I Love Mekons
| I Love Mekons | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by The Mekons | ||||
| Released | October 18, 1993 | |||
| Genre | Punk rock | |||
| Length | 50:01 | |||
| Label | Quarterstick/Touch and Go | |||
| The Mekons chronology | ||||
| ||||
I Love Mekons (stylized I ♥ Mekons on the album cover; also referred to as I (Heart) Mekons) is an album by the British-American punk rock band the Mekons, released in 1993 on the Quarterstick and Touch and Go labels. It is a concept album consisting of twelve love songs.[1]
Background
Before I Love Mekons was released, the Mekons had been engaged in two years of rancorous arguments with their record label at the time, Warner Bros. Records subsidiary Loud Records. As a result, the Mekons did not release any albums for two years after the release of The Curse of the Mekons in 1991. Originally, Warner Bros. had refused to release I Love Mekons because they thought it was not good enough. After the Mekons parted ways with Loud Records, the album was released in 1993 on Quarterstick, a subsidiary of Touch and Go.[2][3]
Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Chicago Tribune | |
| Christgau's Consumer Guide | B+[5] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music |  |
| Orlando Sentinel | |
| Rolling Stone | |
Melody Maker's Dave Jennings described I Love Mekons as "simultaneously a brilliant, exhilarating pop record and an exploration of the assumptions behind other people’s pop records."[9] Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ grade, describing it as "love songs, laid out casually across disc and lyric sheet--a country album without a happy ending."[5]
End-of-year lists
Greg Kot ranked I Love Mekons as his 10th favorite album of 1993,[10] and Mark LePage of the Montreal Gazette named it his 4th favorite album of the year.[11]
Track listing
- Millionaire – 4:37
- Wicked Midnite – 3:51
- I Don't Know – 4:20
- Dear Sausage – 3:48
- All I Want – 3:49
- Special – 2:30
- St. Valentine's Day – 4:59
- I Love Apple – 3:26
- Love Letter – 4:18
- Honeymoon In Hell – 5:34
- Too Personal – 5:54
- Point Of No Return – 3:00
References
- ↑ Byrne, Richard (2004-03-22). "Mekon Love". The American Prospect. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
- 1 2 Dougan, John. "I Love Mekons - The Mekons". AllMusic. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
- ↑ Rothschild, David (1993-03-12). "Cheap Trick Signs With Warner, Plans Album". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
- ↑ Kot, Greg (1993-10-29). "Falling In Love With Mekons". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
- 1 2 Christgau, Robert (2000-10-15). "The Mekons: I Love Mekons". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. Macmillan Publishing. ISBN 9780312245603.
- ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857125958.
- ↑ Gettelman, Parry (1993-11-05). "The Mekons". Orlando Sentinel.
- ↑ Kot, Greg (1997-07-31). "The Mekons: I Love Mekons". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2008-05-14.
- ↑ "The Mekons". Contemporary Musicians. Gale. 2004. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
- ↑ Kot, Greg (1993-12-31). "City Band Tops Newspaper's Best Album List". NewsOK.com. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
- ↑ LePage, Mark (1993-12-23). "Year's high and low notes". Montreal Gazette.
Further reading
- Brown, Peter Robert (2014-11-14). "Meet the Mekons: Popular Music, Art, and Cultural Critique". Rock Music Studies. 2 (1): 22–45. doi:10.1080/19401159.2014.980598. ISSN 1940-1159.