Customer Reviews

16 Lovers Lane

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You can't say this is underrated - critics have raved about it since its release - but at about 18,500 in the Amazon sales list, it is obviously unknown to millions of people who would adore it.
See previous reviewer for the run-down - I agree totally. I know all this group's albums. I saw them live, and McClennan solo - in fact I'm seeing Foster and McClennan at the Sydney Opera House next week. Sometimes they're not entirely easy to like; they make you work for it a bit.
But this is their masterpiece. Every memeber was in top form, despite personal turmoil, and the 'indie Rumours' is a good description. It's probably the best 'serious' rock/pop album to come out of Australia (challenged only by the more confronting Nick Cave). Gorgeous is the word. Pop music of the most affecting kind. In a fairer world, 16 Lover's Lane would nudge its way into the best 50 albums of all time.

That the Go-Betweens ended their career around 1989 after they had released their absolute masterpiece is a bit of a puzzle and a tragedy. "16 Lovers Lane" is transcendent and breathtaking. The opening cuts from Grant McLennan, "Love Goes On!" and "Quiet Heart", are so exquisite, it's hard for me to do them justice in words. Elsewhere, Robert Forster offers up some stunners as well ("Love Is a Sign", "Clouds"), and Amanda Brown proves to be a brilliant accompaniment with her oboe, violin and shimmering backing vocals. "Streets of Your Town" is *THE* pop masterpiece, even if it disguises something sinister and ironic beneath its optimistic veneer. I anxiously await Grant and Robert's new album. Could a full Go-Betweens reunion be in the cards soon? Let's pray so.

This would be my desert island disc, if I could only choose one. Sheer bloody magnificence is contained in these 10 perfect songs. I can't even choose favorites - my favorite is whatever one I'm listening to at the moment - but highpoints include: the fragile, but optimistic "Love Goes On!", the deceptively sunny, but dark "Streets of Your Town" (it's "full of battered wives") and "Quiet Heart", a tender love song that contains the somewhat depressing, but nonetheless true, wisdom "No matter how far you've gone, you've always got further to go".

"Dive For Your Memory", too, is sublime, Zen perfection. Very forlorn, but deeply poetic lyrics, set to a gorgeous, simple folk melody, accompanied by rich and tasteful acoustic guitar fills...

And, let me not leave out the romantically tortured narrative of "I'm Alright"...the protagonist of this song has been beaten down, but is, somewhat shakily, ready for a comeback.

Every Go-Betweens disc is worth picking up, but this is the most masterful and perfect distillation of their gifts so far.

(I'm a huge fan of them all, but if I had to narrow it down, I'd say the ones to get are: "Tallulah", "Liberty Belle", "Spring Hill Fair", "Oceans Apart" and, of course, this.)

I had purchase this on cassette tape from many years ago, but just purchased this masterpiece on CD. This is by far the best recording by an underated band who deserved more credit in these United States. Every single song on this album is brillant. 16 Lovers Lane is magnificent, simply breathtaking. I urge you Alternative Rock fans to purchase this. I would rate this in the top five of all the the past albums from the late 1980's. I know my music. So do yourself a favor & purchase this gem right now. You won't be sorry.

Even the record company had no doubts this time. The Go-Betweens were about to be as big as REM ( Go-Betweens fans to a man , incidently ). Of course it just didn't happen and the band called it a day way too soon. Think of the "80's" and you think of Duran Duran , but somewhere out in bedsit land , hearts were being healed and blessed by Forster & Mclennan. Thank God I heard the Go-Betweens . Imagine if I just never had , like so many people out there. Imagine the Beatles totally missing the boat and having a cult following ... Poetry and Passion set to breathtakingly fragile melodies. Literate , friendly , sexy and cool - Buy this album now.

You can thank me later if you want.

Ok, everyone is now enchanted with Montreal's Arcade Fire, or spending their money with Bloc Party and over consider things like Mars Volta, but I think they're still far from great original indie core. "16th Lovers Lane" was recorded almost 20 years ago,and still it's songs are pristine and loveable as the first time I've heard it. "Love is a Sign" is the most strange love song I've ever heard: "I wish you had a big house,and that your work would start to sell", needless to say more. Buy it, thanks God for this new edition, and when you went really deep into the Betweens, go and check out, for another Aussie stars as The Cannanes.

I went through adolescence with this album at my side - I'm not sure what it heightened more - the pain or the wonder - but I wouldn't have been without it for the world. Consolation and Confirmation in equal measure. Anyone who's ever felt at the mercy of their own desires , you need this record. Buy it now.

Just one of several great albums by this endlessly inventive songwriting duo. As usual, all the songs are catchy in a thoughtful, subtley structured way. The lyrics are somewhat minimal, yet immediate and engaging and evocative, effortlessly throwing up a narrative you feel more than you follow along like a plot. There's an overall sense of happiness tinged with a kind of sad longing, not exactly bittersweet. It's more mature than that. Seems to have a lot to do with the fact that they recorded this in Australia, after having lived in London for the past decade. You get the sense of happy homecoming that also reminds you of the lost past. The last song, about diving for your memory ... what a beautiful phrase. And then the band broke up, because after years of critical acclaim, they just weren't able to sell enough albums. Thankfully they've come back and started recording again. Their last two albums, "The Friends of Rachel Worth" and "Bright Yellow Bright Orange" don't miss a beat. Just more great songs for a new millenium.

Good sensitive souls of the universe, who carve a world inside songs to build a safe home for their hearts, please, won't you buy this record?

Just to join the chorus of approval, I add my voice. Where has this album been all my life? I got The Go Betweens' previous album, "Tallulah," right when it came out, liked some songs but wasn't thoroughly impressed with the overall. A few years later I realized how good that album was but somehow wasn't compelled to pursue other pieces by the band. (Oddly, I don't think I've ever known anyone besides me that's even heard of this band.) The good part of finding an album this good so late is the new discovery, like realizing the Beatles have more than the Red and the Blue albums. So yes, "16 Lovers Lane" is a masterpiece that has dated unbelievably well.

That said, it obviously has a specific audience, albeit potentially large, though in reality criminally small. It's catchy, poppy, well-crafted and not "profound," yet it is anything but ephemeral, and unlike shallow pop can be listened to repeatedly without being worn out. The singing is nuanced with just the right emotional shadings. So it is, then, rich and beautiful in the way that the Beatles "Rubber Soul" is.

For listeners like the one dissenter on this list of ratings (XraySpex) for whom ideology is a fetishistic buzzword, I suppose we are all part of the brainwashed masses that allow pretty sounds to please us aesthetically, lulling us into digesting their dominant culture pap. Oh the humanity! Let him have his Gang of Four and Polystyrene. I'll take The GBs happy tunes and sappy lyrics--admittedly, I haven't bothered to pay much attention to the lyrics--why bother?--so I can't really comment on them. (See, I'm a stooge of the system! Except for when I'm listening to against-the-grain-approved Gang of Four, the Clash, Pavement, Public Enemy, and the Roots, right?) Sorry, this probably amounts to bullying since there's a consensus minus one on this list. . . . Anywho, as Johnny Lydon might say, end of soap opera!