cassette version of the album.

This is one of the greatest albums of ALL TIME! The sonics are much improved (and no, that's not a bad thing) on BOTH the CD and DVD sides!! When you hear the CD side with headphones on, it will trip you out! The DVD side is even better! The videos on this disc happen to be the very best videos the JAMC ever made, so if you pick up one Dual Disc just for the videos, make it Psychocandy!!

5 stars for the content but the reissue could have been better. First, don't assume that just because this is a dualdisc it has been remastered in 5.1 (like the Talking Heads dualdisks.). THE JMC RE-ISSUES HAVE NOT. The DVD side gives you "enhanced stereo" whatever that means?? The CD side is vastly improved sonically over the first gen CD though. Second, the song, Some Candy Talking, which was appended to later versions of Psychocandy CD pressings (credited on Canadian and British versions but an uncredited track on later US versions) has dissapeared again. This beautiful tune perfectly captures the transitional phase between the fuzz and distortion of Psychocandy and the gentler Darklands sound. Why take content off, I certainly think the disk had capacity left on it?

A word of caution: you may inccur hearing damage by listening to this album too loud. Not so much from shear volume, but from the piercing feedback. But when listened to at the right volume, you can hear everything, and it is like listening to the creation of the world. Simple pop songs of love, sadness, and freedom, but its the voicing that makes these songs stand out from other bands. The wall of sound is able to paint the chaos needed for such songs, without going overboard. This is easily in my top 4 favorite albums, and I own a lot.

The haunting, melodic vocals, coupled with the jagged, feedback-riddled guitar playing, from a bunch of guys with frizzy, gravity defying hair gave the Jesus and the Mary Chain their own uniue style, and what a great album this was, and still is, when it came out in the 80's, which was essentially their debut release. (A few singles proceeded this release.) It's an album very rooted in the 80's, yet still sounds today as fresh as the day it came out.

I encountered none of the problems with the dual disc format that other reveiwers reported. However, the band looks bored and listless half the time in the videos, and not for good effect. Buy this for the music.

This disk would not work in two differentdrives in my computers and in my regular cd player (a Samsung) it would take over a minute to load and then would not play track one (but played the others ok). Not so happy with this.
As for the music, it is a clasic.

Psychocandy is the root of the root; the heart of the heart of hardcore. Turn it on and turn it up. You will not be disappointed.

I'd love to rate this on the music alone.

Sadly, I haven't been able to LISTEN to it because I can't rip the CD on my PC to load into my iPod. I've tried a DVD-RW drive and CD-ROM drive on two different PCs that rip discs with no problems...except these. The dual-discs feel as if someone literally took a CD and a DVD and SuperGlued them together. Shoddy.

I really regret not getting the standard CD version.

This is an o.k. cd but I feel it could have been a great one if it had been mixed and engineered a little better.