Psychedelic Furs "Mirror Moves" [1984]

Basically, if David Bowie were a completely talentless hack (instead of a partial one) who could only sustain any sort of a relevant career in the sonic plastic of the New Wave 80s, he would be Richard Butler of Psychedelic Furs. A cranky, stylized front man with the voice of a sword swallower, Butler cashes in his rock guitars for gross synth piano and fake-sounding drum kits so that he might crossover into Boy George territory, or at least ABC. He and his band partially succeeded (if "succeeded" is the right word; it feels very wrong), adding to the huge and growing slag-heap of failed limey punkers with big record deals who'd clearly do anything not to have to score their own dope: Echo & the Bunnymen, The Cure, Billy Idol -- the list goes sickeningly on and on. Overcompensating for his emaciated frame and more emaciated, exhausted vocal growl, Butler's band overcooks the reverbed-out-the-ass arrangements with saxophones and backup singers for miles in every direction, as if trying to create the aural equivalent of vomiting Z. Cavaricci. Only the 80s could produce such hideously grotesque phoniness and get away with calling it "culture."