I was introduced to Love And Rockets, really, in 1987, though I had heard a couple of songs before then. It was the video for “No New Tale To Tell” that got my attention.
I love the cardboard drum kit.
Anyway, so I picked up the band’s then current thrid album Earth, Sun, Moon and enjoyed it enough to pick up the band’s back catalog. Not right away of course, but by the time the band’s next album came out a couple of years later I was very much a welll-informed fan.
Love And Rockets’ sound evolved and changed quite a bit over the course of a few albums, and not just as a departure from their previous band (the three members were the instrumentalists in Bauhaus). There were more tinges of “electronica” and “pop” in the Love And Rockets sound with songs (at least initially) being a much quieter affair than the raucous and “goth” Bauhaus.
“If There’s A Heaven Above” (from Love And Rockets debut album Seventh Dream of A Teenage Heaven)
For the band’s second album many more standard rock elements were used. Their 1985 cover of The Temptations hit “Ball Of Confusion” was a standout from this period and exemplifies the direction the band was headed (and you can hear some of those traces in the song “No New Tall To Tell”).
“Yin And Yang (The Flowerpot Man)” (from the band’s second album Express)
It was 1989’s self-titled fourth album that yielded their biggest hit. Sadly, “So Alive” was good, but not one of their best songs by any stretch of the imagination. It is a shame that was Love And Rocket’s biggest success and could never live it down – the band’s record label even dropped them.
“No Big Deal” (from Love And Rockets)
Unfortunately Love And Rockets lost all of the momentum from their 4th album. Getting dropped from their record label was only part of the problem. It took 5 years for their next album to come out and by then the musical landscape had changed.
Dramatically.
In between 1989 and 1994 there was a little phenomenon that was Nirvana.
Certainly “alternative” bands were getting mainstream airplay but not all of them. Love And Rockets’ new record label didn’t know quite what to do with the band. Then there was the fact the band changed its sound again. Hot Trip To Heaven was the band’s fifth album, released (finally) in 1994 and sounded more aligned with the group’s debut than what had been more recently released.
“HIA – Dark Side Of The 12th Moon” (B-side to “Body And Soul” single from the album Hot Trip To Heaven)
Sweet F.A. released in 1996 saw the band return to a sound that most people would recognize, but further problems plagued Love And Rockets. The studio they were recording (and staying) in burned down. The record label released the album with no interest in promoting it and the band sort of languished.
“Sweet Lover Hangover” (from Sweet F.A.)
Released in 1998, Lift would be the final Love And Rockets album. It went in another direction again, retaining some of the band’s more rocking expressions and blending them with electronica. The sound was good, but not what longtime fans were expecting, and not what radio was playing. Having a relatively new and small record label didn’t help matters.
The band would spend much of 1998 touring with a reunited Bauhaus, so Love And Rockets didn’t help themselves much.
“Holy Fool” (from Lift, Love And Rockets seventh and final album)
And that is how the band ended. It just disappeared.
I should mention The Bubblemen, but will leave that for you to discover on your own.