I Love Mekons
I Love Mekons (stylized I ♥ Mekons on the album cover; also referred to as I (Heart) Mekons) is an album by the British-American punk rock band the Mekons, released in 1993 on the Quarterstick and Touch and Go labels. It is a concept album consisting of twelve love songs. Background. Before "I Love Mekons" was released, the Mekons had been engaged in two years of rancorous arguments with their record label at the time, Warner Bros. Records subsidiary Loud Records. As a result, the Mekons did not release any albums for two years after the  release of "Curse of the Mekons" in 1991. Originally, Warner Bros. had refused to release "I Love Mekons" because they thought it was not good enough. After the Mekons parted ways with Loud Records, the album was released in 1993 on Quarterstick, a subsidiary of Touch and Go. Reception. "Melody Maker"s Dave Jennings described "I Love Mekons" as "simultaneously a brilliant, exhilarating pop record and an exploration of the assumptions behind other people’s pop records." Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ grade, describing it as "love songs, laid out casually across disc and lyric sheet--a country album  without a happy ending." End-of-year lists. Greg Kot ranked "I Love Mekons" as his 10th favorite album of 1993, and Mark LePage of the "Montreal Gazette" named it his 4th favorite album of the year.