England Made Me (album)

England Made Me is the debut studio album by English rock band Black Box Recorder, released on 20 July 1998 through Chrysalis Records. After releasing albums with the Auteurs and Baader Meinhof, musician Luke Haines formed Black Box Recorder with John Moore and Sarah Nixey in early 1997. They signed to Chrysalis Records and began recording their debut album with Auteurs collaborator and producer Phil Vinall in May 1997. England Made Me is a country folk, easy listening and pop album that was compared to the work of Portishead and Young Marble Giants.

For the novel by Graham Greene, see England Made Me (novel).

England Made Me
An image of several people in a mine with a white border around it
Studio album by
Black Box Recorder
Released20 July 1998
Genre
Length37:16
LabelChrysalis
ProducerBlack Box Recorder, Phil Vinall
Black Box Recorder chronology
England Made Me
(1998)		 The Facts of Life
(2000)
Singles from England Made Me
  1. "Child Psychology"
    Released: 4 May 1998
  2. "England Made Me"
    Released: 6 July 1998

England Made Me was met with favourable reviews, with critics focusing on the album's quality, Nixey's voice and the lyricism. It reached number 110 on the UK Albums Chart, while "Child Psychology" and "England Made Me" peaked at number 82 and 89, respectively, on the UK Singles Chart. "Child Psychology" was released as the lead single from the album in May 1998, followed by "England Made Me" in July 1998. Black Box Recorder did not tour to promote the album, making their second live performance by the end of the year. NME included the album on its list of the top 50 best releases from 1998; it would be reissued as part of a career-spanning box set in 2018.

Background and recording

Between 1993 and 1996, vocalist and guitarist Luke Haines released three albums with the Auteurs, New Wave (1993), Now I'm a Cowboy (1994) and After Murder Park (1996). The last of them received critical acclaim, but was not as commercially successful as its two predecessors. Following this, Haines released a self-titled album under the moniker Baader Meinhof in 1996.[1] He had gotten tired of listening to his voice and decided to form Black Box Recorder with John Moore, formerly of the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Sarah Nixey in March 1997.[2] The latter had been serving as a backing vocalist in the band Balloon to harmonize with frontman Ian Bickerton. When he wanted more musicians to help them in a recording studio, he drafted in Haines and Moore. Nixey had been aware of the Auteurs through friends and owned a copy of the Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy (1985), but otherwise did not know the pair personally.[3]

Nixey was unsure about fronting Black Box Recorder, with Moore encouraging her by saying how much he liked her voice, initially agreeing to sing on one song, namely "Girl Singing in the Wreckage".[3] The trio then planned to make an EP and send demos to record labels.[4] Around this time, Nixey lost enthusiasm for working in theatre and was working on temp roles across London. She stopped this type of work a week prior to the band signing with Chrysalis Records.[3] Recording for their debut album began in May 1997.[2] The band and Auteurs collaborator Phil Vinall produced the majority of the tracks that would appear on it, save for "Ideal Home", which was solely produced by the band. A variety of engineers were used on select songs: Vinall, Martin Jenkins, Teo Miller, Pete Hofmann and the band; Miller would mixed most of the sogns, while Vinall mixed one of them.[5] Virgin Records greenlit another album from the Auteurs, much to Haines' surprise; they recorded four tracks before he continued working on England Made Me.[6]

Composition and lyrics
Three people performing instruments and singing into microphones
Four people facing right
The sound of England Made Me has drawn comparisons to the work of Portishead (top) and Young Marble Giants (bottom).

