The Wedding Present – "Falling"

I picked up Hit Parade 1 on the same trip I picked up Seamonsters, so that makes a natural pairing. Here's the story:

In 1992, the Wedding Present released a new 7" every month, with a new song on the a-side and a cover on the flip. Seems outrageously prolific, but if you think about it, that's one twelve-song album in a year, plus a twelve-song covers LP to boot. Not unreasonable. Incidentally, all of the singles charted, so they wound up tying Elvis Presley's Guinness record for most chart singles in one year. Go Weddoes!

The individual singles no fetch ridiculous collector prices on the open market, but the band were thoughtful enough to issue the whole shebang as a pair of standalone albums, one for each half of the year. HP1 includes the contents of January through June's singles, the a-sides on side one, the b-sides on side two.

The a-sides are decent enough, but to be perfectly frank, the Weddoes weren't really the ideal band to undertake a project like this; David Gedge's hit-to-miss ratio as a songwriter just isn't high enough. The covers, on the other hand, are a delight, and full of neat surprises. The best one is a cover of Julee Cruise's "Falling", best known as the theme song to David Lynch's short-lived surrealist TV drama Twin Peaks. The bad does a fine job of distilling a rather elaborate instrumental arrangement down to parts for two guitars and a bass, and the big kick-in at the end, while rather predictable, is thrilling nonetheless. The fact the Gedge has no business singing a song like this only adds to the charm of his gruff vocals.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: The Wedding Present – "Falling"

NOTE: I guess I should like to the 7", since HP1 is really a comp, but it's what I've got. If you wanna search for the single, it's number for in the series.

I'm outta town right now, so I won't have a chance to tape new songs, so no posts next week. Back next Monday.