From the back of the cover of the USA release of BOX FRENZY:

 

I remember the night I first heard of the phenomenom that would come to be known as POPPIE APPEAL... "Hey, Frankie Wortho!" I called over to the balding grebo who had been entertaining the entire snug-bar with his kinky tales of wild times in the bathtub with Charlie George. "Tell me, o golden-top hero, what has inspired you to grow your sideys back into that giant shaggy triangle style favoured by all top footy gods circa 1974?" "No problem, boy", he replied. "Put it down to the influence of those scuzzy mop-top white hippy-hop supersonic Black Country bootboys POP WILL EAT ITSELF." The very next day I rushed to see the Poppies play a punk rock dive in downtown Halesowen. The best live review ever printed in N.M.E. ensued. By now, millions of words have been written about the impact of the four loveable, grubby Poppie lads and their obnoxious personal habits: here are 29 of them. 'POP WILL EAT ITSELF make me wanna swell up and fill my trousers' (Birmingham Evening Mail) 'Vile sexist macho bores ... long hair, bare bottoms ... The Devil's music.' (N.M.E.) "1987 has undoubtably been the year of the Poppies," Radio One King Grebo and social commentator Steve-Wright-In-The-Afternoon told me. "Clint, Richard, Graham and Adam have not only brought about musical, culinary and casual-wear revolutions - they've even caused fashions in sexual hygiene to regress thirty years They're like no group since the almighty Slade." Single-handed, POP WILL EAT ITSELF have made it cool to dribble oily curry down the front of your Birmingham 1992 Olympics T-shirt. No-longer am I ashamed to say I was born in the Midlands. All across Staffordshire, millions of dull youth have been inspired to start up their own groups now it is positively trendy to steal other poeple's riffs and lyrics - even whole songs - to cover up a blatant lack of talent. It's all thanks to the Poppies. Now, of course, each of the Poppies is a celebrity in his own right, and extremely rich to boot! RICHARD has been able to buy the guitar-shaped pool he has always longed for, and he can afford to keep it topped up with his fave light ale. The last time I met CLINT, he told me that after the band's second Wogan appearance it became possible for him to retire and live off the royalties from patent Clint Poppie wigs alone! So, will he soon be hanging up his plectrum for good? No way! Clint has had a few pressures stardom but his recent discovery of religion has, thankfully, brought him great inner peace. In the near future he is planning to make the profound spiritual gesture of changing his name to Peter Gordeno Poppie as a tribute to the swinging dancer-cum-prophet of hip-hop who used to so shamelessly bare his nipples in U.F.O. "I was given the freedom of the town of Stourbridge," boasted ADAM at the opening of the POP WILL EAT ITSELF theme-park at Dudley Zoo. "And I," GRAHAM countered, "can have sex with anyone I want." Then he went on to explain that fame and fortune have hardly changed the Poppies at all. If you see Graham in the street, girls, don't be afraid to approach him - he says he'd be as happy as ever to sell you a kiss and his autograph! There's just no faulting the Poppies: they are outrageous, witty, their spots are clearing up and they still get their rounds in. They are probably the most with-it pop group in the world. Everyone agrees that when it comes to cheesy Val Doonican-style mood music suitable for snogging sessions in the back of your boyfriend's Mini, POP WILL EAT ITSELF are top boys; when they are cruising in powerpop overdrive they leave the rest standing ... Poppie-Rap gear is capable of tempting any living soul out to play chicken on the Adam Ant dance motorway. So how come they've made such a crap L.P.?

-D. J. Fontana (New Musical Express)