Prefab Sprout - Pop jewels on a road paved with stars

Any self-respecting music is fine for dancing

but I try to be the Fred Astaire of words.

(Paddy McAloon, “Paris Smith”)

Elegant in its simplicity, never too worried about being cool at all costs, the art of Patrick Joseph McAloon has weathered the test of time unscathed. Drawing on John Lennon and Paul McCartney (especially the latter) well before the race to be the best imitator in the following decade's Britpop, kicked off by the quarrelsome Gallagher brothers and onward, and blending influences ranging from Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Steely Dan, Jimmy Webb, Stephen Sondheim all the way to George Gershwin, the English songwriter won over critics with erudite, intelligent, reflective lyrics, often laced with just the right dose of humour. Not alternative enough to be lumped in with the Smiths, nor commercial enough to appear in the papers alongside the New Romantic idols, McAloon has remained (save for the breakthrough of “From Langley Park To Memphis” and its follow-up “Jordan: The Comeback”) a niche artist, certainly ambitious and confident in his own compositional gifts. Even at the risk of coming across as arrogant and a touch boastful (“I'm the best songwriter on the planet, who are my rivals today?”, he said in an interview years ago, even comparing himself to Rodgers and Hammerstein). After an intense run of activity between 1982 and 1990 with Prefab Sprout – a name deliberately devoid of any precise meaning, born from a mis-spelling of a line from “Jackson”, the hit by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra – the curtain fell for a few years. Although in truth Paddy never stopped composing, even during the long silences, due above all to health problems: ten years ago he came close to losing his eyesight, and not long after he had to battle Ménière's disease.

“A truly gifted kid”

Patrick McAloon was born on 7 June 1957 in a small village in County Durham, Consett, where he lived for years with his parents and siblings. A provincial setting, where many of the residents were miners – not everyone sent their children on to further education, hardly the kind of environment suited to someone like Paddy, who nursed big dreams.

At just eleven years old he began attending a Catholic seminary, Ushaw College in Durham: in those years boys who didn't necessarily have a vocation could also enrol, so the environment was mixed and stimulating. It sounds odd, but it seems the young Paddy initially preferred playing football with his friends to attending music lessons. More gifted in the humanities than in the sciences (a strange fate for the son of a maths teacher!), he was by no means a swot: he himself admits he was the classic “average” student who avoided sitting in the front row to dodge the teachers' questions. During his last years at the seminary, drawn in by some young priests who played guitar and wrote songs, McAloon first took up the guitar (strumming along to the songs he loved, from the Fab Four's “Eleanor Rigby” to Mott The Hoople's “All The Young Dudes”) and later developed a strong interest in composing. The spark, it's said, was a Jimmy Webb song sung by Glen Campbell, heard by chance on the way home from school. The punk and post-punk scene didn't seem to shake up the young McAloon all that much; instead he devoted himself mainly to Marc Bolan and the David Bowie of “Young Americans” and “Station To Station” (though he says he was won over more by their music than their image). Other artists who would become key reference points in the artist's musical education were Cole Porter and George Gershwin, both beloved by his parents too.

The name “Prefab Sprout” came to him way back in 1973, but it wouldn't be used for many years yet. That's because “Avalon” was the name of the first band Paddy joined: little by little the lads carved out a space for themselves and managed to play various venues, even if only for a handful of pounds. The repertoire included a few covers (their showstopper was “While My Guitar Gently Weeps“, written by George Harrison) as well as McAloon's first self-penned songs, composed in the reverent silence of his bedroom. Martin, his younger brother, was captivated by his live sets and decided to join in.

At eighteen Paddy left the seminary. He would never become a priest – “I'm not one of those people who goes to Mass every day,” he would admit. “I believe in God, but I'm as cynical as anyone else about organised religion.” Later on he would develop a more nuanced view of religion: he despises the idea of proselytising through his songs, and shows impatience with the sexism that marks the Church and with certain ideas he calls old-fashioned. “Religion shouldn't be 'taught' but offered as an experience: it's a personal thing, where true faith can only come from a personal desire to receive God. In gospel music, God is thanked through the most tangible proof of his goodness, the voice. Songs aren't bound by natural or human borders.”

Back home, Paddy started writing songs at a furious pace and putting away a few pounds working at a petrol station: you do what you can, but to Paddy it felt like being in paradise. He would later enrol at college.

As early as 1977, what would years later become Prefab Sprout's debut album began to take shape. Two songs were said to be dedicated to sport – one is “I Never Play Basketball Now”, while the other, a tribute to world chess champion Bobby Fischer, would become “Cue Fanfare”. The first demo submissions to record labels, however, didn't go well: even Cbs, the label that would later distribute almost all of the Sprouts' albums, was sceptical when they heard “Faron Young”.

