Elastica: "Elastica"
I recall reading an interview with Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann years ago and, having been in and around the “Britpop” scene of the 1990’s, she remarked that she had expected the breakthrough in America Britpop band to be the Stone Roses.1
It was funny to me, then, because I had never even heard of “the Roses” or even her own previous band at that time, Suede. But who knows why certain English-speaking acts go huge in the UK but not America: The Spice Girls made the leap, but Bush remained unknown in Britain; Radiohead crossed the briny deep and remained relevant in the UK, but Catatonia did not.
As it happened, Frischmann was the front-woman for a band that had a mixed leap: they landed a single or two in America, but were largely forgotten by the time of the release of their sophomore album, The Menace. So, that was the down side.
But the upside was their freshman album, the self-titled Elastica. Sexy, androgynous, flirty, witty, and funny, Elastica landed in the summer of 1995 with it’s provocative and catchy “Connection” hitting medium rotation on MTV. Shortly after “Connection,” “2:1” appeared as part of the Trainspotting soundtrack which helped lift Elastica’s profile.
Heading off to college in the Fall of 1995, Elastica was a resident in my dorm room CD changer. My earliest memories of schoolwork (doing “Contemporary Moral Problems” essay writing) have this album as soundtrack.
Giving the album (yet-) another listen after all these years, I couldn’t resist the pop hooks, the nostalgia, and fun of the album. I also couldn’t avoid the conclusion that I had memorized much of the lyrics incorrectly as I was unable to seine out the words through Frischmann’s Kensington accent which was further accented by snarls, slang, exclamations, and semi-orgasmic squeals. As it turned out, it didn’t matter: the hooky-ness of the songs, the energy, and the beat power over the fact that you didn’t hear every fourth word and, even if you did know them, many of the lyrics in toto are verbal experiments or lyrics à clef detailing some music-business society kerfuffle that you don’t have any context on anyway.
Don’t worry. Be happy.
Let’s go back to the midpoint of the 90’s and un-forget Elastica’s Elastica.
Background
In the summer of 1995, as I prepared to head for college, Oasis, Blur, and Elastica started getting some rotation on MTV, and I spent that summer enjoying Elastica’s self-titled debut. In 1996-1997, the world would see Oasis’ crowning glory What’s the Story (Morning Glory) and Blur’s glorious eponymous record signal an apex of Britpop. Within another year or so after that, the Gallagher brothers’ volatility would end Oasis and Damon Albarn would turn his attentions to his next band, Gorillaz. But that was to be in the future.
The song that was Elastica’s breakthrough was “Connection.” I remember the (no-longer available) opening video of the quartet playing on a white set surrounded by dozens of nude, male models. That was pretty exceptional in the time where Aerosmith videos featured, for no real reason, pneumatically-inflated female eye-candy “just because.”
Because the catchy hook of “Connection” couldn’t be denied, and on the strength of it, I got the album. I suppose that back in those days, I was more willing to give a whole album a risk as, well, that’s the only choice we had. Fortunately Elastica was full of interesting, hip, funny, and incomprehensible English sassy.
Frischmann has a very cynical take on media, fame, and the rock n’ roll lifestyle (“SOFT,” “Line Up”). Other songs put forth a fairly novel take on female sexuality (for the time). Frischmann’s apostrophe to lovers owns her desire (“Car Song,” “All-Nighter”), laughs at the (not-so-humorous in the moment) failures of the human male (“Hold Me Now”), and works to address failures in communication of masculine desire (“Stutter”), etc.2
It’s definitely alternative rock, and it’s definitely British. All these years later I still turn to it, Blur’s eponymous record, and Oasis' “What’s the Story”. Let’s do a deep drive on the tracks
Most of the tracks are tight three-minute tunes with a driving beat. It’s a lot like a Ramones record that way. Additionally, given the songs’ diminutive runtimes, they chocked 16 tracks on this initial release. For my taste, the album doesn’t really hit its stride until the third track, “Connection,” but the opening isn’t enough to turn me off entirely.
“Line Up”
This song is part of the trope about the music industry and the band’s distaste for it.
It seems to be a song about groupies and oral sex of both the literal and the metaphorical variety. Apparently it was about the English musical press and how they would “Line Up” Hot New Things on a conveyor belt and uh…well…fluff them so that they could be on the good sides of those bands that went huge. For over 20 years, I have had no idea that this was the gist of the song until writing this.
In light of this, lyrics punctuated by…gagging? seems, wow, a but outré. I’d not rate this as one of the songs that really sells the album, but it’s not bad.
“Annie”
A song in tribute to Elastica bassist, Annie Holland, it’s curiously un-coded. It’s just a song about people having a really good time in Brighton. It moves quickly and sets a warmer mood than the staccato see-saw sound of “Line Up.”
“Connection”
The single designed to break the album in America, it’s obvious why it was elected as a single. On the other hand, after 20+ years of hearing it, I still have no idea what Frischmann was saying in like, so, so many verses. Reading the lyrics, they still make no sense to me. But man, that hook is an earworm.
