Echo & the Bunnymen "Ocean Rain" [1984]

Sounding for all the world like the illegitimate offspring of Jim Morrison spoiled by privilege and crappy English weather, Ian McCulloch fronts the pointlessly-named Echo & the Bunnymen. On the band's breakthrough album "Ocean Rain," the boys flop around with vast and various instrumentations wholly unsuitable for a rock group. Then again, these guys really didn't rock anymore by this time -- they were following The Cure down the rabbit-hole (bunny-hole?) of gloom-pop, as it was clear they were always going to be too bland and un-frightening to make it in goth music. The end result proves McCulloch to be just as brazenly annoying as Bono, but without all the Jesus references and barely any of the comparable fame, largely due to his uncommon ability to wring the most grossly maudlin vocal sentiment over a laconic two-chord vamp while stringing together random and totally meaningless word phrases. How so many overworked and utterly forgettable tracks can constitute the band's "masterpiece" must be only in relation to the rest of the band's output -- from the redundant new wave rock of their earlier albums to the later glitzy schlock that both got them on MTV and forced them to implode in sell-out disgrace. If the name Echo & the Bunnymen seems to imply the images of a strange nightmare that ultimately makes no sense and should best simply be ignored, I'd say go with that notion.