Song of the Day # 583 The Pale Fountains

These records still sound so young. Even though they're now in their thirties while their creators. remarkably, push on towards their sixties. Not a bad time to come of age in terms of pop music, the early eighties. Particularly in respect of the great wave of literate, guitar bands that came of age themselves during that same period. The Smiths, R.E.M., Aztec Camera, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions, The Triffids, The Go Betweens, Echo & the Bunnymen and Prefab Sprout. All of them have been written extensively about on here. And Liverpool band The Pale Fountains. Who haven't.

.

Of all the groups listed above, The Pale Fountains probably fulfilled their potential least of all. Subject to an enormous signing on fee from Virgin Records and no little media hype after a couple of early independent singles in 1982, they received an extensive promotional support campaign but the four singles posted here barely dented the Top 40.

Perhaps it was timing and a slightly unrealised sound. All four of these are 'almost' classics. Pitched midway between Bacharach and David and Forever Changes period Love classicism with a dose of contemporaries Orange Juice's, Swallows & Amazons, back to nature ethos sprinkled in, the horn and string sections sound slightly forced and strained and very much of their time rather than achieving the classic purity of the Walker Brothers, Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield records they'd like to have replicated. Unless is probably the closest they got. The other three aren't far off.

'Almost' classics nevertheless. Listening to them now gives me a slight, nostalgic shiver. British guitar bands generally lack the sheer ambition and vision to make records like this nowadays. Horizons have narrowed. 

 In any case it was clear by 1985 that the band had missed their moment. They disbanded and returned to Liverpool to re-emerge a few years down the line as Shack with a slightly refined sound which was now much more squarely placed in Arthur Lee's shadow. Several good to great records resulted. But The Pale Fountains are worthy of remembrance in themselves. Do so this way.