How I Learned to Love the Bootboys is the fourth and final album by British rock band the Auteurs. It was released on 5 July 1999 through Hut and Virgin Records. Following their third studio album After Murder Park (1996), Haines started the Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder projects. He regrouped with the Auteurs to start work on a concept album under the name ESP Kids, though sessions halted as Black Box Recorder worked on their debut album England Made Me (1998). The Auteurs re-started recording their next album in January 1998 at RAK Studios in London; Hut and Virgin were not happy with the lack of single-sounding songs. After writing "The Rubettes", the band finished recording in April 1998. How I Learned to Love the Bootboys is a glam rock album that takes atmospheric influence from England Made Me.

How I Learned to Love the Bootboys received generally favourable reviews from critics, some of whom praised the quality of the songs, while others commented on the nostalgia aspect. Ahead of the album's release, "The Rubettes" appeared as its lead single in May 1999, which was followed by performances in France and a tour of the United Kingdom in October 1999. That same month, "Some Changes" was released as the second single from the album. The Auteurs broke up shortly afterwards. Some outtakes from the ESP Kids sessions appeared on the compilation Luke Haines Is Dead (2006); How I Learned to Love the Bootboys was reissued in 2014 with B-sides, outtakes and a live show. NME and Select included it on their lists of the best albums of the year.

Background and recording

The Auteurs released their third studio album After Murder Park in March 1996. Despite it being well-received critically, it underperformed commercially. Frontman Luke Haines released an album under the name Baader Meinhof later in the year, which he said was met with "duncery and confusion". He debated breaking up the Auteurs as he was confident that their label Virgin Records was going to drop them from the roster. As Haines struggled for a new direction, he opted to play with his friend Ian Bickerton in the folk act Balloon, where he met John Moore and Sarah Nixey. Haines, Moore and Nixey formed the Black Box Recorder project; to Haines' surprise, Virgin and Hut Records greenlit another Auteurs album, with the stipulation it would contain hit singles. Haines instead entered a studio with the rest of the band with the aiming of making a concept album known as ESP Kids. They recorded four songs – "How I Learned to Love the Bootboys", "Johnny and the Hurricanes", "Future Generation" and "School" – before progress halted with Haines continuing to work on Black Box Recorder. They made the album England Made Me (1998); while waiting for its release, the Auteurs started recording a new album of their own in January 1998 at RAK Studios in London.

Composition and lyrics

How I Learned to Love the Bootboys is a glam rock album;

The album's opening track "The Rubettes" is a Brill Building Haines wrote it on a glockenspiel during the period he injured his wrist, to which Moore wrote the second verse lyrics. Nixey and Moore sing backing vocals on the song; Chris Wyle played drums on it and the following song "1967", "Asti Spumante" and "Sick of Hari Krisna" are two mood pieces. How I Learned to Love the Bootboys was released by Hut Records on 5 July 1999; it was promoted with one-off performance from the Auteurs at the Embassy Rooms in London 11 days later. They appeared at the Reading and Leeds Festivals, prior to some shows in France and a headlining UK tour in October 1999; the band broke up shortly afterwards. "Some Changes" was released as the album's second single on 18 October 1999.

Haines re-recorded "Future Generation" and "The Rubettes" (the latter as part of a pregap medley) in an orchestral style for Das Capital (2003). Songs from the abandoned ESP Kids project were later released on the Luke Haines Is Dead (2005) compilation, which compiled material from Haines, Baader Meinhof and the Auteurs. How I Learned to Love the Bootboys was reissued as a two-CD set in 2014, which included B-sides, acoustic versions and a live set recorded in late 1999 at the LSE Students' Union. How I Learned to Love the Bootboys was then included on the career-spanning CD box set People 'Round Here Don't Like to Talk About It – The Complete EMI Recordings (2023) alongside the other Auteurs albums.

Reception

How I Learned to Love the Bootboys was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. Kellman said the album's "cohesiveness ... is no small feat, given the wide-ranging sounds and moods". He complimented Haines and Hofmann's "best production yet" as the guitars have "never sounded so fittingly sharp while avoiding abrasiveness". to which The Irish Times writer Kevin Courtney echoed. Author Dave Thompson wrote in his book Alternative Rock (2000) that it was a "very English album, ... but a universal horror haunts its dusty corners." The staff at Entertainment.ie said Haines "dips into the darker recesses of the decade [1970s] and comes up with one of the albums of the year"; The Guardian critic Dave Simpson similarly wrote that the band returned to "poop the festivities of 1970s nostalgia ... Coal-black humour is matched by marvellous tunes in Haines's 'anti-nostalgic, retarded glam rock'. You may wish to avoid him in the pub". In a review for The Times, journalist Nigel Williamson noted that Haines focused on the "banality of the Seventies", but felt that the tracks "lack[ed] wit and far from being subversive are simply arch".

NME ranked the album at number 45 on their list of the best albums of 1999, while Select placed it higher at 20.

Track listing

All songs written by Luke Haines, except where noted.

The Auteurs

  • Luke Haines – vocal, guitar, keyboards
  • James Banbury – keyboards, programming, strings
  • Alice Readman – bass guitar
  • Barny C. Rockford – drums

Additional musicians

  • Chris Wyles – drums <small>(tracks 1 and 2)</small>
  • Sarah Nixey – backing vocals <small>(track 1)</small>
  • John Moore – backing vocals <small>(track 1)</small>
  • Theresa Whipple – viola
  • Abigail Trundle – cello
  • Bern Davis – cello

Production and design

  • Luke Haines – producer
  • Pete Hofmann – producer (except for "Johnny and the Hurricanes"), mixing
  • Phil Vinall – producer on "Johnny and the Hurricanes"
  • Rip – portrait photograph

See also

  • The Facts of Life – Haines' next release after How I Learned to Love the Bootboys

References

Citations

Sources

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  • How I Learned to Love the Bootboys at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)