Blast the Human Flower by Danielle Dax

Blast the Human Flower, released in 1990, was Danielle Dax's first album under her Sire deal, and it's the sound of a born experimentalist stepping out into the daylight. The Southend-born artist had cut her teeth playing keyboards, flute and saxophone in Lemon Kittens; here, following Dark Adapted Eye, she hands the controls to Stephen Street, and the result is pop rock with the strangeness trimmed back but not quite tamed.

The trade press noticed the shift. Music & Media found it still pretty offbeat but missing the full-blown avant-garde spectacle, and Billboard liked the songs while doubting she had the chops to stand out from the pack. What Billboard did single out was her exotic cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows", which it pegged as the perfect calling card for modern rock radio, and that's the track that turned up on the countdowns. The sleeve art is by Stylorouge.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.