Hey Venus!
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| Hey Venus! | |||||
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| Studio album by Super Furry Animals | |||||
| Released | August 27, 2007 | ||||
| Recorded | Miraval Studios, France; mixed at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth and PleasureFoxx Studios, Cardiff, 2006-2007 | ||||
| Genre | Experimental rock, Britpop, Psychedelic rock | ||||
| Length | 36:27 | ||||
| Label | Rough Trade | ||||
| Producer | David Newfeld, Super Furry Animals | ||||
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| Super Furry Animals chronology | |||||
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| Singles from Hey Venus! | |||||
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Hey Venus! is the eighth album by Welsh band Super Furry Animals, described by lead singer Gruff Rhys as "a 'speaker blowing' LP"[1] and released on August 27, 2007. The album is the band's first full-length release on Rough Trade Records.
After releasing three albums that demonstrated a progression in the band's sound, Hey Venus! is widely seen by many as a return to the 'poppier' tone of their 1996 debut album Fuzzy Logic.[citation needed] It is also their shortest-running studio release to date, clocking at just over 36 minutes.
In a 2008 interview with Uncut Gruff Rhys described Hey Venus! as "a straight-up collection of songs ... I suppose we were trying to make some kind of pop record"[2]
"Show Your Hand" was released as the first single from Hey Venus! on August 13, 2007, just two weeks before the album's release date. However, it was first available as a download-only single on July 16. The Phil Spector-influenced "Run-Away" was released as the second single from the album on October 29. Hey Venus! was released in America on January 22, 2008, packaged with a bonus CD containing the b-sides of the "Show Your Hand" and "Run-Away" singles and additional video footage.
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[edit] Background
In an interview with Tiny Mix Tapes in January 2008 Gruff Rhys stated that Hey Venus! was deliberately conceived as a 'pop' record following a request from the band's new record label Rough Trade:
| “ | I suppose the background of why we made the record is we got signed by Rough Trade. They asked us to make a pop record for them. They asked us 'Can't you make one of those pop records like you used to make'. So we looked at the songs we had, because we're always writing. We kind of chose songs that we could play as a band that would be quite simple to record that we thought was some kind of pop music.[3] | ” |
[edit] Recording
The majority of the album was recorded at Miraval Studios, France,[4] picked, at keyboardist Cian Ciaran's request, because of its large live room which enabled all the band to set up and play as a group.[5]
After working with Mario Caldato Jr. on their last two records the band chose Dave Newfeld to produce Hey Venus!, impressed with his work for Broken Social Scene:
| “ | We were listening to the last Broken Social Scene record and we kind of looked at each other because we had been discussing producers. But, more specifically, we were looking for producers who could work with five really opinionated people who don't think alike, you know? ... We were thinking, 'Wow, BSS are a band with lots of members. It must be nuts making those records. Let's see if he's available.'[5] | ” |
[edit] Themes
According to Rhys, the record was initially conceived as a concept album about a character called Venus, hence the title of the album: [6]
| “ | At lot of the songs have the same central theme - following a young woman called Venus moving from a small town to a big metropolis and following her adventures. Some songs link up to that story more than others, but some were left off the record, they'll be on the next one, which we're working on already. It started off as a concept, but then we chose songs for their merit rather than their themes. | ” |
Drummer Dafydd Ieuan has dismissed claims that Hey Venus! is a concept album, stating that, although there are "a number of crossovers between songs ... the similarities are more because all the songs were written during a certain period of time".[7]
Rhys stated as much himself in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times:
| “ | What happened is that I wrote the songs, and then I noticed that some of them had very similar themes: ending relationships; moving on to the big city; leaving home and just generally growing up, so I came up with the idea of kind of applying all of these different stories to this Venus character as a way of making this character to represent all of these personal songs ... It was more a way of structuring and compiling the album after the songs had already been written then writing a concept album per se.[8] | ” |
[edit] Cover
Hey Venus! is also notable for being the first Super Furry Animals studio album since 1996's Fuzzy Logic without a cover designed by Pete Fowler. Instead, the band hired influential Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami to produce the artwork for the album, in his own striking visual style. According to an NME article, Tanaami had no knowledge of the band prior to him designing the artwork, and the band had to communicate through Tanaami's lawyers and only got to see the finished result on completion.
[edit] Track listing
- "The Gateway Song" – 0:43
- "Run-Away" – 2:53
- "Show Your Hand" – 2:51
- "The Gift That Keeps Giving" – 3:19
- "Neo Consumer" – 2:03
- "Into the Night" – 3:32
- "Baby Ate My Eightball" – 3:35
- "Carbon Dating" – 4:35
- "Suckers!" – 4:05
- "Battersea Odyssey" – 4:07
- "Let the Wolves Howl at the Moon" – 4:41
[edit] US bonus disc
- "Never More" – 2:25
- "Aluminium Illuminati" – 2:37
- "These Bones" – 3:23
- "That's What I'm Talking About" – 5:41
- "Run-Away" (Video) – 2:56
- In Studio Video Footage of "Hot Nutz" and "Semi-Professional" – 6:23
[edit] Notes
- ^ Super Furry Animals reveal new album title. Retrieved on 2006-04-13.
- ^ Martin, Piers (April 2008). "Album by album: Super Furry Animals". Uncut 131: 70–72.
- ^ Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals)
- ^ (2007) Album notes for Hey Venus! by Super Furry Animals, [p.6] [CD booklet]. London: Rough Trade Records. Hey Venus! at MusicBrainz.
- ^ a b Super Furry Animals Go The Social Scene Way. Retrieved on 2008-04-09.
- ^ Super Furry Animals star reveals full details of band's comeback. Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
- ^ Super Furry Animals Interview
- ^ DeRogatis, Jim (2008-02-14). Back to the Super Furry beginning. http://www.suntimes.com. Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
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