Cornershop - Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast Review

It seems strange to think that to 99 per cent of the British record buying public, Cornershop will always be seen as this bizarrely quirky one hit wonder whose only claim to fame was an unlikely number one single - a tribute to Indian seven inch singles - some 12 years ago.

Of course the Cornershop story began many years prior to that, their initial shows as a four-piece usually ending up in spontaneous combustion or audience walk-outs, largely due to prolonged bouts of musical incompetence. Yet beneath all the posturing and amateur musicianship there was always something quite striking about Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres' compositions, whether it be the Morrissey-baiting polemic of 'England's Dreaming', satirical patter in 'Born Disco Died Heavy Metal' or just plain audacity of arguably their musical high-point to date, '6am Jullander Shere'. Even the aforementioned 'Brimful Of Asha' needed two attempts and the big beat assistance of that decade's Mark Ronson to achieve the hit that undoubtedly broke the camel's back. Certainly it's fair to say that the seemingly unwanted spate of commercial success pushed the band further into their creative shells, away from the high profile ranks of V2 and eventually into a seven year-long hiatus....full text It’s to Cornershop’s eternal credit that, rather than attempt to exorcise the ghost of that song (or, to be exact, that remix) by throwing a decade-long sulk and retreating into tuneless unlistenability, they have instead embraced pop melodicism.


Even though they must know that their big moment will never return, they’ve turned out some cracking tunes since “Brimful of Asha”, blissfully oblivious to whether the world will be listening. For example, “Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III”, their swaggering T Rexy juggernaut from their 2002 album Handcream for a Generation.

The gloriously titled Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast picks up where Handcream left off. Something’s gone badly wrong with pop in those seven years, and Tjinder Singh and his songwriting partner Ben Ayres (who still holds downa day job as a press officer for Rough Trade Records) know it. Much of Cornershop’s sixth album is concerned with pinpointing what that something is, while simultaneously doing a little to put it right....full text After ploughing their own furrow for over 15 years, Cornershop return after seven away with another blast of multinational world pop.

Still as political as ever - check out ‘Shut Southall Down’ – the group appears to be taking inspiration from the carefree days of the ‘60s with eclectic flair – ‘Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast’ contains both a 16-minute-plus psych-rock album closer titled 'The Turned On Truth (The Truth Is Turned On)' and a Bob Dylan cover. But in typical Cornershop fashion, the latter isn't an exercise in picking up cool points; rather, it’s a straight-laced cover of 'The Mighty Quinn', familiar to most as the quaint ditty taken to the top of the charts by Manfred Mann.

‘Judy Sucks…’ opens with 'Who Fingered Rock n Roll'. It’s instant Cornershop, with Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres, plus various collaborators, somehow combining ‘70s rock, sitar flourishes, gospel back-up singers and bedroom Punjab indie to produce a song that could only come from these modern-day masters of multicultural sonic escapades....full text