Let’s cut to the chase shall we? What I hold in my hands here is a shoddy thing indeed. Very shoddy. You may well know the scenario by this stage; major label releases a completely disinterested no-budget repackage of ancient pop music that is wholly indifferent to the material and to the fans alike. No song information beyond writer and year of recording, the cover a Flash-ey generated bitmap of an old band photo that took about 1 minute for the ‘graphic designer’ to cobble together and the inlay card a sad lifeless thing absolutely devoid of interest. And record companies wonder why people download music instead of buying it from them…
In any case the only people who might possibly buy this thing are perhaps people of a certain vintage who have fond memories of listening to ‘The Sound Of Bread’ back in the day and feel like a little walk down memory lane and don’t really give a damn about the visual or sequencing quality of the CD - they just want to hear ‘Guitar Man’ and ‘Diary’ one more time. But hang on wait a minute; those songs aren’t even on this bloody collection – what a rip-off!
There are two points as I see it in the CD’s defense – firstly it’s cheap. I got mine for 6 euros and at that price one can’t complain. And the other good point? Oh yes - it might very possibly be the best album I’ve heard all year. A bland incomplete reissue that makes no effort to win new listeners and shows complete contempt for its audience is one of my albums of the year? How odd. So to get to the bottom of this let’s go back awhile.
I mentioned ‘The Sound of Bread’ compilation above and let me remind you a little about that. As far as I recall it was released in England and Ireland in the late 70’s as a cheapo album collecting all the hits of Bread - an American soft rock group led by David Gates and James Griffin who specialised in fairly square but immaculately polished, melodic ballads by and large. They released a few albums in the late 60’s/early 70’s, had a few very big hits and drifted apart. By the latter end of the 70’s they were well past their commercial sell-by date - nevertheless the ‘Sound Of Bread’ collection was a surprise hit selling loads, due in part to its cheapness but also to its agreeable non-threatening musical content. Remember this was during the punk era and there was an audience for this kind of thing who were somewhat less than thrilled with bands like The Sex Pistols or The Clash.
And any youngster at that time, with a modicum of sense, would have rightly nicked mummy’s or daddy’s manna and traded it in at their local record emporium for the latest day-glo pink flexidisc single from The Septic Receptacles or whoever. And many did I am sure. So it was that Bread quickly became despised by anyone growing up in that time and terminally unfashionable again. In the 80’s and early 90’s they were most likely to be found in second hand shops for a quid and in bargain bins beside 10cc and James Last (fact - I read it in Q once ages ago - don’t say I don’t research these things) and so the band eventually faded gently away into the good night, aptly enough I suppose.
Now it’s time for me to lay my cards on the table. I remember as a music-starved young kid from the sticks grabbing any cassettes I could that were lying around the house and trying them out on my brand new state of the art walkman. New sounds were difficult to get hold of as the nearest record shop was about 20 miles away, not that that mattered anyway since I had zero moolah at that time. No, my days as a phenomenally rich W&H music hack were but a distant dream back then.
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Anyway, one of the cassettes I listened to at that time was, you guessed it - ‘The S.O.B.’ and I quite liked it. It was…. Nice. Obviously nowhere near as good as The Muppet Show Record which had the immortal ‘Hugga Wugga’, but it was pleasant enough and I enjoyed it the few times I listened to it before I got bored and moved on to the Best of Smokie (I know, but give me a break – I was only about 28. Sorry, 8 I mean).
Moving forward many, many years to a point in time where I now dig amongst others Beefheart, Can, The Stooges, Ornette Coleman, Miles and a whole host of other frightful rackets. But in the last while after a listening gap of over 20 years, I found that every now and again a vaguely remembered melody of Bread would waft along my sub consciousness like a gentle breeze and I would be transported to another place entirely. Music is funny like that sometimes. Thus on seeing this morsel for sale in a big record store recently I said why not and took the plunge. A wise move.
So now is the time I think to reclaim Bread from the dustbin of Rock history. This is gorgeous pop music, pure and simple. Some of the hits here – ‘Make It With You’, ‘It Don’t Matter To Me’, ‘If”, ‘Everything I Own’ have some of the most memorable pop melodies of the 70’s and beyond. Masterpieces in miniature they are glittering gems of crystalline simplicity that Brian Wilson, Curt Boettcher and Sean O’ Hagan would all surely die for. And this high level of quality is maintained throughout this accidental masterpiece in lesser-known tracks such as ‘Any Way You Want Me’, ‘In The Afterglow’, ‘Come Again’, ‘Didn’t Even Know Her Name’, ‘Friends and Lovers’ – all glorious examples of Bacharach-esque melodic songwriting. And the group harmonies are well, just beautiful.
There are surprises here too – the countryfied rockers ‘Make It By Yourself’, ‘Take Comfort’, and ‘Mother Freedom’ are a bit like what The Eagles might have sounded like if they were any good and also show us that Messrs. David Gates and Griffin were most certainly not one trick ponies. It must be said that a fine line is being trod here – the schlock factor especially threatens to engulf us in the later tracks but Bread just about manage not to step into Carpenters’ territory (and that’s one step into MOR that these ears are unwilling to go). That’s not to say that this is an unemotionally engaging snoozefest. I have always been a firm believer that you don’t need to make a loud noise to show passion. And if this is boring music then I’m John Major and feck the begrudgers.
So to finish, anyone who has the slightest interest in bands like Belle and Sebastian, The Kings Of Convenience, Camera Obscura or anybody making tuneful guitar music today should get this record. Warner Platinum most certainly do not deserve this praise but they have released one of the most essential albums of 2005. Get it into your life now.
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