English Garden (album)

English Garden
Studio album by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club
Released November 1979[1]
Recorded Eden Studios, London[2]
Genre New wave
Label Epic
Columbia
Producer Mike Hurst
Alternate covers
North American release

English Garden, released in North America as Bruce Woolley And The Camera Club, is a studio album by Bruce Woolley's new wave band Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club. The band consisted of Woolley on vocals, Matthew Seligman on bass, Rod Johnson on drums, Dave Birch on guitar, and Thomas Dolby on keyboards. Before forming the group, Woolley was creating pop songs intended for publishing companies, but he was not happy with what the artists were doing with his songs and decided to write material for himself.

Recorded at Eden Studios in London, English Garden was released in most territories by Epic Records, while in North America the album was distributed by CBS Records. Singles from English Garden included the title track, "Video Killed the Radio Star", "Clean, Clean", "Dancing With The Sporting Boys", "Trouble Is..." and "House of Wax". Most reviews of English Garden were very positive, with one reviewer even calling it ahead of other releases in its genre. However, the album's popularity was cut short because, as one journalist said, the record only show Woolley's dedication to music from more than a decade before its release.

Background and composition

Bruce Woolley started writing and recording pop songs at home with Revox equipment during his school years: "I was playing guitar but floundering about without direction."[3] This made him start making songs specifically for music publishing companies, and he was eventually hired by someone to do so. He had spent eighteen months writing compositions for other artists, but did not appreciate what they were doing with his songs.[3] He decided to quit this position and write songs for himself, meeting producer Mike Hurst and his manager Chris Bough, who was also well known for being manager for singer-songwriter Cat Stevens.[3] Thus, Woolley financed to form his band which he called The Camera Club,[3] which, in addition to him being the vocalist, had Matthew Seligman on bass, Rod Johnson on drums, Dave Birch on guitar, and Thomas Dolby on keyboards.[2] Recorded in Eden Studios in London, English Garden was engineered by Richard Goldblatt with assistance from Nick T. Froom.[2]

Meanwhile, Woolley had also formed a group with Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes called The Buggles in 1977, recording demos of tracks such as "Clean, Clean" and "Video Killed the Radio Star". Woolley had left the group to form The Camera Club by the time the Buggles were signed to Island Records in 1979, and the band recorded both songs for English Garden.[4] Many writers called Woolley's recording of "Video" much better than the Buggles' version.[5][6] This included one critic who called both acts overall as of being very high quality, but felt that Woolley's version was more faithful to the source material than that of The Buggles', noting the filtered vocals and cute, female vocals of the latter rendition as giving it a novelty feel.[7] However, he also wrote of liking both versions of "Clean, Clean" on the same level.

While also categorized by one writer to be a light power pop record in the vein of acts like The Move,[8] as well as a pop rock release by another,[3] English Garden is a new wave record taking influence of works from David Bowie and Brian Eno, like the majority of artists in the style that existed around the release of the album.[5] However, unlike other new wave releases that only increased their hopelessness of Bowie's and Eno's songs, English Garden's honest, humorous lyrics, which deal with a male remembering about his currently failing marriage thanks to "automation and his modern surroundings" as one journalist analyzed, show that the narrator is struggling, but is optimistic that his relationship will improve.[5]

Reception

English Garden garnered mostly rave reviews upon its release. The Age's John Teerds spotlighted the album's "inventive" songwriting, strong vocal performance, and "appealing" melodies, but also noted that it may take two or three hearings of the record for the listener to enjoy it.[9] Ted Burley of Montreal Gazette honored the quality of the release as above other new wave acts at the time and should've set the decade's norm for the genre.[5] He wrote that Woolley was "attacking the eighties rather than surrendering to them", being able to make the production fresh and the vocals futuristic while making it sound human and non-robotic.[5] Among the "lush" harmonies and "tasteful" arrangements, the unique, non-permissive lyrical content was also a significant highlight in his review, praising its "slice-of-life realism and scope."[5] A more mixed review called the album "one of those weird pop albums that England seems to spew out yearly" and "sort of 10cc for nostalgists".[6]

