Impact
"Milk and Alcohol" was the band's fourth hit single in the United Kingdom, and their only Top 10 single in the UK Singles Chart. In 1979, the musical world was perceived as being dominated by "fey glam-rockers and 15-minute Mellotron solos." When "Milk and Alcohol" was played in the pubs of Canvey Island in the late 1970s, the song came across as a radical departure that contributed to "a short, sharp shock of roots rock." For a while, the song led to some drinking both alcohol and milk while listing to Dr. Feelgood perform live.
In April 1989, a remixed "Milk and Alcohol (New Recipe)" was issued by EMI in both 7" vinyl ((EM 89) with "She's Got Her Eyes on You" as the B-side); and 12" vinyl ((12 EM 89) with "She's Got Her Eyes on You" and "Mad Man Blues" on the B-side).
In 1997, "Milk and Alcohol" continued to be played by the band while making the rounds of the world's pubs, clubs and concert halls. However, by 2003, "Milk and Alcohol" was seen as a "forgotten gem" and was listed at number nine on "Moozak Top Ten", a tongue-in-cheek "cow music" listing that included entries such as "Bovinian Rhapsody", a wordplay on the popular 1975 song "Bohemian Rhapsody," and "You Can Cull Me Al", a wordplay on "You Can Call Me Al." With the band continuing to present the song in concerts, the music community regained respect for the song. In 2005, the band's biggest hit was being called a "classic." In that same year, "Milk and Alcohol" was considered by the music magazine Q in its compilation of the top ten cigarettes and alcohol songs for the ultimate soundtrack to a drinking session, but lost out to the 1987 song "Nightrain" by the American rock band, Guns N' Roses. Mayo's guitar performance on "Milk and Alcohol", which ranked as number four on a 2005 list of the top ten great British guitar heroes, was cited in that same listing for waking "a generation of guitarists up to the sheer power and energy" of the guitar.
Three decades after reaching the UK's top ten, "Milk and Alcohol" continues to be a popular choice for the band during its concerts.
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Famous quotes containing the word impact:
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)