The Phonics went downhill very quickly, as is often the case. However they were an important part of my maturity musically. In 1997 i'd been slowly but gradually opening my ears to music in general for the past couple of years. I was 13. Oasis and Blur opened the door to more than Michael Jackson and terrible, cheesy 90's dance music and commercial singles which had been all i had shown even a remote interest in previously. A guy in my reg class gave me Word Gets Around on cassette and that album, alongwith Performance and Cocktails became quick favourites. Word Gets Around in particular is still a stellar album in my opinion.
But then what happened? J.E.E.P was appaling, the album after that wasnt much better and even though they were never a groundbreaking band by any stretch of the imagination and far from original they just seemed to fade away into mediocrity. I actually really disliked these guys alot for a while after that second album as i got so bored with them.
Language, Sex, Violence, Other was an improvement from what i remeraber but i never bought it and I didn't hear the album after that either but i have to admit i ended up going to see them again on that tour after a nuraber of years because i got cheap tickets for