THE AUTEURS
PEOPLE ‘ROUND HERE DON’T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT IT
CHERRY RED
★★★
One of music’s best/worst self-saboteurs, Luke Haines’ most well-known folly is compiled in a 6CD boxset showing both why they were contenders and how, despite his claims, it wasn’t Britpop’s fault The Auteurs never commercially matched 1993’s Mercury-nominated debut, New Wave. That was a brilliant album, with sinister humour wrapped inside glam, bubblegum and, yes, New Wave. But he took its failure to break through very badly. The following Now I’m A Cowboy housed his finest hour, Lenny Valentino, but it stalled at No.41. A furious Haines promptly marched to the back of the class and began drawing a cock and balls over and over again. After Murder Park and How I Learned To Love The Bootboys had flashes of brilliance, but shock tactics were taking over, especially on the intervening side-project LP, Baader Meinhof, empty and ugly under its hypnotic iconography.