Glorious Again

This album was released around 1987. British pop was good then – Culture Club, Duran Duran, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, ABC (I know, I know; sue me), but it wasn’t truly transcendent. Not until this record came along.

See, there was something of the symphonic in 60s Britpop – in the Motown sound and the music of The Beach Boys, too – that was missing when the Brits came roaring back to dominate the charts in the 80s. With this record, pop music was glorious again.

They were better known as XTC, but they released this album as The Dukes Of Stratosphear. This is “Vanishing Girl”.