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The Raincoats : Fairytale in the Supermarket

[Purchase]

In the Spring of 1979, Rough Trade Records released The Raincoats debut single "Fairytale in the Supermarket". Listen to it more than once. It's a grower. With the exception of violinist Vicky Aspinall, this all female band is made up not of virtuoso musicians but smart art school students who discovered their own distinctly uncommercial take on punk rock. 

In the liner notes for the debut album that followed, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain wrote why the band's music moved him:

When I listen to the Raincoats I feel as if I'm a stowaway in an attic, violating and in the dark. Rather than listening to them I feel like I'm listening in on them. We're together in the same old house and I have to be completely still or they will hear me spying from above and, if I get caught – everything will be ruined because it's their thing.

Comedian Danny Baker was not impressed. He said "they are so bad that every time a waiter drops a tray we'd all get up and dance".

The B side "In Love" made Pitchfork's list of the 200 best songs of the 1970's :

“In Love” is The Raincoats’ most direct song, and yet it describes the most indirect feeling ever, one called “lovesick” for a reason that “In Love” proves. It is the sound of infatuation that crawls under your skin and makes you delirious, of butterflies that possess you.