If ever there was a case of right band, wrong time it was Prefab Sprout in the 1980s. At a time when music was in a post-New Wave decline, with only the sadder than sad New Romantics filling the vacuum, the most telling sign of the paucity of innovation was snooker player Jimmy White on the cover of NME. For Prefab's Paddy McAloon, who had no cheekbones or frilly shirts to speak of, it was a pretty torrid time trying to convince the masses that Jimmy Webb had more musical worth than Madonna, and that maybe Burt Bacarach could put a tune together better than Adam Ant. Despite - or maybe even because of - the musical miasma, they released the classic Steve McQueen, which is up there with The Queen Is Dead as one of the albums of the decade. (Note to people who still describe London Calling as the album of the 1980s: it was actually released in December 1979.) McAloon founded the band while still a student at Newcastle University with his brother Martin and Wendy Smith and Mick Salmon. Their first release, Lions In My Garden, of which they pressed up only 1,000 copies, was rejected by every major label in the land but shifted enough copies Newcastle way to bring them to the attention of the successful indie label Kitchenware. The first album, Swoon, (which stood for Songs Written Out Of Necessity) broke the Top 30 and showed McAloon to be in the classic songwriter mode, something of an Elvis Costello or stylised Bob Dylan in his own way. Always very wordy and clever and able to pull melodies out of anywhere, he also had a touch of the Brian Wilsons about him. Comparisons to Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera were always wide of the mark - as were the Edwyn Collins ones, come to think of it.
Swoon wasn't half bad but it merely set the stage for the release of the wonderous When Love Breaks Down single in March 1985 (one of the b-sides was a song called Donna Summer, oddly enough - a theme he continued on Faron Young). Steve McQueen followed a few months later and despite the critical swooning, it stalled just outside the Top 20. Produced by Thomas "Blinded By Science" Dolby, the album came replete with ambitious arrangements, lush strings (before every two-bit band was using them) and articulate word-play. Working 18 hours a day over three months, it was the longest McAloon would ever spend on an album.
The reviews at the time were excellent: "The finest, most harmonious run of tunes since Dylan's Blood On The Tracks" (Sounds), and: "The finest album you'll hear all decade" (Record Mirror). McAloon was unmoved by the praise, pointing out that "I'm not really interested in expanding the boundaries of pop music, I'd rather hear someone whistling one of my songs".
It is always difficult to pick out stand-out tracks from such a cohesive work but try Goodbye Lucille #1 (aka Johnny, Johnny, Johnny), the Faron Young tribute song or the Marvin Gaye tribute song When The Angels. Speaking of this last, the album's closing track, McAloon said "I never mention Marvin Gaye's name in the song so people are sometimes surprised to hear it's about him. I didn't mention his name because if you try to write in the party line, whether it's about politics or music, then you don't give people enough room to manoeuvre."
For some odd reason, the album was re-titled Two Wheels Good for the American market, where it failed to dent the Billboard charts, unlike the follow up album From Langley Park To Memphis (1988) which went gold in most countries around the world. A very direct and accessible album, Memphis attracted Stevie Wonder and Pete Townshend as guest musicians (both were huge fans of Steve McQueen) and featured the swipe at Bruce Springsteen on Cars And Girls (the title being an allusion to at Springsteen's narrow song repertoire). Further albums, Protest Songs and Jordan: The Comeback (their most underrated work) solidified McAloon's position as an extraordinarily talented songwriter and last year's Andromeda Heights was again, another criminally neglected work. But then, if you're only ever going to buy/home tape one Prefab Sprout album, make it Steve McQueen and make it now because Colombia has just re-released it on mid-price.
