by Kurt Orzeck
With the shoegaze revival presumably hitting its zenith, the time couldn’t be more ripe for the release of the 40th anniversary commemorative edition of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s debut album, Psychocandy. The record, which came out in — anybody have a calculator handy? — 1985, is back in the bins in the form of two remastered vinyl version, (a standard black one and a limited “hot honey” edition.) Neither of the Third Man Records releases contain any bonus material, but both boast the original artwork.
Notably, maybe even curiously, Psychocandy came out before the term “shoegaze” was bandied about in the still-nascent independent-music underground. But the Jesus and Mary Chain are still forever linked to the genre descriptor thanks to the two albums that succeeded it; 1987’s Darklands and 1989’s Automatic. By that time, “shoegaze” was catching on, eventually becoming a commonplace reference thanks to the 1991 release of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, considered to be the best-known album associated with the genre.
But none of that might’ve transpired were it not for Psychocandy, which piqued the interest of downcast introverts with excellent taste in music thanks to brothers Jim and William Reid’s innovative spin on pop that was subsequently deemed “noisy” (not to be confused with the more abrasive “noise rock”). There’s no denying that The Jesus and Mary Chain had landed on a fresh, new sound with Psychocandy. It evokes the memory of Marvin Berry frantically calling his cousin Chuck in Back to the Future and yelling, “You know that new sound you lookin’ for? Well, listen to this!”: and then holding up the telephone to Marty McFly playing “Johnny B. Goode.”
The “new sound” that the brothers Reid introduced with Psychocandy spiced up conventional pop with guitar feedback and noise, introduced to the masses via three singles released in the same year the album came out: "Never Understand,” "You Trip Me Up" and "Just Like Honey.” As with most innovative new takes on music, the public wasn’t immediately onboard, leading the Jesus and Mary Chain to roll out the more ear-friendly follow-up Darklands in 1987.
But like an Everlasting Gobstopper, Psychocandy kept rolling around in the skulls of alt-rock lovers, and eventually a wide enough swath of them found it to be supremely succulent. Forty years later, authoritative music outlets have granted it their top rating, proving that it can often be clumsy to judge an album on its merits the moment it initially comes out. This is not the first time Psychocandy received its laurels well after the album’s initial release; 2011 saw the issuance of a CD reissue with tons of bonus tracks and a DVD. However, this new edition’s vinyl treatment with restored sound, while unavailable to the press in advance of its release, should bring even more glory to the noise pop masterpiece whose footprint proves more and more indelible with each passing year.