From: WarrnPeace@aol.com
Subject: Re: Echoes of Bunnymen (NC)
Date: 2/9/2002 8:45:02 AM
To: night_of_light@yahoo.com


In a message dated 2/8/2002 7:24:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
night_of_light@yahoo.com writes:


> If you were going to recommend an Echo and the Bunnymen album to a curious 
> listener (who happens to be a Church fan) as a good place to start to get 
> acquainted with the band's music, what would that album be?
> 

That's a hard question... while early Bunnymen and Church both have 
psychedelic, poppy, and postpunk roots, they've both changed a lot over the 
years, only the Bunnymen probably have not changed as much as the Church has 
over time... but the Bunnymen did change more in the early years than The 
Church did!

I agree with Mahky and MB, Heaven Up Here is my favorite... but don't get 
that and expect it to be "representative" of the Bunnymen.  Ocean Rain is my 
next favorite, but it's really mellow (well, more acoustic than mellow) and 
quite different from all the other Bunnymen albums except maybe What Are You 
Going to Do with Your Life.  Crocodiles and Porcupine both have moments of 
greatness, and the newer ones like Evergreen and Flowers aren't bad either.  
Note that nobody recommended getting the grey self-titled album, which has 
their biggest hit - Lips Like Sugar!  Not that it's a terrible album, it just 
doesn't have as many good moments as the rest.

So basically you can't go wrong with any one Bunnymen album, but for a good 
into I'd recommend either the good single-disk collection "Ballyhoo", which 
includes stuff from the first 5 albums, plus a few good non-album singles, or 
if you want to put down a few more $$ get the great 4-CD set "Crystal Days", 
which includes strong album tracks along with the hits, and lots of b-sides 
(the Bunnymen are a GREAT b-side band btw), live, and unreleased material.  
If you really get into their music, there's lots of hard to find material out 
there too like the great "Avalanche" EP.

From there you can also check out Will Seargent's solo project Glide, or Ian 
McCulloch's spotty solo albums, or Reverberation, the Bunnymen album without 
Ian or Pete, and Electrafixion, which is Will and Ian getting grungy before 
they decided to re-start the Bunnymen.  They've done a lot of great music 
over the years, you'll just have to dig a little to get to all the good 
stuff.

I'm sure that was of no help whatsoever.  I basically just told you to plunk 
down a pile of cash and get them all, but really, almost anywhere is a good 
place to start.

Vic.