Album of the Day — August 17
Hothouse Flowers — Home
Hothouse Flowers — Home
17.August.2020
Hothouse Flowers
Home
1990
With the worldwide success of U2 in the ’80s, an A&R feeding frenzy descended on Ireland.
It would be U2 lead singer Bono who signed Hothouse Flowers to their Mother Records and released the band’s first single, “Love Don’t Work This Way.”
Like most bands, Hothouse Flowers’s origins are with friends who met in school. Liam Ó Maonlaí and Fiachna Ó Braonáin met and began “busking” (performing on the street). Peter O’Toole (not the actor) joined, and soon the band had won a “street entertainer of the year” award.
Touring around Ireland, the band was soon labeled by Rolling Stone magazine as the “best-unsigned band in Europe.”
An eventual deal with PolyGram Records, via their London Records imprint, came through. The band got to work and, in 1988, released their debut album, People.
That Hothouse Flowers debut would go on to become the most successful debut album in Irish history.
Riding high off the success of their debut, they contributed to the Indigo Girls track “Closer To Fine” off their debut in 1989. While that song became a hit, and led to some additional exposure in the United States, because their contribution went uncredited, the exposure was limited.
Because of their extensive touring, their second album, Home, was recorded intermittently. There were sessions in Dublin, London, a rented house in Carlow, Ireland. The band even managed to squeeze in a day of recording in New Orleans with the then white-hot producer Daniel Lanois.
Once completed, Home was released in June of 1990. While it did manage to push out five singles, it failed to meet with the same success as it’s predecessor.
A solid album that with Irish folk, a dash of gospel, and some good old fashioned rock and roll. The diversity of songs like “Christchurch Bells,” and the more reflective mid-tempo “Movies,” and all balls-out rockers like “Give it Up” and “Hardstone City,” Home identifies a young band creatively firing on all cylinders.
The real stand-out on Home is their cover of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now.” It’s brooding melodic beginning slowly builds to a buoyant chorus. You can almost see the sun bursting through. For a song that’s been covered thousands of times, this remains one of the more joyous versions.
CRITICS:
Jonathan Lewis at AllMusic said: “From the clever anthem “Movies” to the Eastern-tinged “Water,” Hothouse Flowers have created a masterful collection of pop songs. Home is an underrated gem.
While Home is a little long in the tooth, it stands out as one of the best albums to have made it out of Ireland during that period…without losing its Irishness.
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