Limping for a Generation

Infobox Album
Name = Limping for a Generation
Type = studio
Artist = The Blow Monkeys


Released = 1984
Recorded =
Genre = New wave
Glam/Jazz/Punk
Length = 40 min : 10 sec
Label = RCA/Ariola/BMG
Producer = Peter Wilson
Last album = /
This album = "Limping for a Generation"
(1984)
Next album = "Animal Magic"
(1986)

Limping for a Generation was the 1984 debut album by the British band, The Blow Monkeys.

In the booklet to 1999 "Atomic Lullabies - Very Best of The Blow Monkeys", the leader Dr. Robert (born Robert Howard) writes down that, even if it was "Digging Your Scene", from the band's second album, "Animal Magic", "that opened the door. From being a glam jazz obscurity we were on the TV, in the papers, getting thrown out of clubs and playing Wembley with Rod Stewart (...) the first album, Limping for a Generation, has some of our best stuff on it". The singer and guitarist also billed the record as "jazz-punk", and defined The Blow Monkeys' early production by simply stating, in the same source: "Our early music was raw".

Formed in the early Eighties, the group, after a few indie singles, signed to RCA, and released Limping for a Generation, an album that in retrospect was considered a masterpiece, and today is very hard to find, and, at the same time, much sought for, but which didn't get any commercial success at the time of release. Limping for a Generation, though, is a strange work: at times sensual and sinister, skronky and soulful, dreary and delirious; its tunes are solid, but lack real singalong hooks that could have made the charts. The album is hard to categorize, hard to relate to many contemporaries - ABC, Duran Duran and Style Council were all far too different for true comparison.

It might be tentatively said, to really try and explain the weird but captivating sound of Limping for a generation, that it sounds like Paul Weller during the late period of The Jam, matched to the confused sexual lyrics of Morrissey (from The Smiths). Some of Robert's couplets indeed remind of Morrisey's croon words: "Says he wants to be an anti-Christ/But God knows, that boy is too nice" (from the title-track, "Limping for a generation") or "You can bury me alive and jump on my head/But I'm a real Wildflower, chained to your bed" (from "Wildflower", the last single to be issued from the album), or, again very Morrissey, "I see a boy/He must be a prince/Who is he I desire?/Who am I to be shy?".

Dressed in impeccable suits, in perfect New Romantic looks, which only adds up more confusion to it all, since their musical style is far removed from that scene, the four lads of The Blow Monkeys, who played their first unsuccessful album all on their own, with only one external help (Peter Wilson, for production, string arrangements and additional keyboards), eventually did have chart success a few years later, with a more pop rock, funky sound, and expanding the credits on their albums, by adding keyboards, female background vocals and more pop hooks, until turning to another kind of music, completely different from the early days, that is dance, before the dance scene itself would become huge, with some legendary duets (Curtis Mayfield and especially Cheb Khaled, just to remind a couple) and the invention of UK garage with "Wait" in one more duet, with Chicago house diva Kym Mazelle.

But the legacy of Limping for a Generation, such an important record for the group, wouldn't be forgotten. Their last album in fact included either their latest dancey tunes, as well as a couple of tracks sounding exactly as if they were written in this early formative period, not to forget the above mentioned brave experiment of mixing an Arabian singer with uptempo rhythms in "Be Not Afraid" with Khaled. Three of the four singles taken from their debut album, namely "Man from Russia", "Atomic Lullaby" and "Forbidden Fruit", can be found on their first compilation album, called "Choices - The Singles Collection", released in 1989, the same year as "Wait" came out. The later 1999 collection contains instead five B-Sides to the 1984 album, which, as Dr. Robert again writes in the mentioned booklet, "show us at our most relaxed and spontaneous", and since the band had the unluck to become famous during the decade which has always been accused of paying too much attention to exterior details, he adds: "...and give a more rounded picture of what was really the most important thing to us... the music".

Track listing

# "He's Shedding Skin" (Howard) 4:04
# "Wildflower" (Howard) 3:00
# "Atomic Lullaby" (Howard) 5:02
# "Fat Cat Belusha" (Howard/Anker) 4:15
# "Go Public" (Howard) 4:30
# "Professor Supercool" (Howard) 4:00
# "Man from Russia" (Howard/Anker) 3:15
# "Limping for a Generation" (Howard) 3:32
# "Waiting for Mr. Moonlight" (Howard) 4:22
# "Trashtown Incident" (Howard) 4:10

ingles from the album

* "Go Public" (1984)
* "Man from Russia" (1984)
* "Atomic Lullaby" (1984)
* "Wildflower" (1985)

B-Sides

* "Rub-a-dub Shanka" (1984; B-Side to "Go Public")
* "Resurrection Love" (1984; B-Side to "Man from Russia" single)
* "Slither" (1984; B-Side to "Man from Russia" maxi single)
* "My Twisty Jewel" (1984; B-Side to "Atomic Lullaby" single)
* "Kill the Pig" (1984; B-Side to "Atomic Lullaby" maxi single)

Personnel

*Dr. Robert: vocals, guitars, piano
*Tony Kiley: drums, percussion
*Neville Henry: tenor saxophone, alto saxophone
*Mick Anker: electric bass, acoustic bass

*Peter Wilson: production, string arrangements, additional keyboards

*Nick Knight: photography

Release details

External links

* [http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.showvids&friendID=163650880&n=163650880&MyToken=9aa98640-7624-42da-b57e-e86acc7df2a5 MySpaceTV] : The Blow Monkeys page - live video of The Blow Monkeys at the Camden Palace, London (1985), performing the song "Professor Supercool", which was released on "Limping for a Generation", in 1984.
* [http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=163650880 MySpace] : The Blow Monkeys page - audio clips to four songs from The Blow Monkeys, including previously unreleased track "Have No Roots".
* [http://www.drrobert.net Fencat Online] : Dr Robert's Official Website.
* [http://www.popjunkie.tv/2005/09/the_smiths_you_.html Pop Junkie] : review of "Limping for a Generation".