Once his studies were over, McAloon supported himself working as a librarian, never giving up. He kept rehearsing his songs in the garage with his brother, waiting for someone to finally notice him. And this time things finally started to turn in his favour, thanks to his first important meeting with Dave Brewis, at the time the guitarist for Kane Gang. The two founded a record label, Candle Records, and with the £800 Martin had earned from a seasonal job as a night watchman, Prefab Sprout recorded the single “Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)”, a dedication to Paddy McAloon's girlfriend, who had moved to Limoges to finish her university studies.

Wendy Smith soon joins the line-up, her whispery, ethereal voice contrasting with Paddy's initially rough, jagged vocals. The single does well, selling a thousand copies in no time during the mini-tour with the Kane Gang.

The second "key" encounter for McAloon is with Kevin Armstrong, a young store manager at the Hmv record store chain, who decides to invest his savings in opening a venue, The Soul Kitchen, where a number of talented up-and-coming bands would play – Orange Juice, the Daintees, Josef K, A Certain Ratio, Roddy Frame's Aztec Camera and even New Order. The next step would be launching the new Kitchenware Records label, which quickly made its mark thanks to a series of well-chosen slogans ("the label that can't be labelled") and a distribution deal with Cbs, secured thanks to the involvement of record executive Muff Winwood (Steve's older brother).

Songs Written Out of Necessity

Once signed to the Kitchenware stable, Prefab Sprout reissue "Lions In My Own Garden" and release a new single, "The Devil Has All The Best Tunes". Among the first to take notice of them are DJs John Peel and Dave "Kid" Jensen, who guarantee the band decent radio airplay. The Nme also takes a liking to them, including "Lions" on a cassette given away with the magazine. At this point the band is ready to work on their debut album, but the budget is tight (just 5,000 pounds), and Paddy is forced to put off until better times his plans for the kind of big production he had in mind.

Swoon (Songs Written Out Of Necessity) is a collection of complex, at times wordy songs, with melodies that unfold in unusual and unpredictable ways: the end result wins over critics and the public alike, pushing the album into the Top 20 despite the lukewarm reception of the single "Don't Sing" – whose lyrics draw heavily on Graham Greene's 1940 novel "The Power and the Glory", set during the anti-Catholic persecutions in Mexico, which had already inspired John Ford's film "The Fugitive".

"Couldn't Bear To Be Special" goes unnoticed, but during the promotional tour Elvis Costello is spotted at one of the shows, and he will even propose recording a cover of "Cruel" (one of the best songs of the bunch, along with "Elegance"), though sadly it never comes to pass. "Cue Fanfare" fondly references "Green, Green Grass Of Home", a hit for Tom Jones ("Some phrases take me right back/like 'hair of gold' and 'sweet Mary' or 'running to me'").

The time has also come for Prefab Sprout to finally find a permanent drummer, since both in the studio and live they had gone through a string of session men and on some dates had even had to resort to a drum machine. Neil Conti shows up at an audition, and will share a good stretch of the road with the Sprouts before going on to collaborate several times with David Bowie (he's the drummer on the cover of "Dancing In The Streets" recorded with Mick Jagger) and with Level 42, with whom he will tour in the late Eighties.

Appetite comes with eating…

Among the band's most enthusiastic fans is Thomas Dolby, who, appearing on a Radio One show, gives "Don't Sing" a glowing review and asks Cbs about the possibility of working with the band. Prefab Sprout don't let the opportunity slip, and after a single ("When Love Breaks Down") produced by ex-Cure member Phil Thornalley, Paddy McAloon quickly puts together demos for the artist to listen to, already known for his work with Foreigner and Joan Armatrading.

A dozen songs, including some brand new ones and others written before "Swoon", make up the second album; the title Steve McQueen comes to Paddy in a dream, and the cover features a shot of the band on the actor's motorcycle used in the film "The Great Escape". Steve's daughter won't be pleased, so much so that the Canadian and US editions of the record will carry a different title ("Two Wheels Good", taken from a paraphrase of a line in Orwell's "Animal Farm"), but the album is destined to become a huge critical success and a modest commercial one, staying on the charts for over thirty weeks and appearing, many years later, on more than one list of the greatest pop albums of all time.

Thomas Dolby's presence ensures a richer, more polished production, and this time the songs are more accessible and less personal. On the third attempt, the single "When Love Breaks Down" (a frank and well-crafted break-up song) finally reaches number 25 on the British charts. The musings on desire described in "Appetite" will also strike a chord on Italian radio (the other singles will be "Faron Young" and the excellent "Johnny Johnny"), earning the band a spot among the international special guests at the 1986 Sanremo Festival.

