Music / Teenage Fanclub

The lads in the early '90s.

If she lived in space, man,
I'd build a plane.
Out of luck, so beam me up,
To hear her talking again.

"Sparky's Dream"

Teenage Fanclub, or the Fannies, are a Scottish Alternative Rock band, known for being modern champions of Power Pop and pretty Nice Guys. They formed in 1989 and have, for the most part at least, been together since then. The three central band members are Norman Blake (guitar, vocals), Raymond McGinley (guitar, vocals), and Gerard Love (bass, vocals), with several people filling in for drums and keyboards throughout the band's career.

If you cross Big Star with The Byrds, you get Teenage Fanclub.

Oh, and they might've beaten out Nirvana for an Album of the Year award, or something.

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Selected Discography:

• A Catholic Education (1990)
• The King (1991)
• Bandwagonesque (1991)
• Thirteen (1993)
• Grand Prix (1995)
• Songs from Northern Britain (1997)
• Howdy! (2000)
• Man-Made (2005)
• Shadows (2010)
• Here (2016)
• Endless Arcade (2021)
• Nothing Lasts Forever (2023)

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The Fannies provide examples of the following tropes:

• The Alcoholic: The protagonist of "Alcoholiday", from the looks of it.

• Badass Boast: "I'd steal a car to drive you home."
  • And the lines at the top, of course.
• Broken Record: "Norman 3" has "I'm in love with you / I'm in love with you / and I know that it's you." This takes up more than half the song.
• Careful with That Axe: "Satan."
• Cover Version: The King has a few covers, ranging from "Interstellar Overdrive" by Pink Floyd to... "Like a Virgin" by Madonna?
• Darker and Edgier: Thirteen when compared to Bandwagonesque, Man-Made when compared to Howdy!.
• Deadpan Snarker: Some of their album titles hint at this, specifically Bandwagonesque and Songs from Northern Britain.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: A Catholic Education is darker and heavier than most of the band's subsequent work.
• Epic Rocking: Most of their songs fall into the 3-to-5-minute range, but there are some notable exceptions.
  • "The Concept" at 6:07.
  • "Gene Clarke" at 6:37.
  • "My Uptight Life" at 6:55.
• Greatest Hits Album: Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds: A Shortcut to Teenage Fanclub.
• Grief Song: "Gene Clark". The man had passed away a couple years prior.
• Instrumentals: "Satan" and "Is This Music?" don't have lyrics.
• Intercourse with You: "Norman 3" is probably the most unambiguous example.
• In the Style of: Bandwagonesque and Thirteen sound particularly reminiscent of Big Star, with the latter being a blatant Shout-Out.
• Limited Lyrics Song: "What You Do to Me" without a doubt.

What you do to me
I know, I can't believe
There's something about you
Got me down on my knees

• Long-Runner Line-up: Up until the recent departure of Gerard Love, they were a Type 2 for 27 years, give or take some minor lineup changes.
• Miniscule Rocking: "Satan" (1:22), "Get Funky" (also 1:22), and "Hardcore/Ballad" (1:48).
• New Sound Album: Twice. Bandwagonesque is quite different from their previous two albums, and would set the standard until Songs from Northern Britain introduced a more Byrds-esque sound with more vocal harmonies and jangly guitars.
• Non-Appearing Title: Examples include "The Concept", "Alcoholiday", "The Cabbage", "Norman 3", "Sparky's Dream", "Neil Jung", and many others.
• Precision F-Strike: For a band whose lyrics are pretty clean most of the time, they sure do know when to thrown in a "fuck" or two.
  • "Alcoholiday:"
  "Baby, I've been fucked already."
  • "Fear of Flying:"
  "This is your one-way ticket, so don't fuck it up."
  • "Verisimilitude:"
  "I've always said 'fuck' when I thought I could."
• Pun-Based Title: "Neil Jung", which is a pun on the names of musician Neil Young and psychologist Carl Jung.
• Rock Trio: More like songwriting trio, but the band's most consistent members have been Blake, McGinley, and Love.
• Shout-Out: Thirteen is titled after the Big Star song.
  • "Gene Clarke" is a tribute to the man himself.
  • The liner notes to Bandwagonesque include a "thank you" section under the headline "Thank You Friends", another reference to a Big Star song.
• Silly Love Songs: It would be easier to name songs of theirs that don't count. "What You Do to Me", "Sparky's Dream", and "Norman 3" are particularly infectious examples, though.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Mostly idealistic with the occasional dipping into cynicism.
• Step Up to the Microphone: McGinley only made one vocal appearance on Bandwagonesque with "I Don't Know", but would regularly do vocals on later albums.
• Take That!: A Catholic Education takes shots at the Catholic Church.
• Title-Only Chorus: "Sometimes I Don't Need to Believe in Anything", "What You Do To Me".
• Title Track: Twice on A Catholic Education, but Averted with the rest of their work.
• Word Salad Lyrics: Like the bands that inspired them, the Fannies have a habit of writing ambiguous and/or borderline nonsensical lyrics.
• Vocal Tag Team: Blake, McGinley, and Love.