Hey Venus!
If the last 10 years have taught us anything, it’s that Super Furry Animals march resolutely to their own quixotic beat.
Colin Carberry, 14 Aug 2007
History probably won’t remember the Super Furry Animals.
Judging by Seven Ages Of Rock, a recent po-faced BBC2 series on the development of ‘alternative music’ – this most adventurous, subtly thought-provoking, and elegantly tuneful of bands have already been banished, like so many before them, to the fog-bound margins.
Laughably, The Libertines were prominent, while SFA (the best singles band of their generation?) were not even deemed clip-worthy.
Any members of the group tuning in could have been forgiven for shivering under a chill of premonition.
Their future position in the grand scheme of things was laid out bare: cherished by their fans; but likely only to be called up in wider debates as a footnote on ‘The Great Welsh Indie Revival’, or, worse, cited as evidence for the prosecution when the commercial sanity of Alan McGee’s kid-in-a-toy-shop post-Oasis signing spree is brought into question.
Which is a depressing prospect.
However, given the recurrent SFA M.O. – I’d suspect that our viewer(s) wouldn’t actually give a toot.
This is the crowd, remember, who just as they looked ready to make their great cross-over leap, decided to release a (brilliant) Welsh language album (Mwng) instead.
The man don’t give a fuck, of course. But, as far as careerist aspirations go, SFA have never seemed that bothered either.
In fact, there are few bands who have shown such kamikaze disregard for chasing the big time.
If they did, surely they would have spent more effort smoothing off the strange contours of their work, and less fitting subsonic equipment onto military vehicles, or dressing like cartoon characters on stage, or even inviting Paul McCartney to guest on a record and then asking him to sit in the background and chew celery.
No, if the last 10 years have taught us anything, it’s that Super Furry Animals march resolutely to their own quixotic beat.
And looking back over a career spanning eight LPs, with not a duffer to be found, they’d be justified in feeling proud.
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