Have you ever seen Twin Peaks, David Lynch’s TV show with Mark Frost? It was a cult hit on ABC about 20 ago, and the whole series was just released on DVD in October 2007. If you’ve only seen Lynch’s movies, then let me assure you, Peaks is just as crazy and wonderful as anything else he’s ever done -- if not more so, mainly because it’s a product of network television. His weirdness isn’t watered down; it’s buried and blurred -- lots of freaky sex and mysticism scuttling underneath sincere melodrama.
16 Lovers Lane is a pop record with a similar vision. On the surface, it’s bright and shiny and deceptively sweet, while swirling down below are insistent themes of pain, destruction, obsession, and abuse. And there’s a strange tension to the music itself -- the crisp guitar lines skitter this way and that, colliding at odd angles. But it’s catchy as hell and so romantic.
The Go-Betweens were a breathy indie-pop group from Brisbane, Australia, based around the songwriting partnership of singers/guitarists Robert Forster and Grant McLennan (to be perfectly reductive, concerning their respective styles, Forster was Lennon and McLennan was McCarthy). Their 12-year career produced five albums of stunning beauty and accessibility, and their inexplicable lack of mainstream recognition eventually became something of a joke among critics. “The quintessential cult band of the ‘80s,” says Allmusic.com.
The band had been living in London for five years when, in 1987, they relocated to Sidney and recorded what would be their final, and greatest, effort. They had a new producer, Mark Wallis -- “very much a producer producer,” according to Forster. “There were large amounts of time when we weren’t in the studio and he would be there... diddling and doodling and polishing and polishing.” The record ended up being mostly acoustic, with an emphasis on fuzzy pop atmosphere and lush string arrangements.
The songs on 16 Lovers Lane are all perfect. McLennan’s “Streets of Your Town” was the closest the group ever came to a radio hit. “Quiet Heart” rips off U2 and then puts them to shame. But if the album has a centerpiece, it’s Forster’s “Clouds”: “Blue air I crave/ Blue air I breathe/ They once chopped my heart the way you chop a tree,” he drones over sheets of twinkling guitar effects, accompanied ever so slightly by violinist/vocalist Amanda Brown. “Visions of blue/ I’m angry I’m wise/ And you/ You’re under cloudy skies” Anyone who is capable of love should hear “Clouds” at least once before they or their lover die.
The band split up in 1989, but in 2000 Forster and McLennan found their way back into each other's arms and released a slew of decent new material, even winning an Australian Recording Industry Association Music Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album (???). On May 6, 2006, Grant McLennan died of a heart attack. He was 48.
I imagine that if I ever write and direct a quirky, autobiographical indie flick, The Go-Betweens will find their way onto the soundtrack, right alongside Nick Drake and Yo La Tengo.
What are you listening to?
The Go-Betweens. Ever hear of ‘em?
No.
You have to hear this one song. It’ll change your life.