From: "john.daglish@virgin.net" Subject: TFC in fantastic NME review shock! Following the NME's recent love them one week loath them the next affair with the Fannies, I had a strange feeling on the way to buy it this morning. Imagine, I thought, if they made I Don't Want Control of You single of the week. Hmmmm. I opened it up, and it happened. I can't believe the praise. Here it is Teenage Fanclub I Don't Want Control of You The men of Teenage Fanclub are blessed. Not just with the ability to turn frowns upside down and elicit warmth from the chilliest of winds in a mere waft of thick-pile melodic beauty - though that would be blessing enough. But through their ingeniously wise command of pop, Teenage Fanclub hold the keys to the shutters of even the most troubled and curmudgeonly soul. Manic Street Preachers acknowledged as much five years ago in these very pages when they made the Fannies Single of the Week, and why else would Radiohead have invited them as their USA tour companions? After all, even iconoclasts need to smile occasionally. Assuming there remain a benighted few unfamiliar with the precision- crafted joys of it's parent album, let's state the obvious: 'I Don't Want Control Of You' is an ode to pragmatic serenity in a relationship, and it's self-evident truth that Teenage Fanclub are perhaps the only band that could write a song like it. "I don't want control of you, it doesn't matter to me/The very heart and soul of you are places I wanna see". Norman Blake is singing, the chords are ascending, The Byrds are wondering whether they were actually ever this good and even the sun is taking care to apply the Factor 25. "The feeling's getting stronger with every embrace...." Ah yes, cred kids, Embrace, just one of many smart young pups who can but dream of making the simple-yet-tricky business of melting hearts seem so effortless. Inasmuch as it opens with birdsong and features a key change that even Noel Gallagher would have rejected for being too cheesy, this single is nothing less than a radical political statement. Naturally, you need to buy all the pesky formats in order to marvel at three bonus Raymond McGinley compositions, at least one of which, the archly- titled 'Middle of the Road', ought to have been on the album, plus Gerard Love's interpretation of (Walthamstow psychedelic legend!) The Bevis Frond's 'He'd be a Diamond', so cherishable that tears strain the carpet from the first line onwards: "When the tape runs out, the music keeps playing...." You listen and learn and fall in love, and somewhere in the midst entertain the thought that they don't make 'em like this any more. And it's true: 'they' don't. But Teenage Fanclub do. Only the dead and the pathologically dishonest need not apply. Reviewed by Keith Cameron