LLOYD COLE IN NEW YORK
Collected recordings 1988-1996
6 CD BOX SET
TO BE RELEASED ON MARCH 17th 2017 on UMC/Polydor
Lloyd Cole will release a deluxe limited edition box set of his early solo years entitled ‘Lloyd Cole In New York’ on March 17th 2017 via Polydor/UMC. It features all four solo albums Lloyd released on the Polydor and Fontana labels between 1988 and 1996 [‘Lloyd Cole’ (’90), ‘Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe’ (’91), ‘Bad Vibes’ (’93) and ‘Love Story’ (’95)] plus ‘Smile If You Want To’, the ‘unreleased’ fifth album (including one previously unreleased track), and ‘Demos ‘89-‘94’, 20 recordings from home and studio made public for this release. The box will also feature a hardback book about this most erudite of artists by John O’Connell with new interviews with Lloyd and featured musicians, producers and collaborators and a wonderful selection of photos from the period plus a poster and postcards that feature Lloyd shot in New York by feted photographer Kevin Cummins.
Lloyd Cole first stepped into the spotlight when Lloyd Cole & The Commotions released their effortlessly hip debut album ‘Rattlesnakes’ in 1984. He went on to make two further albums of cerebral pop with the Commotions (his music from this era was comprehensively catalogued in 2015’s acclaimed box set ‘Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Collected Recordings 1983-1989’). In ’88 Lloyd decamped to New York a solo artist and made a home in the city that had always loomed large in his imagination and he fully embraced its bars, bohemia and beautiful losers. ‘Lloyd Cole In New York’ charts this fascinating phase in Lloyd’s development, which saw him experimenting with his sound and collaborating with some top notch US musicians including guitarist Robert Quine (Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Lou Reed, Brian Eno), drummer Fred Maher (Material, Scritti Politti, Lou Reed) and Matthew ‘Girlfriend’ Sweet.
On his first solo album ‘Lloyd Cole’ (aka ‘The X album’ after the artwork) Lloyd embraced an edgier writing style with a nod to Dylan, Lou Reed and, not abandoning his UK roots completely, Marc Bolan. Unfettered from the democracy of The Commotions, he was happy to go wherever his muse took him and produced some of his most enduring songs such as ‘No Blue Skies’, ‘Undressed’ and ‘Ice Cream Girl’. ‘Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe’ was Lloyd’s concept album – one side orchestral (a la Jimmy Webb), the other rock. Lloyd described it as his ‘farewell to rock’. ‘Bad Vibes’,1993’s about turn into bold psych-baroque experimentalism, polarized fans and critics alike, but songs such as ‘Mr Wrong’, ‘My Way To You’ and ‘So You’d Like To Save The World’ still stand tall. ‘Love Story’, a lot of people’s favourite Lloyd solo record, restored his critical and commercial reputation and he found himself back in the limelight performing its biggest hit ‘Like Lovers Do’, a dreamy sliver of Byrdsian jangle pop.
‘Smile If You Want To’ was supposed to be Cole’s 5th solo album. It was completed, but record company politics meant it was never released. The songs came out on subsequent albums, yet this is the first time they have been released as they were originally intended and fully mastered by Ian Jones at Abbey Road studios.
‘Demos ’89–‘94’ offers an insight into the development of Lloyd’s sound over this time, from early tentative recordings as a solo artist finding his way in his adopted home town, to demos he recorded for ‘Love Story’ where he embraced a more pastoral folk sound. The CD includes Lloyd’s previously unheard version of ‘The Ship Song’ by Nick Cave.
‘LLOYD COLE IN NEW YORK’ TRACKLISTING:
Lloyd Cole
1. Don’t Look Back
2. What Do You Know About Love?
3. No Blue Skies
4. Loveless
5. Sweetheart
6. To The Church
7. Downtown
8. A Long Way Down
9. Ice Cream Girl
10. Undressed
11. I Hate To See You Baby Doing That Stuff
12. Waterline
13. Mercy Killing
Don’t get weird on me, babe
1. Butterfly
2. There For Her
3. Margo’s Waltz
4. Half Of Everything
5. Man Enough
06 What He Doesn’t Know
07 Tell Your Sister
08 Weeping Wine
09 To The Lions
10 Pay For It
11 The One You Never Had
12 She’s a Girl and I’m a Man
Bad Vibes
1. Morning Is Broken
2. So You’d Like To Save The World
3. Holier Than Thou
4. Love You So What
5. Wild Mushrooms
6. My Way To You
7. Too Much of a Good Thing
8. Fall Together
9. Mister Wrong
10. Seen The Future
11. Can’t Get Arrested
Love Story
1 Trigger Happy
2. Sentimental Fool
3. I Didn’t Know You Cared
4. Love Ruins Everything
5. Baby
6. Be There
7. Unhappy Song
8. Like Lovers Do
9. Happy For You
10. Traffic
11. Let’s Get Lost
12. For Crying Out Loud
Smile, if you want to
1. Old Enough To Know Better
2. Memphis
3. Love Like This Can’t Last
4. No More Love Songs
5. Man On The Verge*
6. Santa Cruz
7. Alright People
8. You’re A Big Girl Now
9. Another Lover
10. 39 Down
11. Went To Woodstock
12. I’m Gone
bonus tracks
13. Fool You Are (demo)
14. Weakness
*previously unreleased
Demos 89-94
(all previously unreleased)
1. A Long Way Down
2. Sweetheart
3. Ice Cream Girl
4. Wild Orphan
5. Loveless
6. What Do You Know About Love?
7. Know You Too Well
8. The Witching Hour
9. The English Weather
10. I Confess
11. To The Lions
12. The Ship Song
13. Pay For It
14. Weeping Wine
15. The One You Never Had
16. Weird On Me
17. Casanova Smith
18. Cold Empty Room
19. Everyday
20. She Loves You
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