Fireside Favourites


Fireside Favourites is the debut studio album by Fad Gadget. It was released on 1 September 1980, through record label Mute.

Background

The music developed the primitive industrial sound of his first recordings, the singles "Back to Nature" and "Ricky's Hand". Realised with an expanded array of collaborators, including a number of notable record producers, the album's instrumentation combined the synthesizers, drum machines and found objects of previous releases with conventional guitar, bass and percussion. The lyrics and subject matter ridiculed various aspects of modern society and featured observations from sometimes bizarre perspectives.
The opening track, "Pedestrian", was a commentary on society's obsession with the automobile. It segued into "State of the Nation", whose chorus declared that "Life begins when you're ready to face it". "Salt Lake City Sunday" satirized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from its practice of tithing to its belief in conversion of the deceased. "Coitus Interruptus" described the vacuousness of modern relationships with deadpan puns. The jaunty title track and then-current single, "Fireside Favourite", juxtaposed sexual conquest with nuclear nightmare imagery.
"Newsreel" parodied all-pervading news reportage. "Insecticide", also released as the B-side of "Fireside Favourite", was narrated from a fly's point of view. "The Box", a re-recording of the B-side of Fad Gadget's debut single "Back to Nature", concerned premature burial. The closing track, "Arch of the Aorta", was a largely instrumental piece with looped background voices depicting conversation between medical staff and a patient.

Release

Fireside Favourites was released on 1 September 1980. It did not make the mainstream charts.

Track listing

Personnel

; Additional personnel