The Wonder Stuff - Never Loved Elvis (1991)

The Wonder Stuff's third and best album (although their 1988 debut, The Eight-Legged Groove Machine, is pretty wonderful), 1991's Never Loved Elvis, is the album that made Miles Hunt and company at least temporary superstars in the U.K. (It also got them the most commercial exposure they ever achieved in the U.S., where the Kinksy, music hall-styled single "The Size of a Cow" was a big college radio hit.) It departs from the first two albums by de-emphasizing the dance rhythms and Buzzcocks-like guitars and (courtesy of new multi-instrumentalist Martin Bell) adding fiddle, banjo, mandolin, acoustic guitar, and accordion to the mix. Kirsty MacColl's inimitable vocals add another excellent texture to a couple of songs, especially the folk-rocky "Welcome to the Cheap Seats." There's a much sweeter sound to this unapologetically poppy album, and even Hunt's lyrics are less snide and arrogant than before. The disappointing follow-up, 1993's Construction for the Modern Idiot, shows that the Wonder Stuff couldn't maintain this creative high for long, but Never Loved Elvis is one of the better U.K. pop albums of 1991.