Eighties’ best 100 redux: #93 The Lightning Seeds “Pure” (1989)

Here’s an example of an artist and song that I most definitely wasn’t listening to in the 1980s. In fact, I wasn’t even listening to them in the same century as the 1980s.

As astounding as this may sound, I only became familiar with Ian Broudie’s The Lightning Seeds a couple of years ago when this very song came up on a Spotify playlist that was ‘generated for me’. The song blew my mind and sounded vaguely familiar so I had to stop what I was doing and check my iPad screen to investigate its provenance. Of course, The Lightning Seeds’ name was familiar to me, having been a keen listener of alternative rock radio and a voracious consumer of British music magazines in the early nineties, thus, I decided to delve deeper. I switched from said playlist to The Best of The Lightning Seeds and within a few songs that sounded very much within my wheelhouse, I found myself wondering where this band had been all my life. And shortly after that, when I was having a drink or two or three with a bunch of my old friends of similar age and musical tastes, I made mention of the group and all of them, to a one, knew and loved their music. To this day, it remains a mystery how the Seeds’ music escaped my notice for so long but they’ve not been far from my listening tendencies ever since and when I decided to redo this Eighties Best 100 list last summer, there was no way “Pure” would be left off it.

Ian Broudie formed the project in Liverpool in 1989. Prior to that, he had been a member of a number of notable New Wave groups, like Big in Japan, and did production work on albums by other groups that will also appear on this list, like Wall of Voodoo and Echo & the Bunnymen. Generally a studio-only project for its first handful of years, Broudie put together a collection of musicians to take the show on the road in support of The Lightning Seeds’ third album, 1994’s “Jollification”. Two more albums were released and Broudie decided to put the group on hiatus to close out the 90s. After the aforementioned best of compilation and a new album saw the light of day in the latter part of the 2000s, The Lightning Seeds have been an on again, off again concern right up to present.

“Pure” was The Lightning Seeds’ very first single, released in June 1989, more than six months in advance of their very first album, 1990’s “Cloudcuckooland”. It was the very first song Broudie had ever written and sung himself, and did very well on the UK singles charts. And why not? The song is a blast of sunshine and rainbows. An amalgam of New Order and The The new wave, but with a lot more cheer. It dances and flits with computer bleeps, jangly guitars, boppy rhythms, and glorious horn flourishes. And Broudie gathers himself together and lets loose his thoughts on love and happiness. It’s good times on repeat.

Original Eighties best 100 position: n/a

Favourite lyric: “Fresh and deep as oceans new / Shiver at the sight of you / I’ll sing a softer tune / Pure and simple over you.” Just like that, heart-melting stuff.

Where are they now?: The Lightning Seeds released their seventh album, the amazing “See you in stars” in 2022 and then, opened up one of Glastonbury’s stages in 2023, so very much alive.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.