The correct use of soap

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The correct use of soap
Magazine's studio album

Publication
(s)

1980

Label (s) Virgin Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Post punk

Title (number)

10

running time

39:36

occupation
  • Bass: Barry Adamson
  • Drums: John Doyle
  • Keyboard: Dave Formula

production

Martin Hannett

Studio (s)

various studios, London

chronology
Secondhand Daylight
(1979) 		The correct use of soap Magic, Murder and the Weather
(1981)

The Correct Use of Soap is the third album by the British post-punk band Magazine . The album was released by Virgin Records in April 1980 .

History of origin

After the tour for the previous album Secondhand Daylight, magazines began the year 1980 with a peel session . The set of this performance included the previously unreleased songs Look What Fear Has Done to My Body , Twenty Years Ago , A Song from Under the Floorboards and Model Worker . Three of these tracks were later used for the album in the studio, Look What Fear Has Done to My Body was recorded on the album called Because You're Frightened .

Initially, the band only wanted to release three singles in quick succession to generate attention for the last album after the mixed reviews. As early as June 1979 , the Sly - & - the-Family-Stone cover Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) was recorded with Hannett, who had already produced the Buzzcocks EP Spiral Scratch with Devoto . The band recorded the other nine tracks in different studios in London in January and February. The mixing took place in the Britannia Road Studion, where Hannett produced the album Closer for Joy Division after the mix for The Correct Use of Soap . The album title goes back to a line from the song Twenty Years Ago : "Twenty years ago I used your soap".

A Song from Under the Floorboards was released as a single in February 1980 with Twenty Years Ago on the B-side, but missed entry into the UK charts . Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) with The Book as B-side followed a month later. The third single was Upside Down with a new recording produced by Hannett in June 1979 of The Light Pours out of Me contained on the previous album as the B-side.

John McGeoch left the band in July 1980 after the album was released to join Siouxsie and the Banshees . Dave Formula, Barry Adamson and McGeoch were involved in the recording of the debut album of the studio project Visage . Formula and Adamson were temporarily engaged in both bands. For a world tour of the album, magazines hired the former guitarist of the band Ultravox , Robin Simon.

Track list

The songs were composed by magazines, unless otherwise stated. Howard Devoto wrote the lyrics.

  1. Because You're Frightened - 3:54
  2. Model Worker - 2:51
  3. I'm a Party - 3:01
  4. You Never Knew Me - 5:23
  5. Philadelphia - 3:54
  6. I Want to Burn Again - 5:16
  7. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) ( Sylvester Stewart ) - 3:48
  8. Sweetheart Contract - 3:18
  9. Stuck - 4:04
  10. A Song from Under the Floorboards - 4:07

An edition remastered in 2007 also contains the titles of the singles from the time the album was released that were not used on the album:

  1. Twenty Years Ago - 3:03
  2. The Book - 2:22
  3. Upside Down - 3:47
  4. The Light Pours out of Me (Howard Devoto / John McGeoch / Pete Shelley ) - 3:28

Record cover

The cover design was done by British graphic designer Malcolm Garrett, a fellow student of Peter Saville at the Polytechnic in Manchester and founder and director of Assorted iMaGes. Garrett and his company designed numerous record covers, including for Simple Minds , Duran Duran and Peter Gabriel , who were successful in the 1980s .

Publication and chart success

Virgin Records released the album in April 1980. The album entered the UK album charts at number 28 in early May, but only lasted 4 weeks.

In Canada, the PolyGram album was released under the title An Alternative Use of Soap with an alternate order of titles. Instead of the song Model Worker , the new recording of The Light Pours out of Me was used for this edition.

reception

The music press received mostly positive reviews. For the British music press in particular, “The Correct Use of Soap” is considered to be the key magazine album. The British NME saw the album as “a vivid contemplation of a mind in which sensation is synonymous with analytics and the shedding of inhibitions - an event that deserves careful attention.” (“The album [is] a vivid examination of a mind in which sensation is synonymous with analysis and the shedding of inhibitions - an event which merits meticulous attention. ”) The British journal Sounds considers the album to be“ a great record, a brilliantly rounded and complete compilation of songs ”(“ a magnificent record , a brilliantly rounded and complete set of songs ").

The A Song from Under the Floorboards, inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Basement Hole , has won several awards. a. covered by Simple Minds and Morrissey .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Malcolm Garrett's website. In: malcolmgarrett.com. Retrieved January 30, 2012 (English).
  2. ↑ The Correct Use of Soap in the UK album charts. In: officialcharts.com. Retrieved November 18, 2016 .
  3. ↑ a b from the liner notes for the digital remaster from 2007 - Kieron Tyler