Welsh Wednesday #8

Hooked by Catatonia

One of the great mysteries of life is how the flippin' heck Catatonia's second single remains practically unknown to the world. Hooked came out in 1994 as the follow-up to the For Tinkerbell EP and is a delightful little thing, swooping around our ears with joyful abandon before all-too-quickly disappearing into the distance. Sadly, it seemed to go so far into the distance that it never made it onto the band's debut album two years later, whereas all the other early singles were re-recorded for that record.

Say what you like about Catatonia but darn it could they write a good pop song. Hooked, for me, is up there with the best of them, which is why it's even more of a shame no one knows about it. Cerys Matthews' voice is sweeter than sugar (as always) and that layered chorus is to die for. If there's one criticism it's that the production is lacking slightly, but this was a band in its infancy so there wasn't exactly much of a budget. Even so, had it been redone for the album, it could have sounded huuuuuge! Extending the final chorus, turning everything into overdrive and just letting Cerys loose with those glorious vocals of hers would have turned every listener to jelly. Well, me anyway...

Yeah, yeah, I hear you... "Here he goes again with his wonderful Cerys this and his lovely Cerys that..." Mark my words, one day the world will truly appreciate this fine woman. One day...



And here you'll find an early live performance for Welsh music programme The Slate featuring the original Catatonia line-up with Clancy Pegg (keyboards/vocals) and Daf Ieuan, later of Super Furry Animals(drums).