MY BEST DAY
LIGHTNING SEEDS JOLLIFICATION
2019 REISSUE by SONY MUSIC

BRAND NEW  /  FACTORY SEALED



GALLERY PHOTOS REPRESENT THE ACTUAL ITEM

The Lightning Seeds – Jollification

The Lightning Seeds were everywhere by 1994. They’d released a lot of singles that had charted moderately well, and they were constantly on TV. I remember selling this album by the bucket-load when I worked in a music store at the time.
This 10 track album attracted contributions from Terry Hall and Alison Moyet amongst others.
The album opens with fourth single Perfect, which is a gentle introduction to this Brit-pop album. Ian Broudie’s vocal style is unmistakable – with him being a kind of ‘Baggy’ sounding left-over Beatle.
Roaring in, is lead single Lucky You, which was co-written by Terry Hall. The pace is faster than Perfect, and the song is as catchy as hell. It’s unsurprising that this was a moderate hit…even though it took a re-release to achieve that (taking the single from #43 in August 1994, to #15 in October 1995).
This is followed by Open Goals, which is rockier than the previous two tracks, but vocally reminds me of some timid/miserable 6th form school bands. This is definitely an album track, and sadly a bit lackluster here amongst the other tracks so far.
Second single Change is up next – thrashing in in the same way that Lucky You does.. in fact, fairly similarly. I can imagine an endless mega-mix called Lucky Change where it’s just the two songs together. Aside from that, it’s a pretty catchy song, and that was enough to make it the most successful single from the album – reaching #13 in the UK.

Lightning Seeds – Jollification Label:  Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited Catalog # 19075962231 Format:  Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue Country:  Europe Released:  Sep 6, 2019 Genre:  Rock, Pop Style:  Brit Pop

Tracklist A1.  Perfect  (Written-By – Ian Broudie) A2.  Lucky You  (Written-By – Ian Broudie, Terry Hall) A3.  Open Goals (Written-By – Ian Broudie) A4.  Change (Written-By – Ian Broudie) A5.  Why Why Why (Vocals – Marina Van Rooy, Written-By – Ian Broudie) B1.  Marvellous (Written-By – Ian Broudie) B2.  Feeling Lazy (Written-By – Ian Broudie, Ian McNabb) B3.  My Best Day (Vocals – Alison Moyet, Written-By – Ian Broudie) B4.  Punch & Judy (Written-By – Ian Broudie) B5.  Telling Tales (Written-By – Ian Broudie)
Fifth track is Why, Why, Why and lead vocals are given to vocalist Marina Van-Rooy. There’s not many vocals here, and the track is more of a thumping dance track with drifting, dreaming vocals and vocal samples. I guess, that if this album was on LP or cassette, that this oddity would signal the end of side one.
Up next is third single Marvellous, and i remember this being used in at least one car advert. For the first 1m 40s of the track, it feels like previous song has drifted along into this one. Suddenly the song blasts in with electronic brass section, beat, guitars and Ian’s vocals. This song is another great catchy number, and Marvellous is definitely far better than Perfect, even if UK chart placings say otherwise (#24 vs #18 respectively).
Piano, drums and guitar lead us into the narrative track Feeling Lazy, a writing collaboration with Ian McNabb. If any of these tracks feels most Beatles, then it’s this – imagine Penny Lane and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.
Eighth track is My Best Day, a collaboration with Alison Moyet. Some great samples and muted beats introduce the track underneath a synth. Ian and Alison’s vocals are brilliant together, although not massively different. Alison sounds wonderful here, and the track really bounces along. I’m sad that this didn’t make it as a single.
Penultimate track Punch And Judy, opens with guitar and cello. Ian’s vocals are sounding really good here, with some more great vocal harmonies. However, the track breaks into a thumping beat at about 1m 54s, which kind of works, but not quite.
Final track Telling Tales reminds me of a Christmas song meets Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime as covered by Baby D at about the same period. This song sounds big – filled with sustained effects, samples, and instruments, particularly as it slowly fades out.
Ian Broudie’s musical CV was already impressively well stacked before the emergence of The Lightning Seeds in 1989. Jollification, though, represents the moment it all went right for the Liverpudlian songwriter and producer with the endearingly wobbly voice.
Broudie’s softly reflective tones and expert knack for a winning chorus made Lucky You, Change and Marvellous unforgetable 90s anthems, and the good news is they’ve aged surprisingly well. Alison Moyet is a welcome guest on My Best Day and Open Goals, with Terry Hall and Ocean Coour Scene’s Simon Fowler also putting in shifts.  
With Needle Mythology releasing Broudie’s 2004 solo album Tales Told on vinyl for the first time and a new record apparently in the pipeline, it appears there’s a revival under way for an underappreciated craftsman.
"A critical and commercial success, Jollification is widely regarded as one of the finest albums of the ‘90s era. As with the previous two albums Cloudcuckooland and Sense, Broudie played most of the instruments on Jollification himself. Recorded in an old laboratory in Liverpool City Centre alongside long time collaborators Simon Rodgers and Cenzo Townshend, the album features contributions from Terry Hall and Alison Moyet."