“Men’s Needs”
from the album Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever
2007
iTunes
MP3 – “Men’s Needs (CSS Remix)” [right-click/save-as]
The Cribs specialize in songs about staying out too late, embarrassing your friends and losing your heart to girls who are even drunker than you are but deserve better than you anyway. It’s a theme that never gets old, and their third album is a holler-along Brit-punk gem. Three brothers from the mining town of Wakefield, the Cribs didn’t make an impression at first, but despite abysmal sound quality, their melodies unfolded over time — “We Can No Longer Cheat You” was one of 2005’s great lost pop tunes. On Men’s Needs, the Cribs give max boom and blast to snotty pub stomps like “Our Bovine Public,” “My Life Flashed Before My Eyes” and “Girls Like Mystery.” Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos turns out to be a great producer, while Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo adds vocals to the spoken-word oddity “Be Safe.” Finally, the Cribs deliver the tour de force they had in them, and it’s about time.