Teenage Fanclub - Secondary Education (2018)

Following on from the success of Teenage Fanclub's fifth album 'Grand Prix', 'Songs From Northern Britain' became their highest-charting release in the UK, reaching number three, and contained their biggest hit single to date in 'Ain't That Enough'. Their last two albums showed a distinct change in style by the band, eschewing larger pop culture trends like grunge and Brit-pop in favour of further honing their sparkling, guitar-based sound, a choice that only worked to endear them to their loyal cult fan base. For this album the band had once again conscripted producer David Bianco, who helped them expand their sound with a bevy of acoustic instruments, strings, and brass, resulting in songs like 'I Don't Want Control Of You', 'Take The Long Way Round', and 'Your Love Is The Place I Come From' feeling more personal, reflecting upon themes of nature, romantic fidelity, and the passing of time. In 2000 they left Creation Records and moved to Columbia, where they recorded 'Howdy!' at David Gilmour's Astoria studio, and at Rockfield Studios in Wales. Producing the album themselves, they embraced an even more ambitious mix of orchestral arrangements and varied instrumentation, and the record included a handful of songs that would become fan favourites, like 'Dumb Dumb Dumb', 'My Uptight Life', and 'I Need Direction'. It was also the first album recorded with keyboardist Finlay MacDonald (no relation to Francis), and the last with drummer Quinn, who left the band toward the end of recording and went on to front his own project, the Primary 5, being replaced by original drummer Francis Macdonald. 

The band stayed busy over the next few years, playing live and collaborating with spoken word artist Jad Fair on the album 'Words Of Wisdom and Hope', and they also assembled a retrospective anthology, which included three newly minted songs. It was three more years before they began work on their next album, eventually traveling to Chicago to record with post-rock icon John McEntire at his Soma recording studio. Released on the band's own imprint PeMa, 2005's 'Man-Made' marked a return to their earlier format as a quartet, and was characterized by discrete flourishes of keyboard, piano, and viola. Another five years passed before the self-produced 'Shadows' appeared in 2010, and it was the first to feature instrumental contributions by regular touring keyboardist/guitarist David McGowan as a full-time member. Around this time Blake relocated to Toronto, Canada, and while the band reunited for several live shows, it would be several years before they would begin work on another album. In 2016, they finally returned with their tenth studio album, 'Here', produced by the band in France and at McGinley's home in Glasgow, and it showcased a more ruminative, folk-inflected sound. It also landed them back at number one on Billboard's Heatseekers chart for the second time, 25 years after 'Bandwagonesque' first charted. 

Along with touring, the band was active off-stage, working at London's famed Abbey Road Studios on vinyl reissues of their five albums for Creation, but in 2018 Love amicably parted ways with the band after expressing his disinterest in flying to accommodate their tour schedule. Their eleventh studio album, and first without Love, arrived in March 2020, and 'Endless Arcade' found the group reflecting on themes of aging and heartache, primarily influenced by the break-up of Blake's marriage. In September 2023, they returned with the equally lyrical and introspective release, 'Nothing Lasts Forever', which was heralded by the '60s-style psych-rock-influenced single 'Foreign Land', and that brings up to date for these much-loved Scottish indie-rockers. Throughout the late 90's and up to the singles released from 'Howdy!' they continued to add up to four previously unheard songs to each of the b-sides of their singles, but when the time between albums started to stretch to up to five years, they filled the gap by contributing to compilation albums, split singles or collaborations with other artists, and when digital singles started being released in the mid-2010's then b-sides were no longer included. These final three albums in this series collect together all these additional tracks recorded by the band and given away to fans as b-sides, as well as the two stand-alone singles that they released in 2018. 

Track listing

Disc I - 1995-1997
01 Some People Try To Fuck With You (b-side of 'Mellow Doubt' 1995)  
02 Getting Real (b-side of 'Mellow Doubt' 1995)
03 Have You Ever Seen The Rain (b-side of 'Mellow Doubt' 1995)
04 Between Us (b-side of 'Mellow Doubt' 1995)
05 You're My Kind (b-side of 'Mellow Doubt' 1995)
06 Kickabout (b-side of 'Ain't That Enough' 1997)              
07 Broken (b-side of 'Ain't That Enough' 1997)
08 Femme Fatale (b-side of 'Ain't That Enough' 1997)
09 Jesus Christ (b-side of 'Ain't That Enough' 1997)
10 The Count (b-side of 'I Don't Want Control Of You' 1997)
11 Middle Of The Road (b-side of 'I Don't Want Control Of You' 1997)
12 He'd Be A Diamond (b-side of 'I Don't Want Control Of You' 1997)
13 Live My Life (b-side of 'I Don't Want Control Of You' 1997)
14 How Many More Years (b-side of 'Start Again' 1997)
15 Nothing To Be Done (b-side of 'Start Again' 1997)