Overview

Musically, the sound of England Made Me has been described as country folk,[7] easy listening[1] and pop,[8] which recalled the sound of Young Marble Giants.[7] Pitchfork contributor Michael Sandlin said that the band deliver a type of "mildly morose but slightly tongue-in-cheek Sylvia Plath-meets-Paul McCartney pop sensibility," with elements of the work of Portishead.[9] Black Box Recorder worked as a unit between its three members, in contrast to the Auteurs where Haines was the leader. [10] Jason Ferguson of MTV saw that frequently some "wispy samples will waft through the proceedings or the band will get a little carried away and almost start to rock".[11]

The Quietus's Jude Rogers wrote that England Made Me (1935) by Graham Greene, which explores a "disreputable man wrestling with his conscience", gave the album its title.[12] AllMusic reviewer Stanton Swihart wrote that the band lambasted living in England, the "bland, dull mundaneness of daily living as well as the stale political world," with the album tackling topics that span "teenage sex and single mothers to repressive family life and wife swapping".[8] Sandlin saw it as an "anti-tribute to the shame, horror and general degradation that must naturally come" with growing up in post-Restoration England.[9]

Tracks

Gil Kaufman for MTV wrote that Nixey acts as a character that starts the album by "surviving a plane crash", giving the band their name.[13] "England Made Me" starts with Nixey inflecting pain on insects;[14] for the rest of the song, Nixey strays off boredom by contemplating staging a murder.[15] Niles Baranowski of Consumable Online said on "New Baby Boom", Nixey equates "teen pregnancy [a]s some sort of bad hair day".[16] "It's Only the End of the World" summarizes disillusionment from people in their 20s at the end of the 20th century,[9] while "Ideal Home" is a homage to owning a property,[17] and according to Tony Fletcher of MTV, the "pettiness of middle class suburban values".[18] Sandlin said "Child Psychology" describes a child who is intellectually stunted as a result of irreversible neglect by mislead and deceived parents.[9] In the song, Nixey repeats the lyric "Life is unfair / Kill yourself or get over it" in a mantra-like form.[8] In a review for NME, journalist Kitty Empire called "Up Town Top Ranking" a "warped attempt to reflect Britain's ethnic diversity (possibly)",[19] while Fletcher said Nixey changed it from a "boastful feminine going-out anthem into a morning-after lament".[18]

"Kidnapping an Heiress" recounts the situation involving Patty Hearst, sung from the perspective of the Symbionese Liberation Army,[16] and includes a reference to The Angry Brigade.[20] The album concludes with "Hated Sunday", which Empire said evokes the work of Morrissey with "its vista of endless, depthless grey days".[19] Ferguson said the addition of four bonus tracks on the US version aided in "extend[ing] the misery" for longer.[11] One of these, "Seasons in the Sun", is a cover of the Terry Jacks 1974 song of the same name. Spin's Joshua Clover wrote that Nixey sounds "as if she's singing the grocery list",[14] while Ink 19 writer Matthew Moyer said the band "pervert [the song] to its most evil and base nature". He added that "Lord Lucan Is Missing" recalled the work of Baader Meinhoff, "but with ten times the sugar".[21] Fletcher said it was the album's sole upbeat song, "and that's probably because the central character (a British nobleman who disappeared after a crime spree) is someone other than the singer".[18]

Release

Between the end of recording England Made Me and its release, the Auteurs recorded what would become How I Learned to Love the Bootboys (1999),[6] which leaned into the atmospheric nature of the former.[22] In February and March 1998, Black Box Recorder embarked on a tour of the UK.[23] Originally planned for April 1998,[2] "Child Psychology" was released as the lead single from England Made Me on 4 May 1998; "Girl Singing in the Wreckage" and "Seasons in the Sun" were included as the B-sides.[24] The video for "Child Psychology" features shots of children in a bath, which is located in a swamp overrun by forestry.[25] "Child Psychology" was subsequently banned from MTV and radio stations in the UK due to the lyric "Life is unfair / Kill yourself or get over it".[12] Nixey considered these actions to be overboard: "I think the line was actually incredibly positive [...] We just thought it was tough love really, nothing negative about it".[4] As the song was released in the US shortly after the Columbine High School massacre, disc jockeys had the chorus line played backwards to avoid causing offence.[12]

