I boarded the Divine Comedy express with Promenade, after reading a review in the NME that made it sound right up my alley. Bought it, liked it a lot, ordered Liberation, got Casanova on release and any singles I could find. By the late nineties, Fanfare for the Comic Muse was already somewhat mythical: the disowned first album, scarce as hen's teeth and grotesquely over-priced if you were lucky enough to find a copy, and - hushed tones - apparently embarrassingly bad. Still, I was a completist, and when I was on holiday in the UK (probably 1998, as I think I picked up the 'Generation Sex' 7" on its release) I was on the lookout for this album and the various early Divine Comedy singles. On a daytrip to Canterbury, I wandered into a high street record store - not a specialty or second-hand record store, just a common or garden neighbourhood record store belonging to some long-forgotten chain - cast a quick glance over their meagre wares (the way you did when you could quickly gauge whether or not a new record store held the promise of anything interesting) and turned to leave. Just at the door was a table of reduced-to-clear CDs by the usual suspects and various doomed unknowns, and sitting in the middle was a sad, solitary copy of Fanfare for the Comic Muse. Mine for a fiver. Never seen a copy in the wild before or since. I was very excited by the purchase - one of those extremely satisfying finds that justifies The Hunt - and didn't really care that the album lived completely down to its drab reputation. Were it not for what Hannon went on to achieve, this CD would have utterly deserved its fate of bargain bin obscurity, lingering on the reduced-to-clear table at a nothing high street record store. (The remainder of the quest continued for many years. I picked up both of the Indulgences some time in the 00s, and the Timewatch EP whenever it was that Neil found a box of them under the stairs and put them up for sale on the website. Never found a copy of the Europop EP for a reasonable price, though.)
I'm going to stick up for Bleak Landscape. It's not amazing, but the change of bm pace works well. Musically, I think there's an interesting run of chords in the chorus (the Dm, C#m, Bm run works particularly well) and there also some pretty nifty bass work in the verse that makes me wonder what the Divine Comedy might have sounded like if the three - piece format had endured. I also don't think it's surprising that Neil tried to rework this in the Liberation era - I'd have been intrigued to hear how it might have turned out after a proper studio session. 2.5
I liked Bleak Landscape the best so far, but probably mostly because I was already familiar with it from the rarities disc (which is a better version to be sure). 4/5
"Bleak Landscape" - I want to like this song more, but it somehow just doesn't resonate me. It's "pleasant", not so much engaging. I can hear a bit more TDC in it and I think the bridge is the best part. (to me the most TDC part) Somehow the first two songs sit with me better. Played the song three times throughout the day to try and figure out what I'm missing. Currently avoiding the demo so as not to cloud my opinion of that with this version. 2.0/5.0
I also think the R.E.M. influence is a bit exaggerated although the music of "Ignorance Is Bliss" sounds a lot like early R.E.M. I don't hear any big R.E.M. influence in "Tailspin", though. Granted, "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" is one of their faster songs, but it's still relatively tame and clean sounding compared to "Tailspin", especially the vocals. In my opinion, the more obvious connection are the Pixies: hearing Neil getting raw and dirty trying to emulate Black Francis is so removed from what we think is the essence of The Divine Comedy now, it makes for a baffling but exhilarating listening experience.
Well, here's another choice quote from The Flan In The High Castle blog. As these are usually in-depth interpretations of at least three paragraphs per song, picking short excerpts that can stand alone isn't easy, but I'll give it a try: “Bleak Landscape” is the album’s gentlest, most introspective track, but the first thing we hear of it is a man asking, “You’re all right?” The line is presumably another band member, and was presumably recorded by accident and left in the final edit because Hannon thought it would be a bit amusing, but it creates an interesting disconnect with the preceding songs. They were self-contained little fables, but this track is set in our world: this track is about the man who wrote them. We’ve been woken from a dream. “I cannot reconcile myself to this / I wish I could / I cannot live the life I ought to live / I know I should”. There’s an internal conflict here, a struggle to do the right thing, and it’s one that any half-hearted eco-warrior should recognise. The vocals remind me of XTC on occasion. I think the lyrics are interesting and it's nice to have a more mellow song for a change, but the melodies are nothing special and slightly let the song down. 2.5/5
Just realised I’ve not rated “Bleak Landscape” myself! I think my thoughts about it are influenced by the Liberation-era demo as I can now hear the slightly more sophisticated song trying to escape from behind the awkward drumming and production. Again I enjoy the vocal harmonies; and also the chord progression of the chorus, as mentioned by @jon-senior . However nice it *might* have sounded had it made it to Liberation, sadly it didn’t and so I have to judge it on what we hear here, so it ends up being another 2.5 from me. (There’s a pattern forming!)
This was a great story; thank you for sharing! I especially liked it because I am from Kent and used to go record shopping in Canterbury all the time - we might even have been in the store at the same time (though I definitely don’t recall ever seeing a copy of “Fanfare”!)
Now that’s interesting, to me the verses are a blatant ripoff of the REM song’s verses - the sort of driving rhythm with Neil coming out with loads of really fast lyrics over the top. I even just listened to the REM track to make sure I wasn’t misremembering! I’ll let people make up their own minds tomorrow Now that’s something I can’t comment on, never having heard a note of the Pixies’ music. Interested to do so now...
