youngandsober:

A Postcard Records fanzine that I found in the depths of my hard drive, presumably from 1981, as it mentions ‘Poor Old Soul” currently topping the alternative chart. Kinda sad, as Alan Horne talks in the zine about releasing the Orange Juice album (Ostrich Churchyard), and taking Postcard bands to tour Europe and America, which of course never happened as the label went bust a few months after the interview was published!

A good read. No idea if this is widely circulated or not, if you’ve seen it a million times then apologies.

(via presscolor)

Source: youngandsober

tomewing:

Orange Juice doing “What Presence?” from the Dada With The Juice video, included on the DVD in their Box Set Coals To Newcastle, which I just reviewed for Pitchfork.

Reviewing box sets is hard - career notes plus 100+ tracks in 500 words? With this band I think they’ve been slightly ill-served by their reputation, too - their early Postcard singles are now so legendary as root causes of indiepop that it tends to obscure the qualities which made the band special throughout their career. Not that “Simply Thrilled Honey” et al aren’t brilliant, but most of the ways that they’re brilliant are throughlines to the rest of Orange Juice’s work, not just throughlines to C86 or whatever.

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The Top 35 Or So Songs of the 80’s

#31: Orange Juice - Falling And Laughing

After a string of seminal indie singles for Postcard Records, Orange Juice released two albums in 1982: You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever and Rip It Up. The former realizes the vision of those singles: 60’s sunshine-pop for the DIY set. The music is endearing and amateurish, and the lyrics are sensitive, self-deprecating, and a little campy. It sounds just like what we modern listeners expect from a label called “Postcard”, and in this respect, Orange Juice and their Postcard cohorts invented indie pop and set the template for a generation of bedroom pop-stars. (Seriously, “I’m falling and laughing” is a perfect twee lyric.)

The twist of course is that Edwyn Collins got ambitious, and Orange Juice underwent a personnel change and major-label reboot for Rip It Up, replacing their pristine guitar pop with glossy futuristic funk. It’s easy to peg OJ as sell-outs for abandoning Postcard, but the band existed in a rare era where a scrappy indie band could clean themselves up and score a top ten hit. Indie’s staunch and proud aversion to success would emerge years later (and die out in this decade, anyway). Besides, Orange Juice were goofballs; their biggest hit, “Rip It Up”, borrows a riff and some choice lyrics from the Buzzcock’s “Boredom”.