Sawmills, darker than Alright
In April 1997, In It for the Money slammed the brakes on the Alright grin and floored a darker, wider Supergrass. Gaz Coombes, Mick Quinn and Danny Goffey, still barely out of their teens, self-produced the Parlophone follow-up with John Cornfield at the desk, chasing scale instead of another cartoon summer. Buskers on the cover, irony in the title: three Oxford kids posing with hat and double bass while the tapes inside roared like a band that had decided celebrity was optional.
“Richard III” opens like a locomotive with Goffey’s drums as the furnace. “Sun Hits the Sky” lifts the blinds into psychedelic daylight; “Late in the Day” softens without losing nerve; “Cheapskate” and “Going Out” keep the sneer sharp. The title track builds from hush to shudder and stops too soon, the kind of unfinished cathedral Britpop rarely attempted. Horns, Mellotron shadows, and Coombes’s elastic vocal stretch the garage DNA toward Abbey Road daydreams without dropping the punk shove.
What makes In It for the Money endure is appetite. Alternative muscle, indie melody, and a punk refusal to stay cute share one running order. UK chart peak at number two, singles that punched radio without begging for it, and a quiet legend among listeners who preferred the second album’s weather to the debut’s postcard. Spielberg had waved a sitcom; the band chose the studio instead. You can still hear that decision in every saturated chorus.
Recording this album was just really exciting. The first one was exciting because it was our first album, but on In It for the Money we were on our own. We had no producer, even though we were only 18 or 19. We just went for it in the studio. It was a really, really exciting time.
(Gaz Coombes on In It for the Money)
Released 21 April 1997, the record remains the hinge between Supergrass the phenomenon and Supergrass the musicians: denser guitars, longer forms, less cartoon. Britpop’s second gear was already smoking when they cut it. The album still sounds like a band refusing to repeat the debut’s smile on command.
