Marzipan Fingers Then Marble Hands

I was listening to The Sugarcubes a while ago, sparked by a Twitter account that posts photographs of pages from the music press, in particular a run of issues of NME and Melody Maker from 1989. The Sugarcubes featured often in the live reviews, single and album reviews and interviews from that year. The Sugarcubes had hit the UK music scene hard when Life's Too Good was released in 1988. John Peel fell heavily for the single Birthday the year before, a song that sounded like little else- strange avant- pop about a girl who keeps spiders in her pocket and collects fly wings in a jar, sung in a unique voice. The album followed, a rush of post- punk, dance- pop played by a group of Icelandic punk veterans, spiky guitars, metallic drums, funky rhythms and a manic optimism with Bjork's squeals, hiccups and singing and Einar's spoken word voice. Delicious Demon, Motor Crash and Fucking In Rhythm And Sorrow were all perfect, wide eyed indie pop with audible punk roots but made for spinning round the floor to. Einar's interjections were funny, a counter balance to Bjork's otherworldliness. On Deus they muse about the existence of God. 

Deus

The indie holy trio of Peel, NME and Melody Maker banged their drum throughout 1988. The Sugarcubes had front covers and went to the US, the album sold well. What the NME and Melody Maker cuttings on Twitter made clear was how sour the relationship turned and how quickly. The group's punk nature was never far from the surface. They became suspicious of all the fawning and didn't always take interviews seriously. The NME and MM printed stories about the band eating puffins and put their focus on Bjork (naturally maybe). This upset the rest of the band who wanted them to be seen as a group, a democracy, not Bjork and The Sugarcubes.  Einar especially seemed prickly about it. As 1988 became 1989 The Sugarcubes released album number 2, Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week! the NME and Melody Maker turned on the band, slagging the album (and listening to it again recently there's no denying it's a much weaker set of songs) and attacking Einar's contributions especially. It's amazing reading some of the reviews three decades later how vitriolic and personal some of the articles in the music press were (not just the ones about The Sugarcubes, more generally articles like weekly pages of singles reviews where bands, singers and individuals get savaged by whichever critic was in the chair that week. At the time it seemed funny I guess, and a bit edgy, a bit punk but it reads pretty cruelly now. There was a review of a Wedding Present single that read like Gedge and the boys had committed a war crime and I was left thinking that a bit of perspective was needed, it's just some indie pop). 

I saw The Sugarcubes play at Liverpool Royal Court in October 1989, a gig reviewed by one of the two papers. The journalist was in the tour bus with them, reporting on the tensions and reviewing the gig. Things clearly got to Einar. That night in Liverpool he jumped off the stage to remonstrate with a heckler, grabbing hold of him in the pit. By that point there were plenty of fans who were wondering why Bjork needed a second  vocalist alongside her, shouting lines in the gaps between her singing. On record Einar's vocals made more sense. Live his presence as a shouter/ dancer was part of the band's punk roots. Hot Meat came out as a B-side, a version of Cold Sweat from Life's Too Good, Bjork and Einar perfectly in balance with each other. 

Hot Meat

By the time of 1992's Stick Around For Joy the spark had gone and Bjork was already planning a solo career. She'd spent much of 1989 and 1990 in Manchester and London, soaking up the club scene. She'd recorded with 808 State, the wondrous Ooops coming out as a single and featuring on 1991's ex:el album (as well as another song Qmart). Bjork and 808's Graham Massey would write together throughout the 90s. 

Stick Around For Joy had a decent single in it though- Hit- which obviously became one, their highest chart position achieved just before splitting up. 

Hit