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Tracklisting & More Information
6-LP boxset (limited to 700 copies) with 6 cd's in slipcases.
Emerging at the end of punk era, The Monochrome Set's estrangement from society came from a more arty angle. This boxset is the full account of their frantically productive early period, the perfect document of an under-appreciated chapter of British pop history.
Though widely unknown, they are one of the most influential British bands of the last 40 years, with the early Morrissey and Marr, Blur's Graham Coxon and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos among their admirers. Though Bid never went to college, The Monochrome Set are often seen as an archetypal art school band.
Their name alludes to Yves Klein's monochrome paintings while song titles like "Alphaville" and "Eine Symphonie des Grauens" nodded to Godard and F.W. Murnau.
In 1979 they released a string of snappy, now highly collectible singles on Rough Trade, followed by early masterpieces Strange Boutique and Love Zombies.
In 1982 they moved to Cherry Red Records with their third LP Eligible Bachelors whose lead single "The Jet Set Junta" was banned for its non-existent connection to the Falklands War.
Their major label effort The Lost Weekend (1985) contained their biggest airplay hit "Jacob's Ladder." "I read a bit of Restoration poetry and listen to Leadbelly, and it comes out like that" (Bid, The Monochrome Set).The casual prose of pop history is full of backhanded compliments, and The Monochrome Set have received a few, ranging from "should have been massive" to "influential", numbering the likes of Morrissey and Marr, Blur's Graham Coxon and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos among their celebrity admirers.
All of which seems irrelevant when faced with the rich treasures assembled here from a previously scattered back catalogue.
Here's the early work of a band that always eschewed world domination in favour of twisting chord sequences, turning phrases and plotting perfect collisions of guitar and vocal lines.
When The Monochrome Set emerged towards the end of the punk era, they didn't fit the voguish stereotypes of the day. "I'm not pretending to be working class," says Bid, "I'm half American, half Indian, but I'm also quintessentially British, apparently." As it was, the early Monochrome Set sound betrayed a fondness of Lou Reed and American psychedelia, and though they shared their generation's sense of estrangement, they certainly weren't part of the punk revolution.
Admittedly, the Hornsey School of Art played a part in the band's genesis. This was where lead guitarist Tom Hardy, later to be known as Lester Square, studied with a certain Stuart Goddard aka Adam Ant, which is also why The Monochrome Set's family tree shares its roots with the latter's first band the B-sides and the early Ants.
The Monochrome Set's lack of breakthrough success is usually attributed to their inability to churn out the hits, but in hindsight their now highly collectible first four seven inches for the Rough Trade label, united here on one disc with all the singles from the early eighties period, prove that they started out as bona fide masters of pop's ultimate format.
Here is the full account of their frantically productive early period, and as such the perfect document of a widely under-appreciated, essential part of British pop history. Robert Rotifer, Canterbury 2017.
LP1/Strange Boutique LP2/Love Zombies LP3/Eligible Bachelors LP4/Lost Weekend LP5/Singles I LP6/Singles II
Full tracklisting available on request.
VINYL LP BOX SET
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