11. SwansCop
I bought this – from Vinyl Dreams again – after seeing a Some Bizarre flier not really knowing what to expect. I thought it might be electronic, it could be like Test Dept. At that point I didn’t really own records by American artists because to me, especially growing up in the sweet spot of the 80s, we didn’t need them, they seemed old-fashioned. Yet all of a sudden there was this band and not only were they American, they sounded nothing like any other band I was into. I put it on and I’d never heard something like it in my life. It was just man and sound so at one with themselves. Not only was it the heaviest thing I’d heard, it wasn’t trying to be heavy, it just existed in that way. It was like a glacier, moving slowly towards you. The lyrics were fantastic, it was a new type of music. A lot of punk bands it was shouting and screaming to force a point, but this was crushing every part of your body and it laid me to waste. I’m not sure if they’re aware of it but Cop was a big record for people in Birmingham. If you were at their gig at the Mermaid pub it changed your life, like the Pistols at the Free Trade Hall for Manchester. Mick Harris came up with ‘grindcore’ because he said it was the only way he could describe Swans’ sound. Bands were formed – Napalm Death, Godflesh, Head of David. It was the touchpaper for everyone’s career.
