Year by year: 1987

The Smiths – STRANGEWAYS, HERE WE COME

Stop me…

Strangeways is the name of a Manchester prison and the fourth (and final) studio album by The Smiths… Ah but let’s talk about Morrissey’s debut novel instead.

It’s bad. No-saving-graces bad. Poorly written and ill-conceived. So bad you can’t ignore how bad it is. Pretty much like the latest instalment of Stephen Fry’s autobiography; in the sense that even if you are a fan, there’s no way you can get over the tedious self-indulgence going on.

In fact, there’s a mystical thing happing in List Of The Lost. I have no idea what this strange phenomenon is called in literary science, but each page reads like two pages (sometimes three, and in one case – towards the end of the novel – one page actually becomes ten). Very odd. 

Morrissey’s memoir, though, was a classic. It was especially great to notice that he actually rates Strangeways as The Smiths’ best album. The man has taste. Or how else could he write “Girlfriend In A Coma”?..

Year by year: 1986

The Triffids – BORN SANDY DEVOTIONAL

Born Sandy Devotional doesn’t really blow you away. Not on first listen. Rather, it overpowers you with toughness and emotional intensity. So that the closer “Tender Is The Night (The Long Fidelity)” sounds almost lightweight when it beautifully brings it all to a close.

There’s a fascinating booklet in the CD version I have. It includes photos of Dave McComb’s notebook with ideas and rewrites and the general feeling that he was doing something monumental. That this was the Triffids’ album. That it would be as close to experiencing Australia (without actually going there) as possible. That it would capture all the vastness and all the isolation.

Lonely stretches and wide open roads. The thoughts he put into that. The work. The determination. But above all – this is a collection of great songs. Each one a complete Australian classic. It’s incredible that a song like “Personal Things” was included at the last moment. Dave’s vocals and the piano could go on forever for all I care. I love it to death. 

The whole album, really. The spiritual intensity of “Lonely Stretch”; the morbid, unsettling beauty of “Tarrilup Bridge”; the propulsive energy of “Life Of Crime”. And the feeling that against that vastness – you are a fly. You are nothing. And how the time flies. ‘As fast’, Dave sings, ‘as a chicken with no head’.

Year by year: 1985

Jacobites – ROBESPIERRE’S VELVET BASEMENT

Nikki Sudden in his prime was fucking incredible. Team him up with Dave Kusworth – and you get yourself a true lost classic. Listening to the recordings these two made in the course of just two years, from 1984 to 1985, you realise this was a songwriting partnership on a par with... Name any.

Jacobites, Lost In The Sea Of Scarves and then their undisputed peak. Robespierre’s Velvet Basement. If you like it, you love it. If you don’t like it – well, I have no idea how you even discovered it. You were not supposed to. Ragged and romantic. The kind of poetry and tunes that were as relevant to mid-80s as classical architecture. Thankfully, though, we’ve become too cynical to care about relevance. Which is why there’s still hope for Robespierre’s Velvet Basement. 

You often read about musicians being bitter in later life. You feel for them. Peter Perrett, Lawrence – those people had a shot. However, it would have been unreasonable for Sudden and Kusworth to be bitter. With an album like this, they had no chance. Not in 1985. Which does not really mean anything. Not when you can hear a song like "Snow White".

Year by year: 1984

Robyn Hitchcock – I OFTEN DREAM OF TRAINS

You can’t accuse me of being overly materialistic, but there are albums you love so much a digital copy seems a travesty. You have to actually own them. In a record store, you can’t go past them. Vinyl, CD or a fucking cassette. So that having loved this album for more than five years and having never resisted singing along with “Mellow Together”, I did not hesitate for one millisecond in The Morgan Arcade in Cardiff.

You could probably make a lame point about this album being patchy and uneven. You could – but that would be missing the point. It’s classic Hitchcock to put the nervy, quirky “Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl” alongside the sheer beauty that is “Cathedral”. Then there is this:

Then there is the clinically gorgeous “Flavour Of Night” and the wistful and timeless “Trams Of Old London” and, of course, the songwriting genius of “My Favourite Buildings”. Living side by side with “Furry Green Atom Bowl”, which sounds exactly the way that its title suggests. 

I Often Dream Of Trains is the quintessential solo Hitchcock album. There are times when you would prefer Black Snake Diamond Röle and there are times when you would prefer Eye or maybe Moss Elixir (“Man With A Woman’s Shadow” is an all-time favourite), but this is the one you need to best understand the talent and the demented charm of Robyn Hitchcock.

Year by year: 1983

Nikki Sudden – THE BIBLE BELT

Ever since hearing “Chelsea Embankment” for the first time, I’ve always thought about listening to that song while walking along the actual Chelsea Embankment. A dream only realised a few months ago, on a cool summer evening, with a bottle of ginger beer in hand. I was actually rather spiritual, all things considered. Nikki Sudden would have approved.

The hopeless idealism of that dream could only be inspired by this album. Nikki Sudden was a man out of time and out of any sort of context (he did toy with the context a little on those Swell Maps albums, but that was brief and almost accidental). Full of sexual yearning (“Cathy”) and references to France (“The Road Of Broken Dreams”). But above all – what a great songwriter. By any sort of standard, “English Girls” and “Missionary Boy” are some of the greatest songs that nobody in mid-80s cared to hear. 

With Dave Kusworth, he would go on to do greater things (more on this later), but The Bible Belt remains a lost classic. Apparently Nikki Sudden had no taste in clothes and often looked like a patchwork of colours and styles. Not musically though. For even when he tried something as untypical as the funky “Six Hip Princes” – he did it almost as tastefully and convincingly as Robyn Hitchcock did. If anyone still remembers “Grooving On An Inner Plane”.

Hotel Room

Away from a David Lynch film for a year or two, you start getting corrupt ideas about what art is supposed to be. Then a hidden gem like the first episode of the long-forgotten Hotel Room comes up and you see the difference. 

All these directors trying to tell you something. Through words, through visuals, they actually try. David Lynch never does. His impact is pure instinct. When the first episode of Hotel Room ends, your heart erupts with delight. You can’t formulate it, but you are too sick of literal and semi-literal art to actually care.

Six Feet Under

Black humour done with subtlety will get you every time. It’s so easy to be cheap and so easy to be tastelessly brutal, but Six Feet Under is like that odd waltz you heard at a family party that seemed too blurry even at the time. And your aunt said that you can dance a slow dance to it. Or, alternatively, you can dance a fast dance. To the same piece of music. Six Feet Under is like that.