In June 1998, Black Box Recorder appeared at the Glastonbury Festival.[23] "England Made Me" was released as the album's second single on 6 July 1998. The CD version featured "Factory Radio" and "Child Psychology" as the B-sides,[24] while the seven-inch vinyl edition included a cover of "Lord Lucan Is Missing" (1980) by the Dodgems.[26] The video for "England Made Me" opens with an interior shot of an office building with staff members miming to the song. It cuts to children in a park doing the same, before the band members appear to walk down a street. People outside a farm house are seen miming; it ends with more footage of the band members.[27] To promote the single, the band supported Pulp at their show in Finsbury Park, London and performed at the T in the Park festival.[23]

England Made Me was released through Chrysalis Records on 20 July 1998.[24] The cover features a photograph of wrestler Adrian Street with his miner father taken in 1973 by Dennis Hutchinson at Beynon's Colliery in Blaina, Wales.[28] Haines said Street, who was cross-dressing, was showing off his championship belt while his father stares at him reproachfully. Haines explained that Moore and himself used to watch wrestling when they were children, until it "got axed because it became too pantomime".[29] A photo of the England football team doing a Nazi salute at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin was planned to be the album's cover.[30] Journalist Owen Hatherley said that album would have "truly encapsulated British fascism by adding sport to the litany of untrustworthy outsiders" had it been chosen.[17] The band did not tour to promote the album,[31] though appeared at the Reading Festival the following month.[23] The US version, issued on 6 July 1999 through Jetset Records,[32] featured a girl in a bed appearing "bored and morbidly introspective-- [it] tells you most everything you need to know" about the band, as Sandlin described.[9] It featured "Wonderful Life", "Seasons in the Sun", "Factory Radio" and "Lord Lucan Is Missing" as additional tracks.[24] Haines said he struggled to get the album issued in this territory due to its highly English nature.[10]

"Wonderful Life", "Seasons in the Sun", "Factory Radio", "Lord Lucan Is Missing", a remix of Uptown Top Ranking" and the music videos for "Child Psychology" and " England Made Me" were included on the compilation album The Worst of Black Box Recorder (2001).[33] England Made Me was included in the career-spanning Life Is Unfair (2018) CD box set alongside the band's other albums.[34] A vinyl edition of this box set was issued the following year.[35] In 2022, "Child Psychology" became a viral sensation on the video platform TikTok; in addition to this, a one-hour looped version was posted on YouTube. Due to the renewed interest in the track, Chrysalis Records posted an edited version of the track to Spotify.[36]

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[8]
Alternative Press3/5[37]
NME7/10[19]
Pitchfork6.2/10[9]
Q[38]
Rolling Stone[7]
The New Rolling Stone Album Guide[39]
Select4/5[40]
Spin8/10[14]
The Village VoiceA−[41]

Reviewers were generally positive on the album's quality. Swihart wrote that the album did not appear to be a satirical statement on "anything, but rather an exquisite, even upbeat, bit of pop [...] it is seemingly done ironically".[8] Rolling Stone writer James Hunter said the band are "totally of their time, ignoring guitar rock on the one hand and dance music on the other, and insisting on composure and clarity. Along the way, England Made Me gets off on its own erudite kicks".[7] Anna Robinson in The Rough Guide to Rock wrote that it was a "seductive and perverse listening experience. Sour times wrapped in a sugar coating. Beautiful and change".[1] Clover said "never once does [Nixey] offer easy emotion; neither does Haines's music let you off the psychological hook with easy melodies".[14] Baranowski expanded on this, saying that the album "isn't without hooks, but musically nothing will catch in your head," save for the chorus of "Child Psychology".[16] Ron Hart of CMJ New Music Report said it "provides the perfect soundtrack to those mornings when you're [...] wondering what the hell went wrong the night before".[42] Sandlin said at the halfway point, the album slips into "barely-tolerable redundancy" as it lost the "casual, deliberate momentum it'd been building upon".[9]

