One of the best eponymous albums ever. One of the finest debut albums ever. One of the most genuinely timeless albums ever. The La’s is and are a Sunday Classic, any week of the year.

Seeing as the album was reissued yesterday on a limited pressing as part of National Album Day 2024’s ‘Great British Groups’ theme, it seemed like a timely opportunity to talk about absolutely one of our most favourite albums, the self-titled debut album from The La’s. Madness and pure lightning in a bottle.

Released in late 1990, the album was something of a hotchpotch of work that had been recorded (recording and re-recording) across the previous two years. What would finally be released on Go! Discs was ultimately ‘a version’ of the album that had been salvaged by producer Steve Lillywhite. Group leader and songwriter Lee Mavers is an icon in the field of wild and unattainable expectations; the perfectionism illustrated on The La’s debut is closer to Apocalypse Now than any other rock and roll record of the time.

Besides Mavers, only melodic mastermind John Powers remained consistent in the band. The line up changed constantly and across the sessions, working with The Smiths’ producer John Porter, as well as John Leckie and Mike Hedges on takes that never managed to hit the right highs for Lee Mavers. So the Lillywhite album was released to pretty much universal acclaim, only for Mavers to instantly disown it. Consistently ever since.

There are a hundred books and killer articles that mythologise this amazing album. The further we move away from its extraordinary energy with each passing year, the hazier the specifics of what actually happened becomes. Maybe that's the allure.

“I think [Mavers] got so stuck on what they should sound like that he didn’t know what they should sound like. But just listening to them play in that room sent the tingles down my spine.”
- Mike Hedges

The La’s is an album that doesn’t sound like 1990 at all. While the Second Summer of Love bubbled away and the Madchester and Brit Pop scenes started to blossom, the 35 minutes that formed the band’s debut (and spoiler, only album) had much more in common with rock and roll skiffle. The roots of Merseybeat with the expanded horizons of West Coast jangle. Raw, mostly unfussy production that captured the sprightly and vivacious spirit of the band, certainly Lee Mavers. His voice is amazing, a rich Liverpudlian swagger that is as genuinely evocative and gripping as any that the city has produced.

There She Goes is one of the most perfect (and weirdest, with no verses as such) pop songs ever committed to tape. It might be about drugs, mostly probably not, and still it sounds fresh, euphoric and nostalgic every time. There are other supreme highs, I Can’t Sleep preempts any of Brit Pops’ rock excesses and much of the first side (specifically Liberty Ship and Doledrum) are uninhibited in their rawness.

They didn’t capture what they wanted to, but The La’s is an amazing album of peerless writing and distinctive performances. They remain one of music's most mishandled prospects and it is a tragedy that they would dissolve so spectacularly with just these few songs as a legacy. But, we do have these songs and this Sunday we loved blasting them out, exactly like every other time we blasted them out for over thirty years now.

“like a snake with a broken back… the worst, a pile of shit”
- Lee Mavers