7. SugarCopper Blue
I’d never have found this without my mate James. His finger has always been a lot quicker on the musical pulse. I remember going round his house and he said ‘you’ve got to own this, I’ll give you mine’. It was an album that I played repeatedly in the car, and there a couple of tracks on it that I remember as being really good. ‘If I Can’t Change Your Mind’, and ‘Hoover Dam’ I really liked as well. It’s quite accessible isn’t it? Again it seemed that it came before that American grungy music, though there are elements of that in there. I always thought the Smashing Pumpkins must have been fans of Sugar. That guitar sound. It’s only the second American album, yes. I suppose I like British music more. I loved Nevermind, but it was one of the first records with too much hype, and I’m wary if everyone is telling me to like something. The Verve, they seemed to go from nowhere to a stadium band in no time. I thought ‘this is never going to last! The albums aren’t that brilliant! There’s good some good songs on there, and I’m not knocking the Verve – who am I – but I just thought that’s never going to continue. And unfortunately in that case I was proved right.