Some critics commented on Nixey's voice. Hatherley considered England Made Me to be in a "different league entirely" thanks to the substitution of Haines' "perpetually irritated rasp with the perfect vowels" of Nixey.[20] Empire said Nixey's "opiated debutante tones take Haines' odium to new, discomfiting extremes",[19] while Ferguson called her the band's "secret weapon".[11] Moyer said that the "innate beauty of Black Box Recorder is that Nixey can sing so sweet and innocently about kidnappings, murder, and the decay of Swinging London".[21] Robert Christgau in The Village Voice said that Nixey had a "rich, delicate, contained" voice that was "so neurotic that to expect her to give of herself would be meaningless".[41] Sandlin considered her to have the kind of limited faint murmur that is "certainly pleasant enough to draw you into her world without hope. But soon, you just feel yourself aching for her to begin screaming her dainty lungs out, just to shake up the melancholic monotony a bit".[9]

The album's lyrics were also praised by writers. Swihart thought that Haines and Moore compose in a "cleanly stylized in a way that conceals the raw-nerved lives their characters exist in but are also reflective of the internalization of such relentless barrenness" as the band "seemingly approach their subjects without judgment".[8] Ferguson said the album served as the "most elegant paean to suicide ever committed to tape. The fact that it's a song-suite almost entirely dedicated to how depressing England is [...] you really have to wonder how the trio made it through the studio sessions without any self-inflicted wounds".[11] Jamie Kiffel of Lollipop Magazine said that "rarely do the lyrics get as specific as their simple singability would imply" as exemplified by "England Made Me". He added that the themes in the songs are "weird, realistic, and leave plenty of room for your mind to color in the humor with a black marker".[43] Sandlin wrote that the band keeps "churning out more quaint songs about resigned depression" and after a while, the listener is "left with empty sorrow and overly reflective gobbledygook".[9] Empire said that "curiously, though, it's the tunes less concerned with dissing Blighty and more preoccupied with escape and revenge that stay with you".[19] Baranowski found it easy to laugh at some of the lyrics, noting that Nixey is singing what Haines wrote, as in one track Nixey is "pretending to be Haines who is pretending to be a teenaged mother".[16]

England Made Me charted at number 110 on the UK Albums Chart. On the UK Singles Chart, "Child Psychology" and "England Made Me" peaked at number 82 and 89, respectively.[44] NME ranked the album at number 31 on their list of the year's 50 best releases.[45]

Track listing

All songs written by Luke Haines and John Moore, except for where noted.[5]

  1. "Girl Singing in the Wreckage" – 2:42
  2. "England Made Me" – 4:00
  3. "New Baby Boom" – 2:10
  4. "It's Only the End of the World" – 5:21
  5. "Ideal Home" – 2:39
  6. "Child Psychology" – 4:08
  7. "I. C. One Female" – 2:19
  8. "Up Town Top Ranking" (Althea Forrest, Donna Reid) – 3:57
  9. "Swinging" – 3:52
  10. "Kidnapping an Heiress" – 2:46
  11. "Hated Sunday" – 3:16

Personnel

Personnel per booklet.[5]

Charts
Chart performance for England Made Me
Chart (1998) Peak
position
UK Albums (OCC)[44] 110

