Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen / Two Wheels Good poll

Voted When Love Breaks Down. I had recently written a song with a similar title when that record came out, which obviously wiped the floor with my own efforts

I've only just discovered this album but oh my god where has Bonny been my whole life???

I've only just discovered this album but oh my god where has Bonny been my whole life???

Whoops how did that post twice

it's that good

Damn

It's a conspicuously front-loaded LP really. It's time I refreshed my memory of the second half/lower-ranked tracks...

Gee, some of the second half does indeed feel pretty unfamiliar, still. I suspect I know the deeps cuts on both Swoon and Protest Songs more intimately. Weird. (Certainly not about to claim that either of those have a sequence that matches the first side of SM/TWG though.)

moving the river is the sleeper hit for me. also surely been discussed but some of the acoustic versions of these are mind blowing -- desire as, whoa.

it is a totally amazing record and the second half is very good but like

maybe an unparalleled side a i'm just saying

I *really* got into "Desire As" and "Moving the River" immediately after my September post. My use of the phrase "front-loaded" was intemperate and regrettable.

The second half is just a different sort of perfection to the first.

Best first 7 track run of any album ever. And it's a shame that Desire As comes after Horsin' Around 'cos it could so easily be 8.

all my insights from retrospect

Apparently 35 years ago today we released this @Prefabsprout beauty. A work of love and tears produced by the unsurpassable @ThomasDolby, the fifth Sprout. pic.twitter.com/3qRmR36YbL

— Wendy Smith (@wendyfinnandmax) June 22, 2020

NO YOU WON’T!

You give me Faron Young It's Four in the Morning

I've only just discovered this album but oh my god where has Bonny been my whole life???

^ me one month ago

bonny changed my life

11/10

Actually I liked "Bonny" so much it took me a while to realize the rest of the album is also very good

^^ me too

When I see that cover it reminds me how much Michael looks like the writer Graham Linehan.

The 2005-reissue is one of the best things in existence

Recently converted to the cult of Sproutism. What a wonderful feeling.

it's good stuff

I enjoy some similar acts like Danny Wilson, but there's still something elusive in the appeal of this record for me. "Bonny" is probably my favourite.

For example, some of the synthesizer/sampler overdubs seem gauche and awkward, and make it hard for me to see this as a work of impeccable taste and class.

Took me quite a while to take to this iirc

idk i understand those as complaints about other ps albums but steve mcqueen is so perfectly smooth

Yes that’s true

some of the synthesizer/sampler overdubs seem gauche and awkward

Maybe that's why I latched onto Swoon more easily. At least the awkwardness (bizarre 'bo-be-bo' vocal embellishments, dense lyrics, weird rhythms) was awkward in a way that didn't bring to mind many of their contemporaries. (Kinda superficial though. In the wake of that poll last year I struggle to find all that much from any part of McAloon's oeuvre that I can easily dismiss.)

My conclusion after listening to about half their albums in the past couple years: confounding. Steve McQueen and Jordan are incredible, Langely Park very good, Swoon intriguing but too hard to get my head around, Megahertz nearly unlistenable. And all those albums have their defenders on ILM. Hard to think of a band that swings in that quality that wildly

Alright, hyperbolic on that last line, but this band really does go all over the place

Woah, hard disagree on Megahertz

megahertz is all about that title track

title track is mesmerizing, can wreck me on the right day

Completely agree. Hard to listen to at work, risking watering eyes.

These days Megahertz and Swoon are my two go to PS albums...although SM and JTC are both up there too!

You offer infrared
Instead of sun

My love and I, we are boxing clever

This album is the best when driving singing along loudly with other people in the car less familiar.

At the time it didn't seem odd slotting PS into rotation with R.E.M. or the Cure but looking back they really stand alone. Reading Dolby's retelling of his time with the band was lovely as well, recommended.

I hear you've got a new girlfriend
How's the wife taking it?

This album is the best when driving singing along loudly with other people in the car less familiar.

lol very otm

acoustic steve coming to vinyl
https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/15660

NO YOU WON’T!

― ACABincalifornia (voodoo chili), Monday, June 22, 2020 10:24 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ooh voodoo chili ooh

one of the greatest moments in music

I count the hours since you slipped away
I count the hours that I lie awake
I count the minutes and the seconds too
All I stole and I took from you
― omar little, Saturday, 12 May 2018 05:14 (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

hey guess what one of Bjork's favourite songs is?

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/2YQAAOSwpaljkEg2/s-l1600.jpg