Limping for a Generation by The Blow Monkeys

Limping for a Generation was the 1984 debut album by the British band The Blow Monkeys. In the booklet to 1999 Atomic Lullabies – Very Best of the Blow Monkeys, lead singer Dr. Robert (born Robert Howard) stated that, even if it was "Digging Your Scene", from the band's second album, Animal Magic, "that opened the door. From being a glam jazz obscurity we were on the TV, in the papers, getting thrown out of clubs and playing Wembley with Rod Stewart (...) the first album, Limping for a Generation, has some of our best stuff on it". The singer and guitarist also billed the record as jazz-punk, and defined The Blow Monkeys' early production by simply stating, in the same source: "Our early music was raw". Formed in 1981, the group, after a one-off indie single, signed to RCA, and released Limping for a Generation, an album that in retrospect is considered a masterpiece but which did not attract commercial success at the time. This strange work was at times sensual and sinister, skronky and soulful, dreary and delirious; its tunes are solid, but lacked many singalong hooks. The album is hard to categorise, then, although comparisons might be drawn with contemporaries such as ABC and The Style Council; or Paul Weller during late period Jam, matched to the confused sexual lyrics of Morrissey (from The Smiths). Indeed, some of Robert's couplets are reminiscent of those of Morrissey: "Says he wants to be an anti-Christ/But God knows, that boy is too nice" (from the title-track, "Limping for a Generation") or "You can bury me alive and jump on my head/But I'm a real Wildflower, chained to your bed" (from "Wildflower", the last single to be issued from the album), or "I see a boy/He must be a prince/Who is he I desire?/Who am I to be shy?". Dressed in impeccable suits on the sleeve, The Blow Monkeys had only one external helper for this album: Pete Wilson, for production, string arrangements and additional keyboards). Three of the four singles taken from their debut album, "Man from Russia", "Atomic Lullaby" and "Wildflower", can be found on their compilation album Choices - The Singles Collection, released in 1989. The later 1999 collection contains instead five B-sides from the 1984 album. As Dr. Robert writes, "[they] show us at our most relaxed and spontaneous ... and give a more rounded picture of what was really the most important thing to us... the music". In the wake of The Blow Monkeys' later success, RCA reissued Limping for a Generation in 1986 with a new sleeve design. In 2012, Cherry Red announced the release of a 2-CD deluxe edition with a whole bonus disc of previously unissued demos and B-sides.