Disc II - 1998-2003
01 Long Shot (single 1998)
02 Loops And Stings (b-side of 'Long Shot')
03 On This Good Night (b-side of 'I Need Direction' 2000)
04 I Lied (b-side of 'I Need Direction' 2000)
05 Here Comes Your Man (b-side of 'I Need Direction' 2000)
06 Christmas Eve (single 2000)
07 Thaw Me (b-side of 'Dumb Dumb Dumb' 2001)
08 One Thousand Lights (b-side of 'Dumb Dumb Dumb' 2001)
09 Tell Me What You See (from 'Why Don't We Do It In The Road?' Beatles' tribute album 2001)
10 Always In My Heart (single with Jad Fair 2002)
11 Let's Celebrate (b-side of 'Always In My Heart')
12 Same Place, Different Place (split single with Supreme Vagabond Craftsman / Bridget Storm 2003) 

Disc III - 2003-2018
01 The World'll Be OK (new song from '4,766 Seconds' compilation album 2003)
02 Empty Space (new song from '4,766 Seconds' compilation album 2003)
03 Did I Say (new song from '4,766 Seconds' compilation album 2003)
04 Association! (single 2004)
05 Fallen Leaf (b-side of 'Fallen Leaves' 2005)
06 Please Stay (b-side of 'It's All In The Mind' 2005)
07 Like A Monkey In A Zoo (single with Jad Fair 2006)
08 Happy Soul (b-side of 'Like A Monkey In A Zoo')
09 Secret Heart (b-side of 'Baby Lee' 2010)
10 Easy Come Easy Go (b-side of 'I'm In Love' 2017)
11 Country Song (single 2018)
12 Eyes Wide Open (b-side of 'Country Song')
13 Dark And Lonely (single 2018)

Thanks to Ken for the suggestion

Teenage Fanclub - Primary Education (1995)

Teenage Fanclub emerged from the Glasgow C86 scene, emerging from the ashes of The Boy Hairdressers, a band featuring Raymond McGinley, Norman Blake and Francis Macdonald. Following a brief period in which Blake was a member of BMX Bandits, the three former bandmates reunited and joined up with Gerard Love to form Teenage Fanclub. Initially lauded for the sonically dense, guitar-driven anthems that heralded them as unexpected stars of the alternative rock era, the perception of the band transformed over time, eventually earning the group a reputation as pop craftsmen famous for a distinctive brand of classicist '60s- and '70s-style power pop and folk-rock. The group was fortunate to have three talented singer/songwriters in Norman Blake, Gerard Love, and Raymond McGinley, and the band was albe to mix sludgy guitar riffs and memorably hooky choruses that drew inspiration from iconic guitar rock bands like Big Star, Badfinger, and the Byrds.  Their first album 'A Catholic Education', released in 1990 on Paperhouse, is not really typical of their later sound, with the possible exception of 'Everything Flows', as it was mostly written by Blake and McGinley, and record included several songs originally intended for The Boy Hairdressers. After recording his drum parts, Macdonald left the band to resume his university studies, but some of them were later re-recorded with Macdonald's replacement, Brendan O'Hare, because they weren't satisfied with the results of the original recording sessions,[5] and because they wanted to involve O'Hare in the album. 

They followed the album with the EP 'God Knows It's True' before being signed by Creation Records, and their first album for the label, 'The King', was a semi-improvised collection recorded in a single day. It was originally intended to be a very limited release, but it was not that well-received, garnering some critical reviews for its self-confessed shambolic guitar thrashes and cover of Madonna's 'Like a Virgin'. The band really broke through with 1991's 'Bandwagonesque', which was also released in America on the Geffen label, and which hit number one on Billboard's Heatseekers chart, spawning three Top 20 modern rock hits with 'Star Sign', 'What You Do to Me', and 'The Concept'. 'Bandwagonesque' was more deliberately constructed, the hooks became stronger, the guitar riffs were brought under control, and the harmony vocals took shape, and it topped Spin magazine's 1991 end-of-year poll for best album,[7] beating Nirvana's 'Nevermind,' their Creation stablemates My Bloody Valentine's album 'Loveless', and R.E.M.'s 'Out Of Time'. 'Bandwagonesque' was always going to be a hard act to follow, and so it was no surprise that their next album 'Thirteen', received mixed reviews on release, as it had perhaps too much to live up to. 

