418) The Undertones

The Undertones will always have a place in musical history if they never did another concert or release another record. Their legacy was secured with John Peel naming their song Teenage Kicks his favourite ever song and even his gravestone has the words from this wonderful song “teenage dreams so hard to beat” etched on it.

The original line up, minus vocalist Fergal Sharkey, still tour with Paul McLoone on vocals and if they play near you go along as you get all the hits and plenty more.

Four albums in five years probably was the bands undoing but although their commercial fortunes dipped towards the end each record has its merits, but we will start where they came in with their self-titled debut.

Rough splashy guitars welcome us into Family Entertainment, and we all know Fergal has a unique wonderful voice and the bands shouty vocals behind him work a treat.

They like a song with the word Girl in the title, and we have their first, Girls Don’t Like It, great guitar solo. Male Model could be on The Ramones debut but would they have had the excellent line “My mama bought me clothes for her favourite son, Freeman’s, Item A page 61,” sorry that’s genius, and I Gotta Getta, let’s get back to The Ramones, would not look out of place listed on the back of one of their records.

Jump Boys starts like Clash City Rockers which I am not going to complain about and Here Comes the Summer shows that Teenage Kicks wasn’t a fluke, catchy, concise, and brilliant, yep, they can do that.

Jimmy Jimmy I would say Fergal dominates, but maybe The Undertones were just a band who couldn’t help themselves its catchy guitar pop with a distinct voice and great shouty vocals and True Confessions works wonderful with all of the band singing and Fergal doing the final shout and great guitar on I Know a Girl.

Casbah Rock ends the record a mere forty-seven seconds, the band knew exactly what they were doing, leaving us wanting more. 

8.5/10

 GIVE IT A STREAM: Here Comes the Summer