The record is filled with last-of-the-romantics lyrics, bittersweet reflections and a whirlwind of literary and cinematic references: a strong influence comes from Salinger's classic "The Catcher in the Rye", one of Paddy McAloon's favourite books, with whose protagonist he strongly identifies. "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it": McAloon takes this lesson to heart and brings up Holden Caulfield on more than one occasion. "Bonnie" refers to the funeral of his brother Allie ("save your speeches, the flowers are for funerals"), while "Horsin' Around" is about what Holden likes to do best, at the right moment and in the right context – "goofing around is serious business, the last thing you want is a witness". "Blueberry Pies" is a song about lying ("When I start lying, I can go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours").

Besides the singles, three other tracks stand out: "Moving The River" is musically akin to some of Sting's work, while the lyrics reveal a fine streak of typically English wittiness, taking potshots at the music press ("you're surely a talented young man, but no better than your last work") and dropping killer lines ("I heard that you've a new girlfriend, how's your wife taking it?"); "Desire As" is a melancholy, atmospheric track embellished with sax and a bed of keyboards ("I've got six things on my mind, and you ain't one of them"). "When The Angels", which closes out the whole record, is a heartfelt tribute to Marvin Gaye – killed the previous year by his own father after an argument.

Darling, it's a life full of surprises

The band figures it's a good idea to put out a new album right away to sell as a limited edition at shows. So, in September 1985 they record and self-produce another record in Newcastle, which is soon handed over to Cbs. The release of Protest Songs is initially planned for the following December, and official press releases start promoting it, but when "When Love Breaks Down" climbs the charts and the group starts touring across Europe and even flies out to Japan, the record label decides to shelve the whole thing ("fans might get confused, seeing two different albums in stores at once", Winwood will explain). Still, plenty of fans manage to get their hands on bootlegs of the recorded songs, some of which will later be remixed before the record's official release, which won't come until 1989.

In January 1986, a Prefab Sprout concert is broadcast live on Radio One, and shortly afterwards the four join Tom Robinson and the Smiths for the "Red Wedge Tour". Meanwhile, Paddy begins work on one of his many projects that will never see the light of day, a suite of Christmas songs in the vein of Phil Spector's seasonal material. "Protest Songs should never have come out," says Paddy McAloon. "It can only disappoint." Even though reviews are in fact less unanimous than usual, the album – despite minimal promotion and the decision not to release any single – reaches number eighteen on the UK chart and contains a handful of gems such as "Life Of Surprises" (for which a video would be shot years later on the release of the band's first greatest hits), "Diana", "Dublin" and a song about unemployment in Newcastle ("Til The Cows Come Home").

With the decade of hedonism over, it's time for McAloon to reflect on what has gone wrong in British society up to that point – although, in the end, these will never be protest songs in the style of Billy Bragg, and no finger will be pointed.

It will take a full eighteen months to write, record and produce From Langley Park To Memphis, the album released in 1988. For the first time, Prefab Sprout work with multiple producers – Thomas Dolby is still on board, albeit only on a few tracks, having just worked with Joni Mitchell on "Dog Eat Dog" (he will later go on to work with Belinda Carlisle). The production moves ever closer to Paddy's ambitions: not only are there big-name guests (Pete Townshend of the Who plays on "Hey Manhattan!", Stevie Wonder embellishes "Nightingales" with his unmistakable harmonica), but the whole thing is completed between England and the United States. The recording of "I Remember That" takes place at Stevie Wonder's Wonderland studio (Paddy counts himself a great admirer of his double album "Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants"), and the Andraé Crouch Singers provide the same backing vocals heard on Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror", "Keep The Faith" and "Will You Be There" (and later on Rick Astley's "Cry For Help").

"Cars And Girls" is produced by Jon Kelly, who had already worked with Deacon Blue and Kate Bush. The single is a modest hit, its fizzy sound comparable to Aztec Camera's "Love", but it earns McAloon the ire of Bruce Springsteen fans, who are quick to accuse his broadside against the Boss of being shallow. "A great part of Springsteen's reputation rests on his identification with the working man. Because of my perverse nature, that makes me extremely suspicious," Paddy will admit in an interview. But according to some fans of the Boss, that would be like locking Brian Wilson into the cliché of "beach music". "Enchanted" would fit perfectly on Green Gartside's Scritti Politti albums "Cupid & Psyche 85" or "Provision".

