If you’ve been following my music blog FensePost or my YouTube channel for any given length of time, you may have heard me call out Blonde Redhead as being among my favorite bands. Today I’m going to take a look at their 7-inch single for “Slogan” backed with “Limited Conversation” on Touch And Go Records.
Recorded in 1997 and originally released in 1998, this 7-inch made its debut around the time the band released Fake Can Be Just As Good (1997) and In An Expression of the Inexpressible (1998).
My copy here is the repress from 2000, depicted by L-49631 etched in the A and B side runout. The original from 1998 didn’t have that. Of note, both iterations appear otherwise identical, and both are available for quite the reasonable price — sub USD $5 before shipping and tax — on marketplaces like Discogs.
Great for the Blonde Redhead Completist
“Slogan” is a cover of an original by Serge Gainsbourg, and in addition to finding home as the A side here, it was released on the 2000 Blonde Redhead EP Melodie Citronique. It’s your bog standard early, artsy Blonde Redhead, as you’d expect from 1997.
Being a Gainsbourg fan, I gotta say that I do love Blonde Redhead’s version. They play it well, and inject their own personality into it wholeheartedly.
The B side is “Limited Conversation” a track exclusive to this 7-inch. Again, true to mid-late 90s era Blonde Redhead, this one has all the traits signature to the band at the time — art rock, experimentation, and late 90s indie rock.
It’s worth noting that both tracks on this single make an appearance on the 2001 CD of An Expression of the Inexpressible, released on Japan’s P-Vine Records, which I featured recently in my review of the first vinyl pressing of Letting Up Despite Great Fault’s debut LP, which I covered recently.
One last aside: I love the cover art on this one. Two photos, cast in a red duotone. It’s a “scene” captured from two different angles.
Blonde Redhead: Further Exploration & Vinyl Collecting
As noted, “Slogan” can also be found on Melodie Citronique, a link to which you can find below.