“Car Song”
Here Elastica hit their stride, this is a naughty (but not gross) song about a girl who has a thing for sex in and around cars. It’s funny collection of bawdy rhyming couplets:
Take a siesta
In your Ford Fiesta
Every shining bonnet Makes me think of my back on it
It’s like a modern Canterbury Tale or a bawdy drinking song.
“Smile”
Kicking things back into high gear, we get a taste of octane and anger from Frischmann as she plays a lover confronting a lover whom she imagines getting a bit too much attention from someone else on a night out. It’s got a pulsing beat that carries things forward in a punkishly energetic confrontation.
Peaches and cream, where have you been? Did you know I’ve been waiting all night Who’s bed where you in? Who’s head were you turning? Don’t you know I’ve been out of my mind
As far as fidelity confrontations go, it’s surprisingly sweet and vulnerable bit of angst.
“Hold Me Now”
In what will be a recurrent theme across the album, Frischmann addresses a lover who seems to be having some trouble meeting her physical needs because of some sort of lack of rising to the romantic occasion. Again, Frischmann is remarkably up-front about her desire and her openness. There’s no “fronting” here. She wants what she wants, and she’s willing to collaborate or understand how to make it happen. It’s a stance that is really not heard very often in current music where so much of sexual bargaining is “I’m so fly; No, I’m so fly” bragging.
“S.O.F.T”
In another song that addresses the “music industry is gross” theme, Frischmann casts a cynical eye on the music industry by describing a performer who’s just the latest coming off the conveyor belt (“Line Up”) and who’s been made a flirty piece of skirt for a few quid of album sales:
Did the Devil say to you You can make it through? I’ll take you up the shop And in a dress too small To be a dress at all Is it hard to stop?
It’s worth pointing out that the acronym stands for “So Fucking Typical.”
“Indian Song”
Sounding like something from a George Harrison post-Beatles album, the song repeats a certain Hinduism-compatible verses while pulling in some Asian instrumentation. It’s an interesting break from the 4/4 “1-2-3-4” songs to this point.
“Blue”
An epic banger of a song, “Blue” might well be one of the best Britpop songs ever. Hard-driving and ferocious after a deceptively slow opener, I never understood the lyrics’ references and content and I’m not sure I need to. This, Oasis’ “Cast No Shadow” and Blur’s “Song 2,” and you’ve got a pretty good idea of the movement.
“All-Nighter”
Yet again, romantic Frischmann is let down by a guy who doesn’t know when it’s time to seal the proverbial sexual deal.
Oh we’ve been up all night I can feel a strange attraction And It’s getting light Yeah I can’t spur you into action Sure not alone But so on my own… Oh!
Additionally, I think this song has a funny shred of poetry too:
You’re a cloud short of heaven
“Waking Up”
An oddly anti-#antiwork song, Justine is verbally kicking herself in the own ass to get to work. During that Fall of 1995, as I first was getting the hang of managing my own schedule, my own time, and doing well in my classes, this song was a great reminder that everyone would rather be lazy, but that the rewards of achievement are better than the continual ephemeral pleasure of laziness.
Waking up and getting up has never been easy Oh woah ah, I think you should know Oh woah ah, I think you should go Make a cup of tea, put a record on
“2:1”
This song also had an outsized presence due to its inclusion on the Trainspotting movie soundtrack. It appears in the film during a tense, paranoiac scene of planing a doomed heist. It shows that Elastica had some arranging chops. In the second verse, we hear Frischmann in an echoing dialogue with herself that creates a split-brain feeling.
“Vaseline”
A fun gimmick song about a lubricant. It doesn’t take itself seriously and, kids, Vaseline is destructive to latex condoms.
“Never Here”
It’s a break-up song. It’s wistful and sad and sweet. That’s how breakups are. It’s got some zingers in it for the former beau (assumed to be Brett Anderson of Suede), but it’s not particularly malicious, it’s just honest looking backward about the facts and the wreckage of a relationship:
And you lent me your records And I lent you an ear Funny how it seems to me now That you were never here Never really here
“Stutter”
Once more back to the theme of men not communicating their sexual needs frankly, Frischmann drops:
Is it something you lack When I’m flat on my back? Is it something that I can do for you? It’s always someone you hate Or it’s something you ate Tell me is it the way that I touch you? Have you found a new lay And is she really great? Is it just that I’m much too much for you?
The real barb in all that is the last line where we see some of the feminist ownership of sexuality start to shine through. Is it possible that her drive, ambition, and refusal to play games or be coy about her desire has thrown off the male-dominated narrative into impotence? It’s a funny song with a hell of a socio-political grenade in it.
“See That Animal”
OK, once more. I have no idea what the lyrics are and I never really cared what they mean. Seeing them spelled out creates no difference to how I’d incorrectly memorized them. This song might well have been cut without much damage to the album.
Conclusion
Elastica was a fun record for a not-so-serious time. The chiefly-woman band brought some much-needed female perspective to the too-too-masculine Britpop movement and did it with style, aplomb, and sassy.
Footnotes
- It wound up being Oasis and Blur neck-and-neck with, I’d judge, Blur/Gorillaz out-lasting the Gallagher brothers’ drama-and-band.
- We’re a long way from “WAP” or Nicki Minaj owning the secretion-frank aspects of female sexual identity.