Emily: Rum, sodomy, and the lash. Sounds like your average day on a pirate ship. Or in the Navy, according to Winston Churchill. Yep, that's where The Pogues got the name for their album - a Winston Churchill quote. Shouldn't be much of a surprise actually. Despite their Irish brogues and genre classification under Celtic rock, the band is actually a bunch of Brits playing folk punk. Now that I think about it, folk punk is kind of a weird contradiction too, but in this case it works. The Pogues take traditional Celtic folk music, and add a pub-punk flavor to it. Some songs are melancholy and wistful (like folk), while others are more punk and full of bravado. Not many albums can successfully combine these disparate sounds, let alone by using an accordion and tin whistle amongst their instruments, but The Pogues definitely make it work.
Favorite Tracks: The Band Played Waltzing Matilda; A Pair of Brown Eyes; Wild Cats of Kilkenny
Zack: I'm a little offended by the title of this album. The Pogues want to masquerade like a Celtic rock band, but they drink rum, not whiskey? Well that's just insulting to Irish culture. Oh, they're not Irish and it's a Churchill quote. Well, thank you Emily for being so enlightening and I'm sorry that I didn't read Wikipedia closely this time. I had a hard time putting Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash in perspective. I mean, what else sounds like this. I was forced to compare it to Dropkick Murphys, since they have the whole Celtic punk thing going. But that just felt like I was comparing The Beatles to Creed or Nickelback, and that's just wrong. The Pogues was definitely better than that. But the question of how much better remains. I had never heard anything quite like them; what with their punk rock attitude combined with traditional Irish instrumentation and style. I was forced to gauge for myself what I thought. As scary as that may seem, I was able to conquer the fear of independent thought and came to the outcome that I liked it. They mashed Bob Dylan, The Dead Kennedys, and Lucky the Leprechaun together for 45 minutes of fun. The album, which never necessarily peaked but was strong throughout, did have several shining moments. One of them was the song A Pair of Brown Eyes, which I think may have been the single. It reminded me of the classic Van Morrison tune, had he been a couple pints of Guinness in of course. Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash is full of drinking tunes and traditional ditties that are fun and catchy. It's not the deepest album, but it certainly is a raucous good time.
Favorite Tracks: The Band Played Waltzing Matilda; A Pistol for Paddy Garcia; A Pair of Brown Eyes
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