C'mon Kids
C'mon Kids is the fifth album by The Boo Radleys, it was released in September 1996. The album is considered to be purposely difficult and uncommercial. The band were said to have wanted to distance themselves from the commercial image they had cultivated because of the unexpected successes of the album Wake Up! and their top ten hit single "Wake Up Boo!". However, this was not the intention of the band as explained by Sice in an interview in 2005:
We didn't want to scare away the hit-kids, we wanted to take them with us to somewhere that we'd not been before. All we wanted to do was make a different type of album than Wake Up... All we wanted to do was try something new – to keep ourselves fresh and interested. We were very surprised to find that it was seen as a deliberate attempt to scare away newly created fans. That would have been an extremely foolish thing to do.
— Sice
| C'mon Kids | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 9 September 1996 | |||
| Recorded | January–February 1996 | |||
| Studio | Rockfield Studios, Wales | |||
| Genre | Britpop, indie rock, noise pop | |||
| Length | 52:39 | |||
| Label | Creation CRECD 194 | |||
| Producer | Paul Q. Kolderie, Sean Slade, The Boo Radleys | |||
| The Boo Radleys chronology | ||||
| ||||
C'mon Kids is the all-time favourite album of Tom White of The Electric Soft Parade, a band influenced by the album.[1] According to Martin Sainsbury of Drowned in Sound, Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers also listened to "little else for a year," whereas Radiohead "went back to the drawing board when hearing it during the OK Computer sessions."[1][2]
Reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| Alternative Press | 5/5[4] |
| Drowned in Sound | 10/10[1] |
| Entertainment Weekly | A−[5] |
| The Guardian | |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
The album was less successful than its predecessor, charting at #20 on the UK albums chart.[8] It did however spawn three UK top 40 singles, "What's In The Box? (See Whatcha Got)" at #25, "C'mon Kids" at #18 (their second and last UK top 20 single), and a radio edit of "Ride The Tiger" (shortened by over three minutes from the album version) made #38.[9]
In his book Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock, writer Jim DeRogatis ranked C'Mon Kids at number 110 in his list "The Ultimate Psychedelic Rock Library: One-Hundred Eighty-Nine Albums You Can't Live Without."[10] Music journalist Mark Beaumont said the album "deserved the edict of 'post Britpop classic'."[11]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Martin Carr.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "C'mon Kids" | 4:10 |
| 2. | "Meltin's Worm" | 4:19 |
| 3. | "Melodies for the Deaf (Colours for the Blind)" | 3:45 |
| 4. | "Get on the Bus" | 3:13 |
| 5. | "Everything Is Sorrow" | 4:38 |
| 6. | "Bullfrog Green" | 4:41 |
| 7. | "What's in the Box? (See Whatcha Got)" | 3:30 |
| 8. | "Four Saints" | 4:26 |
| 9. | "New Brighton Promenade" | 3:06 |
| 10. | "Fortunate Sons" | 3:58 |
| 11. | "Shelter" | 2:01 |
| 12. | "Ride the Tiger" | 6:38 |
| 13. | "One Last Hurrah" | 4:20 |
- 2010 reissue CD2
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Bloke in a Dress" | 2:41 |
| 2. | "Flakes" | 1:53 |
| 3. | "What's in the Box? (See Whatcha Got) (Kris's Erupting Cricket Box Mix)" | 7:37 |
| 4. | "Atlantic" | 3:09 |
| 5. | "The Absent Boy" | 2:01 |
| 6. | "Annie & Marnie" | 3:26 |
| 7. | "Spion Kop" | 2:02 |
| 8. | "To Beautiful" | 1:42 |
| 9. | "Bullfrog Green (Ultra Living Remix)" | 4:57 |
| 10. | "Nothing to Do But Scare Myself" | 3:06 |
| 11. | "From the Bench at Belvidere (Ultramarine Remix)" | 6:38 |
| 12. | "Fortunate Sons (Greg Hunter Remix)" | 4:02 |
| 13. | "Vote You" | 2:35 |
| 14. | "A Part I Know So Well" | 2:24 |
| 15. | "Everything is Sorrow (Grantby Remix)" | 6:50 |
| 16. | "Roadie" | 3:05 |
| 17. | "Safe at Home" | 2:17 |
| 18. | "C'mon Kids (Mekon Remix)" | 2:35 |
- Tracks 1–6 from the "What's in the Box? (See Whatcha Got)" single
- Tracks 7–12 from the "C'mon Kids" single
- Tracks 13–18 from the "Ride the Tiger" single
Personnel
- Sice – vocals
- Rob Cieka – drums, percussion
- Tim Brown – bass guitar, keyboards
- Martin Carr – guitar, keyboards, vocals
References
- Sainsbury, Martin (3 October 2001). "Album Review: Boo Radleys – C'mon Kids". Drowned in Sound. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
- "Drawing for kids".
- Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "C'mon Kids – The Boo Radleys". AllMusic. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
- "The Boo Radleys: C'mon Kids". Alternative Press. No. 106. May 1997. p. 66.
- Flaherty, Mike (18 April 1997). "C'mon Kids". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
- Sullivan, Caroline (13 September 1996). "The Boo Radleys: C'mon Kids (Creation)". The Guardian.
- Larkin, Colin (2007). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.
- "Cmon Kids". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
- "The Boo Radleys". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
- DeRogatis, Jim (1 December 2003). Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock. Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 570. ISBN 0634055488. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
- Beaumont, Mark (8 October 2008). Out of This World - The Story of Muse. United Kingdom: Omnibus Press. ISBN 1847723772. Retrieved 3 May 2017.