When I got the double-disc "Columbia Legacy" edition of Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen in the mail last week, my first thought was, "Great! One for Permanent Records!" But a few complications arose. First off, I don't like to use that column as a repository for reissues, especially since a lot of what makes this particular reissue interesting–like the sprightly Thomas Dolby-supervised remastering, and the second disc of recently recorded, slightly rearranged acoustic versions–can't really be commented on in the Permanent Records format.
But the bigger problem is that Steve McQueen–which I first came to know and love under its U.S. title Two Wheels Good–is probably only my fourth favorite Prefab Sprout album. And it's not like it needs my attention, since it's probably the band's most popular release. I'd do better to tout their underrated 1984 debut effort, Swoon, which is as close as the band has ever come to "rocking"–if that word can be applied to an album with cooing background vocalists, creamy horns and weirdly allusive lyrics about Bobby Fisher. Or I could turn my attention to what's arguably the band's best, most ambitious album, 1990's Jordan: The Comeback, an eclectic song-suite about the religion of fame, using Elvis as a Christ figure. (Trust me: the conceit is much funnier and more moving than a mere description can convey.) Or I could point to an unjust obscurity, 1997's Andromeda Heights, a lush, floridly theatrical record that remains one of the best British pop albums never to receive U.S. distribution.
But Steve McQueen is a hell of an album too, even though it fades some in its back half. (Like frontman Paddy McAloon's hero Stephen Sondheim, Prefab Sprout has always had trouble with second acts.) And it's an important album to me, having played a key role in expanding my understanding of what "good music" can be.
I first read about Prefab Sprout in Spin back around 1986, when the magazine was still new, and covering a lot of music I knew nothing about; music that struck me as exotic and sometimes even immoral. (I'll never forget an early article about the career of DIY madman Zoogz Rift, and in particular his album Can You Smell My Genitals From Where You're Standing?) Spin raved about Steve McQueen, and though I could tell from the reviewer's description that it wasn't exactly a punk record like the Hüsker Dü and Minutemen discs I was digging, I was still taken aback when I finally bought Steve McQueen three years later. I picked it up, having never heard a note of Prefab Sprout, in the $3.99 cassette bin at the University Of Georgia campus bookstore. I was already a fan of Thomas Dolby–his first two albums anyway–and I could hear his influence as Steve McQueen's producer, but overall, I wasn't prepared for how soft the album is, and how pretty.
Even as a high school punk, I never played the "who's a poseur" game–the '80s version of today's disingenuous "hipster"-spotting–because I was more interested in the music than the cultural identification, and I knew enough to know that I and many of my friends were pretty far from hardcore. For me, punk and New Wave were on the same continuum with the classic rock I still liked, and the Top 40 I didn't mind. (Note that my prime high school weirdo years ran from '84 to '87, when Top 40 wasn't so bad.) Still, I cared enough about the opinion my fellow punks–the real punks I guess you'd say, since I was never more than a hanger-on in ripped clothes–that one time, when I snuck off-campus at lunchtime to go the record store, I showed off the Jesus & Mary Chain and Smiths albums I'd bought, but kept Bruce Springsteen hidden in the bag. (For the record, those records were Darklands, Strangeways Here We Come, and Tunnel Of Love; all still good, but I know which one of the three I listen to the most, and it wasn't born in the UK.) I certainly wasn't confessing to anyone that I enjoyed riding in the back seat of my parents' car on family trips, listening to their tapes of Steely Dan, Al Stewart, Hall & Oates and Michael Hedges.
I immediately responded to Steve McQueen, with its gentle tonal colors, and its puckish McAloon vocals and lyrics. The songs weren't beautiful the way that the punk-approved Cocteau Twins were beautiful. They were slicker, snappier–unashamedly pop. Prefab Sprout's only real badge of "credibility" was that their records didn't really sell, either here or at home. Yet rock critics loved them. And since I put a lot of faith in rock critics, I figured it was okay if I loved Prefab Sprout too.
These days, it's hard to sell Prefab Sprout to people who aren't already fans. The music-loving world has mostly forgotten that there was a time when McAloon was considered a songwriter to be reckoned with, for the way he mastered and redefined the breezy jetset soft-rock sound shared by bands like Aztec Camera and Haircut 100. To those not already inclined to appreciate that stuff, Prefab Sprout can sound gooey and sappy–too cloying by half. But risking sugar-shock is a bold move in its own way, and anyway, the hundreds of subtle Dolby-supplied sonic surprises on Steve McQueen go a long way toward covering the fact that handsome choirboy McAloon is crooning hyper-romantic lines like, "Life's not complete 'til your heart skips a beat."
Steve McQueen and its lofty critical reputation taught me that no musical style is inherently dismissable, so long as it's crafted with care, sincerity, and true artistry. I've spent the last two decades enjoying the worlds that revelation opened up to me. So thanks, Paddy. Enjoy your moment of Columbia Legacy canonization.