Love and Rockets “Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven” 1985. Beggars Banquet. Debut album of psychedelic goth giants who helped usher the neo-psych sound into the mainstream with their subsequent releases “Express” and “Earth, Sun, Moon,” finally scoring a top 10 release in ‘89 with “So Alive” from their self-titled album “Love and Rockets.” (It was on that 1989 tour that I saw them perform in Madison, WI for the first – and only – time. The Pixies opened for them. That was a kinda weird pairing.)

Formed after the dissolution of Bauhaus and then Tones on Tail, Love and Rockets took goth down a more pop-orientated road, though in tempo and atmosphere they would always remain more dirgey than dancey. The tracks “The Dog -End of a Day Gone By” and “Haunted When the Minutes Drag” encapsulate the Love and Rockets sound, with brightly produced vocals over dark content:

There’s a man on the corner
Coming on like Moses
Flogging new religion
Like a bunch of plastic roses

He’s found his path
To the bleeding heart of Jesus
You tell him
You’ve found yours

Heir to a future, you never made
There is nothing less amusing
Then the amusement arcadeIn a city without a soul
Newspaper boys selling you the hard truth
Lucifer employs idle hands by night and day

Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Don’t let the smoke get in your eyes

Well, the drunk outside the Wendy’s
Is becoming less than friendly
A dog is barking at the moonThe drunk outside the windy
Is becoming less than friendly
A dog is barking at the moon

You want to get away
From the city of light
Then when you’ve gone
You want to get backIt is some strange addiction
When you need to put yourself
Back on the rack

Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Don’t let the smoke get in your eye

and

I trace the outline of your eyes
We’re in the mirror hypnotized and haunted
I find a solitary hair gone and still I reminisce, I’m haunted

Haunted by your hair
Haunted by your clothes
Haunted by your eyes
By your clothes, by your eyes
By your voice, by your smile
By your mouth, by your soul
By your eyes, by your voice
By your smile, by your mouth
By your soul, haunted
Haunted by your soul
By your soul, by your hair
By your hair, by your clothes