Track Listing

1. Just Like Honey
2. Living End
3. Taste the Floor
4. Hardest Walk
5. Cut Dead
6. In a Hole
7. Taste of Cindy
8. Some Candy Talking [*]
9. Never Understand
10. Inside Me
11. Sowing Seeds
12. My Little Underground
13. You Trip Me Up
14. Something's Wrong
15. It's So Hard

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #121142 in Music
• Published on: 1986
• Released on: 2000-01-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Import, Original recording reissued

Album Description
Scottish brothers Jim & William Reid's post-modern band's acclaimed debut album, originally released in 1985 & no longer available in the U.S. 15 tracks, including 'Just LikeHoney', 'Never Understand', 'My Little Underground', 'You Trip Me Up' and 'The Hardest Walk', plus an unmarked bonus track previously only included on the U.K. edition of the CD, 'Some Candy Talking'. 1986 Blanco Y Negro release.

Amazon.com
Sounding like a collision between the 1965 Beach Boys' tour bus and a truckload of malfunctioning vacuum cleaners, the Jesus and Mary Chain found something new to do with the old rock & roll verities. Psychocandy, the group's debut album after a handful of sublimely catchy 45s, found the Glasgow lads drenching everything from the Ronettes to the Harley Davidson mythos and heroin chic in walls of feedback, matching even the Ramones in revisionist ingenuity. It will always sound great--and like something no other band has quite caught up to. --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

Mindblowing
Only a few bands have been able to release debut albums that can be called a brilliant classic. Most bands have to wait 3 or 4 albums into their career to release a masterpiece. The Jesus and Mary Chain are, among the Velvet Underground, Stone Roses, Spacemen 3, Gang of Four, one of those bands that have pulled it off. This album is 14 mind numbing, feedback drenched sonic explosions. Underneath all the layers of noise are fantastic pop songs. These songs would be brilliant even without the wall of feedback. Picture the first half of the first Ramones lp, early Beach Boys singing the 3rd Velvet Underground lp, and then put razor sharp ear piercing noise over it and you have the Jesus and Marychain "Psychocandy". Starting off with the Phil Spectorish "Just Like Honey" to to the brilliant "It's So Hard" this is a perfect lp. Each song could have been a single on their own. Key tracks are "Just Like Honey", "Cut Dead", "A Taste of Cindy", "Never Understand", "Sowing Seeds", "My Little Underground", "You Trip Me Up". Never has pop music sound so violent and delicate at the same time. Logically being the next step from the Velvet Underground, the Jesus & Marychain helped spearhead a the so called "shoegazing" scene, influencing bands like The Weatherprophets, Spacemen 3, Loop and countless others. If they were never to have released another album, "Psychocandy" would have been enough, but thankfully they relased more albums. This is one album that should be in everbody's collection.

buzz
College radio was *MADE* by records like this one. The '80s were a time of musical excess which bludgenoed us with hair
metal bands. No worries, I liked many of them but could see
it was a formula, like any other, that was rapidly loosing
momentum. Even the indie scene, the life blood of college
radio, was somewhat tired. And then, bang, this gem appeared
and blew us all away. There was no Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and
Soundgarden. Instead, we had Sonic Youth and, now, Jesus and
Mary Chain. This album is phil spector's wall of sound meets
Scottish punk meets the beach boys. Within their wall of noise
are truly breathless melodies and haunting lyrics. If you
are serious about your music then this needs to be the one Jesus
and Mary Chain record you purchase. I'm pushing 40 now and still this record means as much as it did to me going on 20
years after its release. As a sign of the times, this was one
of the first CDs I purchased on the new format known as Compact

Disc. Buzz on.

Listen for the girl--
Sadly forgotten, to the point that it is unavailable save on import, this is a classic of classics. It's a jarring listen, but the harshness is tempered by a beautiful sense of melody evident in every track. Much of the melody is carried by the bass, which leaves the guitar as more of a textural instrument rather than a melodic lead. This is what throws off a lot of listeners I think. So here's a sugestion. Crank up the bass on your stereo, lower the treble, and dim the lights. That will give you the full effect that I believe it was intended to have.

It's really a breathtaking experience and there's a lot of subtlety, from what sounds like female backing vocals on track 1 to periodic breaks in the guitar squall which allow the bass to take the lead. Listen for the details and you'll be amazed.

A small ray of hope-- "Just Like Honey" has recently been featured in the movie "Lost in Translation" and on a Rhino box-set called "Left of the Dial" which is comprised of 1980s "college rock." JAMC has also been name-checked, although in an inappropriate comparison to Echo and the Bunnymen, in the film "High Fidelity." So maybe this disc will wind its way back into popular culture after all. One can only hope.

-HW