In North America, the group was signed by Columbia Records after just five weeks of rehearsal,[3] and the album was released in the continent with cover art designed by Janet Perr.[2] English Garden was promoted in the United States with a tour just before its release in the country, and songs from the album also garnered radio play in the States.[3] The album peaked at number 184 on the Billboard 200 chart.[10] There were also several performances in Woolley's home country promoting English Garden.[3] However, despite this and the record's critical acclaim, the release quickly faded in obscurity; a writer for Trouser Press analyzed that this was to be expected given that the LP only presented Woolley's devotion to music from the 1960s, but also said that the group might've been famous in some sort of way thanks to Dolby's involvement in the band.[8]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Bruce Woolley and produced by Mike Hurst. Additional writing credits are noted.[11][12]

Side 1
No. Title Length
1. "English Garden"   3:00
2. "Video Killed the Radio Star" (Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes) 2:49
3. "Dancing With The Sporting Boys"   3:32
4. "Johnny" (Horn) 3:03
5. "No Surrender"   2:50
6. "Flying Man"   2:50
Side 2
No. Title Length
7. "You Got Class" (Stuart Gent) 2:10
8. "W. W. 9. Instrumental"   0:49
9. "Clean, Clean" (Horn, Downes) 5:23
10. "Get Away William" (Dave Birch) 3:19
11. "Goodbye To Yesterday"   3:33
12. "Goodbye To Yesterday (reprise)"   2:22
13. "You're The Circus (I'm The Clown)" (Graham Adcock) 3:35

Singles

Song Region Date(s) Format Label
"English Garden" / "Video Killed the Radio Star"[13] North America 1979 7" Columbia Records
"Video Killed the Radio Star" / "Get Away William"[14] Europe Epic Records
"Clean, Clean" / " Flying Man"[15]
"Clean Clean" / "Video Killed the Radio Star"[16] Japan
"Dancing With The Sporting Boys" / Flying Man"[17] United Kingdom 14 September 1979
"Trouble Is..." / "Get Away William"[18] 7 March 1980 Columbia Records
"House Of Wax" / "All At Once"[19] Europe 26 September 1980

References

  1. ↑ D. Schoenberg, Richard; Sutton, Seattle (2004). Seventy-Nine, Eighty. Only Easy Day Was Yesterday. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Columbia Records, 1979, JC 36301
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Patterson, Rob (30 April 1980). "Bruce Woolley: picture of a pop star". The Madison Courier. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  4. ↑ "The Buggles". ZTT Records. Retrieved 14 July 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Burley, Ted (24 April 1980). "Fine production puts Woolley ahead of the new wave pack". Montreal Gazette. Postmedia Network. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  6. 1 2 Marsh, Dave (7 March 1980). "Records". Star-News. GateHouse Media. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  7. ↑ Lawson, Michael (1 March 1980). "Two bands eulogize departed 'radio star'". The Phoenix. Phoenix Media/Communications Group. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  8. 1 2 Robbins, Ira. "Buggles". Trouser Press. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  9. ↑ Teerds, John (17 January 1980). "An Hour of Madness". The Age. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  10. ↑ "Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club – Camera Club / Bruce Woolley / Bruce Woolley & the Camera Club". Allmusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  11. ↑ "English Garden – Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club". Allmusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  12. ↑ "Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club – Camera Club / Bruce Woolley / Bruce Woolley & the Camera Club". Allmusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  13. ↑ English Garden (Single), Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Columbia Records, 1979, 1-11226
  14. ↑ Video Killed the Radio Star, Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Epic Records, 1979, EPC 7926
  15. ↑ Clean, Clean, Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Epic Records, 1979, 8024
  16. ↑ Clean, Clean, Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Epic Records, 1979, 06・5P-88
  17. ↑ Dancing With The Sporting Boys, Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Epic Records, 1979, S EPC 7829
  18. ↑ Trouble Is..., Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Columbia Records, 1980, S CBS 8314
  19. ↑ House Of Wax, Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, Columbia Records, 1980, S CBS 9020
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