12 April 2013 - The Primitives - Crash & Rattle My Cage & Lose The Reason

In 1988, music changed for me.  I had been listening to music at the fringe of mainstream for a couple of years, but that year, the year I turned 16, so many of my favorite albums of all time were released.  One of these days I'll chronicle all of those - probably somewhere else, because most of them are decidedly guilt-free.

The single that defined that year for me was released by Coventy, UK band The Primitives.  The lead single from their great album Lovely, it was a #5 hit there, and a #3 Modern Rock hit in the US.  The band was sadly defined by its lead vocalist, Tracy Cattell (who went by Tracy Tracy at the time), mostly because of her blonde hair and its similarity to the hair color of Andrea Lewis (The Darling Buds, who released my favorite album of 1990 and who were featured here last May) and Wendy James (Transvision Vamp, who released my favorite album of 1989 and who I have planned for an epic post in the near future) - excellent bands in their own right, but unfairly lumped together.

I mean, any band with a blonde female lead vocalist and a power pop sound MUST be ripping off Debbie Harry, right?  God forbid that the hair color choices (in Andrea's case, I'm pretty sure it was natural) of these women be separate from their musical influences.

In 1995, it got an awful remix for the movie Dumb and Dumber, which I did not enjoy (the movie OR the remix), featuring musicians and vocalists who were not and never were members of The Primitives.  Here is the original version, in all its power pop goodness.

(edit: the original video is gone, so here's a video of the band lipsyncing to the song when it was new for a TV show in Spain)

 

(edit: 14 Jan 2021):  The video is back. 

Happily, The Primitives are back together.  And still play this little song.

They're even making new music!  Here was their first comeback single, released in 2011.  They've become a tighter band, truly embracing the power pop sound that was their strength.  It has fast become one of my favorite songs...

.

....and here's their latest single.  PJ Court shares the lead vocal with Tracy on this one - they never really harmonized like this in the past, although PJ took lead on some earlier songs.  I hope they don't stop - they're brilliant together.  And this video - very self-effacing, complete with a nice S.A.W. reference.