Psychocandy

Jesus & Mary Chain

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: November 1985
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002L94
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #129,290 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Just Like Honey

2. Living End

3. Taste the Floor

4. Hardest Walk

5. Cut Dead

6. In a Hole

7. Taste of Cindy

8. Never Understand

9. Inside Me

10. Sowing Seeds

11. My Little Underground

12. You Trip Me Up

13. Something's Wrong

14. It's So Hard

15. It's So Hard

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hooks and Feedback, May 2, 2003

By	C. Gardner (Washington D.C., D.C. United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Taking the best elements of 1960s bubblegum, pop, and surf music (and even 50s rockabilly at times) and processing them through the most jaded sensibility imaginable, "Psychocandy" is a pivotal album in post-punk history. Classic. Sounds like the sound engineer was either asleep, tied up in the back room, or on the nod from horse, because every song is drenched in reverb and the knobs are stuck on ten. The guitars keen like bagpipes, squeal like tires, change into Coltrane-like lines then dissolve in clouds of white noise. Made in 1985, it still sounds fresh, and you can see the influence of this album through many bands, from the Butthole Surfers to My Bloody Valentine to Nirvana and Pavement and the new bands of the 1980s revival like Interpol.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorites for 20 years and running, January 19, 2005

By	S. A. Mathis "S.A. Mathis" (Panama City, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Okay, so here's another review for the earlier reviewer who was surprised that only 2 other people have reviewed this album thus far.

Psychocandy is by far my favorite album by the J&MC. By far. The only thing that ever came close for me was the B-sides collected in Barbed Wire Kisses. I followed the J&MC's career throughout the '90s but was dismayed that nothing else really captured the unique sound of this album. They hit on something truly fascinating and then seemed to move on towards more mediocre endeavors.

That said, Psychocandy is undeniably amazing. Equal parts Ramones, Velvet Underground at their trippiest and Tommy James & the Shondells, even a bit Beach Boys at times, Psychocandy is like very little else I've heard.

I first bought a cassette of this album the month it was released in the US, mid-80s sometime, following a blurb in Time Magazine and a story in the local news about a Scottish band that was starting riots wherever they performed.

Since finally getting it (I had to wait for two weeks for the store to get it in; ah, pre-internet!) I have listened to it repeatedly like no other album from that era, except "maybe" Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising. J&MC set a mark for all the ethereal, noisy groups that followed from Lush to My Bloody Valentine to the Catherine Wheel and on. In my opinion, it is a mark that has yet to be exceeded.

It wasn't until I heard the song "Just Like Honey" (IIRC) in the movie, Lost in Translation, that I realized just how warped and used my old cassette was. So I came here to pick up a copy to find that they are now only available via import. That's a crime. This is truly one of the defining albums of the '80s. It deserves to be recognized as such.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brooding Beauty, January 18, 2004

By	Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Inspired by The Velvet Underground and perhaps also The Cure, The J&M Chain made feedback and distortion an integral part of their wall of sound, creating a unique and distinctive niche in rock music. It was in the way they did it - the distortion never sounds intrusive or discordant but complements the detached vocals for a cohesive music of eerie beauty. In this crucial way the music differs from most of the output of the industrial genre, in that it has a flowing, hypnotic quality. My favorite tracks on this seminal album include Just Like Honey, The Living End, The Hardest Walk, Sowing Seeds, My Little Underground and the sublime You Trip Me Up, a poignant blend of the tender and the ominous. Psychocandy is a successful experiment in blending feedback with melody, creating atmospheric but always tuneful soundscapes that linger in the mind.