The Sugarcubes "Life's Too Good" 1988

With strong songs built around Björk's piercing, striking voice, this record lived up to all the advance hype. With songs like "Birthday" and "Motorcrash," this is the perfect introduction to the 'Cubes. - Review by John Dougan
The Sugarcubes took themselves even less seriously than they had ever done when they were called KUKL. Behind the mostly buoyant and playful tones, "Life's Too Good" is filled with scathing irony, starting from the title itself. It contains a lot of humorous takes on sex and relationships. It also makes fun of "blue eyed pop" music, not to mention there's even a track's title which had to be censored with asterisks. That one track features a very cabaret-style arrangement and rhythm, which makes the satire all the more evident. The instrumentation is very simple: guitar, keyboard, drums, bass, trumpet and a bit of harmonica. Even the arrangements sound like traditional rock. Besides, the guitar and the drums often go with playful-feeling rhythmic syncopations. Only the hidden track goes back to a dark mood which vaguely reminds of "The Eye" for its crumpling atmosphere. Einar Örn goes a lot lower-pitched with his voice compared to what he had done in KUKL and that works incredibly well, especially in "Deus": his carefree-toned voice acting goes perfectly arm in arm with the airy and fresh sentiment in that fantastic atheist musical piece, which definitely is the best crafted and perfomed one in the whole album. At some moments it almost sends your mind among the clouds and makes you "squeaky clean, really clean". Songs such as "Motorcrash" with its sprinting, energetic mood, "Coldsweat" with its quiet storm evolving into an hot tempered explosion, "Mama" with its psychedelic, desperate sentiment and "Birthday" with its childish, dreamy tone have not much to envy, as unique as they are. At this point, Björk has already fully developed her personal style of singing we know her for, and that makes this whole record so much more powerful. Take, for example, the incredible shrieking at the end of "Blue Eyed Pop". Her vocal acrobatics would make any rock singer pale in comparison. Describing her singing as flourishing with all kinds of emotions might be an euphemism, switching from piercing sweet tones to roaring screams, to intensely dramatic tones as if it was nothing. Perhaps the Sugarcubes already were a tight fit for her. The weaker tracks inevitably end up being those featuring mostly Einar. More than a song, "Traitor" seems like a beautiful poem. It's talking with background music, so it does not hold any particular identity or value unless you carefully listen to the lyrics. Among the bonus tracks, "Cat" definitely stands out with its fast-paced drums and its cartoonish melody. It probably has a few double meanings of sexual nature and it would completely fit as part of the regular tracklist. "Cowboy" and "Dragon" are not as strong though. Both of them feel stuck on one mood and lack a structure that makes them complete, so they end up being just too repetitive to be memorable - even though they still make sense in themselves.
It might have a couple of weaknesses, but "Life's Too Good" is no doubt a remarkable album worthy of being remembered. - Massimiliano Praticelli
traxfromwax:
1 Traitor 2 Motorcrash 3 Birthday 4 Delicious Demon 5 Mama 6 Coldsweat 7 Blue Eyed Pop 8 Deus 9 Sick For Toys 10 F***ing In Rhythm & Sorrow 11 Take Some Petrol Darling
Ripped from Vinyl by RYP with Audacity 3.2.1 : Thorens TD 318/Audio-Technica 95E - Yamaha A-S301 - Q Acoustics 3020i / Yamaha NS-SW050