Indie Yesterday Ep. 9

Every time I decide to do an Indie Yesterday episode I think to myself, “What took me so long to talk about these guys?” That’s happening again with this one. Gene was another Britpop band from the 90’s. When they released their first album, Olympian, all of the Morrissey and Smiths fans ran to the CD store to buy the album when the music magazines called them the next Smiths. The comparison is understandable when you hear the album.

Gene was heavily influenced by The Smiths. They admittedly said their name came from a Smiths b-side, “Jeane”. They also copied The Smiths pattern by having their second lp being a compilation of b-sides and radio sessions like “Hatful of Hallow”. Gene’s album was titled, “To See The Lights”.

From there, the band seemed to push away from their Smiths influences and started to create their own sound with the next album, “Drawn to the Deep End”. The second album was well received like the first one.

As the years went on, the band slowly lost popularity, which is a real shame because their last two albums, “Revelations” and “Libertine”, were very solid. I’d say they did some of their best stuff on those albums. It’s a real shame they didn’t get more attention.

Gene also has a best of called “As Good As It Gets” that’d be worth getting. If you don’t have anything from Gene yet, then it’ll be a good starting point. Of course I’d recommend getting all of their albums. But then again, I’m a huge fan.

OH, so let me tell you about the songs I put on here. Before they were Gene, the band was Sp!n. Sp!n was originally all of the members of Gene except for Martin Rossiter. Towards the end of the career of Sp!n, Martin did sing a few of the songs. Recently I tripped over a demo online. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the song “Decide” on there. I instantly noticed it was a song Gene later did and called, “I Can’t Decide if She Really Loves Me”. It’s neat to listen to the demo and then hear the final product so I posted both on here. I also posted a couple of other songs that I really enjoy by them.

Spin – Decide (demo)
Gene – I Can’t Decide If She Really Loves Me
Gene – London Can You Wait
Gene – Olympian(Live)

~ by Doug on May 5, 2009.