Teenage Fanclub

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Template:Infobox band Teenage Fanclub is a Scottish alternative rock band from Bellshill Glasgow, formed in 1989. They are well known for their devotion to chiming, Byrds-esque guitars and harmony vocals. They have two generally known humorous nicknames "The Fannies" and "The Bellshill Beach Boys"

Song-writing duties are shared between the three permanent members of the group:

Each writer has a distinct style within that of Teenage Fanclub as a whole and often fans will favour one songwriter more than the others. Within the band Gerry Love seems to be the most popular, based on the evidence of lead (1st) singles from their albums.

Live they usually alternate pretty strictly between the three songwriters (who all sing lead vocals on their own songs). Despite the prevalence of harmony vocals on the album versions of songs, only Norm sings harmony in concert except for maybe the occasional track.

There have been a succession of drummers, including:

Francis MacDonald (a prime-mover in the C86 scene, later of the BMX Bandits), the drummer in the original lineup, and in a later period
Brendan O’Hare (later of the Telstar Ponies and Mogwai), and
Paul Quinn, who was later replaced by the returning Francis MacDonald.

Keyboardist Finlay MacDonald (no relation to Francis MacDonald) has also been a member.

1 Background
2 Discography
- 2.1 Albums
- 2.2 Singles
3 External links

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Background

Teenage Fanclub emerged from the Glasgow C86 scene. Their sound is reminiscent of West Coast bands like the Beach Boys and Byrds, and their seventies counterparts Big Star. Originally a noisy and chaotic band, their first album A Catholic Education is largely atypical of their later sound, with the possible exception of "Everything Flows". The King, their next album, was widely panned; it consists of a number of self-confessedly shambolic guitar thrashes and an ironic cover of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" (also demolished by Sonic Youth in their Ciccione Youth guise). The album was produced at great speed in order to fulfil the terms (although not the spirit) of an existing American record deal with Matador Records.

Their next album Bandwagonesque, released on Geffen in the US and Creation Records in the UK, brought Teenage Fanclub commercial success. The album was more deliberately constructed, the hooks became stronger, the guitar riffs were brought under control, and the harmony vocals took shape. The follow-up, Thirteen, is more grungy than Bandwagonesque in style; it suffered scathing reviews at the time of release, possibly motivated by a backlash against the critical praise heaped on Bandwagonesque (which won Spin magazine's 1991 end-of-year poll, beating Nirvana's Nevermind, their Creation stablemates My Bloody Valentine's album Loveless, and R.E.M.'s hugely successful Out of Time) and also instigated in part by the group who with typical honesty (and probably fatigued by the protracted recording process) did not hide their disappointment with the album from interviewers. Brendan O'Hare left Teenage Fanclub during this period for the time honoured reason of "musical differences" and was replaced by Paul Quinn (formerly of the Soup Dragons).

Grand Prix, Teenage Fanclub's fourth album, is generally regarded as the high-water mark of their career thus far; songs such as "Sparky's Dream", "Neil Jung", and "Going Places" are straightforward and well-liked. At around the time of this release, Liam Gallagher of Britpop favorites Oasis called the band "the second best band in the world"—second, of course, only to his own outfit.

Songs From Northern Britain followed Grand Prix and featured a more acoustic sound (reminiscent of Harvest era Neil Young). Somewhat surprisingly (given the popularity of Grand Prix) it is their highest charting release in the UK and contains their biggest hit single to date (Ain't That Enough).

Their next album Howdy! (released on Columbia Records in the UK after the demise of Creation) is also of a similar feel to Songs from Northern Britain but was poorly marketed at the time and sold relatively poorly. Francis MacDonald rejoined as Drummer for the tour supporting this album.

Their final release on a Sony label, Four Thousand Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds - A Shortcut To Teenage Fanclub, attempted to collect together the best bits of these albums along with three new songs (one from each member). It is a good starting point for a new listener and the quality of the new songs plus the improved sound quality on earlier songs like "Everything Flows" and "Starsign" make it a worthwhile purchase for fans who might otherwise ignore it.

A new album, Man-Made, was released on May 2, 2005 on the band's own PeMa label. It was recorded in Chicago in 2004, and produced by John McEntire of Tortoise. It doesn't deviate too far from the expected sound of a Teenage Fanclub album but it does contain some more downbeat sounding moments like "Cells" which gives the album a more emotionally varied feel.

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