ALBUM REVIEW: Stupidity – Beyond Stupidity (Wicked Cool Records)
Stupidity are an underground garage-rock band from Stockholm in Sweden who have been plying their trade for almost 20 years.
Known for their high-energy live shows, they often toss a well-chosen cover version into their sets, and have assembled a whole bunch of them for their seventh long player.
Reinvigorated in 2020 by a revamped line-up featuring original members Erniz (lead vocals) and Tommy Boy (drums), alongside JV (guitar) and Heurika (bass), Stupidity have enjoyed a creative resurgence in recent years.
That’s thanks in part to the patronage of Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who’s featured them on his Underground Garage radio show and on the soundtrack to his Netflix comedy-drama series Lilyhammer.
Beyond Stupidity sees the band paying tribute to the music that helped shape their sound – a blend of garage rock, rhythm & blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll, from the ’60s through to the ’90s.
Over the course of 11 energetic tracks it’s easy to see why they’ve become a popular draw. Although some are live staples, they’ve never seen the light of day on record – until now.
Stupidity took their name from a song by Solomon Burke (included here), and Stupidity is also the name of a favourite album by Dr Feelgood. So now, finally, the band decided to create their own version of Stupidity.
The album kicks off with lead single Spread It Around by The Bags, one of the first generation of punk bands to emerge from Los Angeles.
It’s followed by Carolina, by Jesse Hector and the Gatecrashers. Hector was in ’70s London proto-punks The Hammersmith Gorillas, and recently died of a heart attack, aged 78, so this serves as a fitting epitaph.
There’s more ’70s influences here too: Midnight Man by Austrailan new wavers Flash and the Pan (formed by two former members of ’60s freakbeat outfit The Easybeats), and pub rocker Nick Lowe’s Heart Of the City, later covered by Dave Edmunds and Dr.Feelgood.
John Cooper Clark’s Innocents sounds odd not sung in a thick Mancunian accent, and there’s something of an obscurity in Get Outta My Pagoda, a 1977 single by former Womble, sometime Vibrators guitarist and Sex Pistols producer Chris Spedding as he tried to jump on the punk bandwagon.
We dip into the ’80s with Cold, Cold Shoes by New York garage rockers The Fleshtones, and the excellent World Shut Your Mouth, which gave former Teardrop Explodes man Julian Cope a Top 20 hit in 1986
Perhaps the oddest choice is BBC by Ming Tea, the faux retro-mod band formed by Mike Myers and featuring The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs to record this song for the movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, in 1997. (Somehow, Ming Tea progressed from being formed as a joke band to make three albums of covers themselves!)
But the best and best-known song here is the stone-cold classic There’s A Ghost In My House. Written by the Motown writing team of Holland-Dozier-Holland in 1966, it flopped when released as a single by Canadian singer R. Dean Taylor in 1967.
But it enjoyed a second wind as a Northern Soul stomper in the early ’70s, reaching No 3 in the UK and later covered by the likes of Yachts, The Fall and, most recently, The Damned, on their recent covers set Not Like Everybody Else.
Stupidity score zero points for originality, but as a compilation of well-chosen cover versions, there’s plenty to enjoy here. 7/10.
- Beyond Stupidity by Stupidity is available now on digital, CD and blue vinyl LP HERE.
