A Catholic Education
Debut album by Scottish alternative rock band Teenage Fanclub.
Teenage Fanclub, a Scottish alternative rock band, put out their first studio album, A Catholic Education, in 1990. Critics and music journalists in the UK gave it good reviews. The song "Everything Flows" from that record later showed up on two compilation albums, Deep Fried Fanclub and Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds – A Short Cut to Teenage Fanclub, released in 1995 and 2003 respectively.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- Teenage Fanclub
- Released
- 11 June 1990
- Recorded
- July – December 1989
- Studio
- Pet Sounds
- Glasgow
- Scotland; Suite 16
- Rochdale
- England
- Genre
- Alternative rock, grunge
- Length
- 39:46
- Label
- Paperhouse (Europe); Matador (North America)
Facts from the source article.
Track listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everything Flows | Blake | 5:12 |
| 2 | Everybody's Fool | Blake, Love, McGinley | 2:54 |
| 3 | Catholic Education | Blake | 2:34 |
| 4 | Eternal Light | Blake | 4:11 |
| 5 | Heavy Metal | McGinley | 2:14 |
| 6 | Critical Mass | Blake | 2:48 |
| 7 | Too Involved | Blake, McGinley | 2:38 |
| 8 | Don't Need a Drum | Blake, McGinley | 3:18 |
| 9 | Every Picture I Paint | Blake, McGinley | 3:23 |
| 10 | Catholic Education 2 | Blake | 3:01 |
| 11 | Heavy Metal II | Blake, McGinley | 7:21 |
Track listing from the source article.
Background
Teenage Fanclub formed in 1989 as a continuation of what guitarists Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley and drummer Francis Macdonald had been doing in their previous band The Boy Hairdressers. Blake recalled that after trying to get record deals, they decided to simply make a record. They raised money for studio time at Pet Sounds Studios in Glasgow; Blake said Raymond sold a fridge and a washing machine left to him by a neighbour to fund the album. Bassist Gerard Love met Norman at a gig in May 1989 and was asked to join for the recording, which began by mid-July. The album's dark, heavy sound differed from the band's later power pop work. Blake cited Sonic Youth's Evol and Daydream Nation, Exile on Main St., Love, Arthur Lee, Buffalo Springfield, the Beatles, and Neil Young as influences. After finishing his drum parts, Macdonald left to return to university and was replaced by Brendan O'Hare. The band re-recorded four songs at Suite 16 in Rochdale with O'Hare. A tape of the recordings reached the independent labels Paperhouse and Matador, both of which released the album: Paperhouse in the UK on 11 June 1990, and Matador in the US on 2 August 1990.
Album title
Norman Blake said in 2016 that the title A Catholic Education was chosen to provoke a reaction in the west of Scotland, and also referred to the word 'catholic' meaning eclectic, reflecting the band's range of influences. He added that no one was angered by the title and that they simply thought it sounded good.
Reception
At the time of release, A Catholic Education received mainly positive reviews from music critics. In a retrospective review, Jason Ankeny of AllMusic noted the album's 'gloriously sloppy and sludgy sound' and its prefiguring of grunge, with melodies owing more to Neil Young than Big Star. Trouser Press wrote that the band's 'straightforward guitar pop' was presented in a 'flattering light' but that uneven songwriting kept the album from being a full course, singling out 'Everything Flows,' 'Critical Mass,' 'Eternal Light,' and 'Everybody's Fool' as highlights.
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