The Pooh Sticks - Pandora's Box

The Pooh Sticks were a novelty band who attempted to channel classic rock and pop through an indiepop aesthetic - sometimes successfully, sometimes far less so. They could be immensely entertaining at times, but I'm not sure they'd hold much appeal if you didn't get the joke. Their 1991 album The Great White Wonder was hailed as their masterpiece but 20 years on it doesn't really seem to have much more staying power than novelty records ever do.

This one still holds up well, though, just as a nice little pop tune.

Disco Inferno - Love Stepping Out

I know I just posted a DI song last week but they're so good, here's another. Besides, this is quite different to the previous one, pointing more in the direction of AR Kane or what Butterfly Child would soon be doing than of Wire or Joy Division like their earlier works. Acknowledged more or less universally by DI fans as something of a watershed in their recording career, it was, amazingly, only a B-side; the A-side, "Summer's Last Sound", treads much the same ground sonically but not quite as enthrallingly.

It's a little slow to get off the ground, but keep listening. You'll be glad you did.

The Bardots - My Cute Thought

I've always taken it as obvious that the Bardots' second album, V-Neck, was far superior to their 1992 debut Eye-Baby so I was surprised, when I finally found another Bardots fan, that they thought it was the other way around. So maybe it's just me. But to my ears Eye-Baby is a fairly average piece of somber but basically radio-friendly alternapop; its more mature and cerebral follow-up largely adheres to the "thinking person's Suede" formula but shows an impressive progression in songwriting skills. So I'm still a bit baffled by the other fan's opinion. But the fact of even finding another Bardots fan was pleasing enough.

Here's a track from the debut ... you can also listen here to one from V-Neck and decide for yourself.

The Bardots - Skin Diving

I can't believe I haven't posted anything yet from this album, one of my Top 5 or so of the 1990s. The Bardots' biggest claim to fame was, I think, a family tie between them and the only slightly less overlooked Adorable. I say this because the only people I know who ever heard of them were Adorable fans. I'm talking serious Adorable fans, the kind mad enough to seek out anything even tangentially related. Which explains why the Bardots were such a complete commercial non-entity. I mean, how many serious Adorable fans do you think there ever were?

And it's a real shame, because the Bardots had some truly fine songs on their debut and a whole album's worth on their follow-up/swan song V-Neck. Simon Dunford's voice reminds me a lot of Brett Anderson's, but he was a much more talented songwriter and V-Neck is full of sharp, introspective lyrics. I really think it's an incredibly accomplished record, and wonder what more they could have come up with if Simon hadn't taken early retirement from the music business. Sadly we'll never know.

They played a one-off reunion gig in their hometown of Norwich earlier this year, but it was impossible for me to get to. Fingers crossed for another.