Performance and Cocktails

Untitled

Performance and Cocktails is Stereophonics' second album. It was released by V2 March 8 1999.

The album was a surprise commercial success giving the Stereophonics three straight top ten singles in the British charts with "The Bartender and the Thief" reaching number three, and both "Just Looking" and "Pick a Part That's New" reaching number four. The album itself was a big success, topping the UK Albums Chart and going on to become the 5th best selling album in the UK in 1999. To date, it has sold over 2 million copies worldwide. The album was sponsored by Fender guitars used throughout the album, a brave move from an "indie" band.

All three members of the band were given equal credit for writing all the songs on this album.

Recording

The songs were variously recorded at Real World Studios in Bath, Parkgate in Sussex and Rockfield in Monmouth.

Album cover

The cover photograph was taken by Scarlet Page in autumn 1998 at a football pitch under the Westway in London, and was inspired by an earlier Annie Leibovitz photograph of a couple kissing outside a prison. The British journalist Tony Barrell did extensive research in 2007 to find the female model in the foreground. In the Sunday Times on November 11, 2007, he revealed the previously unknown identity of the model as 23-year-old Lucy Joplin. In an interview with Barrell, Joplin explained that the "faraway look" in her eyes was the result of an evening consuming absinthe and opium, and that she was paid just £75 in cash for the shoot.

Track Listing

1. "Roll Up and Shine" – 3:58
2. "The Bartender and the Thief" – 2:54
3. "Hurry Up and Wait" – 4:40
4. "Pick a Part That's New" – 3:33
5. "Just Looking" – 4:13
6. "Half the Lies You Tell Ain't True" – 2:55
7. "I Wouldn't Believe Your Radio" – 3:50
8. "T-Shirt Sun Tan" – 4:04
9. "Is Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today?" – 4:02
10. "A Minute Longer" – 3:46
11. "She Takes Her Clothes Off" – 3:55
12. "Plastic California" – 4:30
13. "I Stopped to Fill My Car Up" – 4:29

OTHER SONGS

1. "Fiddler's Green"
2. "Postmen Do Not Great Movie Heroes Make"
3. "Sunny Afternoon"
4. "Positively 4th Street"
5. "In My Day"
6. "Something In The Way"
7. "The Old Laughing Lady"
8. "Angy"

External links

• Homepage of the Stereophonics