Love and Rockets "Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)"

Album: Express (Beggar's Banquet/Big Time)
Producer: John A. Rivers, Love and Rockets
Released: September 15, 1986
Video Director: unsure..

Yes, I know it's been a while since I've updated this, here's a throwback...

Love and Rockets is an interesting case to study on a few different historical levels: for one thing, its members were at the center of three important movements in the 1980's that drastically reshaped the way people thought of Rock music in the 90's. And, on a more contemporary level, their case demonstrates the selectivity on our current hipster historians, and the arbitrariness of who is being selected and who is being left out of the new Pop music canons.

In the beginning, er...the late 70's, a post-punk band from Northampton, England called Bauhaus got together and became one of the primary founders of what would be called Goth Rock, based on its dark, somewhat dissonant melodies, and a willingness to experiment - within reason, of course. Known these days mostly from their song "Bela Lugosi's Dead," which was featured in the cult-lesbian-vampire film The Hunger. In 1983, the band broke up, and singer Peter Murphy went off to pursue a solo career and try to be David Bowie. Then, guitarist Daniel Ash formed the group Tones on Tail, which had similar dark sounds, and Goth tendencies, but scored a House hit with the single "Go!" in spite of the songs primary use of guitar and Rock instruments.

In 1985, the members of Bauhaus, minus Murphy, regrouped and formed a new band. Love and Rockets departed from the dark tones of Bauhaus and Tones on Tail, but retained the surreal and psychedelic sounds, and combined use of acoustic guitar more frequently. The result was and early version of Alternative Rock, referred to as Indie, in those days, and, in America, College Rock, as these British songs were getting airplay in America primarily on college radio stations. The definitions of all of these terms would change a few times over the next 20 years, so the disclaimer of this site refers to current standards...

Obviously, the birth of Alternative Rock had an immense impact on music in the 90's and onward, and Love and Rockets was at the forefront. You can see their influence on many of the Alternative bands that rose to fame in the early 90's, on both sides of the Atlantic (see Stone Temple Pilots "Big Bang Baby"). I've wondered if perhaps the reason hipster historians have ignored the band is that they were too relevant to a period of very mainstream music, thus their sound can not exactly be 'rediscovered' until 90's Alternative fades from the public consciousness, which will likely take some time...

One of the interesting things that nobody seems to have analyzed in depth yet is the unique form of psychedelia that was developed in the 1980's, and featured in many songs and music videos, including "Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)," and Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More." The sounds and imagery are hallucinatory and distorted, and yet at the same time cold, and sterile. I don't think that this style leaked out of that decade, but it is most likely the source of the bright-colored psychedelia and psuedo-hippie fads of the 90's.

I'm going to do something edgy and brave with this post and propose a genre of Rock music that I have not yet heard invented yet by the critics, and call this band "Post-Goth." It would make sense, considering the band's history. They began as a dark Goth band, and grew lighter and more introspective, until they evolved into Alternative. The Cure's career took a somewhat similar track. It makes me almost wonder if such a term as "Post-Goth" would be synonymous with Alternative.

Notably, there is also an appearance in the video from the band's alter ego, The Bubblemen.