"Langley Park" reaches number five in England and goes gold within a few weeks. Paul McCartney comments on the success of "The King Of Rock 'n' Roll" thus: "Paddy McAloon has found his My Ding-a-Ling".

Letting the Stars Go Free

After the long promotional tour for Langley Park, Prefab Sprout return to work on their most ambitious record yet, Jordan: The Comeback, a magnum opus made up of nineteen songs arranged into thematic groups – ranging from Elvis Presley to the relationship between God and Lucifer, by way of death and rebirth (a subject already touched on in the b-side "Real Life"). The record label is initially unconvinced of the project's merits: too many songs, in their view, would mean higher recording and post-production costs (the latter entrusted to one of the most sought-after sound engineers, Bernie Grundman) and would weigh down the final result, but Paddy was unshakeable. This time his friend Thomas Dolby returns full-time, and in the right context McAloon manages to let his creativity and eclecticism run wilder than ever before.

There's room for pop songs recalling Phil Collins at his most energetic (on "Looking For Atlantis" the harmonica is played by Judd Lander, already known for his work on Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon" and "Church Of The Poison Mind"), for winks at the Minneapolis sound complete with sampling ("Wild Horses"), ballads in pure Beatles-esque style (the romantic "We Let The Stars Go") and even a brief flirtation with samba ("Carnival 2000").

The idea for "Machine Gun Ibiza" comes from yet another of McAloon's dreams, in which the artist meets Michael Jackson while the latter is in the studio. At one point, having just finished a song, Jacko insists: "It needs a bit more Rollmo!". Paddy, intrigued, asks him what "rollmo" means, and Michael explains: "It's the final magic touch".

The second group of songs is devoted entirely to Elvis Presley, who in McAloon's imagination is still alive, on a desert island, waiting for the right song to allow him to make a grand comeback. On the title track the narrating voice is Elvis himself, complaining about the media ("in all those books you wrote about me, boys, there wasn't much love in them"); on "Moondog" there's even a sarcastic jab about the king of rock 'n' roll's funeral ("they cut down a billion trees to write eulogies"). In the pair of songs dedicated to Jesse James, there's a fictionalized parallel drawn between his life and that of the famous American outlaw.

The inspiration for the third group of songs is the B-side of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" ("I've always loved the idea of short songs woven together," Paddy explains). After "All The World Loves Lovers", later also released as a single, comes a dreamy interlude ("All Boys Believe Anything"). "The Ice Maiden" sounds like a tribute to ABBA's "Under Attack" and "The Day Before You Came", while "The Wedding March" brings out the artist's hammiest side (placing him here somewhere between the Beatles of "When I'm 64" and the burlesque episodes of Divine Comedy).

The final part of "Jordan" is the most complex, with deep reflections on death – inspired by the death of McAloon's father – and on rebirth. In "Michael", Lucifer repents of having been cast out of Paradise and writes a letter to the archangel Michael asking him to put in a good word. "Mercy", on the other hand, is a prayer addressed directly to the Lord.

The record is a big success in England and earns a Brit Awards nomination for "Best Album of the Year" (although the prize will go to George Michael for "Listen Without Prejudice"). Paddy McAloon will soon also fulfil his dream of performing alongside an orchestra and one of his heroes, songwriter Jimmy Webb – and although his favourite songs of his are "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" and "MacArthur Park" (a hit for Richard Harris and later for Donna Summer), the two artists will duet on "The Highwayman", made famous by a recording from the quartet of Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.

A Prisoner of the Past

After "Jordan" comes a long recording silence, broken only by the band's first greatest hits, titled A Life Of Surprises. Steve McQueen is still the best possible entry point for newcomers, but the compilation nonetheless has the merit of picking the most representative tracks from every album released up to 1990 (although Swoon and Protest Songs are given short shrift, with just one song apiece) and of including two very solid new tracks. "The Sound Of Crying" and "If You Don't Love Me" are both produced by Stephen Lipson, known for having worked years earlier with Propaganda ("A Secret Wish"), and represent a successful attempt to keep pace with more fashionable sounds of the moment (there will even be remixes courtesy of Future Sound Of London!). "If You Don't Love Me" would also be covered by Kylie Minogue a few years later, in a stripped-down "piano and voice" version. "The Sound Of Crying" was written during the Gulf War and is a heartfelt, resigned prayer ("once again the sound of crying tops the charts all over the planet").

