Super 10

[daveid]

Super was released ten years ago today. I have very fond memories of getting this on vinyl, having started purchasing records again shortly before this. Collecting-wise, we were truly spoilt with the singles on this one. Four released on vinyl, with Inner sanctum being the loveliest of all, and a simple yet strong visual campaign. Great album too, carrying on the sonic experimentation of Electric but with shorter, more poppy tracks. It is my favourite of the Price trilogy.

[domino]

I became a fan during the Super era, it's good album. I always felt like some gems were pretty underrated among fans.

[rashomon]

Have fond memories of visiting the pop up store in Shoreditch - nabbed a Super litho from there and that vibrant orange still pings!

The tracks that still get regular rotation for me are Pop Kids, Twenty Something, Dictator, Sad Robot World, Burn and Into Thin Air

[telys]

Great album too, carrying on the sonic experimentation of Electric but with shorter, more poppy tracks. It is my favourite of the Price trilogy.

I wouldn't say they succeded properly in the "sonic experimentation". I think some tracks deserved to be longer. Burn, Into Thin Air, Sad Robot World and Dictator Decides, especially the last one all would've benefited from another minute or so.
And I don't really understand what Pazzo! does on the album. I like the music but it could've been part of another track instead.
The Pop Kids is another track where we actually got another section and that version is superior to the one on the album.

[Capsigrany]

My opinion might be impopular but I rate it on-par with Elysium as the worst PSB album. There are some good tracks obviously but I think it sounded dated and cheap from the very beginning and the chosen songs were average considering their standards. The artwork was really good and visually effective. The Inner Sanctum residency/Super tour were impressive but for me they should have been the final point of the “pop kids band”.

[Gabby]

I was giving Super a relisten recently and whilst its a good album I do find it lyrically quite shallow more often than not, and therefore very un-PSB.

Juxtaposed to the complexity of Behaviour it's, lyrically speaking, chalk and cheese.

[Ramzy]

I wouldn't say they succeded properly in the "sonic experimentation". I think some tracks deserved to be longer. Burn, Into Thin Air, Sad Robot World and Dictator Decides, especially the last one all would've benefited from another minute or so.
And I don't really understand what Pazzo! does on the album. I like the music but it could've been part of another track instead.
The Pop Kids is another track where we actually got another section and that version is superior to the one on the album.

I agree with some of this - the songs do lack space to breathe at times. It feels to me like they set out to recapture the last-commercial-hurrah energy of Yes but that the charts had moved on so much by 2016 that they didn't really know what the lowest common denominator was supposed to sound like any more. As a result it feels slightly awkward to me, even though I love most of it.

The one point I disagree on is The Pop Kids, which in its album version is one of their most perfect post-2000 songs in my book - I find the Full Story verse a bit cringe and on the nose, and the subtle remix of the entire track makes the whole thing just work less effectively for me. Something about the mix feels like part of the track is...missing? But each to their own. I love the dub.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

Can't say I'm a fan overall. For me this is definitely bottom three, along with Nightlife and Release.

Retro.

[telys]

Just had two re-listenings. Damn, it's a great album. I take back almost everything I've said.

[Drico One]

The last time they sounded reinvigorated, vibrant, and exciting. Day-glo thrills aplenty. There's a vitality about Super that is compelling. Thematically, it is such a coherent album: sentience is painful, so let's escape. We ran from Hicksville, left the here and now to return to the 1990s, abdicated, lost ourselves on the dance floor, and disappeared into thin air. Only the sad robots, mindless as they already were, bucked the trend and travelled in the opposite direction - and that ended badly.

Lives up to its name, as David Harris-Jones would attest.

Drico.

[thomashenry]

Best album since Very.

The only change I'd make is to put Sad Robot World where Dictator is, and drop Dictator to a b-side. If Dictator has to stay, put Sad Robot World right after it, so that we get a continuous run of bangers from then on.

[ludwig_iv]

I love Super. It feels like a natural progression from Electric.

[Pod]

Love Super, not as much as Electric, but still bloody good.

[Confidential]

I will never understand why "Burn" wasn't released as a single. It's much better than "Twenty-something" or "Inner Sanctum".

I am partial to "The Pop Kids (The Full Story)" but the album version works just as well.

[domino]

I will never understand why "Burn" wasn't released as a single. It's much better than "Twenty-something" or "Inner Sanctum".

As they revealed, however, in their publication Annually 2017, the Boys had planned on releasing "Burn" as the fourth and final single from Super. But then the infamous "Ghost Ship" warehouse fire in Oakland, California on December 2, 2016, in which 36 people died during a dance party, put an end to those plans. As they rightly noted, suddenly a song with the refrain "We're gonna burn this disco down" seemed horribly inappropriate, and releasing it as a single so soon after such a tragic event would have been tasteless.

source: www.geowayne.com/newDesign/super/burn.htm