Full Circle (jerk)
The Complete Peel Sessions is the final piece of the jigsaw in the Stupids back catalogue and brings together (you guessed it!) all three of the sessions they did for the late, great John Peel as well as another Peel session done under the guise of Frankfurter. The majority of tracks on offer here have never been commercially available and none have been available on CD before so this is far from being a bottom of the barrel affair.
The quality is great and it’s interesting to hear a different take on familiar songs and what’s more, they do a fine job and in some cases (‘The Memory Burns’ for example) they run the album versions pretty close. The Frankfurter session is excellent, particularly ‘Hot Babes’ and a cover of 7 Seconds ‘We’re Gonna Fight’ with the lyrics changed to ‘We’re Gonna Eat’!
As with all good Peel sessions there are little snippets of conversation at the beginning and end of many of the tracks and because this is The Stupids most of them are as amusing as the lyrics. This really is one of those collections that gets better the more you play it, there are some excellent renditions on here, ‘Dog Log’, ‘You’ll Never Win’ (complete with jazz intro!) and ‘Your Little World’ all get a new lease of life.
Although they burned extremely brightly for a few years The Stupids were often overlooked in recent years but this is as good a reminder as any of just how good they were and it’s no surprise that they are now getting the kudos for being one of the pioneers in the UK hardcore scene. If you wanted a decent cross section/compilation of The Stupids then this is a good place to start. There’s some great stuff on here that should only inspire you to go and check out the studio albums.