January 28, 2007 Earworm

In 1989, after releasing a quartet of singles and an album that made indie kids swoon, The House of Love left Creation Records for major label Fontana and an advance just shy of half a million pounds. Everyone was sure that they would be the band that would prove that Alan McGee was right about everything, with the UK music press suggesting that they would be the stadium band to rival U2.

Less than a year later, the chart performance of their first two Fontana singles, "Never" and "I Don't Know Why I Love You", suggested that guitar pop could cut into dance musics bleeping and thumping hold on the singles charts, but not the top forty. Going back to the beginning, the band re-recorded their Creation debut, "Shine On", and as it cracked the top twenty, hopes were high for the follow up, "The Beatles and The Stones" but it couldn't move higher than #36.

Two years later, it was apparent to everyone that it wasn't going to happen. With their third studio album jumping into the top ten of the album chart and then disappearing completely just two weeks later, it looked as though Alan McGee was wrong or, perhaps, too late. The indie kids who had fallen in love with the band in a beehive pop of "Christine" had moved on to Madchester and those who coulddn't dance were staring across the pond toward the flannel revolution. Fontana pulled the gorgeously depresssed "Crush Me" as the fourth single from the "Babe Rainbow" album, and its low chart position during its brief run confirmed that the foundation was crumbling. "Crush Me", somewhat fittingly, would be their last charting single but at least they went out on a high note; still singing the slightly hopeful baah-bopp-bopp-baah's that reminded everyone of the early days.

The House of Love would release one more album, "Audience With The Mind", that pretty much confirmed that band leader Guy Chadwick had lost his and prompted one reviewer to write, "I don't know why I loved you. I don't know why I cared". What was left of the band that had been started after Chadwick attended a Jesus and Mary Chain show, that was thought of as the band that would take up the indie-pop fight for mainstream success that the Mary Chain had started, called it quits, and another Alan McGee dream was dashed just as the seeds of Brit-pop were being sown.

The House of Love studio albums are all out of print at the moment but The Fontana Years collects some of the highlights and offers plenty of rarities.