Jordan: The Comeback by Prefab Sprout

Jordan: The Comeback, the fifth Prefab Sprout album, came out on Kitchenware on 28 August 1990, and it's Paddy McAloon's grandest gamble yet: 19 songs, produced by Thomas Dolby, back at the desk after helming Steve McQueen. Martin McAloon played bass, Wendy Smith sang and played, and Neil Conti drummed.

McAloon split it into four movements: straight pop, a suite about Elvis Presley, love songs and a closing stretch on death and fate. Along the way he conjures Jesse James, Agnetha Fältskog, God and the Devil himself, turning over religion and fame in lush, glistening sophisti-pop that sounds expensive and heartfelt at once. The critics adored it, it climbed to number 7 in Britain and earned a Brit nomination for British Album of the Year, even if the singles never caught fire.

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