For Crying Out Loud

For Crying Out Loud is Kasabian's sixth studio album. It was released on 5 May 2017 and peaked at #1 in the UK charts.

Background

Recording

After Serge mentioned that he was working on new material in January 2015, it took until after the end of the 48:13 Tour before anything was confirmed. In early December 2015, Ben posted a picture of himself, Serge and Tim at Strongroom Studios in London on his personal Instagram account, which was later deleted. On 13 January 2016, a picture from inside The Sergery was posted on Kasabian's official Instagram account. Later that month, an article about the history of Strongroom Studios confirmed that the band recorded there in February 2016.

In an interview with Radio X in April 2016, Serge confirmed that he was in the studio, but didn't give any definite details: "I'm mooching about. I've got a little studio at home so I'm always in there, just escaping from reality."

According to Serge, he gave himself a deadline of six weeks and office hours, during which the bulk of the album was written, predominantly on guitar and piano.

In the March 2017 issue of Q Magazine, Serge revealed that the album was finished in May 2016, but instead of putting it out they decided to take the summer off instead. However, they had already announced in a May interview that the album would be released in autumn 2016, and the subsequent lack of news led to a lot of frustration among the fans. The same interview also revealed the first six song titles: You're In Love With A Psycho, Twentyfourseven, Comeback Kid, Put Your Life On It, Good Fight and All Through The Night.

On 28 May 2016, Kasabian debuted new song Put Your Life On It at their gig at Leicester's King Power Stadium. Asked about the progress of the album on the same day, Tom said there was "[n]othing concrete at the minute but we've got some ideas which we're just rehearsing."

In January 2017, Serge said that after taking a break in summer 2016, he returned to an album of "beautiful, crafted tunes" and decided to "graffiti over everything." He also added two new songs: Bless This Acid House and Ill Ray (The King). Along with revealing additional track titles Sixteen Blocks and Are You Looking For Action?, he mentioned being inspired by Nirvana and The Stooges. In an NME interview following a string of festival announcements, Serge also cited ESG and Talking Heads as influences, describing the new material as guitar-heavy and "a proper feel-good album".

On 10 February 2017, Kasabian announced on their social media that the album is finished.

Title

The phrase For Crying Out Loud was displayed behind the band at their Leicester gigs in May 2016, but it was not decided on as the album's title until much later. Serge explained that it's a phrase that made him smile because his father and grandmother as well as Rick Graham use it, and that can also be understood in a literal sense, because the songs on it are for singing or crying out loud.

An Amazon page containing the title appeared on 14 March 2017, three days ahead of the official album announcement. You're In Love With A Psycho was previously rumoured to be the album's title after NME discovered a listing for a release with that name on Amazon Germany.

Artwork

Symbols and fonts representing each of the album tracks

The cover of the album shows Kasabian's long-time roadie Rick Graham. The album sleeve contains lyrics to all the songs, further pictures of Rick and small symbols that reference the lyrics of each individual track. The pictures were taken by the band's tour photographer Neil Bedford and the artwork was designed by Serge under the direction of designer Aitor Throup, who was "inspired by punk fanzines and the process of sampling." Each song in the tracklisting is written in a different font.

Promotion

On 8 March 2017 the For Crying Out Loud Tour launched with two nights at the Sydney Opera House. From the new album only the previously known songs Comeback Kid and Put Your Life On It were performed.

Following a performance on BBC show Later... with Jools Holland in April 2017 where they debuted Bless This Acid House and Ill Ray (The King), Kasabian played eight warm up gigs in small venues across the UK and Ireland. They also performed a number of acoustic sessions in several European countries.

Tear stickers on graffiti in London

Stickers of the tears from the cover art were given to several fan groups around the world to help promote the album.

Release

In September 2016, Comeback Kid was released exclusively on the video game FIFA 17. After a snippet of the song was featured in a game trailer, the full version leaked on 22 September 2016.

On 17 March 2017 the album's tracklisting was revealed and the release date was announced as 28 April 2017. It was later moved back a week, presumably to avoid a chart battle with the new Gorillaz album, which would have been released on the same day. The full album leaked on 3 May 2017, only two days before its official release.

You're In Love With A Psycho, digitally available since its first airplay on 17 March 2017, was released as a double A-side together with Are You Looking For Action? exclusively for Record Store Day on 22 April 2017. Are You Looking For Action was made available digitally the day before. Leading up to the album release, Comeback Kid, Bless This Acid House and Ill Ray (The King) were also released digitally, with Comeback Kid being additionally released on a second double A-side with Good Fight on 5 May 2017, which was sold exclusively through HMV.

Along with the regular CD and vinyl editions, the album was also released on white triple 10" vinyl and cassette. The Japanese editions include five demo versions of album tracks, all sung by Serge, the first demos to be released since Beneficial Herbs in 2005. The demos were made available for free via Kasabian's Facebook page in November 2017. In December 2017, For Crying Out Loud was released in the US on Third Man Records. As well as the regular vinyl edition, an exclusive blue vinyl is available to Vault subscribers.

For Crying Out Loud is Kasabian's fifth consecutive #1 album and the biggest selling cassette album of the year. It was certified gold in August 2017.

Tracklisting

1. Ill Ray (The King)
2. You're In Love With A Psycho
3. Twentyfourseven
4. Good Fight
5. Wasted
6. Comeback Kid
7. The Party Never Ends
8. Are You Looking For Action?
9. All Through The Night
10. Sixteen Blocks
11. Bless This Acid House
12. Put Your Life On It

Reception

Chart performance

Country	Peak position
UK	1
Ireland	2
The Netherlands	35
Belgium	22
Germany	27
Italy	7
Australia	21
Poland	15
Switzerland	12
Austria	20
France	60
Spain	70

Tour

Main article: For Crying Out Loud Tour

After five gigs in May 2016, the For Crying Out Loud tour started officially on 8 March 2017 in Sydney, Australia and finished on 30 September 2018 in São Paulo, Brazil, covering 27 countries in between.

Quotes

"Last year was the best year of my life, but the whole world around that was crumbling. With everyone dying and all the madness around the world, I'm sat there going 'I'm having a great time!' It's pretty mental. There's this vision of me in the studio surrounded by vintage synthesisers, that's still standing perfectly but the rest of the world is just fucking bust. I wrote a proper feel-good album that will come out in the summer. It's just the pure positive and complete opposite of what's going on at the moment because that's where I was as a human being. This was my reaction against the rest of the world."

— Serge (NME.com, 27 January 2017)

Editions

• For Crying Out Loud CD Album (PARADISE95)
• For Crying Out Loud 2xCD Album (PARADISE96)
• For Crying Out Loud Cassette Album (PARADISE97)
• For Crying Out Loud 12" Vinyl Album (PARADISE98)
• For Crying Out Loud 3x10" Vinyl Album (PARADISE100)
• For Crying Out Loud CD Album (Japan)
• For Crying Out Loud 2xCD Album (Japan)
• For Crying Out Loud Blue 12" Vinyl Album
• For Crying Out Loud Album Promo CD