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Three years after their mid-concert breakup, the Jesus and Mary Chain will release the aptly titled 21 Singles compilation on June 4th. The collection spans the Scottish band's six-album, fifteen-year career, anchored by stalwarts such as "You Trip Me Up", "Just Like Honey" and "Sometimes Always," a duet with former Mazzy Star singer Hope Sandoval.
Also included are "I Love Rock & Roll" and "I Hate Rock & Roll," which neatly sum up singer Jim Reid and his brother William Reid's polar opposite viewpoints. "That particular song was a reply to William's," Jim Reid told Rolling Stone of "I Love Rock & Roll." "He wrote "I Hate Rock & Roll," which is about all the kind of uncomfortable stuff you have to do when you're in a band, stuff that you might not want to do. It doesn't feel good, and it's sort of the business end of what you have to do. It was a great song, and I just thought, 'Yeah, but it's kind of incomplete.' So, I sort of made a flip side, a reply to it. He wrote hate, I wrote love."
The Jesus and Mary Chain split up in 1998 soon after the squabbling siblings got in an onstage argument at the House of Blues in Hollywood. William and Jim Reid reunited in the last year to record as part of Sister Vanilla, a band that features their sister Linda Reid and former Jesus and Mary Chain guitarist Ben Lurie. The group contributed the song "Pastel Blue" to the just-issued You Don't Need Darkness to Do What You Think Is Right compilation, which also features new material from Future Pilot AKA and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields.
Jim Reid and Lurie recently completed a European tour and released the Retox EP with their new band Freeheat.
The 21 Singles track listing:
Upside Down
Never Understand
You Trip Me Up
Just Like Honey
Some Candy Talking
April Skies
Happy When It Rains
Darklands
Sidewalking
Blues From a Gun
Head On
Rollercoaster
Reverence
Far Gone and Out
Almost Gold
Snakedriver
Sometimes Always
Come On
I Hate Rock & Roll
Cracking Up
I Love Rock & Roll
COLIN DEVENISH
(April 1, 2002)