I agree with you Mat, Tilt is a wonderful album, but it definitely took more getting used to than the previous albums.
I loved Life's Too Short, and the other songs are great with the exception of Get It Right.
As for Jollification, it's a classic, and Dizzy Heights is another great album. Every song on Dizzy Heights could have been a single, except maybe Wish Away... just my opinion.
I think the reason the album under achieved was maybe due to many people being mislead... after reading that the Seeds were 'going dance' I thought they were going to turn into Basement Jaxx copycats or something like that. The album actually has only four dancey tracks in my opinion, and it's no more dancey than the Jollification or Sense albums really.
Life's Too Short isn't THAT different from Marvellous is it?
And If Only sounds like a lot of tracks on the Sense album...
Of course, the main reason the album didn't sell though was because it isn't cheesy enough, radio stations and record companies only seem to promote bad music.
When i first heard Tilt I loved it and was excited as it was new material. This excitement and novelty quickly wore off. To emphasize this point, it is the least played CD in my collection.
I like Life's Too Short, but think the Mercury Rev mix is how it should have sounded. I like If Only, but it's too long. City Bright Stars is a typical Lightning Seeds classic in my opinion. Should have been the first single from the album. I Wish I Was In Love is based far too much on Fleetwood Mac's Man Of The World, and I know which one I'd rather listen to. It ain't the LS track, I can tell you.
Happy Sattellite is twiddly, fiddly techno trash. Far too much synth used on that. Far more synthesized than Why Why Why, but at least Why Why Why has a good feel to it and is not overly produced. This is. It's awful.
Get It Right i think is underrated and I like it. But too many listens and it annoys me. Cigarettes and Lies is ok. Crowdpleaser is a good track, but I really do wish it wasn't too overproduced and that it wasn't as gimmicky as it is. If the guitars had the harder edge and perhaps played in the style of Another Girl Another Planet, i'd like it a whole lot more.
Tales of the Riverbank is a fine song by anyone's standards and saves this album along with CBS. It's Bound in a Nutshell and Telling Tales material and carried out as well as the aforementioned two.
All the things - great track, but again, too overproduced and it gets lost in its own noise.
Lightning Seeds rating out of 10: 6 and a half
Rating by everyone else's standards at the moment (out of ten):
56 and a half
Ooh, the truth bites... personally I think it's a good album, but if I run the tracks through in my so called brain I guess it's not the most played album in my collection.
Life's Too Short is the best track in my opinion, I love the happy energy the song possesses, SSS is a good catchy song too, and it should have charted a lot better, I agree that If Only drags on a bit, City Bright Stars is pure class, I'm not that fond of I Wish I Was In Love, and Happy Satellite is a good track too, but it just isn't the Lightning Seeds... I quite like Get It Right and Cigarettes & Lies, Crowdpleaser is a fun track but too 'Apollo Four Forty' or 'Chemical Brothers' for my liking, and the remaining tracks are great.
So I'd give it about 7 out of 10. But give the band credit, at least they haven't just released an albums worth of Jollification soundalikes (this isn't a bad thing of course), they have shown a bit of diversity, always a strong point in a great band.