Judy Sucks a Lemon For Breakfast: Cornershop
Ample Play
Considering that Cornershop began their career as shouty low-fi punkish brats who came to national notoriety by burning pictures of Morrissey outside the offices of EMI, they have – to paraphrase their sometime collaborator Norman Cook – come a long way, baby.
Judy Sucks a Lemon For Breakfast is an assured clutch of songs with more hooks than a docker’s locker spanning an eclectic stylistic mix that virtually recalls the history of rock and roll. “Operation Push” exemplifies 1950s and ’60s surf-pop and reggae in the same song. Reassuringly, sitars and dholkis are still in there, too – for example, on he sprightly single “The Roll Off Characteristics of History in the Making”. This also features some deft brass and the genius line: “War ain’t nothing but that technical plip-plop”.
Back when it all kicked off for the band in the early 1990s, the shadow of The Smiths (and the then-rumoured to be racist Morrissey) hung over planet indie. The resultant sounds forcibly equated with bedsit miserablism. Seventeen years into Cornershop’s career, this album couldn’t be further from all that. From the day-glo pink and orange sleeve depicting a stylised pair of lips and a bright yellow lemon onwards, this is an “up” record. “Who Fingered Rock and Roll” is a strong opener which rollicks along nicely and sets the tone. It’s followed by the cheery “Soul School” with its sing-along refrain “Manchester and Liverpool”.
The title track, with its audible helicopter blades and stop-and-start timing, is also a winner, but of the first six tracks – which are listed in a touching homage to vinyl as “Side A” – it is the five-and-a-half minute “Free Love” that is the real barnstormer with its fluid funk, angular drumming and Indian stylings all set to an electro groove-athon. I can’t work out what Tjinder is warbling on about, but that has always been part of the band’s charm.
Cornershop have always done things in their own idiosyncratic way and “Side B” includes a cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn”. It’s not my favourite track, probably because “never trust a hippie” was drilled into me mightily successfully. Still, Cornershop do add their own original twist to the proceedings. Even the short interlude filler bits between proper tracks are masterpieces such as the one-and-a-half minute ode to Blair Peach “Shut Southall Down” or the funky 47 seconds that is “Half Brick”.
“Constant Springs” sounds like a spy theme and is another standout track. The practically instrumental “Chamcu” is the most “Indian”-sounding piece and manages to lodge its way into your mind after a couple of plays. Things come to a close with the epic gospel-ish “The Turned On Truth”, a soul belter with what sounds like an all-female choir, clocking in at more than 16 minutes without you noticing.
The latest album from the band that were number one a decade ago with “Brimful of Asha” demonstrates that they’ve lost done of the wit, originality and warmth that propelled that song to the summit of the charts when such things mattered. This is the album of the year. Seek it out.
Rupa Huq
