From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions (October 2004)

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions were a popular British pop music act of the mid-1980s, based in Glasgow, Scotland.

Line-up:

• Lloyd Cole, vocal and guitar - (born 31 January 1961)
• Blair Cowan, keyboards
• Lawrence Donegan, bass guitar
• Neil Clark, guitar - (born 3 July 1955)
• Stephen Irvine, drums - (born 16 December 1959, in Scotland)

Formed in 1982 and signed to Polydor in 1984, the band was known for combining Clark's twangy guitar style with Cole's low-key singing style. Their auspicious debut effort Rattlesnakes (1984) was intially dismissed as a "student bedsit classic", but now is regularly cited as one of the important works in rock music.

Paul Hardiman gave Rattlesnakes a clean and elegant production, and Anne Dudley (who had scored The Lexicon of Love for ABC) was brought in to provide the album's much-noted orchestrations. The album was scored with a keen desire to keep it elegant and avoid "schmaltz", and string arrangements began coming back into rock music in the years following its release.

Particularly notable were Cole's knowingly pretentious lyrics (he was studying Philosophy at the University of Glasgow when the band started) and namedropping the likes of Norman Mailer, Leonard Cohen, Arthur Lee, Grace Kelly, Truman Capote, Eva Marie Saint, Simone de Beauvoir, and Nancy Sinatra.

For a period in the mid-1980s, The Commotions were one of the most successful indie acts in Britain, vying with The Smiths. The band broke up in 1989 amid reports of personality clashes between members, and Cole moved to New York City to pursue a successful solo career. The band reformed in 2004 to perform a 20th anniversary mini-tour of the UK and Ireland.

The band released three studio albums and several best-of compilations:

• Rattlesnakes (1984, #13 UK), includes the hit singles "Perfect Skin" (#26 in UK) and "Forest Fire" (#41 in UK)
• Easy Pieces (1985, #5 UK), includes the hit singles "Brand New Friend" (#19 in UK), "Lost Weekend" (#17 in UK) and "Cut Me Down" (#38 in UK)
• Mainstream (1987, #9 UK), includes the hit singles "My Bag" (#46 in UK) and "Jennifer She Said" (#31 in UK)
• 1984-1989 (1989, #14 UK), first official compilation
• Lloyd Cole. The Commotions. The Singles (2004), second official compilation
• Rattlesnakes (2004), re-issue with bonus CD
• Live at the Apollo, London (2004), official concert registration by InstantLive records
• Anti Depressant (2006), Sanctuary Records.

This article on a United Kingdom pop music band is a stub. You can help by expanding it.