Moss Side Story

Moss Side Story
Studio album by Barry Adamson
Released 1989
Genre Indie rock
Lounge music
Electronica
Jazz
Length 54:00 (with bonus tracks)
Label Mute
STUMM 53
Producer Barry Adamson
Barry Adamson chronology
Moss Side Story
(1988)		 Soul Murder
(1992)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]

Moss Side Story is an album by Barry Adamson released in 1989. The album is a concept album. The music is almost completely instrumental except for occasional screams, samples and a choir. The concept is the score to a fictitious film. To achieve the effect the song titles are descriptive of a film noir plot outline. The inner sleeve came with a short story written by Dave Graney which added to the concept. This complemented outer sleeve which displays the tag line: "In a black and white world, murder brings a touch of colour...".

The NME review of the albums describes it as a "Grand filmic suite intended as the soundtrack to a "provocative film thriller set in Manchester's Moss Side" and that Moss Side Story is "one of the best soundtracks ever, the fact that it has no accompanying movie is a trifling irrelevance."[2]

The overall style is reminiscent of the work of Angelo Badalamenti who often collaborates with the film director David Lynch.

CD versions came with three bonus tracks. Two of them - "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Man With The Golden Arm" (composed by Elmer Bernstein) - are drawn from TV or film themes. "Alfred Hitchock Presents" is a reworking of the theme to the series of the same name, Charles Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette."

Moss Side is a district near the centre of Manchester in Great Britain, where Adamson was born. The album title is a play on words and a reference to Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. The title of "The Swinging Detective" plays on Dennis Potter's series of television plays The Singing Detective, while "Round Up The Usual Suspects" is a line made famous by Claude Rains in Casablanca.

Legacy

The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[3]

Track listing

All music composed by Barry Adamson; except "Everything Happens to Me" by Barry Adamson and Seamus Beaghen; "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" by Charles François Gounod and "The Man with the Golden Arm" by Elmer Bernstein

Act One - "The Ring's The Thing"

  1. "On The Wrong Side of Relaxation" - 5:27
  2. "Under Wraps" - 4:27
  3. "Central Control" - 2:10
  4. "Round Up The Usual Suspects" - 0:43

Act Two - "Real Deep Cool"

  1. "Sounds from The Big House" - 6:24
  2. "Suck On The Honey of Love" - 2:13
  3. "Everything Happens to Me" - 2:43
  4. "The Swinging Detective" - 5:45

Act Three - "The Final Irony"

  1. "Autodestruction" - 3:49
  2. "Intensive Care" - 2:42
  3. "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" - 4:07
  4. "Free at Last" - 1:23

'For Your Ears Only'

  1. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" - 2:24
  2. "Chocolate Milk Shake" - 4:24
  3. "The Man with the Golden Arm" - 5:13

Accolades

Year Publication Country Accolade Rank
1989 NME United States "Albums of the Year" 34 [4]
"*" denotes an unordered list.

Personnel

Orchestrated by Bill McGee

Charts

Chart (1989) Peak
position
UK Indie Chart[5] 9

References

  1. ↑ Unterberger, Richie. "allmusic ((( Moss Side Story > Review )))". Allmusic. Retrieved February 27, 2010.
  2. ↑ Marconie, S. NME, March 11, 1989 pp33
  3. ↑ Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN 978-0-7893-2074-2.
  4. ↑ "NME - Albums of the Year". NME. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
  5. ↑ Lazell, Barry (1997). Indie Hits 1980-1989. Cherry Red Books. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
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