The King (Teenage Fanclub album)

The King is the second album by Scottish alternative rock band Teenage Fanclub, deleted on its day of release in 1991.

The album is often derided as a hastily assembled contractual obligation to US label Matador (allowing the group to sign to Geffen without penalty). In 2020, Matador co-owner Gerard Cosloy confirms that The King was pitched to the label as the second release, but passed, saying it felt more like a contractual obligation fulfillment than a real album. However the group have denied this, claiming that the shambolic, spontaneous nature of the contents was a direct influence of producer Don Fleming, whose music was often improvised. "One night we all got completely wasted. ... and we said, "Let’s make a LP overnight. We’ll just improvise some songs and do some covers and cobble it all together", Norman Blake said in 2016. In a 2006 interview, Blake and Brendan O'Hare confirmed that the album had been recorded immediately after completing Bandwagonesque using pre-booked studio time that became available when the aforementioned album was finished sooner than anticipated. They also claimed that the album was intended to be a mid-price edition of 1,000 but their then UK label Creation Records pressed 20,000 and sold them at full price.

The album was rereleased on vinyl for Record Store Day 2019.

Personnel

 * Teenage Fanclub


 * Norman Blake – guitar, vocals
 * Gerard Love – bass, vocals
 * Raymond McGinley – guitar, vocals
 * Brendan O'Hare – drums


 * Additional musicians


 * Joe McAlinden – saxophone
 * Paul Chisholm – additional drums


 * Technical


 * Don Fleming – producer
 * Teenage Fanclub – producer
 * Paul Chisholm – producer, engineer
 * Keith Hartley – engineer
 * Dave Buchanan – assistant engineer