Brendan O'Hare left the band during this period because of musical differences, and he was replaced by ex-Soup Dragons drummer Paul Quinn, and his first recordings with the group on their fifth album 'Grand Prix' helped it become both a critical and commercial success in the UK, breaking the top ten for the first time. In the U.S., however, they failed to regain the ground that 'Thirteen' had lost them, and it didn't fare anywhere near as well there as it had done in the UK. With three song-writers in the band it's no surprise that they were able to add new songs to the b-sides of all their singles, and even release the odd non-album EP as well. In the first of two posts, here are all those b-sides, as well as a few compilation appearances, from the first six years of their existence, and just how prolific they were is proved by the fact that the third disc is made up almost solely of b-sides from the two singles extracted from 'Grand Prix' in 1995. And if, like me, you are thinking of rushing over to Youtube to hear their version of 'Between Clarke And Hilldale' at the right speed, then be warned that what you are hearing is exactly as the band recorded it, and as the record company decided to release it, resulting in the most hated and derided piece of work in their entire career.   

Track listing

Disc I - 1990-1992
01 Primary Education (b-side of 'Everything Flows' 1990)
02 Speeder b-side of 'Everything Flows' 1990)
03 Don't Cry No Tears b-side of 'Everything Flows' 1990)
04 The Ballad Of John And Yoko (single 1990)
05 God Knows It's True (single 1990)
06 So Far Gone (b-side of 'God Knows It's True')
07 Weedbreak (b-side of 'God Knows It's True')
08 Ghetto Blaster (b-side of 'God Knows It's True')
09 Long Hair (b-side of 'The Concept' 1991)        
10 I Saw The Light (recorded 1991, from the 'Scotland On Sunday EP 2005)
11 Kylie's Got A Crush On Us (from the free cassette with Select magazine 1992)
12 Free Again (single for 'International Pop Underground - Vol XXVI' 1992)
13 Bad Seeds (b-side of 'Free Again')
14 Mr Tambourine Man (from 'Ruby Trax - The NME's Roaring Forty' album 1992)
15 B-Side (aka 'Maharishi Dug The Scene') (b-side of 'What You Do To Me' 1992)
16 Life's A Gas (b-side of 'What You Do To Me' 1992)
17 Filler (b-side of 'What You Do To Me' 1992)

Disc II - 1993-1994
01 Mine Exclusively (single by Big Star with Teenage Fanclub 1993)
02 Patti Girl (b-side of 'Mine Exclusively' by Teenage Fanclub with Big Star)
03 Belt (from 'Volume Seven' compilation CD 1993)
04 Don's Gone Columbia (b-side of 'Radio' 1993)
05 Weird Horses (b-side of 'Radio' 1993)
06 Chords Of Fame (b-side of 'Radio' 1993)
07 Four Strong Winds (b-side of 'Hang On' 1993)
08 Genius Envy (b-side of 'Norman 3' 1993)
09 Older Guys (b-side of 'Norman 3' 1993)
10 Golden Glades (b-side of 'Norman 3' 1993)
11 Goody Goody Gum Drops (from the 'Thirteen EP' 1993
12 It's Hard To Fall In Love (from the 'Thirteen EP' 1993
13 Between Clarke And Hilldale (from the 'We're All Normal And We Want Our Freedom'

                                                                                       Arthur Lee & Love tribute album 1994)
14 Mad Dog 20/20 (from 'DGC Rarities' album 1994) 

Disc III - 1995
01 Burned (b-side of 'Sparky's Dream' 1995)     
02 For You (b-side of 'Sparky's Dream' 1995)
03 Headstand (b-side of 'Sparky's Dream' 1995)
04 Try And Stop Me (b-side of 'Sparky's Dream' 1995)
05 That's All I Need To Know (b-side of 'Sparky's Dream' 1995)
06 Who Loves The Sun (b-side of 'Sparky's Dream' 1995)
07 My Life (b-side of 'Neil Jung' 1995)                     
08 Every Step Is A Way Through (b-side of 'Neil Jung' 1995)
09 The Shadows (b-side of 'Neil Jung' 1995)
10 Traffic Jam (b-side of 'Neil Jung' 1995)
11 Hi-Fi (b-side of 'Neil Jung' 1995)
12 I Heard You Looking (b-side of 'Neil Jung' 1995)
13 Total Weirdness (from the 'Jabberjaw' benefit album 1995)    

Thanks to Ken for the suggestion