LONDON RECORDS TO RELEASE ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN’S WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?ย ON VINYL LP FOR THE FIRST TIME TO CELEBRATE 25th ANNIVERSARY
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25 years since its first release, London Records are set to releaseย Echo & The Bunnymenโs album What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? on vinyl for the very first time onย November 29th, both on crystal clear vinyl and on limited edition rust orange vinyl. Fully remastered, the 1999 album will also be reissued on an expansive 34-track double CD edition featuring B-sides, alternative takes and live versions of Bunnymen classics and tracks from the album.
What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? is the eighth studio album by the Liverpool post-punk legends and the follow-up to their triumphant 1997 comeback album โEvergreenโ, which saw original Bunnymen membersย Ian McCulloch,ย Will Sergeantย andย Les Pattisonย reunite in the studio for the first time in almost a decade.
Continuing the trajectory set with โEvergreenโ, the songs from What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?ย are both lyrically introspective and straightforward, bolstered by expansive, melodic arrangements, withย strings performed by theย London Metropolitan Orchestra.
Speaking in 1999 about the albumโs organic approachย McCullochย states:ย โAfter โEvergreenโ I was writing all this kind of stuff, and I thought, we’re just going to go in there, and half of it will be very song-orientated, and the other will be โHeaven Up Here.โโ
โThe title โWhat Are You Going To Do With Your Life?โ is more of an eternal question than where do we come from? It’s where the sod are we going to go? It dawned on me that I can write these words that don’t go above people’s heads. It wasn’t like โI’m going to simplify lyrics,โ it’s just I felt confident of who I am.โ
โMy solo period was kind of learning that I don’t write abstract lyrics very well and never really did. It’s still, for me, the Leonard Cohens and the John Lennonโsโฆ It’s like, how much simpler can you get than that? But it’s one of the most poetic things I’ve ever heard in a song, because it resonates, and you know exactly what he’s on about.โ
The album features a final turn on bass onย โFools Like Usโย from Lesย Pattison, who would leave the band in 1998, and the inspired choice ofย Fun Lovinโ Criminals, who provide horns on โGet in the Carโ and โWhen It All Blows Overโ.
What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? featured two singles, โGet in The Carโ and fan favourite โRustโโ, which was an NME Single Of The Week and the bandโs final UK Top 40 hit.
The band would tour extensively in 1999 in support of the album, and the expanded 2CD edition features previously unreleased live tracks from shows of the time including The Improv Theatre in London (recorded for Radio Oneโs John Peel Show) and Cream in Liverpool, including Bunnymen classics “The Killing Moon”, “Lips Like Sugar”, “Back Of Love” and “The Cutter”.
Formed in Liverpool in 1978,ย Echo & The Bunnymenย have been a seminal force in the indie rock world for over four decades, garnering millions of obsessive music fans worldwide while influencing countless bands, from the Flaming Lips to Coldplay to Pavement.
Echo & The Bunnymen
What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? (Deluxe/Vinyl Reissue)
(London Records)
Release Date: November 29, 2024