Europop
The Europop EP is the last record from the early incarnation of The Divine Comedy. As for ‘Timewatch’, the title track has nothing to do with the version on Liberation; this version of the song ‘Europop’ featured on the EP is utterly different from that on Liberation: different band, different producer, different sound and (slightly) different lyrics.
Joined with a fourth member, John Allen on vocals, the band sounded different to what they previously released, but still would not give a clue of what was to come. This EP is the only recording on which Neil doesn’t sing. At that time, Neil was only a guitarist. Indeed, Neil found he couldn’t handle playing the guitar and singing at the same time. He was impressed by Blur’s guitarist Graham Coxon and decided to stop singing and to devote himself to the guitar [1]. His friend John was chosen to sing, though it’s obvious Neil can sing better than him.
The recording took place in late 1991, and the session was produced by Edwyn Collins who also worked for other Setanta acts.
There exist two releases for this EP: the 12” featuring ‘Europop’ and three other tracks; and the CD with - as a bonus - the Timewatch EP.
A remastered version of the EP is to be found on the Juveneilia compilation, however that effort has been ruined by some glitches on the release, and the original release is still worth finding.
Soon after the release of the EP, Kevin Traynor and John McCullagh decided to go back to their studies. The band split. In a first time, Neil continued to work with John Allen to record some demos (as ‘Your Daddy’s Car’), but then decided to release a new Divine Comedy album as a solo artist: Liberation !
[1] Les Inrockuptibles 05/1994
Joined with a fourth member, John Allen on vocals, the band sounded different to what they previously released, but still would not give a clue of what was to come. This EP is the only recording on which Neil doesn’t sing. At that time, Neil was only a guitarist. Indeed, Neil found he couldn’t handle playing the guitar and singing at the same time. He was impressed by Blur’s guitarist Graham Coxon and decided to stop singing and to devote himself to the guitar [1]. His friend John was chosen to sing, though it’s obvious Neil can sing better than him.
The recording took place in late 1991, and the session was produced by Edwyn Collins who also worked for other Setanta acts.
There exist two releases for this EP: the 12” featuring ‘Europop’ and three other tracks; and the CD with - as a bonus - the Timewatch EP.
A remastered version of the EP is to be found on the Juveneilia compilation, however that effort has been ruined by some glitches on the release, and the original release is still worth finding.
Soon after the release of the EP, Kevin Traynor and John McCullagh decided to go back to their studies. The band split. In a first time, Neil continued to work with John Allen to record some demos (as ‘Your Daddy’s Car’), but then decided to release a new Divine Comedy album as a solo artist: Liberation !
[1] Les Inrockuptibles 05/1994