I Love Mekons

I Love Mekons (stylized I ♥ Mekons on the album cover; also referred to as I (Heart) Mekons) is an album by the British-American punk rock band the Mekons, released in 1993 on the Quarterstick and Touch and Go labels. It is a concept album consisting of twelve love songs.^[1]

I Love Mekons
Studio album by the Mekons
Released	October 18, 1993 (1993-10-18)
Genre	Punk rock
Length	50:01
Label	Quarterstick/Touch and Go
The Mekons chronology
The Curse of the Mekons (1991) I Love Mekons (1993) Retreat from Memphis (1994)

Background

Before I Love Mekons was released, the Mekons had been engaged in two years of rancorous arguments with their record label at the time, Warner Bros. Records subsidiary Loud Records. As a result, the Mekons did not release any albums for two years after the release of Curse of the Mekons in 1991. Originally, Warner Bros. had refused to release I Love Mekons because they thought it was not good enough. After the Mekons parted ways with Loud Records, the album was released in 1993 on Quarterstick, a subsidiary of Touch and Go.^[2][3]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Chicago Tribune	[4]
Christgau's Consumer Guide	B+[5]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[6]
Orlando Sentinel	[7]
Rolling Stone	[8]

Melody Maker's Dave Jennings described I Love Mekons as "simultaneously a brilliant, exhilarating pop record and an exploration of the assumptions behind other people’s pop records."^[9] Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ grade, describing it as "love songs, laid out casually across disc and lyric sheet--a country album without a happy ending."^[5]

End-of-year lists

Greg Kot ranked I Love Mekons as his 10th favorite album of 1993,^[10] and Mark Lepage of the Montreal Gazette named it his 4th favorite album of the year.^[11]

Track listing

1. "Millionaire" – 4:37
2. "Wicked Midnite" – 3:51
3. "I Don't Know" – 4:20
4. "Dear Sausage" – 3:48
5. "All I Want" – 3:49
6. "Special" – 2:30
7. "St. Valentine's Day" – 4:59
8. "I Love Apple" – 3:26
9. "Love Letter" – 4:18
10. "Honeymoon in Hell" – 5:34
11. "Too Personal" – 5:54
12. "Point of No Return" – 3:00

References

1. Byrne, Richard (22 March 2004). "Mekon Love". The American Prospect. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
2. Dougan, John. "I Love Mekons - The Mekons". AllMusic. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
3. Rothschild, David (12 March 1993). "Cheap Trick Signs With Warner, Plans Album". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
4. Kot, Greg (29 October 1993). "Falling In Love With Mekons". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
5. Christgau, Robert (15 October 2000). "The Mekons: I Love Mekons". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. Macmillan Publishing. ISBN 9780312245603.
6. Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857125958.
7. Gettelman, Parry (5 November 1993). "The Mekons". Orlando Sentinel.
8. Kot, Greg (31 July 1997). "The Mekons: I Love Mekons". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 14 May 2008.
9. "The Mekons". Contemporary Musicians. Gale. 2004. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
10. Kot, Greg (31 December 1993). "City Band Tops Newspaper's Best Album List". NewsOK.com. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
11. Lepage, Mark (23 December 1993). "Year's high and low notes". Montreal Gazette.

Further reading

• Brown, Peter Robert (14 November 2014). "Meet the Mekons: Popular Music, Art, and Cultural Critique". Rock Music Studies. 2 (1): 22–45. doi:10.1080/19401159.2014.980598. ISSN 1940-1159.