The Psychedelic Furs

While Liverpool was getting a lot of press for its post-punk-meets-1960s-psych scene, London's Furs actually perfected the sound with this 1980 LP -- V.U., Television, Bowie, Can, Roxy Music, and P.I.L. all shot through Richard Butler's art school aesthetic. Furs is a very strong debut, and the first two tracks, "India" and "Sister Europe," rank among the era's best.

Despite the evocative implications of their name, the Psychedelic Furs prove to be neither
here (the Eighties) nor there (the Sixties). In trying to bridge the gap between the inspired
amateur expansiveness of the Doors-Velvet Underground scene and the bored, bitter
thrash of British punk, this English sextet comes up straight Seventies: a stormy marriage of
Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie and (thanks to Duncan Kilburn's abrasive sax) gar... More >

They're a posthippie band who satirize hippie fatuousness as well as a punk-era band who send up anti-hippie orthodoxy, but I love them for simpler reasons: they're great junk and they sound like the Sex Pistols. Richard Butler's phrasing and intonation owe so much to Johnny Rotten's scabrous caterwaul that he's got to be kidding and ripping him off simultaneously, and the calculated rave-ups recall the overall effect sought by the punk godfathers, who were always somewhat grander than their speedy, compulsively crude epigones. That's what makes the Furs great junk--it can't be great unless the possibility remains that it's really pretentious. (Grade - A-)