(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Prefab Sprout were the project of Patrick "Paddy" McAloon, who in another era would have been a country-pop or soul-jazz singer-songwriter, one of the many craftsmen playing cocktail lounges for the jet set. McAloon is a mannerist of the song, capable of dressing it in the most flamboyant attire, but incapable of identifying with the melodramas he sings. His main merit is having helped revive soft pop in the post-punk era, when a tender ballad was little short of an act of betrayal.

The singles Lions In My Own Garden (1982) and The Devil Has All The Best Tunes (1983), and the EP Prefab Sprout (Kitchenware), were lightweight music of modest quality. Some songs on Swoon (Kitchenware, 1984) were even more banal (Steely Dan-style lounge jazz-rock in Cue Fanfare, exuberant funk in Don't Sing), but the group's true vocation emerged in the fragile, swinging nightclub melody of Cruel. The album was one of those that brought sophisticated arrangements back into vogue in the post-punk restoration era.

The group emancipated itself from American easy-listening models with Two Wheels Good (Kitchenware, 1985), originally titled Steve McQueen. Faron was an atmospheric country-rock piece in the style of Stan Ridgway, ultimately peripheral to McAloon’s work; the album is dominated by romantic melodies, entrusted to delicate soul/jazz arrangements (Appetite and especially Goodbye Lucille #1, later retitled Johnny Johnny), and even bossa nova (Horsin' Around). That approach culminates in the lush orchestration of When Love Breaks Down, something that in the 1970s only the most kitsch singers would have dared. Drawing (not very imaginatively, in truth) on the immortals of international pop, from Stephen Sondheim to George Gershwin, from Cole Porter to Burt Bacharach, McAloon coined the ideal style for refined yuppie evenings, a kind of muzak for intimate settings.

Protest Songs (Kitchenware, 1989), the album recorded in the fall of 1985 and long shelved (listening to it, one understands why), was not much better. Life Of Surprises and Tiffanys display a tougher edge.

Only in 1988 did the fourth album appear, From Langley Park To Memphis: despite the long gestation, songs like Hey Manhattan confirmed the artificiality of this pop-jazz, only vaguely musical; indeed, the best tracks are a parody of Springsteen (Cars And Girls) and a hard-rock piece (The Golden Calf). Once the confessional poses were abandoned, only a syrupy dancefloor sound remained.

But the singer was ready to drop the mask and pursue his true vocation: Jordan: The Comeback (Epic, 1990) is essentially a tribute to the craftsmen of 1950s pop music. Composed of two parallel suites (one inspired by Lucifer, the other by Presley), this concept spans a very wide stylistic range, absorbing exotica (the samba of Carnival 2000, the aggressive Machine Gun Ibiza, the Jesse James Bolero) and romantic slow numbers (We Let The Stars Go, All The World Loves Lovers). Once again, however, the best pieces are the unusual ones, such as Looking For Atlantis, which sounds like an exuberant Phil Collins, Scarlet Night, one of the most vigorous melodies of his career, and the very delicate Doo-Wop In Harlem. For ambition alone, Jordan is McAloon’s masterpiece.

Andromeda Heights (Columbia, 1997) appeared after years of silence and seems to return to the simple, restrained style of the early days. Electric Guitars was the single.

38 Carat Collection (Columbia, 2001) is an anthology of singles and selected album tracks.

Paddy McAloon’s I Trawl the Megahertz (EMI, 2003) collects austere compositions of chamber pop (the title track) and instrumental impressionism.

Paddy McAloon, the only surviving member of Prefab Spout, released Let's Change the World with Music (Kitchenware, 2009), a collection of demos, and Crimson/Red (Icebreak, 2013).