References

Citations

  1. Robinson 2003, p. 48
  2. Harrison 1998, p. 9
  3. Sinclair, Paul (2 July 2018). "Sarah Nixey on Black Box Recorder". SuperDeluxeEdition. Archived from the original on 31 January 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
  4. Redfern 2001–2002, p. 31
  5. Black Box Recorder (1998). England Made Me (booklet). Chrysalis Records. 7243 4 93907 2 0/493 9072.
  6. The Auteurs (2014). How I Learned to Love the Bootboys (booklet). 3 Loop Music. 3RANGE-30.
  7. Hunter 1999, p. 115
  8. Swihart, Stanton. "England Made Me – Black Box Recorder". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 6 June 2012. Retrieved 23 July 2009.
  9. Sandlin, Michael (6 July 1999). "Black Box Recorder: England Made Me". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 10 January 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  10. Waters, Christopher (1 February 2000). "Black Box Recorder London Kills Me". Exclaim!. Archived from the original on 22 November 2021. Retrieved 4 May 2023.
  11. Ferguson, Jason. "Black Box Recorder". MTV. Archived from the original on 14 September 2000. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  12. Rogers, Jude (1 June 2010). "Uncovering The Ballardian Universe Of Black Box Recorder". The Quietus. Archived from the original on 27 December 2014. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
  13. Kaufman, Gil (20 September 1999). "Gay Dad, Black Box Recorder, Dot Allison Introduce Themselves To U.S." MTV. Archived from the original on 5 May 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
  14. Clover 1999, p. 194
  15. Ashare 1999, p. 42
  16. Baranowski, Niles (21 September 1999). "Black Box Recorder, England Made Me- Niles Baranowski". Consumable Online. Archived from the original on 30 August 2002. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  17. Hatherley 2021, p. 24
  18. Fletcher, Tony (24 September 1999). "Cool Britannia". MTV. Archived from the original on 6 May 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
  19. Empire, Kitty (18 July 1998). "Black Box Recorder – England Made Me". NME. Archived from the original on 17 August 2000. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  20. Hatherley 2021, p. 25
  21. Moyer, Matthew (24 August 1999). "Black Box Recorder England Made Me". Ink 19. ISSN 1075-8933. Archived from the original on 6 May 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2023.
  22. Hubbard, Michael (5 July 1999). "The Auteurs – How I Learned To Love The Bootboys". musicOMH. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 6 March 2022.
  23. "Gig List". Nude Records. Archived from the original on 28 April 2001. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  24. "Discography". Black Box Recorder. Archived from the original on 20 August 2007. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  25. Chrysalis Records (1 November 2017). Black Box Recorder - Child Psychology (Official Music Video) (video). Archived from the original on 4 May 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2023 – via YouTube.
  26. Black Box Recorder (1998). "England Made Me" (sleeve). Chrysalis Records. CHS 5091/7243 8 85713 7 1.
  27. Chrysalis Records (1 November 2017). Black Box Recorder - England Made Me (Official Music Video) (video). Archived from the original on 5 May 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2023 – via YouTube.
  28. Haines, Luke (2011). Post Everything: Outsider Rock and Roll. London: William Heinemann. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-434-02009-6.
  29. Alexander (23 September 2006). "Blast from the past 2000: Black Box Recorder". The Portable Infinite. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
  30. Hatherley 2021, pp. 23–4
  31. "Luke Here for Xmas Cheer". NME. 17 October 1998. Archived from the original on 31 January 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
  32. Sansone ed. 1999, p. 38
  33. Black Box Recorder (2001). The Worst of Black Box Recorder (sleeve). Jetset Records. TWA40CD.
  34. Black Box Recorder (2018). Life Is Unfair (booklet). One Little Indian. TPLP1414CDBOX.
  35. Black Box Recorder (2019). Life Is Unfair (sleeve). One Little Indian. TPLP 1414.
  36. Teo-Blockey, Celine (15 August 2022). "First Issue Revisited: Black Box Recorder on 'The Facts of Life'". Under the Radar. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  37. "Black Box Recorder: England Made Me". Alternative Press (134): 92–93. September 1999. ISSN 1065-1667.
  38. "Black Box Recorder: England Made Me". Q (171): 142. December 2000. ISSN 0955-4955.
  39. Harris 2004, p. 29
  40. Wilkinson, Roy (August 1998). "Black Box Recorder: England Made Me". Select (98): 95. ISSN 0959-8367.
  41. Christgau, Robert (7 March 2000). "Consumer Guide: Cleanup Time". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 8 June 2017.
  42. Hart 1999, p. 26
  43. Kiffel, Jamie (1 September 1999). "Black Box Recorder". Lollipop Magazine. OCLC 36854274. Archived from the original on 7 September 2021. Retrieved 4 May 2023.
  44. Chart Log UK: "Chart Log UK: Darren B – David Byrne". UK Albums Chart. Zobbel.de. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  45. "NME.com". NME. Archived from the original on 17 August 2000. Retrieved 6 May 2023.

Sources

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