The Looks or the Lifestyle

Background

During the Cure for Sanity-era the band were scheduled to play "Dance of the Mad Bastards" on Top of the Pops and recruited Fuzz Townshend to mime the drums although they then never did play the song on Top of the Pops. In 1991 the band recruited Townshend as the band's drummer and he agreed. The album was produced by London DJ's Ben Wolff and Andy Dean (also known as Boilerhouse) and the band recorded the album in Rockfield Studios in the Welsh countryside and was mixed in London. The first single to be released was "Karmadrome" (originally called "The Scottish Song", but then changed to "Karmadrome"), with B-side "Eat Me Drink Me Love Kill Me", which went to number #17 in the UK Charts in June '92. They released "Bulletproof", the second single from the album, on 17 August 1992, which didn't do as well as they had hoped but still managed to go to number #24 in the charts and a video was also made. On 7 September 1992 they released the album in UK and Japan and they then released it worldwide in October 1992. On 1 January 1993 they released the "Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies" single which was a massive hit and was their highest charting single going at number #9 in the charts and the album itself went at number #15.

Music

The Looks or the Lifestyle? shows the band working in a dancier style that began to surface on Cure for Sanity, whilst the harsher, industrial rock sound that characterised the band's later work would appear on some songs such as "Eat Me, Drink Me, Love Me, Kill Me" and "Urban Futuristic". The album stirs the band in a less commercial direction, a result of the band ignoring RCA's press for them to in fact head into a more commercial direction.

Critical reception

The Looks or the Lifestyle? is not considered the band's best album. Josh Landau of Allmusic rated it two stars out of five and said it was "certainly not their best effort," whilst Trouser Press said the album sounds "factory-built, underwritten and overproduced."

Track listing

1. "England's Finest"
2. "Eat Me Drink Me Love Me Kill Me"
3. "Mother"
4. "Get the Girl + Kill the Baddies"
5. "I've Always Been a Coward, Baby"
6. "Token Drug Song"
7. "Karmadrome"
8. "Urban Futuristic (Son of South Central)"
9. "Pretty Pretty"
10. "I Was a Teenage Grandad"
11. "Harry Dean Stanton"
12. "Bulletproof!"

Personnel

Pop Will Eat Itself

Additional Musicians

Production