Tonight’s selections from Elastica’s 1995 self-titled debut album. I hadn’t listened to this in a long time (in fact I sold my copy several years ago) but gave it a listen via streaming last weekend and haven’t been able to stop. Enthusiastic, infectious, suave. First published in January 2023
Like a stylish cat burglar whose cunning audacity is matched by a discriminating notion of what’s worth taking, London’s Elastica can easily be forgiven (at least after all debts were paid) for the indiscretions of its esoteric class-of-’77 appropriations. As the quartet’s debut album gathered commercial momentum in England, a hornet’s nest of legal trouble was stirred into action as rights holders for songs by Wire (compare Elastica’s “Connection” to “Three Girl Rhumba,” from that group’s 1977 debut LP) and the Stranglers (“Waking Up” clearly recycles the chord structure of “No More Heroes”) raised plagiarism claims against Elastica’s most overtly derivative numbers. Given the Knack traces, Flying Lizards beats, Wire hooks and other familiar elements teasingly littered throughout the album, Elastica could probably have settled for being a new wave cover band, but Elastica’s value goes deeper than simple influence-peddling. — Trouser Press
Stutter
It's when we look to [Justine] Frischmann's lyricism that a more interesting, nuanced picture emerges. If most male rock and indie music is the driven by sexual frustration and bitterness, then Elastica exudes a suave confidence. Two of the landmark albums of the period, Suede's debut and Blur's heartbroken 13 were written by men about Frischmann. Where Brett Anderson's lyrics for the likes of 'Animal Lover' were the snarl of the wronged party, [Damon] Albarn's ‘Tender' felt like a desperate plea for healing as his relationship with "the ghost I love the most" slipped away. Frischmann's words on her band's debut album, on the other hand, displayed no such angst, instead exploring sexuality with explicit wit and a twinkling eye. She is always in control and the men are proving hapless in songs that range from the Viz-like puerile ("when you're stuck like glue / Vaseline!") to a the recurring theme of erectile dysfunction – the party man who's kept her "sitting here waiting / yeah, and it's getting frustrating" in all ‘All Nighter' to another flopping disappointment in ‘Stutter' - "And it's never the time, boy / You've had too much wine to stumble up my street". It's a rather delicious antidote to the braggadocio of Oasis' "feeling supersonic / drinking gin and tonic". Combined with Elastica's tight aesthetic (black clothes, DMs, flouncing hair), it was a deeply seductive package for all of us kids trying to work through our sexualities. — The Quietus
Connection
While some critics churlishly complained about Elastica's lack of originality, it became one of the fasted-selling debut albums in UK chart history. Hundreds of thousands couldn't give two hoots about how original these songs were – and neither did Elastica themselves, always perfectly frank in interviews about how they enjoyed making music that paid tribute to the artists they loved. Honesty was always part of the appeal. In an age when so many of their peers were taking downwardly-mobile trips in class tourism, Elastica were refreshingly honest about their origins, Frischmann never trying to hide her languid upper-middle-class drawl. You could say it was part of the band's sonic identity and Elastica were, like many of the best British groups, a complex mix – Frischmann's family came to the UK as refugees from the Holocaust, and the rest of the band were from working class backgrounds. A pursuit of class authenticity is frequently as reductive as complaints of magpie tendencies in musical creation.
Elastica was a record that almost propelled the foursome to great heights. Pulp, Oasis, Suede and Blur all failed to break America – indeed, it became a bogey country that in the case of Suede and Oasis would break them. Elastica, though, were subject to a frantic record label bidding war in the US that led to them signing a deal with Geffen and flogging half a million records in a year. And then... silence. — The Quietus
Waking Up
If Elastica had gone away forever after Elastica, it would’ve been one of the all-time great pop-history one-and-dones. They almost did. They made videos for five of the album’s 15 songs, and they served as token Brits on that summer’s Lollapalooza tour. (I saw their set, but I don’t remember anything about it, possibly because I was preoccupied with the urgent need to get high before Cypress Hill came on.) As soon as they got home from that tour, they went through a chaotic years-long series of lineup changes and personal issues and false-start recording sessions. In 2000, they finally got around to releasing their flop of a sophomore album, The Menace, which flirted with electroclash and which was pretty good but nowhere near as good as their debut. A year later, they broke up forever. These days, Frischmann is an abstract painter in the Bay Area. It’s hard to say they had any direct influence on the music that followed, since their own music was a distillation of its own influences. Savages has a similar visual aesthetic and set of influences, but they mine those influences for confrontational power, not for hooks. And even though SPIN called the Is This It-era Strokes the “male Elastica” in 2001, the comparison doesn’t really do justice to either band. (At their best, the Strokes were closer to being the male Go-Go’s, anyway.) — Stereogum
Line Up
Looking back on her time in Elastica in 2013, Frischmann mused that the band should have been a “one-album project.” While it’s good to have The Menace, she’s probably right. The persona she assumes on Elastica is as confining for a mature artist as it is thrilling for a young upstart. The album is a product of libido, bravado, and enthusiasm for the music of Gen Xers’ childhoods—all things that start to fade with age. That exhilaration can’t be recaptured, but it can be preserved for future generations of kids wired on sex, cheap wine, and punk rock. — Pitchfork
Car Song
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WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?
Jimmy Kimmel: Seth Rogen, Ramy Youssef, Big Time Rush
Jimmy Fallon: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Lionel Boyce, Keke Palmer
Stephen Colbert: Paul Simon, Rep. Maxwell Frost
Seth Meyers: Mike Birbiglia
After Midnight: Michelle Collins, Brendan Scannell, Kurt Braunohler (R 3/12/25)
Watch What Happens Live: Ciara, Anthony Ramos
LAST WEEK’S POLL: HEY MAN, IS THAT FREEDOM ROCK?
Yeah man turn it up 73%
No man, hell no 18%
Pie 9%
