Lloyd Cole and The Commotions Archives

Album: Mainstream
Year: 1987

My favorite Lloyd Cole and the Commotions album and one of my top 25 records of the entire 1980s, Mainstream ended up suffering from the same record company dickery that delayed their first couple of records, and in fact, almost didn’t come out on these shores at all, eventually surfacing nearly a year after the October 1987 U.K. release.

Luckily, Tim — who was living in the U.K. at that time that time — bought a copy for me and brought it when he came across for Christmas in late 1987. It turned out to be a perfect record for 1988, and so all of Lloyd’s draggy beats and druggy words about the consequence of bad young love resonated with the same frequency as my heart all damn year.

Album: Rattlesnakes
Year: 1984

It’s been obscured by decades of reissues that had bonus tracks and non-album b-sides, but this little beauty was the last song on the original version of Rattlesnakes, and at first it felt too low-key to be an album closer, all infinite loop acoustic guitar and accordion synth and — wait a second, is that a drum machine?

No, seriously, is that a drum machine? I mean, Paul Westerberg could get away with it, because “Color Me Impressed” and “Hayday” were on the same record, but that’s some nerve of this intellectual Scottish pretty boy to put one on his record. Doesn’t he understand anything?

Of course he did. Because Lloyd Cole knew that none of that macho bullshit mattered once he started singing:

Lloyd Cole and The Commotions

Certain Songs #950: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – “My Bag”

Certain Songs #946: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – “Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?”