Formed in 1990 by singer/guitarist Ginger (ex- Quireboys and Throbs) and guitarist Chris "CJ" Jagdhar (ex- Tattoed Love Boys), the Wildhearts augmented their sound with bassist Danny McCormack and drummer Andrew "Stidi" Stidolph. After a handful of acclaimed Wildhearts EPs that saw him escape the shadow of his former band The Quireboys with almost distasteful haste, Ginger and The Wildhearts’ debut album was as blunt as a mallet and as warm as summer sunshine. Sceptical at best, it allowed Ginger to rage and rail against all manner of topics, but mainly he saved his most theatrical sneers for affairs of the heart. An intoxicating, hyperactive mash-up of pop melodies, punk aggression and glam-rock swagger, their brilliant debut is a perfect encapsulation of what it meant to be a skint, horny, cynical, pissed-up and lairy twenty-something in mid-90s Britain. Clever lyrics and breakneck riffs abound, and it is impossible to not get caught up in the mile-wide hooks on virtually every cut, from "TV Tan" to "Suckerpunch." Outrageously confident and bursting with dazzling riffs and memorable singalong melodies, Earth vs. The Wildhearts sounded like all your favourite rock’n’roll bands playing at once. An exuberant snapshot of a band in love with music and life, songs like Greetings From Shitsville and Everlone were fresh and timeless.
One moment which does stick in the band’s frazzled memory is the arrival of Mick Ronson. The former Spiders guitarist’s guest solo on My Baby Is A Headfuck would be his final performance before he succumbed to liver cancer in April 1993. “Mick was going to produce, originally,” says Ginger, “and I think when the record company found out he wasn’t well they decided they didn’t want him to. I got in touch and said: ‘I’m sorry about the production job. It’s corporate nonsense. But would you still come and play the solo on this song?’ And he came down with this battered old Telecaster and played the best solo I’ve ever heard in my life.”
A band who made an art form of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, The Wildhearts’ history is an inglorious tangle of in-fighting, drug abuse, self-sabotage and some of the finest rock songs ever committed to vinyl. Theirs is a propulsive, full-throttle brand of rock, owing a debt to Motorhead and the Ramones with the attitude, melody and rock-solid rhythms that make Earth Vs. the Wildhearts a worthy debut.