On Top of the World


I bought it the day it came out, of course. The


first Monday in the April Easter


holidays. Bridgend wouldn’t hear of it until much later, so it was the early train to Cardiff and the beautiful smell of the deep, black vinyl in Spillers that I was drawn to.


I’d seen them for the first time swaggering to funky drummer beats, with a Hendrix guitar sound-scape


and the sweetest, most


whispered, mesmeric rock’n’roll vocal you could ever wish to hear. They strode the Hacienda stage like Gods and I knew I was at the crossroads with them. I don’t need to sell my soul, he’s already in me – that’s how you steal tunes from the Devil.


A week later the NME reviewed the Album, it’s difficult to fathom now but they only gave it 7 out of 10. Even though I’d yet to hear it, I knew they were wrong. Christ they had to be wrong.


8


The paint splattered guitars, vintage flares, outgrown mop-tops, monkey walking and unshakeable arrogance. This wasn’t


just a


band, this was a proper gang taking on the whole world. The Stones with melody, The Clash with style, The Beatles with balls.


In early 1989 I’d barely turned sixteen and was part of what would


later be called


Generation X. We’d grown up through the hell of the 80’s musical wasteland, but now this was our time,


this was our band, our


gang and we were to seize the moment with both greedy hands.


The cover alone was enough to shake everything before apart, the black and white chaos layered with the scatter gun of what looked like oranges. Sweetness from the apparent carnage below, cut through with the mod symbolism of red, white and blue.


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