Sunday 5 January 2014

Business As Usual

At some point towards the end of last year I had my ipod on shuffle, a Righteous Jams song came on, and it jogged my memory that the band had a second album. After reading an interesting article about how bad Metallica's 'St Anger' was, and then downloading it and really liking it, I decided that I should give more chances to bad records. So I downloaded the second Righteous Jams LP 'Business As Usual'. And wouldn't you know it, I ended up liking that too. So then I obviously had to buy the record. And obviously I didn't want just any copy. No, I had to get one of the blue vinyl copies.

I was surprised, but this one isn't that easy to get. It doesn't seem to come up for sale too often. Not sure why this would be. I mean, I can't imagine this is in many people's list of favourite records. I can only assume that the first pressing was a relatively small run. Perhaps also people who own it think there's no point in selling it as it wouldn't fetch more than the price of a sandwich. Whatever the reason though, I thought this would be an easy pick up, but it took a while. Anyway, as you can see, I managed to find one in the end.

The blue vinyl does seem like a good choice as it goes nicely with the cover. I also like the simplicity of the cover. Kind of like the first LP. No need for pictures. Words will do the job nicely.

Seems like only a couple of years back that Righteous Jams were THE band of the moment. I remember going to see them play in Sheffield and they absolutely killed it. An amazing show which even the band said was one of their best. Despite it seeming like a recent-ish show, it was either 8 or 9 years ago now. Insane. Anyway, the 'Rage Of Discipline' LP was undoubtedly one of the best records of the noughties and I think it's fair to say that this follow up was highly anticipated, but unfortunately the world was left massively disappointed. It received a universal panning, and it seemed that not long after it dropped the band was done. Shame though. I mean, it's actually a good record. I guess it's just too different to the first record. The main change is that the songs are a lot longer. But it's not bad by any means.

If anyone has any other tips for universally bad records for me to check out, please comment. I like a challenge.

5 comments:

Mike said...

I haven't heard this RJ album in a long time. I may have to dust it off and give it another try.

You may have to try the self titled Warzone album, or Token Entry's Weight of the World next!

mcs said...

I don't think I'm ready for that self titled Warzone record again quite yet. I have owned that twice on vinyl in the past. The first time I was young and didn't know better. I sold it. The second time I bought it was because I figured it couldn't have been as bad as I remembered. I guess I should have trusted myself more! I sold it again. I'm not sure I could put myself through it again, although at least I wouldn't actually have to pay for it this time...

Mike said...

In the spirit of your challenge, over the past couple of days, I've listened to that Warzone LP, the second RJ album, and Uniform Choice Staring into the Sun. Someone kill me before I download SSD's Break It Up.

Honestly, the Righteous Jams one may be the only one that doesn't find space on my ipod.

mcs said...

You'd seriously take the Warzone LP over the Righteous Jams? Wow. Just try the song 'You Have Issues' one more time. It has a seriously catchy guitar riff.

I have never heard 'Break It Up'. I'm heading to check it out right now...

Mike said...

Honestly, I would. I acknowledge that the Warzone LP isn't a very good album, and the drums sound worse than St. Anger, but it was the first Warzone album I ever heard. It was around 1990 and I was still figuring out Hardcore...that's my excuse anyway, because I liked it at the time. So listening to it now is a nostalgia trip.

There is some good stuff going on with the RJ album, but not enough to really want to return to it any time soon.