''Wild and Lonely'' is the fourth studio album by the Scottish act the Associates. The album was released on 24 March 1990 by AVL/Virgin subsidiary Circa Records, a label MacKenzie had signed to after WEA/Warner rejected the fourth Associates album ''The Glamour Chase'' (with only MacKenzie's cover of Blondie's "Heart of Glass" emerging from this album while under contract to WEA, when it was released as a single and put on the ''Vaultage From The Electric Lighting Station'' compilation). ''Wild and Lonely'' was produced by Australian record producer

Julian Mendelsohn Julian Mendelsohn is an Australian record producer, audio engineer and mixer. Early life After completing school in Australia, Mendelsohn moved to the United Kingdom. He secured his first job in 1974 at Milner Sound Fulham Rd. Chelsea, run b ...

, it peaked at No. 71 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

. Three singles were released from the album: "Fever", "Fire to Ice" and "Just Can't Say Goodbye", all of which failed to chart in the UK Top 40, peaking at numbers 81, 92 and 79 respectively.

Critical reception

''Wild and Lonely'' was poorly received by critics. Ira Robbins, writing for ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

'', wrote "Scotland's Associates have ended a lengthy recording hiatus with a glossy, shallow album that sounds seriously out of step. Where most high-tech dance-pop now follows the soothing groove of

Soul II Soul Soul II Soul are a British musical collective formed in London in 1988. They are best known for their two major hits; 1989's UK number five and US number eleven " Keep On Movin'", and its follow-up, the UK number one and US number four " Back to ...

, the Associates — more precisely, singer-songwriter Billy Mackenzie plus a load of session players — cling to a dramatic delivery and chattering, generally overloaded arrangements." In a retrospective review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

, critic Ned Raggett wrote, "There's some of the same relative musical ennui, where everything is perfectly pleasant but rarely striking. Even more distressing, more than once, said music is little more than late-'80s glossy yup- funk that is singularly unappealing in its boredom, often saved only by Mackenzie's performing bravura and nice production touches ..Happily, the worse moments don't define the album, and when at its best, Wild and Lonely serves up a fine selection of new Mackenzie classics."

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the ''Wild and Lonely'' liner notes. Musicians *Billy MacKenzie –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

*Blair Booth – keyboards, strings, programming, vocals *Philipp Erb – keyboards, strings, programming *Gary Maughan – keyboards, programming * L. Howard Hughes –

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, strings *Mimi Izumi Kobayashi – piano *

Chester Kamen Chester Kamen (born in Hackney, London) is an English session guitarist, whose work has included performing with Paul McCartney, Bryan Ferry, Bob Geldof, Madonna, Duran Duran, Robbie Williams, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Seal, Massive Attack, Ki ...

–

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

*J.J. Belle – guitar *Mark Rutherford – guitar * Guy Pratt –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

*Kevin Hutchison – bass guitar *Danny Cummings –

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

Moritz von Oswald Moritz von Oswald (born 1962) is a German record producer and percussionist from Hamburg and based in Berlin. He is a co-founder of the production duo and record label Basic Channel. He has collaborated with Juan Atkins, Carl Craig, and Nils P ...

– percussion * Malcolm Duncan –

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

*Neil Sidwell – saxophone *Martin Drover –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

*Lennie Costa –

bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; el, μπουζούκι ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', from Greek ), also spelled buzuki or buzuci, is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and ...

Anne Dudley Anne Jennifer Dudley (née Beckingham; born 7 May 1956) is an English composer, keyboardist, conductor and pop musician. She was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in the classical and pop genr ...

– strings * Gavyn Wright – strings *

Carol Kenyon Carol Kenyon (sometimes spelt Karol; born 1959) is a British singer. She is best known for her vocals on the Heaven 17 hit song "Temptation", which reached number two in the UK Singles Chart in 1983. When the song was re-released as a remix by ...

–

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

Carroll Thompson Carroll Thompson is a British lovers rock singer, best known as the "Queen of Lovers Rock" Biography Thompson was born in England and is of Jamaican descent. Thompson undertook classical piano training on the piano and sang in school and chur ...

– backing vocals *

Juliet Roberts Juliet Roberts (born 6 May 1962) is a British jazz, rock, soul and house music singer of Grenadian descent. Career Roberts was born in London, England. She originally recorded as Julie Roberts in 1982, and performed on the 1983 top 10 hit s ...

– backing vocals Production and artwork *

– producer *Billy MacKenzie – producer, sleeve design *Ren Swan - engineer *Richard Haughton –

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

*Colin Williams –

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

Charts

References

External links

* {{Authority control The Associates (band) albums 1990 albums Albums produced by Julian Mendelsohn