Front cover of ‘The La’s’

by Ed Biggs

The long rise to fame, the fleeting brilliance, and the mysterious demise of Liverpool’s The La’s remains one of British pop music’s intriguing stories. There can’t be many people in the Western world that aren’t familiar with their signature song ‘There She Goes’, one of the purest pop records to ever fit into the indie genre, but their one and only album is not as appreciated or widely owned as it should be. The brainchild of their inspirational singer and songwriter Lee Mavers – himself one of the most enigmatic characters in British rock history – The La’s is an utterly beguiling collection of classic ‘60s Beatles-esque pop, which seems to exist completely outside of time and fashion.

Its story is intimately bound up with that of Mavers himself, whose absence in the last 25 years has caused his myth to escalate to a kind of Syd Barrett-esque figure, that released just this one record before retreating from public life and has never made anything else since, living off royalty cheques from his immortal hit single and blowing it all on heroin. The actual fact that he’s a happily married family man never seems to punctuate that impression, mind. Anyway, Mavers joined The La’s in 1984, quickly assuming artistic control of the group from its founder Mike Badger (later to form country-influenced band The Onset) who quit two years later. By 1988, the band had amassed an arsenal of highly melodic, top-quality songs penned by Mavers and gained a reputation for being one of the tightest, best-rehearsed live acts in Liverpool.

The brilliance of The La’s lies in how its creator felt liberated, not constrained, by their classic palette. Where so many revivalist acts become restricted by their choice of music, Mavers absolutely revelled in it, free to explore a ‘60s, Merseybeat fantasia inside his own head. This, quite possibly, was the reason for his perfectionism and explains the prolonged gestation the album had. When the time came to commit those songs to record, entering the studio in July ’88 with one-time Smiths producer John Porter behind the desk, it became apparent that it would be plain sailing. The La’s would record with no fewer than three more producers over the next 20 months, including Mike Hedges (The Cure), John Leckie (The Stone Roses) and Steve Lillywhite (U2).

Despite the painful labour, The La’s was regarded as a minor classic upon release, gradually attracting more and more attention through as the months wore on, and to date has sold nearly 100,000 copies in the UK. The LSD-tinged duo ‘Son Of A Gun’ and the Beach Boys-esque backing vocal harmonies of ‘I Can’t Sleep’ are a flawless, clipped opening pair of tracks that are an exercise in economy. The jaunty rockabilly feel to ‘Feelin’’, ‘Doledrum’ and ‘I.O.U.’ are dangerously addictive, the kind of things you can imagine your parents whistling. The resplendent ‘Timeless Melody’ saw a change of pace to something a little more songwriterly, and the sea shanty of ‘Liberty Ship’ could only have come from a Liverpudlian band.

The dazzling eight-minute closer ‘Looking Glass’ is the only time Mavers allows the band off the leash of 2½ minute gems to indulge in something a little bit improvisational, and is irrefutable proof that The La’s were capable of philosophical depth. The 2008 2xCD deluxe edition provides an insight, including the entire scrapped session with Hedges, who really brings a different, darker edge to the recordings and allows the converted fan a different look at a familiar set of songs. Furthermore, the myriad live albums and BBC sessions out there mean that anybody can access these songs, and experience the sheer brilliance of The La’s in the live arena.

Which brings us to ‘There She Goes’. Put simply, it’s one of the very few perfect songs in pop history – that is, a song that couldn’t be improved by adding to or taking away from it. Those first, Byrds-like guitar chimes pierce the air and the bewitching, heart-bursting magic works every time, with the song’s likely double meaning to do with heroin (“pulsing through my vein / and I just can’t contain the feeling that remains”) as well as lust working in its favour. It’s lasting prevalence a quarter of a century later (on those bloody annoying sofa adverts, for instance, and whenever I hear ‘There She Goes’ outside of a context in which I wish to listen to it, I confess to performing increasingly daring feats of physical prowess to reach for the ‘mute’ button as quickly as possible) mean that its astonishing beauty is constantly at risk of being killed through overfamiliarity. But that’s never quite happened yet, and listened to in just the right circumstance, it is sheer perfection.

Under increasing pressure from Polydor, Mavers picked Steve Lillywhite’s mix and was immediately unhappy with himself for having compromised. When The La’s eventually came out in late 1990, he routinely trashed it in public, upset with Lillywhite’s using vocal guiding tracks among other things as well as fundamentally “not understanding” the group. After the best part of a year touring the record, bassist John Power left the band in December 1991, fed up with playing essentially the same set of songs for half a decade. He was later to emerge and join in with the Britpop scene with his own band, Cast, in the mid ‘90s, but The La’s was effectively stopped dead in its tracks there and then. Reunions, brief tours and very occasional rehearsals have happened every now and again since, but to all intents and purposes the band was extinct.

Its creator may have been dissatisfied with the result, but listening to its remarkable freshness 25 years on, it begs the question: for him to say that, just how good must the music inside Mavers’ head have been? The La’s, with its revelry in British pop music’s past, laid down the blueprint for the revivalism that ballooned into the Britpop movement just four years later. Just listen to the unabashed melodies, the simple yet expressive lyrics, and tell me Noel Gallagher wasn’t listening closely. We’ll never know what might have happened if Mavers had continued or the group had stayed together, but what we’re left with is one absolutely perfect album, which absolutely everybody who has even a passing interest in guitar pop must own. It really is that simple.

Influenced: Oasis, The Coral, The Zutons, Shack, Supergrass, The Thrills, Starsailor, Travis

Influenced by: The Beatles, The Byrds, The Kinks, The Beach Boys, The Zombies, The Hollies

Listen to The La’s here!