Eight years later there will be another, far more exhaustive compilation, titled 38 Carat Collection. The first compact disc includes all the band's major singles (even "Lions In My Own Garden" is there, though there's no trace of the hard-to-find "The Devil Has All The Best Tunes"), while the second gathers a carefully chosen selection of album tracks that suffer somewhat when pulled out of the context of their original albums. The closing track of the double CD, "Where The Heart Is", is a delightful country-pop sketch already heard among the b-sides of "A Prisoner Of The Past" and later used as the theme tune for the ITV series of the same name. After ten years, Paddy and Martin McAloon go back on tour to promote the double anthology. It will be the last time.

Between 1990 and 1997 Paddy writes material for several albums and projects that, in most cases, stay locked away in a drawer. In 1992 he hands Muff Winwood a batch of demos that, once produced by Thomas Dolby, would become the core of Let's Change The World With Music, an ambitious work on the history of the world (plans even included a duet with Barbra Streisand). Due to a misunderstanding, instead of further developing a single theme as Winwood had asked, McAloon ends up expanding every subject he touches on and hands in a huge mass of material. The project is shelved, and the same fate befalls the musical "Zorro The Fox" (it's said Steven Spielberg bought the rights to the storyboard in 1993) and an entire album about the life of Michael Jackson.

McAloon returns in 1997 with a brand-new album, Andromeda Heights, which will for a long time be his last release for Kitchenware Records. Less megalomaniacal than its predecessor but certainly not lacking in charm and inspiration, the record is a collection of twelve mostly romantic songs with a nostalgic aftertaste – little gems played in a "piano bar in space". The game of quotations continues on "A Prisoner Of The Past", which lifts and reinterprets the opening line of the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" (a classic produced by Phil Spector) and which will be the first single.

The album is the last to chart in Italy (reaching number 41) but will appear in numerous year-end lists put together by Italy's leading music magazines; the release of the new "Andromeda Heights" doesn't escape the attention of Nick The Nightfly either, who includes "The Mystery Of Love" on a various-artists compilation tied to the famous radio show "Montecarlo Nights".

The second single, "Electric Guitars", is the most explicit homage to the Beatles Paddy has ever recorded, accompanied by a simple but evocative video. Plenty of quality b-sides are tucked away on the two singles released: "Just Because I Can" also appears on the Japanese edition of the album, "Girl I'm Here" is close in mood to "The Sound Of Crying", and "The End Of The Affair" is an up-tempo number that paves the way for Maximilian Hecker's "Daylight".

Many songs on Andromeda Heights recall the style of Burt Bacharach, such as "Avenue Of Stars" (with a killer saxophone leading the listener in a dance on the moon) and the touching "Swans" (⟦Q1⟧).

Neil Conti, by this point, is no longer the drummer for Prefab Sprout. He doesn't take part in the recording of "Andromeda Heights" but still joins the McAloon brothers on their final tour. Wendy Smith will also leave afterwards, officially due to maternity and because she decides to devote herself to her work as a music therapist.

⟦Q2⟧

Epic, working closely with Legacy Recordings (a label specialising in reissues and compilations), releases the Prefab Sprout double retrospective in the United States in 2001, under a slightly different title (The Collection) but with an unchanged track listing. Meanwhile the band signs with Emi-Liberty and sets to work with Tony Visconti, chosen because he had already produced David Bowie and T-Rex (two of Paddy McAloon's youthful loves).

The Gunman And Other Stories is an anomaly in Prefab Sprout's career. Not only because both Neil Conti and Wendy are absent, but because it isn't entirely made up of unreleased songs: although the two brothers manage to put together a coherent, cohesive collection, with a mood markedly indebted to "Country & Western" atmospheres, many of the songs were already familiar to the public, having originally been given away to other artists. No fewer than four tracks were recorded by fellow musician Jimmy Nail on the albums "Crocodile Shoes" and "Crocodile Shoes II" (namely "Cowboy Dreams", "I'm A Troubled Man", "Love Will Find Someone For You" and "Blue Roses"), while "The Gunman" had already appeared on Cher's album "It's A Man's World". After a long time, a Prefab Sprout record once again includes a cover ("Streets Of Laredo").

Despite the uniform, evocative atmosphere, not everything works perfectly: while "Wild Card In The Pack" is a concentrate of well-turned metaphors and "Cornfield Ablaze" takes us back to the glory days of Steve McQueen and Protest Songs, many fans simply can't stomach the track that closes the collection, a divertissement probably written by Paddy McAloon for his firstborn daughter. Set to a backing somewhere between "Cotton-Eyed Joe" and the Quartetto Cetra's "Nella vecchia fattoria", the goofy "Farmyard Cat" trundles along through forced rhymes and a chorus straight out of the novelty song tradition (complete with a choir, "meows" included).

