or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

There are a few reasons why The Move never quite reached the "pantheon of British rock in the sixties" (The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Kinks, etc.).

1) They got more attention from smashing TVs, cars, and burning people in effigy onstage than they ever got from their music.

2) They were too derivative. They more or less ripped off The Who’s mid-sixties sound (especially their rhythm section) and made it a slight bit poppier. Not to mention the other bits that they stole from The Beatles, Hollies, Kinks, etc.

3) Their lineup was too unstable. Lead singer Carl Wayne, guitarist Trevor Burton, and bassist Ace Kefford were all replaced within two years of this album’s release.

4) Their albums (especially this one) never met the quality of their singles.

This can't be blamed on the band, though. The problem was that this album follows the old singles plus covers and filler formula that was typical in the sixties. With a band like The Move, whose first five singles ("Night of Fear", "I Can Hear the Grass Grow", "Flowers in the Rain", "Fire Brigade", and "Blackberry Way") were top five hits EMI knew that they could tack a couple of their singles on the album, rush it to the marketplace and make a quick buck. Who cares about quality?

Actually, I take most of the last paragraph back. Sure, their debut doesn’t quite live up to the standards set by their singles, but the bar was set pretty high. "Night of Fear", "I Can Hear the Grass Grow", "Fire Brigade", and "Blackberry Way" are all classic, near perfect pop singles. It would be a hard act for any band to follow. They do come close, though, with "Cherry Blossom Clinic", (which was remade and lengthened on their second album Shazam!) an ode to mental illness and quite possibly one of the most bizarre pop songs ever recorded. Though not quite as bizarre as "They’re Coming to Take Me Away! Ha Ha!" by Napoleon XIV which coincidentally is also about mental illness...but, I digress.

Other highlights include "Useless Information", a simple pop tune that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on The Shins last album and their cover of the pop standard "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" (one of three covers on the album, the others being Eddie Cochran’s "Weekend" and Moby Grape’s "Hey Grandma").

Then, of course, there’s the previously mentioned "Fire Brigade", one of the two singles tacked onto the album (the other being "Flowers in the Rain", their weakest single by far). A ridiculously catchy tune about a schoolboy crush (the role of the schoolboy played by guitarist/songwriter Roy Wood whose nasally/high pitched voice fits the song perfectly) on a girl who could "set the place on fire". The lyrics and background vocals (the members of the group imitating a fire truck siren) are slightly on the corny side, but charming nonetheless.

All in all, their debut album is good, but not altogether spectacular. Nothing that would grant them admission into "the pantheon of British rock in the sixties" that’s for sure. Of course, it helps that "Night of Fear" and "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" were added as bonus tracks on the 1998 reissue.