Various - All Those Times We Spent Together - A Tribute to the Television Personalities

Canadian indie label The Beautiful Music has committed itself to releasing ten Television Personalities tribute albums over the next few years. It is an idea that is both bonkers and admirable, as if the label is trying to make up for all the praise and recognition that the band has sadly missed out on over its 30 plus year existence. Tribute albums are often quite hit and miss, but for TVPs fans, the songs are familiar and much loved, and several bands offer a fun and different take on the song they perform. After the Years’ spiky version of ‘This Angry Silence’, Anorak Girl take a kitschy electro pop approach to ‘Smashing Time’ It sort of sounds like a solo effort from the girls from the Human League, which is great, and seems to suit the song.

Blue Petal’s arrangement of ‘A Good and Faithful Servant’ is fairly faithful to the original, slowing it down and giving it a swinging, waltzy beat, but capturing the sentiment of the song nicely.

A Smile And A Ribbon’s take on ‘Magnificent Dreams’ sounds a bit Electrelane-like, and has a nice innocent, childish vibe to it.

Sarandon take ‘And Don’t the Kids Just Love It’ and sharpen up the 60s garage rock influence within it, making it more overt. The Painted Word unsurprisingly takes ‘The Painted Word’ and adds a breakbeat to it, which, with the Beatles-ish backwards guitar and tambourine, makes it sound a bit like an early Britpop song. Good on them for being daring and trying something a bit different though.

Amica’s loose, de-anglified version of ‘In a Perfumed Garden’ reminds me a little of Pavement, and therefore gets two thumbs up.

Armstrong’s nice harmonies and simple, arrangement of ‘This Heart’s Not Made of Stone’ is another highlight; different enough from the original to stand up on its own, but keeping the sentiment of the original.

Cineplexx gives ‘I Hope You Have a Nice Day’ a sort of lo fi Phil Spector treatment, while Apple Orchard strips away the 80s jangle of ‘The Dream Inspires’ and replaces it with Sloan-meets- Belle and Sebastian indie pop.

La Grande Illusion Gainsbourg-ifies ‘Glittering Prizes’; it’s unexpected, but surprisingly good. The alt-rock version of ‘The Man Who Paints the Rainbows’, supplied by the oddly-named Bunnygrunt, is another good one; it’s a natural adaptation that is different but doesn’t feel
forced.

Versions of ‘This Angry Silence’ book-end the compilation, with Boyracer’s closing take making it sound very Buzzcocks-like.

A few arrangements don’t quite work, but thankfully, ‘All Those Times We Spent Together’ is more hit than miss.

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