England Made Me (Black Box Recorder album)

England Made Me, the debut studio album of English rock band Black Box Recorder, was released through Chrysalis Records on 20 July 1998. After releasing albums with the Auteurs and as Baader Meinhof, in early 1997, musician Luke Haines formed Black Box Recorder with John Moore and Sarah Nixey. Through most of 1997, the band recorded their debut album with Auteurs collaborator and producer Phil Vinall in several London studios, including Milo and The Drugstore. The country folk, easy listening and pop album is named for Graham Greene's 1935 novel eponymous novel, and has been compared to the work of Portishead and Young Marble Giants. Bontempi drums and a radio scanner, and samples are used on several tracks. The songs' lyrics criticize the mundane experience of living and growing up in post Restoration England, and explore the themes of single mothers and teenage sex. England Made Me was met with mixed reviews; critics focussed on the album's quality, Nixey's voice and the lyrics. It reached number 110 on the UK Albums Chart. Following an argument between Haines and Moore, which almost saw Black Box Recorder disband, they signed to Chrysalis Records in December 1997. After a brief return to The Auteurs, Black Box Recorder toured the UK in early 1998. "Child Psychology" was released as the album's lead single in May 1998 and reached number 82 in the UK Singles Chart; this was followed by "England Made Me" in July 1998, which peaked at number 89. Black Box Recorder did not tour after the album's release, making a single appearance at that year's Reading Festival. NME included England Made Me on its list of the 50 best releases from 1998, and was reissued as part of a career spanning box set in 2018.

Between 1993 and 1996, vocalist and guitarist Luke Haines released three albums with the Auteurs; New Wave (1993), Now I'm a Cowboy (1994) and After Murder Park (1996). After Murder Park received critical acclaim but was not as commercially successful as its predecessors. singer Sarah Nixey had been working as a backing vocalist in the band Balloon to harmonize with frontman Ian Bickerton. Bickerton, who wanted more musicians to help the band in a recording studio, recruited Haines and former the Jesus and Mary Chain member John Moore. which Moore enjoyed. Moore coined the band's name while flying home from Spain. Moore persuaded Volume magazine to include a Black Box Recorder track on their next compilation album, prompting Haines to visit Moore at his residence in Little Venice, London, to make noise.

Black Box Recorder went to a basement studio in Camberwell, London, with producer and Auteurs collaborator Phil Vinall, where they recorded "Girl Singing in the Wreckage". Moore was aware of Vinall's earlier work with Haines; he calling Vinall a "somewhat intense individual, and the atmosphere was often dark, bordering on Pinteresque", which he felt was appropriate for their forthcoming album. Hut Records, which had released Haines' earlier work, paid the band an advance fee, allowing them to move sessions to the basement of Milo Studios in Hoxton Square, London. Here, they recorded "New Baby Boom" and "England Made Me", the latter of which was recorded the same day Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Moore said "England Made Me" is "new slow, new nightmarish, and new cruel, but definitely not New Labour". Charlie Inskip, who had worked with Haines, became the band's manager. Sessions concluded in autumn with the recording of "Wonderful Life", "Lord Lucan Is Missing" and "Factory Radio" at Milo Studios. The band and Vinall produced most of the tracks except "Ideal Home", which was solely produced by the band. Several engineers worked on the album; Vinall, Martin Jenkins, Teo Miller, Pete Hofmann and the band. Miller mixed most of the songs while Vinall mixed one of them. Jason Ferguson of MTV said "wispy samples will waft through the proceedings or the band will get a little carried away and almost start to rock". "England Made Me" starts with Nixey inflicting pain on insects; Moore called it a "paean to Graham Greene and British seediness";

Sandlin said "Child Psychology" describes a child who is intellectually stunted by irreversible neglect by misguided parents. On "Swinging", Moore said Nixey acted as a Blue Remembered Hills esque character who persuades boys to jump from a cliff face. in December 1997. According to Nixey, A&R representative Gordon Biggins' first words to her asked if she wanted to go solo rather than working with Haines and Moore, who two days earlier had argued and almost disband Black Box Recorder until Nixey mediated between them. The band liked Biggins enough to sign with the label. In February and March 1998, Black Box Recorder toured the UK. Chrysalis Records released England Made Me on 20 July 1998. Haines said Street, who was cross dressing, was showing off his championship belt while his father reproachfully stares at him. Haines said he and Moore used to watch wrestling when they were children until it "got axed because it became too pantomime". Hutchinson's photograph is included in Simon Garfield's book The Wrestling (1996); Garfield put the band in contact with Street to ask his permission to use the photograph for the album. Street was enthusiastic about the prospect, hoping the band would sell a million copies of it. journalist Owen Hatherley said had the image been used, the album would have "truly encapsulated British fascism by adding sport to the litany of untrustworthy outsiders". The band did not tour to promote the album but they performed at the Reading Festival the following month. depicts a girl in a bed who appears "bored and morbidly introspective – [it] tells you most everything you need to know" about the band, according to Sandlin. The video for "Child Psychology", which was directed by Clio Barnard, depicts children in a bath that is located in a forested swamp. "Child Psychology" was banned from MTV and radio stations in the UK due to the lyric "Life is unfair / Kill yourself or get over it". "England Made Me" was released as the album's second single on 6 July 1998. The CD version featured "Factory Radio" and "Child Psychology" as the B sides, The video for "England Made Me", directed by Sonja Phillips, To promote the single, the band supported Pulp at their show in Finsbury Park, London and performed at the T in the Park festival. England Made Me was included in the career spanning Life Is Unfair (2018) CD box set alongside the band's other albums. A vinyl edition of this box set was issued the following year. In 2022, "Child Psychology" became a viral sensation on the video platform TikTok; in addition to this, a one hour looped version was posted on YouTube. Due to the renewed interest in the track, Chrysalis Records posted an edited version of the track to Spotify. Alexis Petridis, writing for SuperDeluxeEdition, attributed the virality to Billie Eilish posting a video of herself enjoying the track. In 2023, England Made Me was re pressed on vinyl to coincide with the album's 25th anniversary.

Reviews of England Made Me were mixed. According to Swihart, though the album does not immediately appear to be a satirical statement on "anything, but rather an exquisite, even upbeat, bit of pop  [e]ven when Black Box Recorder do inject a bit of pop cheerfulness into the music, it is seemingly done ironically". Sandlin said at the halfway point, the album slips into "barely tolerable redundancy" as it loses the "casual, deliberate momentum it'd been building upon". Empire said Nixey's "opiated debutante tones take Haines' odium to new, discomfiting extremes", Robert Christgau in The Village Voice said Nixey has a "rich, delicate, contained" voice that is "so neurotic that to expect her to give of herself would be meaningless". According to Jamie Kiffel of Lollipop Magazine; "rarely do the lyrics get as specific as their simple singability would imply" as exemplified by "England Made Me". He added the "stories are weird, realistic, and leave plenty of room for your mind to color in the humor with a black marker". Sandlin wrote the band "just keep churning out more quaint songs about resigned depression" and after a while, the listener is "left with empty sorrow and overly reflective gobbledygook". England Made Me charted at number 110 on the UK Albums Chart, and "Child Psychology" and "England Made Me" peaked at numbers 82 and 89, respectively, on the UK Singles Chart.