It will be a cruel decade for Paddy, marked by serious problems with his sight and hearing (due to tinnitus) that force him into long breaks and a reclusive life in Newcastle, together with his wife Vicky – whom he met by chance among the shelves of a record shop's classical music section – and their three daughters. Despite his recovery, the photo on the back cover of his first solo album, I Trawl The Megahertz, shows a once-young man who has already fought a few battles, battles that have perhaps cost him a bit of life and left him with a little extra melancholy. A melancholy that feels tangible, almost physical, on a record that is nearly entirely instrumental (only in the opening suite and two other tracks is there a narrating voice), performed by a string section and a brass section.

The opening track, which gives the album its title, runs 21 minutes: the music seems to float in the air, with the strings sketching broad, swirling lines punctuated by trumpet interjections in tones reminiscent of Mark Isham, before launching into melodic passages of great tenderness. A clarinet, a few guitar notes and a female narrating voice gradually join in. The whole thing recalls the best of Gavin Bryars, but with the added value of a strong emotional feeling that perhaps arises precisely from the absence of an academic approach. The secret of the music lies entirely in a simple melodic line that dives into our feelings and never comes back out.

The rest of the record stays at a high level – there are hints of minimalism à la Philip Glass ("Esprit de Corps", "But We Were Happy") and suggestions of orchestral jazz, for instance on "We Were Poor…". "Orchid 7" and "I'm 49" are tracks with a greater rhythmic dynamism. The writing remains consistently brilliant and finely calibrated, with strings and brass engaged in a pensive dialogue within a ceaseless orchestral weave, giving the tracks both the intelligent artifice of sonic architecture and the grace of extremely solid melodic structures.

I Trawl The Megahertz is a record of great elegance that perhaps at times suffers from feeling a touch too much like a film score, but one can only appreciate its melancholic purity. McAloon steps into a new artistic life with a work stylistically far removed from Prefab Sprout's pop, while keeping the brilliance of his talent fully intact.

The harvest years

In 2006, Thomas Dolby teased big news for fans by writing on his website that he was about to remaster Steve McQueen. The following year saw the release of a precious Legacy Edition, which not only contained Prefab Sprout's second album fully restored, but also a bonus CD featuring new acoustic reworkings that, at times, completely overturn the original versions and bring out new details previously kept in the background.

Thomas Dolby's production holds up rather well against the test of time, and the sound of the new reissue is cleaner, with a wider and more convincing sonic image. The high end is still a touch too accentuated (a typical trait of Eighties productions), but overall this represents a golden opportunity to rediscover immediately catchy songs that nonetheless still manage to surprise, with splashes of latin jazz and shifting rhythms ("Horsin' Around").

"Faron Young" is a tribute to the singer, and at the same time a thoroughly self-deprecating song – as a child, Paddy wondered how he could possibly like Country & Western music in the industrial north, "which offers infrared instead of sunshine". "When Love Breaks Down", meanwhile, has been covered several times by other artists: first by the Zombies, and more recently the song found its way into Lisa Stansfield's repertoire, who recorded a very personal version on the album "The Moment", produced by Trevor Horn.

On the second CD, the re-recordings in some cases lend the songs an extra allure: "Desire As" loses the ethereal sheen originally given to it by the synthesized strings and Mark Lockhart's sax, and now, sung in a deeper, more mature voice, it hovers somewhere between late-period Johnny Cash and Kings Of Convenience. The booklet is sober and bare-bones, featuring a new essay by Paul Lester (editor of Uncut magazine). Unfortunately, Paddy McAloon, who was involved in putting together the reissue, did not allow the use of any B-sides ("He'll Have To Go", "The Yearning Loins", "Spinning Belinda", "Real Life").

At the court of Princess Music

In 2009, Kitchenware Records decided to release one of the various lost albums that had piled up over the years in Paddy McAloon's drawer, and for the occasion he wrote the liner notes in the booklet, making numerous references to Brian Wilson's "Smile".

Let's Change The World With Music is made up of eleven songs (a selection of demos intended for a project conceived between 1992 and 1993, which was rejected by Sony Music) and is essentially a solo effort. This time he's not joined by his longtime collaborators (vocalist Wendy Smith, drummer Neil Conti, and his brother Martin), although all of them are thanked in the booklet. The demos were recorded at home and left virtually untouched, aside from some remastering and tape restoration work. Let's Change The World With Music sits, ideally, somewhere between Jordan: The Comeback and Andromeda Heights.

As already happened with The Gunman And Other Stories, here too we find a few songs that McAloon reclaims after having given them to other performers: "Ride" was recorded by Wendy Matthews and "God Watch Over You" by Frances Ruffelle, best known for appearing in the musical "Les Miserables" by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil (which returned to the spotlight thanks to the huge success of Susan Boyle's rendition of "I Dreamed A Dream").