The Pixies are probably the most influential rock group of the period. No Nevermind without them. Even Bowie was emulating them. They would have been inescapable for an aspiring indie band at the time.
Well, I agree with you there. I'd start with their Doolittle album. Yes, so influential that they are mentioned first in this quote from Neil's liner notes to Liberation: "Into my recommended NME diet of Pixies, Smiths and My Bloody Valentine ..."
My own Fanfare story is that I had been into TDC for maybe two or three years and often picked up my copies of Neil’s stuff at a local record store here in the Detroit area that carried a wide array of imports. I happened to be there one day and saw it sitting there in the Divine Comedy section. I did a quick double take and grabbed it. Listened to it, put it aside, and I ended up selling it for a decent price on eBay a couple years later. As for “Bleak Landscape,” I’ve listened to it three times since last night and remember almost nothing about it. Which says something I guess. It’s...there. 2/5
My Fanfare story isn't that exciting, but I somewhat surprisingly came across a copy of the CD on Ginza.se back in the early 00's. Don't think I played it that much to be honest, it was more of a completist thing. Sold it a few years later. I'm still not sure if I actually had a genuine repress or a pirate, but it seems odd that Ginza would sell pirated discs...
It is extremely difficult to tell a genuine 'Fanfare' CD from a counterfeit one. There appear to be many more of the latter than the former... Vinyl is the way to go here - I don't think there has been a vinyl counterfeit; but who knows...
It seems that there was a genuine (if small?) repress in 1998, which is how quite a few of us managed to find copies quite easily in unexpected places. My repress says “ALL TITELS (sic) BY NEIL HANNON” on the CD face, which was always considered the way to tell it apart from the original. Not sure about the counterfeit as I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.
I should point out that The Divine Comedy were basically my entry point to any current non-mainstream music... in 1990, I was 12 years old and living on a diet of Mike Oldfield and Jean-Michel Jarre plus the occasional bit of commercial top 40 radio... which eventually led me to stuff like Genesis and Sting before Britpop kicked off and I started getting vaguely interested in Blur, Saint Etienne and New Order. It wasn’t until “Something for the Weekend” that I found something I would get obsessive over! What can I say, strange child. I’m still filing in the gaps of musical knowledge I probably should have gained at the time!
“Bleak Landscape” scores 26.5 from 10 votes; for a final score of 2.65 Today’s song is: Tailspin Track 4 on “Fanfare” and track 5 on disc 2 of “Juveneilia”.
Tailspin This one isn't so appealing, though I can imagine it could be done much better with a more powerful band and a singer with a more powerful rock or punk voice. As it is, 2/5
Sorry for falsely assuming we were all on board with the early R.E.M. comparison. It did seem fairly blatant to me on the first two songs particularly, and has been officially acknowledged by Neil in the deprecating "not ironic but REM-ic" comment quoted above. I'm no musicologist, but the similarities I can put into words are a slight country-inflected, chiming/"jangling" guitar sound, based on the Byrds template but filtered through a rougher, scuzzy, indie sensibility. Byrdsian harmonies too, combined with a very indistinct and distant lead vocal and hard-to-decipher lyrics. Specific R.E.M. songs I have been reminded of listening to these first few songs: "Catapult", "Laughing", "Feeling Gravity's Pull", "Seven Chinese Brothers", "Moral Kiosk" (as mentioned re. the the discordant guitar flourishes on "Indian Rain") and "Bleak Landscape" has a touch of "The Flowers of Guatemala" to it. It's true that all these elements occur in other bands too, and I'm sure Pixies and other alt-guitar bands of the period are also big influences, but Neil has confirmed rather than denied the R.E.M. factor
"Tailspin" is the low point of "Fanfare" for me. I appreciate them going for a noisier sound and I love myself a little bit of feedback and serious riffage every now and then, but it just doesn't work. The production is inadequate and paper thin and could've used some Steve Albini punch; some room ambiance to give the sound a bit of weight. And Neil's vocals are on the verge of sounding whiny. He's a far cry from, say, Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers. It's 1.5/5.
Let’s bump this thread up a bit by posting my score a bit earlier than usual... When I first got this album (in 1998), I didn’t understand it at all. It didn’t sound anything like the Divine Comedy, and I found most of the songs boring. It was probably therefore inevitable that this would be my favourite at the time - as it’s the fastest and loudest track on the album... but listening to it now it’s just so naive, it’s a tough listen. I appreciate the band’s effort to “rock out” but their playing doesn’t quite match up to it, and the lyrics (the ones you can actually hear when Neil’s not slurring them together due to trying to fit too many in) are just cringeworthy. “Hard luck, your policies suck!” Add to that, the complete lack of a chorus (unless shouting “I hate unhappy endings, and there doesn’t have to be one...” counts?) and suddenly it feels like the least good track on the album instead. 2/5
I'm sure the band had great fun playing this, but for me it won't bear repeated listening... generic upbeat punky fayre, but this really isn't Neil's arena vocally. 2/5
"Tailspin" - Not very much charm to this song. Not sure if a different arrangement would help it. The production isn't really up to stuff - trebley crunchiness that I think they thought would read as "energy / rocking" but comes off more grating. Not really much to the tune as well. 1.5/5.00.
