The Modern Lovers

The Modern Lovers
Beserkley, 1976

The Modern Lovers pass the living room test. They are one of those esteemed and regularly namedropped old bands who are actually fun to listen to as well – enough that my girlfriend, whose last purchase was a Coldplay album, doesn't reach for her ear plugs when I put them on. Record shop nerds and music critics are always trying to convince people who will listen to them to learn about boring – "but important!" – old bands to get their pop music fan club membership, or "know" where some sound came from, or whatever. Unless you're a big fan of their respective genres, or you know you'll actually enjoy them, you really don't need to own anything by The Stooges, The Byrds or Captain Beefheart to enjoy contemporary music. The only exception to this rule is the Pixies. Everone reading this column needs to own a copy of Surfer Rosa, otherwise you're out of the club.

But back to The Modern Lovers. They were formed in Boston in 1970 by Jonathan Richman, a wide-eyed kid infatuated with The Velvet Underground but who was far too nice to follow in the footsteps of his gutter-dwelling idols. Instead of heroin and hookers, Richman wrote about pining after girls and listening to the radio. The band recorded most of their debut The Modern Lovers in '73 but it wasn't released until three years later, by which time Richman had already grown tired of it, broken up the band and swapped his electric guitar for an acoustic one. He released a few later albums with another band called The Modern Lovers, but none were as good as the debut.

On one track Richman concocts an absurd story about Pablo Picasso cruising through the suburbs picking up girls in a Cadillac Eldorado, that famous American car with little fins above the tail-lights. "Some people try to pick up girls," Richman complains, "and get called assholes! This never happened to Pablo Picasso!" The other great songs are 'Roadrunner', a bouncy pop remake of The Velvet Underground classic 'Sister Ray', and probably their best known cut 'She's Cracked' – an even better demo version of which, and I'm going to put on my music nerd hat here, recorded during the John Cale sessions in '72, is floating around on compilations. If anyone ever pressures you to listen to The Velvet Underground, get this instead. You'll actually enjoy it.