Paddy McAloon pays close attention to the smallest details even when recording simple demos, and more than once you find yourself imagining how these songs might sound if played by a full-fledged band. Granted, a few moments sound hopelessly dated (for instance, the opening rap on "Let There Be Music" and certain house-music-style piano arpeggios), but for the most part these are inspired compositions that have aged well. Not only thanks to the quality of the songwriting, but also because, in the meantime, plenty of other artists have fallen under the spell of vintage synthesizers (from latter-day Depeche Mode to former Savage Garden member Darren Hayes, smitten with the Fairlight CMI) and of a certain strain of lo-fi electronics (from David Gray's "White Ladder" to the Magnetic Fields of Stephin Merritt). As a result, a song like "Ride" could easily pass for a radio hit in the vein of the sound so cleverly revived by Empire Of The Sun.

It's said that Sony refused to release this album because of the religious references in Paddy's lyrics. Music is portrayed here as a kind of deity, a redemptive force, echoing a concept dear to the 12th-century German composer Hildegard Von Bingen, who wrote, in a letter addressed to the prelates of Mainz, that earthly music was nothing more than "an attempt by man to recreate the perfect song of the angels of Paradise" (which Adam, before succumbing to the devil's temptation, was able to hear). "God Watch Over You", "Sweet Gospel Music" (which was meant to be released as a single) and "Angel Of Love" carry religious overtones, but it would be rash to apply that label to every single song on the record. The jazzy pop of "I Love Music" sits somewhere between Matt Bianco's "Whose Side Are You On?" and some of the slightly naive later productions of Leonard Cohen. The hymn-like "Music Is A Princess" ("music is a princess, while I'm just a boy dressed in rags") shows off his gift for singing lyrics that, in anyone else's mouth, would sound saccharine.

The second half of the album recalls the atmospheres of Andromeda Heights, particularly "Last Of The Great Romantics" (that is, "the boy who feasts on a table of crumbs, listens to romantic music on phones nobody answers and in the angry slam of a door") and the Bacharach-esque "Falling In Love".

Prefab Sprout's influence is evident in the songs of Ricky Ross's Deacon Blue, another erudite British songwriter (a former literature teacher who, after winning over a wide audience with a robust pop sound blending the Sprouts and Bruce Springsteen, made a name for himself writing for other singers – most notably with "High", James Blunt's first hit) whose strength lies in the lyrics and in the contrast between his own voice and that of Lorraine McIntosh. Another trait shared by the Scottish band and Paddy's outfit is their openly declared love for Bacharach (Deacon Blue even went as far as recording an entire EP dedicated to Burt and Hal David).

A more superficial comparison can be drawn with the Californian duo Cock Robin: once again, the chemistry lies between a male voice (Peter Kingsbery's) and a female one (Anna LaCazio's), which certainly benefits from close attention to production (handled at one point by Steve Hillage of Gong and on another occasion by Rhett Davies, who had previously worked with Roxy Music). A further point of contact is Kingsbery's fondness for musicals, given that his biggest solo hit is an English-language version of "S.O.S. d'un Terrien En Detresse" (translated as "Only The Very Best") from Luc Plamondon's "Starmania", though where Paddy's voice is velvety and caressing, Kingsbery's comes across as powerful, often melodramatic, closer in spirit and style to Meat Loaf.

There's some vague Prefab Sprout influence in the songs penned by Gregg Alexander, who made a name for himself in 1999 with New Radicals and the hit "You Get What You Give", and also in Neil Hannon's Divine Comedy (he too a Beatles disciple on the "Macca side"). Arcade Fire took the Newcastle band's lesson to heart on "No Cars Go" (from the album "Neon Bible"), and the young Sondre Lerche reinterpreted "Nightingales" on "Duper Sessions".

Let's Change The World With Music isn't the only album that has remained unreleased until now. While at most one might have expected Kitchenware – the label that made headlines again after years for launching Editors (fittingly enough, Tom Smith recorded his own version of "Bonny" from Steve McQueen) – to pull yet another rabbit out of the dusty archive of written-but-unreleased songs, something strange happened just before the summer of 2013. Ten never-before-heard tracks surfaced from an anonymous SoundCloud profile, and as word got around and fans started posting the precious, mysterious haul online, including on YouTube, the whole thing was swiftly taken down. Even Tom Robinson – once a protest singer, author of "Glad To Be Gay" and "Still Loving You", now a well-known BBC radio host – could hardly believe his ears, and decided to play the shadowy new record (initially titled "The Devil Came A-Calling") on his show: luckily, Wendy Smith stopped him, assuring him that an official release was planned for the autumn.

