479 Hello Lloyd Cole* - Perfect Skin

( * ... and  the  Commotions )

Chart  entered  : 26  May  1984

Chart  peak : 26

Number  of  hits : 15  ( 9  with  The  Commotions , 6  solo )

This  guy  seemed  to  come  out  of  nowhere; I'd  never  heard  of  the  band  before  they  entered  the  charts  with  this.

Though  they  were  perceived  as  a  Scottish  band, Lloyd  was  born  in  Buxton  and  only  came  to  Scotland  as  a  student  to  study  Philosophy  and  English  at  Glasgow  University. He  got  The  Commotions  together  while  studying  and  as  main  songwriter  and  front  man   put  his  name  out  front. The  Commotions  included  bassist  Lawrence  Donegan  who'd  recently  had  chart  success  with  The  Bluebells.

A lot  of  sources  describe  "Perfect  Skin"  as  their  debut  single   but  they'd  actually had  one  ready  for   release  the  previous  year  on  an  independent  label  linked  to  CBS ."Down  at  the  Mission"  is  closer  to  Orange  Juice  than  their  subsequent  releases  with  lashings  of  white  funk  guitar  as  Lloyd  lauds  an  institution  not  geared  for  profit. The  production's  a  bit  murky  and  the  rhythm  section  is  unpolished  but  there's  a  good  sense  of  melody  in  there.

Things  didn't  work  out  with  CBS  and  the  group  were  signed  to  Polydor  on  the  basis  of  demos of  "Perfect  Skin"  and  "Forest  Fire".

Though  he's  not  credited  as  a  writer  "Perfect  Skin"  is  hung  on  Neil  Clark's   circular  guitar  riff   with  Blair  Cowan's  Booker T -style  organ  filling  up  the  spaces. Lloyd  admits  he  wrote  it  as  a  consciously  Dylanesque  number  with  Subterranean  Homesick  Blues  a  particular  influence. Instead  of  Suzie  Rotolo, Lloyd's  muse  is  a  weather  girl  called  Louise  who's  "sexually  enlightened  by  Cosmopolitan "   and  he  half-drawls  the  lyric  with  scant  regard  for  metre  in  a  voice  that's  half  way  between  Lou  Reed  and  Matt  Johnson. It's  all  very  arch  and  the  final  verse gets  a  bit  too  meta  -"The  moral  of  this  song  must  be  there  never  has  been  one ". I  didn't  like  it  much  at  the  time  but  coming  back  to  it  after  enjoying  their  later  material  it  holds  up  pretty  well.