15 songs / 44 minutes
JKP
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15 songs / 44 minutes
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T.V. Smith is a legend of the British Punk
scene. His career began of course in 1977 by founding the Adverts who released two albums before
the split. Later on, T.V. Smith (well, the actual name is Tim Smith) released one more album
with the T.V. Smith Explorers and of course lots of solo records. In 1999, T.V. Smith came in contact
with the German Punk (?) band Die Toten Hosen. As the relationship between both sides was very
harmonic at begin, they decided to record a CD together. Useless is a compilation of over 20 years
of T.V. Smith. Tim Smith is singing, Die Toten Hosen are playing the instruments. The CD is containg
14 older songs, featuring also the Adverts classic 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes', a song about a murderer a
let his retina for scientific studies before being executed. The only new song 'Only One Flavour' is
still sounding very fresh with lots of Punk attitude and authenticity. Even if the CD is containing
lots of Punk tracks (just listen to the great opener 'One Chord Wonders'), T.V. Smith is also often
demonstrating that he likes being a protest singer. 'Generation Y' or 'Gather Your Things And Go'
are surprisingly and not extreme at all songs. But T.V. Smith's rough voice is well fitting into these
calmer song structures. 'Runaway Train Driver' is even slight folky and reminds a bit of the New Model
Army. I think that 'Useless' is showing the many faces of T.V. Smith in a good way and the best
possibilty to get more knowledge about his music.
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