Red Roses for Me [debut]release date: Oct. 1984
format: cd (2009 reissue)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,72]
producer: Stan Brennan
label: Stiff Records / WEA - nationality: England, UK
Tracklist: 1. "Transmetropolitan" (4 / 5) - 2. "The Battle of Brisbane" - 3. "The Auld Triangle" (4 / 5) - 4. "Waxie's Dargle" (4 / 5) (live) - 5. "Boys From the County Hell" - 6. "Sea Shanty" - 7. "Dark Streets of London" (4 / 5) - 8. "Streams of Whiskey" (4 / 5) - 9. "Poor Paddy" (4 / 5) - 10. "Dingle Regatta" - 11. "Greenland Whale Fisheries" - 12. "Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go" - 13. "Kitty"
Studio album debut by The Pogues, at this early stage consisting of Shane MacGowan on lead vocals and guitar (only on this album), Jem Finer on banjo, Spider Stacy on tin whistle, James Fearnley on accordion, Cait O'Riordan on bass, and with Andrew Ranken on drums. At this point the band often played traditional celtic folk songs to their own music played in up-tempo arrangements with only a little of the punk rock element they would become more associated with already from the successive album, except from on the traditional "Waxie's Dargle" and on "Streams of Whiskey" which both sounds more like what may be found on Rum Sodomy & The Lash (1985).
The TV music programme, The Tube on Channel 4 used a video of The Pogues playing "Waxie's Dargle", apparently a song that brought the band a considerable amount of fame. Five out the album's thirteen tracks are traditionals, seven songs are written by Shane MacGowan, and the last track is music by The Pogues to a poem written by Irish poet Brendan Behan.
I didn't listen to this before after their third album and didn't appreciate it as much as I have come to. In a way, this is like The Dubliners meet The Pogues. The traditional folk is at center and it only takes a small twist to turn it into something really great.
[ allmusic.com and Sounds hand it 3,5 / 5, Mojo and Q Magazine 4 / 5 stars ]
