And the winner of The Most Underrated But Still Totally Awesome Band of the Mid 80’s to Early 90‘s Award goes to… The La’s!
I knew of The La’s musical career only about a notch past their hit song, “There She Goes†which I was familiar with due to its appearance in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap (more frequently known as, “That one Lindsay Lohan movie before she started doing cokeâ€). But it had been so long since I listened to their self-titled album that I forgot how damn good they were.
If The Smiths, Cream and The New Pornographers got together and had some sort of weird time-traveling threesome, the offspring would probably look and sound something like The La’s. Mike Badger, Lee Maves and John Power combined their talents to birth a rock-pop group with rhythm flowing in their veins, not to mention the only band with a noticeably impressive woodblock player – after you listen to “Son of a Gun†you will know I’m not kidding.
Perceptibly influenced by Morrissey, particularly Meat is Murder, The La’s bring forth the best parts of his musical genius and blend in their own era-appropriate mixtures of instrumentation. Moving through the album is sort of like moving through time. In Timeless Melody, the face melting electric guitar solo blends with the foot tapping bridge to create, literally, a timeless melody. Then on Liberty Ship, you’ve hopped into your DeLorean towards Friday On My Mind with the Easybeats in 1966. No matter what rock vibe The La’s are emitting at any point of the album, try not bobbing your head or tapping a foot. I’m actually challenging you – right now.
Oh man, thanks for the reminder that Lindsay Lohan was once a drug-free child! So hard to imagine such a world now…
Oh, I love this record with a somewhat indecent love. To me it’s the sound of being 15 and listening to nonstop jangly Britpop on WHFS in the last five seconds before grunge conquered all.
I have this weird theory that the not-quite-80s and not-quite-90s era from maybe 1988-1991 will never come back, no matter how many cycles of retro we go through. Which is mostly fine because really, who wants to relive Nelson, Taylor Dayne, and color block shirts? But sometimes it means you lose a record like this, and it sucks.
Lindsey most likely wasn’t doing coke when she did freaky friday. Herbie fully loaded on the other hand…
Lee Mavers is an eccentric genius and the driving force behind The La’s.
During the process of creating the album, Mavers fired most of the band, cycled through 6 or 7 producers (finally settling on Steve Lillywhite) and as legend has it – refused to use certain studio equipment if it did not have enough vintage dust from the 60’s on it.
“There She Goes” always reminds me of the movie “So I Married an Axe Murderer”
P.S. The Pixies sang “Here comes your man.”
Don’t you talk that way about my Lindsay!
Huh. I always thought The Pixies sang that song.
‘La’s’, the best.