Cornershop are a British Indie Rock and Indie Pop band formed in the early 1990s and revolving around a core of Tjinder Singh (songwriter, vocals, guitar) and Ben Ayres (guitar). (They're typically referred to as a duo, though there are other members.) Initially a thrashy punk-inspired band aligned with the Riot Grrrl movement, their second album saw them start to absorb and recombine a far wider range of influences, from punjabi folk to hip-hop to glam rock.
The band hit a commercial peak with 1997’s When I Was Born For The 7th Time, headlined by the Hymn to Music “Brimful of Asha” which, boosted by a hugely popular Norman Cook remix, topped the UK singles chart early in 1998.
Discography
- Hold On, It Hurts (1994)
- Woman’s Gotta Have It (1995)
- When I Was Born For The 7th Time (1997)
- Disco and the Halfway to Discontent (1999, as Clinton)
- Handcream For a Generation (2001)
- Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast (2009)
- And The Double ‘O’ Groove Of (2011, with Bubbley Kaur)
- Urban Turban: The Singhles Club (2012)
- Hold On, It’s Easy (2015) – instrumental lounge remake of Hold On, It Hurts
- England is a Garden (2020)
Tropes associated with Cornershop:
- Album Intro Track: “Heavy Soup” on Handcream For A Generation has guest star Otis Clay introducing the band and the album, and trailling some of the songs to come.
- Asian Store-Owner: As a British Asian, Tjinder Singh was well aware of this stereotype and named his band after it.
- *Bleep*-dammit!: The radio edit of "Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky III" censors the word "dicks", which doesn't do much for its Radio Friendliness as the song's many uses of the word "shit" remain untouched.
- Bookends:
- Woman’s Gotta Have It opens with “6 a.m. Jullandar Shere” and ends (barring the inevitable Hidden Track) with the more upbeat version “7:20 a.m. Jullandar Shere”.
- Again disregarding the bonus track, Handcream For A Generation's Album Intro Track “Heavy Soup” is also reprised as the outro.
- Bowdlerise: The single version of "Good Shit" is called "Good Ships" and amends every Title Drop accordingly.
- The Cameo: Otis Clay as the master of ceremonies on “Heavy Soup”, and Noel Gallagher on guitar for “Spectral Mornings”.
- Cover Version: They’ve done a few, including “Waterloo Sunset”, “Norwegian Wood” and “Sugar, Sugar”. Usually the effect is not so much to reinvent the songs in their style as to demonstrate how close the originals already were.
- Epic Rocking: “7:20 a.m. Jullandar Shere” (9:45), “Spectral Mornings” (14:24) and “The Turned-On Truth” (16:43).
- Double-Meaning Title: Disco and the Halfway to Discontent was released under the name Clinton: The music was influenced by disco and funk, so the name could be a Shout-Out to George Clinton. On the other hand, the lyrics often included political commentary and this was the late 90s, so it also could refer to Bill.
- Fake-Out Opening: "Motion the 11" starts off with guest vocalist Kojak in full flow... then after about 30 seconds, the music stops as he tells the engineer to make sure the tape's rolling in case the next take is "the one". After that, the track starts properly.
- Filmi Music: The band references Filmi music in their song "Brimful of Asha".
- Genre Roulette: Nearly all of their albums are built around this, but When I Was Born For the 7th Time probably takes it furthest as pretty much every single song is in a different style, including such unexpected choices as country ballad and beat poetry.
- Heavy Meta: "No Rock: Save in Roll". Singh grew up in Wolverhampton, slap bang in the cradle of British Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, and the song pays tribute to that, though its own musical style would more likely be classified as Glam Rock.
- Hymn to Music: many of their songs are this to some degree, but “Brimful of Asha” is the exemplar – the verses pay tribute to performers of Indian filmi music, and the middle eight is a list of shout outs to the band’s other musical influences.
- Intentionally Awkward Title: Played with. Singh has long been on a mission to neutralise the derogatory epithet “wog”, resulting in songs called “Wog” (which was released as a single), “First Wog On the Moon”, “Wogs Will Walk”, and “Everywhere that Wog Army Roam”.
- Longest Song Goes Last:
- "The Turned On Truth" on Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast, which at 16:43 is nearly three times the length of the next-longest song.
- Also "You Always Said My Lanuage Would Get Me In Trouble" (7:04) on Hold On, It Hurts (and as it's a track-by-track remake, likewise the 5:56 version on Hold On, It's Easy); "7:20 a.m. Jullander Shere" (9:45) on Woman's Gotta Have It, "Don't Shake It" (5:42) on And the Double 'O' Groove Of and "The Holy Name" (8:50) on England is a Garden.
- Lyrical Dissonance: "Everywhere That Wog Army Roam" is a Protest Song about police racism, but set to a ridiculously catchy upbeat backing.
- Multiple Demographic Appeal: "What Did The Hippie Have in His Bag?" is an outright children's song (it was commissioned for an educational project) but its goofy humour has made it a fan and critics' favourite too.
- New Sound Album: Woman’s Gotta Have It largely dropped the loud punky style of Hold On, It Hurts and their early singles, and introduced their Genre-Busting and Genre Roulette approach, still mostly guitar-based but also with a couple of tracks showing the beginnings of the experimental hip-hop / electronica side of their later music.
- One-Book Author: They were responsible for creating one in Bubbley Kaur, the singer on their 2004 single "Topknot" and subsequently the 2011 album And The Double 'O' Groove Of (which included the single). Kaur had never recorded before... and despite her contributions being universally praised by the critics, never recorded again.
- Precision F-Strike: Tjinder drops in a "motherfucker" during one of the choruses in "We're in Yr Corner".
- Punny Name: Urban Turban: The Singhles Club puns on Tjinder’s surname.
- Questioning Title?: "Where D'U Get Your Information", "What is Happening?", "Who Fingered Rock'n'Roll?", "What Did The Hippie Have In His Bag?", "Who's Gonna Lite It Up?".
- Rearrange the Song:
- Hold On It’s Easy is an instrumental lounge remake of their agit-prop debut Hold On, It Hurts. They even got Mike Flowers in to do some vocal versions for an accompanying EP.
- “People Power” on Handcream For A Generation is an electronic disco-pop reworking of the more trip-hop styled “People Power In The Disco Hour” from the Clinton side project.
- Religion Rant Song: "The Holy Name" is one of the "calling out the leaders" type.
- Separated by a Common Language: When promoting “Brimful Of Asha” in the States, they were already prepared for all the questions about the musical references in the song. The fact that they were constantly being asked “What’s a brimful?” came as more of a surprise. (It’s another way of saying “full up to the top”.)
- Shout-Out: "Brimful of Asha" is a tribute to Indian Filmi Music. The title is a reference to playback singer Asha Bhosle; she's also name-checked in the lyrics, as are playback singers Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar. The song later references All India Radio (a public broadcast outlet) and non-Indian musicians presumably played there, such as French singer Jacques Dutronc and "the Bolan Boogie" (the name of a compilation album by T. Rex), as well as British labels Argo Records and Trojan Records.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: In the radio edit of "Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky III", the word "dicks" is replaced by a ringing bell.
- Studio Chatter: "Morning Ben" on England is a Garden is just a clip of Tjinder playing a few notes on piano and saying "morning Ben", and Ben saying "good morning" back.
- Voice Clip Song: "The London Radar" is made up of voice clips on the theme of air travel.
