Time for another number from my favourite not-exactly-obscure-but-didn't-have-the-success-they-deserved Nineties band.
In the past I have chosen Time for the Rest of Your Life (Q magazine's single of the year in 1995) and Elin's Photograph.
Beautiful Alone was as good as it got for Strangelove in terms of singles chart success: it reached no. 35 in 1996.
Patrick Duff, Strangelove's lead singer, did not enjoy the duties his music brought with it. He told the Guardian they year:
In Britain, how you come across in the press is ridiculously important to your chances of success, and even though we had received a lot of support, I couldn’t help but think when I read my interviews that I was somewhat inadequate; I seemed unable to communicate what my songs really meant. Also, I would take the slightest criticism in the press as proof of this. I would be deeply hurt and throw myself into drug and alcohol binges.
Other bands who were doing well all seemed to have singers with a very different personality than my own. Or was it that they could feign that they were cocky, self-confident and content in a shallow sort of a way without a glimmer of self-doubt? I knew our songs were genuinely different and genuinely good, but I couldn’t just seem to strut around like a walking advertising board for them - it seemed crass. I stopped reading any music papers and told my manager I couldn’t do interviews.
Strangelove split in 1998, with guitarist and keyboard player Alex Lee enjoying the most successful later career. But Patrick Duff is still around and is playing The Camden Chapel in August.
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