Flop - 'World of Today' (Frontier)

And here the Flop story ends, and it couldn't happen in a more beautiful and fiercely contemplative manner. Actually, if we're talking pure aesthetics of sound, World of Today only slightly pulls back the big, loud hard rock sound of Whenever You're Ready; the grandiose, stadium rock riffage is still here, recorded like a brisk autumn wind, and on this November morning I couldn't think of a more suitable record to listen to while watching the grey sky slowly brighten. World of Today was released after the band broke up, back on the Frontier label, and is a rare album that I prefer to have on CD than vinyl, since it was squeezed onto a white 10" that is mastered terribly. Maybe someday it will get repressed with the extra 2"s that it deserves, but I'm going to have a slow campaign of winning over fans to Team Flop until then, to build the potential market. Oh, capitalism - if there was justice in the world, then every man, woman and child on earth would receive a 12" 180g vinyl pressing of World of Today in their postboxes tomorrow, and together we could start to understand the frustrations and resentments of mankind, collectively. Because this is an album that is very much about the torment of the individual, struggling to acclimate through schooling ('North Mason Middle School'), child-parent relationships ('Eggs and Ash'), post-adolescence ('Of Today'), childbearing ('April Ate Our World'), labour (the brilliantly existential closing cut, 'Two Martians Working', as perfect a coda as could be) and escapism ('Waste of Space'). If this sounds like a bumpy journey, well it's true that World of Today is less accessible than And the Fall of the Mopsqueezer. The only single was the opening cut, 'Act 1, Scene 1' which is a dark, existential rumination on the corporeality of being, and sets the tone for what is to come. There's unmistakeable darkness throughout this record, and you can hear it in Willoughby's voice - it's hitting a slightly higher register, and there's none of the exuberance heard before on songs such as 'The Great Valediction'. That's not to say he underperforms here - in fact, there's still an enthusiasm and joy for music, and exhibit A of that would be the cover of 'Yellow Rainbow' by the Move. This is a remarkable rendering of an already remarkable song, and the 60s acid imagery of the original takes on a malevolent tone with mid 90s guitar production behind it,  and in the context of the rest of this album. Yet throughout, the essential fairytale nature of the song is never lost as Willoughby sings with almost reckless abandon. If I'm making this out to be a dour, miserable trip, then I'm doing a bad job of conveying the pure joy (no pun intended) of World of Today, at least as a listener. The catchy hooks and musicianship are more integrated than ever before, and you get delicate guitar jangle ('Eggs and Ash' is a beauty to listen to with Kurt Bloch's production) and shifting time signatures ('Of Today'), as well as some of the most earworm-forming (albeit dark) lyrics imaginable. Imagine a fifteen year old version of me singing 'You'll get more disillusioned with age ... you wait!' alone in my bedroom. (In case you're wondering, he was right, I did. We all do, which is one of the lessons of World of Today). This record represents the peak of Willoughby's songwriting in Flop, and some of the most personal moments that I've discerned from his work.  Hell, it represents the peak of songwriting in general, from just about anyone. It's hard to pick a single highlight but maybe it's the penultimate track, 'Miniaturize', which begins with a masterfully epic jangly buildup before it's autobiographical raison d'être is delivered with such mastery that I wish stadiums and arenas were filled with thousands singing along: 'Solemn as a child / in stoic reticence'. The melodic high point may be the back-to-back punch of 'Around' and 'We've All Seen Better Days', the latter being one of the moments of relief and empathy that comes here. I  can only wonder about the residue of failed relationships here, as well as a general questioning of one's purpose in life. That this came out of the Sony-catalysed bad juju makes sense, and if it's a band falling apart then it's channeled through one man questioning everything. I meant to post this a few days ago but once I started listening to it I kept listening to it over and over, so I've listened to this about ten times in the past week and just want more, and I've been listening to it consistently since 1995. I've never met another Flop fan in person, and only a few people who remember them at all; certainly no one whose life was so affected by this record as a teenager. I realise that there's a lot of great records that had I invested my formative years into them might have impacted me as much as this one, but I'm glad I ended up with this one being so important.