much as i love the go-betweens, their lack of commercial success is
thoroughly logical...the music they made was peripheral to the pop
world....there were too many sharp corners, too much lyrically, no focussed
image/attitude... barring, of course, "16 lovers lane".
that was indeed their last great gasp & it was just a bad hand dealt that
they didn't receive more recognition/airplay for it (stateside at least,
wasn't "streets of yr town" a moderately successful single in the UK?).
i mean, they were smarter than morrissey, more ambitious & soulful than REM,
less obnoxious than U2...these are NOT the elements to success in the big
bad POP world.
& who's complaining???
they were contemporaries of mine who helped reinforce what a pop song could
say.
that's no small thing.
& their early stuff owed lots to the NYC 76-78 scene.