Tingles

Tingles
EP by
Released1 October 1990 (1990-10-01)
Length13:12
LabelrooArt
ProducerNick Mainsbridge
Ratcat chronology
This Nightmare
(1989)
Tingles
(1990)
Blind Love
(1991)

Tingles is an extended play (EP) by Australian indie pop band Ratcat, released on 1 October 1990. It went on to peak at No.1 in Australia and finished 1991 as the second best-selling single of the year, behind "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams.[1] It was also the highest-selling single in Australia by an Australian artist in 1991. The EP was promoted by the song "That Ain't Bad", which charted on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, peaking at number 27 in November 1991.

Reception

Tingles was given 4.5 out of 5 in a review by All Music.[2]

Steve Gardner from NKVD Records said "I'm really surprised they could chart with a guitar sound this gnarly; the songs are obvious radio pop stuff, but songs made for radio don't have guitars mixed as loud as the vocals and they certainly don't have the distortion set to 10." adding "All of the first side is excellent, and "Skin" from the second side is equally good. "Away from This World" sounds cool on first listen as the music is married with the soundtrack from the Challenger space shuttle explosion, but it doesn't hold up to repeated play and "My Bloody Valentine" is a throwaway experiment that fizzled out. Still, a pleasant surprise and show of potential for good things still to come."[3]

In The Sell-In, Craig Mathieson said, "Day had written "That Aint Bad" in a simple attempt to mix noisy guitars and the words 'I love you' together in a song. He though it was funny, coming from the thrash-punk scene. The result was undeniably catchy."[4] Junkee described "That Aint Bad" as, "buzzy and ever-so-slightly painful: It’s an ode buried amongst an entire broken speaker’s worth of feedback that eventually descends into a series of scream-sung promises. Blast it outside the house of your beloved through a cassette player held aloft over your head."[5]

Track listing

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."That Ain't Bad"Simon Day4:04
2."Tingles"Day3:26
3."Don't Go in the Water"Day, Amr Zaid, Andrew Polin3:47
4."Getting Away (From This World)"Day5:19
5."Skin"Day3:20
6."My Bloody Valentine"Day3:22

Charts

Certifications

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[1] Platinum 70,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Release history

Region Date Format Label Ref.
Australia 1 October 1990 CD rooArt [8]
United Kingdom 15 July 1991 Mini-album [9]

See also

List of number-one singles in Australia during the 1990s

References

  1. ^ a b c "ARIA Top 50 Singles for 1991". ARIA. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  2. ^ "Ratcat – Tingles". AllMusic. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
  3. ^ "Album and Single Reviews". Ratcat Reviews. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  4. ^ Mathieson, Craig (2000). The Sell-in: How the Music Business Seduced Alternative Rock. Allen & Unwin. p. 51. ISBN 1-86508-412-3.
  5. ^ Joseph Earp. "The 200 Greatest Australian Songs Of All Time, Part One". Junkee.
  6. ^ "RatCat – Tingles EP". ARIA Top 50 Singles. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
  7. ^ "Alternative Airplay". Billboard. 2 November 1991. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  8. ^ "New Release Summary – Product Available from: 01/10/90 > Singles (from The ARIA Report Issue No. 38)". ARIA. Retrieved 18 May 2016 – via Imgur.
  9. ^ "New Releases: Albums". Music Week. 13 July 1991. p. 10.