The Beasts of Suburban
The Beasts of Suburban is a 1992 EP by anonymous Australian band TISM. The title is a play on the name of another Australian band, Beasts of Bourbon.
| The Beasts of Suburban | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| EP by | ||||
| Released | 20 July 1992 | |||
| Recorded | Atlantis Studios March–April 1992 | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock | |||
| Length | 31:43 (original release) 49:06 (1997 rerelease) | |||
| Label | Shock Records | |||
| Producer | Tony Cohen | |||
| TISM chronology | ||||
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TISM's producer for this album, Tony Cohen, previously worked with that group. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1993, he was nominated for Producer of the Year for the track, "Get Thee to a Nunnery".[1] This is the first TISM release to feature Tokin' Blackman (then known as Tony Coitus) on guitar, having replaced Leek Van Vlalen. The track "Morningtown Ride" was listed as one of the 10 Greatest Songs About Melbourne by ToneDeaf's Corey Tonkin.[2]
Track listing
On the cassette version of the EP, the same program is repeated on both sides of the tape.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Michael Jackson's Conveyor Belt" | 3:04 |
| 2. | "Bishop = Handjob" | 2:25 |
| 3. | "Get Thee to a Nunnery" | 2:41 |
| 4. | "Father and Son" | 2:29 |
| 5. | "Lillee Caught Dilley Bowled Milli Vanilli" | 2:41 |
| 6. | "If You're Ugly, Forget It" | 3:41 |
| 7. | "Morningtown Ride" (Followed by a short interview between a child and Tony Cohen before a TISM member calls Shock Records with the credits, and 5:26 of silence) | 10:51 |
| 8. | "Loser, Losing, Lost" (The song was mastered to a very low volume. To listen to it, turn up your volume or normalise it in a sound editing program. It is also unlisted.) | 3:55 |
The silence on "Morningtown Ride" was reduced to one minute in the Collected Recordings version.
On the re-release with the tracks from the Australia the Lucky Cunt EP added, the silence was moved to the end of "Recorded by JJJ, 23 January 1993, Melbourne Showgrounds" before being followed by "Loser, Losing, Lost", giving the track a total length of 11:53.
"Bishop = Handjob" actually dates back to the Hot Dogma era, where it was written in 1988 (alongside many other songs from that album) as "You Think I'm a Shining Wit, but Really I'm a Whining Shit".
Controversy
Feminist groups in Australia criticised TISM as sexist for their use of Sophie Lee in "Get Thee to a Nunnery".
The song allegedly protests the use of sex to sell a product via Lee's appointment as the host of the TV series Sex in 1992, contrasted with her position in 1990 as a presenter on the Nine Network's Looney Tunes cartoon show. Feminist Karen Fletcher described the latter appointment in a Green Left Weekly article attacking the song as "middle-aged men... rush[ing] home from work in time to watch Sophie throw to Bugs Bunny cartoons".
Lee described the song as "a boring song by a boring bunch of bourgeois boys."[3]
References
- "17th Annual ARIA Awards". Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). Archived from the original on 23 February 2004. Retrieved 6 June 2015. Note: User may be required to access archived information by selecting 'The History', then 'By Award', 'Producer of the Year' and 'Option Show Nominations'.
- Tonkin, Corey (22 August 2014). "The 10 Greatest Songs About Melbourne". ToneDeaf. Archived from the original on 22 July 2015. Retrieved 31 July 2016.
- Karen Fletcher. "… and ain't i a woman?: No to a nunnery". Green Left Weekly. Archived from the original on 2 February 2009.