Friday, February 02, 2007

The Pop Group: Y

The Pop Group was a great agit prop band, whose roots (if such term can be used for a new wave group) are in so many musical styles and approaches: jazz, world music, funk and (of course) punk. The quality of this album is a good reason to post it on my blog, but another good reason why is that The Pop Group had a strong bond with The Slits, with whom they were buddies and that they probably influenced (both their first LP's covers were overtly about their interest on primitivism, and moreover both were produced by Dennis Bowell, the biggest name in producing raggae at the end if the 70's in the UK).
Anyway, the "Y" LP is a new wave milestone, whose sound is still a smash in the face with its clanging guitars, great funky rhythm section ("Simon Underwood [bass] and Buce Smith [drums] were post-punk's Sly & Robbie", according to Dennis Bowell), and Mark Stewart's political angst. Imagine a Gang of Four flirting with dub/ethnic experimentalisms and you might get what they sound like. Or you could try and download this 1979 gem (it really is: the Amazon link over here will tell you that you can have it delivered for 42,99 USD, not really change money).

More on The Pop Group:
Here's what you are looking for: a very well done fansite with some live mp3's as well.

Y

4 comments:

Ruido Horrible said...

Hey man, everytime I try entering the mediafire site to download stg the page appears fully blank. Any idea? I'd really appreciate if you could help me!!!!

thanks and best

-sergio

misha said...

reply to ruido:it's weird, I've just tried and it works out.. I don't know why..it seems to work both with explorer than with firefox, so maybe it's just your area or your server. Try in after a while and see if it is still so.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for a great share!BTW I found that enabling cookies helps with the downloads (you can always delete them later)

Allan said...

Love your blog, came across it looking for the Rainy Day album, great to see that it's still available (I've actually got two copies of the album, the U.S & U.K versions, but have never had 'em digitized). One of my fave albums, thank you for that very much.


Wondered where the Pop Group site had gone to, my bookmark for when it had "texas.edu" in the URL has long been unavailable, & I thought the site might've closed permanently. Great to see that it hasn't.


Keep up the good work.