Cranberries Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? CD

Additional Tracks

The Cranberries: Dolores O'Riordan (vocals, acoustic guitar); Noel Hogan (guitar, background vocals); Mike Hogan (bass); Feargal Lawlor (drums, percussion).
Additional personnel: Mike Mahoney (background vocals).
Recorded at Windmill Studios, Dublin, Ireland.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
The Cranberries: Dolores O'Riordan (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, keyboards, whistle); Noel Hogan (acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, background vocals); Mike Hogan (bass); Fergal Lawler (drums, percussion).
Additional personnel includes: Luciano Pavarotti (vocals); Richie Buckley (tenor saxophone); Michael Buckley (baritone saxophone); Bruce Fairbairn (trumpet).
Producers: Bruce Fairbairn, The Cranberries.
Recorded at Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin, Ireland in November & December 1995.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
Departed turned out to be where the Cranberries' best intentions finally and thoroughly tripped them up. Switching producers to Bruce Fairbairn was a troubling enough move to begin with; Stephen Street's ear for the band's dynamics was note-perfect, but Fairbairn's work with arena-rock monsters like Aerosmith meant on Departed everything was scaled up accordingly. The results may have been more commercial, but they took the identity of the band with it -- that opening song "Hollywood" sounded exactly like atypical sludgefest "Zombie" was all to be expected. O'Riordan, meanwhile, decided she was a generation's spokesperson, fully taking over the songwriting, except on a couple of cuts with Noel Hogan, penning some appropriate liner notes, and running with it. Songtitles say it all -- "War Child," "I Just Shot John Lennon," complete with cheesy gun shots, and perhaps most painfully obvious at the end, "Bosnia." Then there's lead single "Salvation," which preaches against heroin addiction in a manner worthy of afterschool specials and with about as much depth. Not that good songs can't and haven't been written on these subjects, of course, but O'Riordan, lacking a truly individual or unique take on them, is not the person to be writing them. Or singing them -- her wails and yelps now run rampant, being less voice-as-instrument as it is signature calling card to be employed throughout. There are bright points -- every so often Hogan's guitar comes through at its best, and there's the retro-'50s finger-snapping "When You're Gone" and the nicely arranged "Electric Blue." Still, when compared to No Need and especially Everybody Departed completely suffers in comparison. ~ Ned Raggett
Title aside, what the Cranberries were doing wasn't that common at the time, at least in mainstream pop terms; grunge and G-funk had done their respective big splashes via Nirvana and Dr. Dre when Everybody came out first in the U.K. and then in America some months later. Lead guitarist Noel Hogan is in many ways the true center of the band at this point, co-writing all but three songs with O'Riordan and showing an amazing economy in his playing, and having longtime Smiths/Morrissey producer Stephen Street behind the boards meant that the right blend of projection and delicacy still held sway. One can tell he likes Johnny Marr and his ability to do the job just right: check out the quick strums and blasts on "Pretty" or the concluding part of the lovely "Waltzing Back." O'Riordan herself offers up a number of romantic ponderings and considerations lyrically (as well as playing perfectly fine acoustic guitar), and her undisputed vocal ability suits the material perfectly. The two best cuts were the deserved smashes: "Dreams," a brisk, charging number combining low-key tension and full-on rock, and the melancholic, string-swept break-up song "Linger." If Everybody is in the end a derivative pleasure -- and O'Riordan's vocal acrobatics would never again be so relatively calm in comparison -- a pleasure it remains nonetheless, the work of a young band creating a fine l