The 1985 Project Part 28: Prefab Sprout - Two Wheels Good

A Steve McQueen is a Two Wheels Good is a Steve McQueen - I think Gertrude Stein said that

I’ve been looking into albums released in 1985, built so far around the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll results for that year. Just out yesterday, however, are the results of a brand new poll of interested critics and music fans conducted by Brad Luen at his wonderful Semipop Life Substack blog. So now I know where I can find ideas to follow up once I finish the next 12 weeks on the Pazz and Jop poll.

In 1984, I had been seduced by reviews in New Musical Express or one of the other British rock papers, not to mention the gorgeously mysterious cover art of the album itself, to buy an expensive import of the debut Prefab Sprout record, Swoon. And I didn’t wind up playing it much. That was the year I was turning to hardcore punk and avant-garde jazz for much of my musical pleasures, and while Swoon was certainly jazz-influenced, it was far from avant-garde, and probably even further from punk.

So, along comes the second album, entitled Steve McQueen in the UK. Now, I’m not sure I had seen a Steve McQueen movie at that point in my life, but I knew who he was, and I have to admit, naming an album after him made me kind of swoon. (Sorry – I sometimes can’t stop myself from writing things like that.) Apparently, the powers that were in the Epic Records corporate world were afraid of the very idea that McQueen’s estate might sue for taking his name in vain, so they made sure the album had a different title in the U.S. – Two Wheels Good. (At this point, I need to plug my fave Steve McQueen flick, the low budget The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery from 1959, filmed largely at various St. Louis locations, including quite a few scenes less than a mile from my house of the last 31 years.)

I don’t remember hearing this record in 1985. I assume I couldn’t get a promo copy, or there were no used copies passing through the record store where I worked. Or perhaps I had just dismissed the band as not really being my thing at the time. A year or two later, I had friends telling me it was magnificent, but I don’t know if I ever actually owned the thing. At any rate, listening to it today, I only recognized one song, “Goodbye Lucilee #1” with its backing vocal hook sung by Wendy Smith of “Johnny Johnny Johnny” which somehow sounds like “jelly jelly jelly” until you get lead singer Paddy McAloon joining in later.

I like to think I would have recognized this record’s greatness if I’d given it a chance back then, but who knows? In one respect, it’s tied to the soulful pop with jazz inflections of the Style Council or Sade; in another, it’s not far removed from the melodic richness of Aztec Camera or even the smooth pop of Culture Club. It is, however, its own animal, and nothing else I’ve heard by this band is as strong as the eleven songs on the album.

Thomas Dolby produced the record, and that’s another touchstone for the style here. Almost nobody remembers Dolby’s songs aside from “She Blinded Me With Science,” which was something of a novelty, albeit a glorious one, in his oeuvre. I loved the original pre-Science version of The Golden Age of Wireless, and Dolby brought to Steve McQueen some of the clarity and inventively subtle use of synthesizers (presumably the Fairlight, still an expensive toy at the time, but one Dolby knew how to master) and other keyboards. There aren’t as many synths on the record as I thought there were – in fact, several songs stick to guitar, bass, drums, and piano, with maybe a saxophone thrown in for coloration.

Apparently, McAloon brought songs he’d written over the previous ten or so years to Dolby’s consideration, and they chose the ones they thought were most interesting at the time. My money is on the opening cut, “Faron Young,” being one of the older songs – it’s got an infectiously punkish energy to it, and doesn’t include nearly as many of McAloon’s trademark complex chords. It’s built on a catchy guitar riff and a bubbly banjo part with synth swooshes echoing Smith’s occasional backing vocal. (The Epic lawyers must have been terrified of using real names in titles – the American issue of the album changed the name of this song to just plain “Faron.”)

After that, the album settles into what I remember as the style of Prefab Sprout. The songs are filled with melodic riches augmented by lots of seventh chords and many augmented and suspended chords far beyond my ability to play. McAloon’s knowledge of chords and harmony helped him produce impressive melodies, many of which are quite beautiful. The production is clean and open, giving each instrument a chance to be heard clearly. The vocals are the kind of straightforward, clear tenor that was big in the UK in those years, though McAloon occasionally roughens up for effect.

McAloon writes of love glimpsed, of love lost, of love treated harshly, of every kind of love except the kind that works out well for all concerned. But he does it cleverly and with an ability to shape melodies around words that don’t seem like they would always scan into a catchy song. At one point, he drops in a hip hop influenced rhyme that thankfully isn’t rapped – “I’m turkey hungry and I’m chicken free / But I can’t breakdance on your knee.” I don’t know what that one means, but I’m glad to hear it anyway.

I wish I had years of experience with this record, as it’s clearly one deserving of much more intense listening than I could give it this week. I think it should get 9 out of 10 points.