Whether it was an accident or a strategy even craftier than Radiohead's more recent ones hardly matters. "The Devil Came A-Calling" (with its ten tracks arranged alphabetically) has since become Crimson/Red: a title that's eccentric to say the least, one that oddly echoes King Crimson's "Red" but actually has far more to do with the red of passion than with the wildly different sound of Robert Fripp's band. Here Paddy McAloon keeps doing what he's always done so well, slipping into the comfortable role of storyteller while at the same time revealing more about himself than he ever has in thirty years of career. He lingers over evocative metaphors, moving from adolescent dreams (read in a double sense, recalling his own and observing his daughters') to fame knocking at the door and then walking away again. Thomas Dolby has always said it plainly – Prefab Sprout records are genuine literary works that ought to be sold in bookshops, and Crimson/Red is no exception. Despite being a home-made effort, with no other musicians involved (there's not even a trace of his brother Martin), this time everything manages to sound more "real" than a mere collection of demos. Had it not been for a phone call from Icebreaker Records reminding him of a deadline to meet, Paddy McAloon would have carried on working on a completely different album from the one we now have in our hands: forced to hurry, he found himself hastily sifting through songs left in a drawer for years.

The ten rough diamonds of Crimson/Red thus amount to a personal best-of drawn from all those various unfinished projects of his, dating back to the early Nineties, that fans have long speculated about: although it was recorded in just two months, alongside new songs like "Billy" there are tracks salvaged from as far back as 1997 (as is the case with "The Old Magician", a self-portrait in words and music written after he turned forty). "The Songs Of Danny Galway" is a genuine diary entry recalling his encounter with Jimmy Webb; in paying tribute to him, Paddy also affectionately mimics the sound and structure of the classics by the author of "MacArthur Park" and "By The Time I Get To Phoenix". ⟦Q1⟧, he tells us of the "wizard of Wichita". Were it not for the synthesized harmonica and its country-western gait, "Billy" could easily be mistaken for something out of the songbook of a Cole Porter or a Burt Bacharach. Although it might bring to mind the beloved Brian Wilson (wasn't there a Beach Boys song called "The Private Life Of Billy And Sue"?), it seems more likely that the lyric's inspiration is "Trumpet" by Billy and Susan Hayes, a novel set in early-19th-century London. The spirit of Bob Dylan also hovers over "Mysterious" and plays coy on "The Devil Came A-Calling", while the languid guitar of "Grief Built The Taj Mahal" instead betrays faint echoes of David Sylvian and of the Stevie Wonder (who guested with Prefab Sprout on "Nightingales" in 1988) of "Visions".

At last, after so many years, McAloon has managed to churn out another knockout chorus: "The Best Jewel Thief In The World", the lead single, has a wonderfully well-judged melody, this time direct and free of convolution. There's also no need to worry if "The Old Magician" moves even the hardest heart to tears: the old magician can only be Paddy himself, standing before an audience that (so he says…) no longer warms to him. ⟦Q2⟧ once produced doves, now his tricks are a joke and even his assistant (unmistakably Wendy Smith, once his backing vocalist and life partner) is tired of being "sawn in half". "All that's left for him is to take his final bow, now that he's lost all his illusions." Are we really sure there's no room left in the charts for Prefab Sprout's classic, elegiac pop? Today Paddy is in full flow, worn down by life yet at peace, opening up about himself to the BBC as he did to Paul Smith of Maximo Park, even going so far as not to rule out returning one day with an album produced once again by his old friend Thomas Dolby. Back in 2009, moreover, he expressed a wish to re-record his debut album, Swoon, which he considers too naive and under-produced. All of this speculation can only leave us hoping that Crimson/Red – the most substantial and astonishing record since Jordan – will be nothing like the final bow of a conjuror who, from the pantheon of greats, keeps painting even our darkest days crimson red. Let's just hope the devil doesn't forget about him and puts him in a tight spot once again. After all, as we know, the devil has all the best tunes.

Sophisticated British pop has had its hero in recent years, but standing alongside him, without being overshadowed, are Roddy Frame, Gary Clark's Danny Wilson, Edwyn Collins, the early Everything But The Girl, Colin Vearncombe (Black), Horse, Microdisney, Lloyd Cole and The Commotions, James Grant's Love and Money – the Eighties, contrary to what's so often said, didn't produce only fleeting fads and disposable artists, and Prefab Sprout were pioneers of a sincere (and intelligent) rediscovery of sounds that had long been cast aside.

Contributions by Michele Chiusi ("I Trawl The Megahertz")

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