For What It's Worth

Yes, I am the

🤓

The following are albums released in February 1991 that have also found their way into my record collection.

Fellow Hoodlums

by

Deacon Blue are a Scottish group formed in the ’80s around the songwriting of Ricky Ross with a blend of pop, soul, and social commentary.

After the merciless, unabashed global-stadium drive of When The World Knows Your Name, we here find Deacon Blue firmly back on home turf. The production is husky, deliberately avoiding clarity and precision. This, coupled with lyrics full of references to dear old Glasgow.

On this, their third album, Ricky Ross and Deacon Blue continued to pursue their pop/folk/soul hybrid. It’s a sound in which the rhythm section aspires to be the the Motown house band or The MG’s. Fiddles and keyboards on string settings fill the middle sections, and the tunes are topped by an expressive, soulful singer with lyrics full of yearning and local references.

Then, there is the gorgeous (voice of) Lorraine MacIntosh … the girl of my dreams back in the late-80s and beyond.

Lorraine’s vocals are essential when it comes to elevating and underlining the brilliance of Deacon Blue’s music.

McIntosh’s voice was one of the reasons DB appealed to me and many others so quickly. There’s just something about her twee* vocals that hook the listener completely. Songs such as “Twist and Shout,” “Real Gone Kid” and “Dignity” are made stronger and more soulful because of her!

_{[*excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental]}

Fellow Hoodlums includes four singles: “Your Swaying Arms,” the Top 10 hit “Twist and Shout,” “Closing Time” and “Cover from the Sky.” It reached no. 2 in the UK Albums Chart in 1991, spending over six months in the listing.

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Mark’s

is

Beatsongs

by The Blue Aeroplanes

_{Despite endless line-up changes, this U.K. band has mixed rock and beat poetry since the early 1980s.}

The Aeroplanes keep the arty groove going on their follow-up to Swagger, with little specifically changing about them or their general approach. Vocalist Gerard Langley’s lyrical sense and delivery still do the business, his elaborate wordplay and rich metaphors avoiding preciousness on the one hand and doggerel on the other.

The Blue Aeroplanes, were quite simply, one of my favourite bands around that time, and apparently Michael Stipe’s too!

Recording the album mostly in L.A. didn’t seem to affect them any either; while producer Larry Hirsch doesn’t do much different from what Gil Norton did on Swagger, he keeps everything sounding just fine. Songs like “My Hurricane,” which manages to sound both quite intense and nicely relaxed at the same time, or the surprising but quite successful cover of Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble” add to the overall quality. (Ned Raggett, AMG)

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Next, a popular, self-titled album, by

_{1991 Best New Artist Grammy-winning singer-songwriter known for the Adult contemporary staple “Walking in Memphis.”}

Marc Cohn brings adult piano pop/rock back to the radio on one of the finest debut albums of the 1990s. Well-crafted songs with choruses that stick. Cohn reveals his ’60s soul and ’70s singer/songwriter influences. He shows himself to be an accomplished and versatile songwriter, from the uplifting gospel opener “Walking in Memphis,” the hit for which he is widely known, to the concluding love letter “True Companion.”

Also released this month:

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