Thursday, September 20, 2007

Splitsville - Amateur Hour (1998?)

As far as "unreleased" albums are concerned Splitsville's 20-song Amateur Hour, a supposed concept piece, isn't particularly storied. Whether this is due to Splitsville's relative obscurity, or rather to the frivolous nature of these recordings is subjective I suppose. When I say frivolous, I'm referencing the stupefying brevity of the tunes here, which average 45 seconds a pop, not counting some lengthier closing tracks.

According to the band's contribution to cyberspace, Amateur Hour is noted as follows:

A seventeen minute concept album that may best be described as "the bastard child of Sergeant Pepper and Tommy with attention deficiency disorder".

Hardly. If anything, much of this album recalls mid-period Elvis Costello, however there's mucho genre hop-scotching. As for a storyline, I'm suspicious if there's one at all. For those acquainted with Splitsville's ironic take on power pop, there's nothing especially revelatory on here, but it's a fun way to kill the better part of a half hour.

No track list or art available for this one. Anyone care to contribute?

Hear

6 comments:

TuneLovinJacket said...

I don't have any official track list, but this is what I named them after listening. For what it's worth, here they are:

01 - Instant Classic
02 - Amateur Hour
03 - Brothers Grimm
04 - Fall in Love With You
05 - In Search of You
06 - Will It Ever Be Me
07 - Little Sampson
08 - Fingers
09 - Going Round Again
10 - Bottle Trys to Comfort Me
11 - Bullet
12 - Too Square to be a Star
13 - Stereo Twins
14 - Cannot Go Home
15 - Walked Right Out
16 - Get You back With Me
17 - Amateur Hour Again
18 - Too Bad So Sad
19 - When I Die
20 - We Are Splitsville

Unknown said...

Hey There,
That's a pretty good track listing, actually.
'Amateur Hour' is going to get an official release in Japan in September as part of the Deluxe Edition of 'The Complete Pet Soul'.

The AH track listing is below:

Introduction/Amateur Hour/The Stereo Twins/William Tell/Adelaide/Stargr***er/Little Samson/Fingers/Penny Dreadful/
Mel’s Lament/Miss Creant/2  2 B A*/
Return Of The Stereo Twins/…/Home (Part II)/…/
Lyin’ Shoes/7 League Boots/Amateur Hour (Reprise)/
Too Bad So Sad/Ride On, Red Ranger…

Bruce Brodeen said...

Any chance for a re-up on this one, pretty please?

Tidesworthy said...

Hello, a re-up on this one would be very much appreciated.

Tidesworthy said...

Much appreciate the re-up. Been looking for this one for a while! THX

popthinker said...

Hi. Would you mind re-upping again? Thanks!