| I Love Mekons | |
| Type: | Studio |
| Artist: | the Mekons |
| Border: | yes |
| Genre: | Punk rock |
| Label: | Quarterstick/Touch and Go |
| Prev Title: | The Curse of the Mekons |
| Prev Year: | 1991 |
| Next Title: | Retreat from Memphis |
| Next Year: | 1994 |
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.[1]
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.[2]
Melody Makers 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."[3] 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."
Greg Kot ranked I Love Mekons as his 10th favorite album of 1993,[4] and Mark Lepage of the Montreal Gazette named it his 4th favorite album of the year.[5]