THE PASTELS - Suck On The Pastels: Retrogressive 1983-1985

Compilation CD Creation Records 1988



"Thoroughly wistful and eternally childlike, Glasgow's The Pastels exemplify a much maligned style of UK music that was, for a time, referred to as 'anorak pop'. Characterized by an amateurish devotion to '60s pop conventions and wide-eyed naïveté, the sound is as lovable as it is easily copied. The Pastels have the distinction of being more influential than imitative, and are one of the better outfits working in this well-trod arena. Formed in the early '80s by singer/guitarist Stephen Pastel (McRobbie), The Pastels were among the first indie-pop bands to mount a do-it-yourself aesthetic based on a wide-eyed, almost childlike view of the world but grounded in a '60s-revering love for sweet melodies and beholden to 'a rejection of orthodox pathways', as Stephen Pastel spells it out in the notes to the Truckload of Trouble compilation. That ethos threw the band in line with punk, at least ideologically; musically, The Pastels' avoidance of such accepted premises as singing on key made the group pop rebels to some, a hard-to-acquire taste for others. But like their American cousins Beat Happening, The Pastels' effusive charm elevates the artistic reach of their endeavors, yielding a number of wonderfully memorable songs".
(Trouser Press)

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