Performance and Cocktails

Infobox Album |
Name = Performance and Cocktails
Type = Album
Artist = Stereophonics

|150 px
Released = March 8, 1999
Recorded =
Genre = Rock, Britpop
Length = 50:55
Label = V2
Producer =
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|3.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:6z5tk6jxekrw~T1 link]
*NME (6/10)
*Pitchfork Media (4.4./10) [http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/22052-performance-and-cocktails link]
*"Q magazine" Rating|3|5
*"Rolling Stone" Rating|2.5|5 [http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/stereophonics/albums/album/237354/review/5942086/performance__cocktails link]
Last album = "Word Gets Around"
(1997)
This album = "Performance and Cocktails"
(1999)
Next album = "Just Enough Education to Perform"
(2001)
Misc = Singles
Name = Performance and Cocktails
Type = studio
single 1 = The Bartender and the Thief
single 1 date = November 9, 1998
single 2 = Just Looking
single 2 date = February 22, 1999
single 3 = Pick a Part That's New
single 3 date = May 23, 1999
single 4 = I Wouldn't Believe Your Radio
single 4 date = August 23, 1999
single 5 = Hurry Up and Wait
single 5 date = November 8, 1999

"Performance and Cocktails" is Stereophonics second album. It was released by V2 March 8 1999.

The album was a surprise commercial success giving the Stereophonics three straight top ten singles in the British charts with "The Bartender and the Thief" reaching number three, and both "Just Looking" and "Pick a Part That's New" reaching number four. The album itself was a big success, topping the UK Albums Chart. The album was sponsored by Fender guitars used throughout the album, a brave move from an "indie" band.

All three members of the band were given equal credit for writing all the songs on this album.

Recording

The songs were variously recorded at Real World Studios in Bath, Parkgate in Sussex and Rockfield in Monmouth.

Album cover

The cover photograph was taken by Scarlet Page in autumn 1998 at a football pitch under the Westway in London, and was inspired by an earlier Annie Leibovitz photograph of a couple kissing outside a prison. The British journalist Tony Barrell did extensive research in 2007 to find the female model in the foreground. In the Sunday Times on November 11, 2007, he revealed the previously unknown identity of the model as 23-year-old Lucy Joplin. In an interview with Barrell, Joplin explained that the "faraway look" in her eyes was the result of an evening consuming absinthe and opium, and that she was paid just £75 in cash for the shoot.

Track listing

# "Roll Up and Shine" – 3:58
# "The Bartender and the Thief" – 2:54
# "Hurry Up and Wait" – 4:40
# "Pick a Part That's New" – 3:33
# "Just Looking" – 4:13
# "Half the Lies You Tell Ain't True" – 2:55
# "I Wouldn't Believe Your Radio" – 3:50
# "T-Shirt Sun Tan" – 4:04
# "Is Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today?" – 4:02
# "A Minute Longer" – 3:46
# "She Takes Her Clothes Off" – 3:55
# "Plastic California" – 4:30
# "I Stopped to Fill My Car Up" – 4:29

External links

* [http://www.stereophonics.com Homepage of the Stereophonics]

succession box
before = "Talk on Corners" by The Corrs
title = UK number one album
years = March 20 1999 – March 26 1999
after = "13" by Blur