Liberty Lunch
Monday, November 20
Lloyd Cole, sinister Scotsman of the sullen album covers and lovely, spiteful
lyrics, has released an album entitled — get this — Love Story. And
though he hasn’t exactly penned “House on Pooh Corner” for his second Rykodisc
effort, Cole is singing that his “tradmark frown has grown into the strangest
easy smile” on “Love Ruins Everything.” So with a chubby toddler now in the
picture, has Cole gone soft on us? You know, Lloyd, that’s precisely what Paul
McCart-ney claims happened to him: ballads and babies.
“Same thing happened to me,” Cole concedes thoughtfully, admitting, “I do
prefer writing ballads.” Then after a pause, Cole spits, “But I’m not about to
do `Ebony and Ivory.'”
Ah, that’s the spirit, old boy. Cole hasn’t deserted us cynics after all.
Like cozying up to his new album — which reveals itself to be emotionally
straightforward, but never cloying, tender but always droll — Cole, too, needs
some warming up, after which he’s pleasantly slagging musical evil-doers
(himself included) with the joy of a caped-crusading critic.
His delightful jibes — Supergrass is great because “they’re like the Who
without Roger Daltrey”; Smashing Pumpkins are “crap” and their new video is
“absolutely diabolical” — are neither defensive nor green-hued. Yet, the man’s
in-touch enough to realize he’s no longer part of the “youth-oriented” British
music scene and self-deprecating enough to admit his last album was an
ill-fitting “loser.”
“Probably the two big songs on Bad Vibes are the first and last song,
and I do think that on those songs I sound a bit like somebody trying very hard
not to sound like Lloyd Cole,” he confesses. “And I think that maybe you’ve
gone a little bit too far when you’re maybe so insecure about your own talent
that you’re trying to sound not like yourself.”
So he’s back to form, in love and all that, with all his bad vibes
straightened out.
“I think `Morning is Broken’ would have been great for — let’s face it,
Smashing Pumpkins could use a tune like that. However, it’s not a very good
song for me to be doing.”
— Mindy LaBernz
This article appears in November 17 • 1995 and November 17 • 1995 (Cover).