release date: May 29, 1990
format: cd (2000 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,55]
producer: Hilmer Hassig
label: Pladecompagniet - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "Idag så bedre ud igår" - 2. "En nat bliver det sommer" (4,5 / 5) - 3. "Øjne jeg aldrig har set" (4 / 5) - 4. "Radio Kalundborg" - 7. "Alt jeg ser er hendes ryg" - 9. "21" - 11. "Til stjernerne" (4 / 5)
Studio debut album by Danish indie pop, pop / rock band Love Shop originally released on the label Garden Records. The band is merely a trio consisting of lead vocalist Jens Unmack (formerly bassist in Næste Uges TV and more recently in the band Greene), Hilmer Hassig (from Scatterbrain and Naïve) on guitars, and with Mikael Dehn (from Russia Heat) on backing vocals. Most tracks are co-written by Hassig and Unmack with the latter being responsible for lyrics and the two as composers of the music. With this scarce instrumentation within the band they have gathered a small unit of additional musicians, which include Kåre Bjerkø on keyboards, Flemming Muus on bass, and Stefan Grabowski on drums, who would all work with the band on several albums. Later full member Henrik Hall is also credited for adding harmonica on the album.
The album was launched to positive reviews, but Garden Records was struggling economically, and the album was hardly promoted at all, which may explain its poor sales. A year later, the label was declared bankrupt, and the newly founded label Pladecompagniet [established by Anne Linnet and Jan Degner] re-issued the album as 1990/91 with a different track list, but with no great success. Furthermore, the first cd issue of the album from '90 had been issued with bad sequencing, which is why the remaster (with the original track list and cover) eventually was issued in 2000 - still with Hassig in control of the remastering. The remaster sounds pretty neat and basically is better produced than the band's two succeeding non-remastered albums. Anyway, this the studio debut from Love Shop is a fine and strong album, on which the band immediately initiate a long tradition of writing tracks that would become Danish classic pop / rock compositions. On this it's undoubtedly the track "En nat bliver det sommer", with lyrics co-written by former Kliché bassist Johnny Voss [aka Johannes Møller]. Rumour has it that Voss initially helped Unmack who initially struggled with his songwriting in Danish as opposed to English language they had all been set-up for, but the record company had pursuaded the trio to stick to their native Danish because they saw it as something different that would help define the band in a time characterised by English copy-bands of American and British artists. So, whoever at Garden Records pushed on with this, it proved to be a lasting idea - at least for Love Shop.
