''I Love Mekons'' (stylized ''I ♥ Mekons'' on the album cover; also referred to as ''I (Heart) Mekons'') is an album by the British-American
punk rock band
the Mekons
The Mekons are a British band formed in the late 1970s as an art collective. They are one of the longest-running and most prolific of the first-wave British punk rock bands.
The band's style has evolved over time to incorporate aspects of ...
, released in 1993 on the
Quarterstick and
Touch and Go labels. It is a
concept album consisting of twelve
love song
A love song is a song about romantic love, falling in love, heartbreak after a breakup, and the feelings that these experiences bring. A comprehensive list of even the best known performers and composers of love songs would be a large order ...
s.
Background
Before ''I Love Mekons'' was released, the Mekons had been engaged in two years of rancorous arguments with their record label at the time,
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...
subsidiary
Loud Records
Loud Records, LLC. is a record label founded by Steve Rifkind and Rich Isaacson in 1991.
Loud is a hip hop label that released material by acts such as Wu-Tang Clan, Big Pun, Mobb Deep, Krayzie Bone, The Beatnuts, M.O.P., Tha Alkaholiks, Pete ...
. As a result, the Mekons did not release any albums for two years after the release of ''
Curse of the Mekons'' in 1991. Originally, Warner Bros. had refused to release ''I Love Mekons'' because they thought it was not good enough. After the Mekons parted ways with Loud Records, the album was released in 1993 on Quarterstick, a subsidiary of Touch and Go.
[
]
Reception
'' Melody Maker''s Dave Jennings described ''I Love Mekons'' as "simultaneously a brilliant, exhilarating pop record and an exploration of the assumptions behind other people’s pop records." Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ grade, describing it as "love songs, laid out casually across disc and lyric sheet--a country album without a happy ending."[
]
End-of-year lists
Greg Kot
Greg Kot (born March 3, 1957) is an American music journalist and author. From 1990 until 2020, Kot was the rock music critic at the ''Chicago Tribune'', where he covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and busines ...
ranked ''I Love Mekons'' as his 10th favorite album of 1993, and Mark LePage of the ''Montreal Gazette
The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...
'' named it his 4th favorite album of the year.
Track listing
#"Millionaire" – 4:37
#"Wicked Midnite" – 3:51
#"I Don't Know" – 4:20
#"Dear Sausage" – 3:48
#"All I Want" – 3:49
#"Special" – 2:30
#"St. Valentine's Day" – 4:59
#"I Love Apple" – 3:26
#"Love Letter" – 4:18
#"Honeymoon in Hell" – 5:34
#"Too Personal" – 5:54
#"Point of No Return" – 3:00
References
Further reading
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{{Authority control
The Mekons albums
1993 albums
Quarterstick Records albums
Concept albums
Touch and Go Records albums