Neither Fish Nor Flesh by Terence Trent D'Arby

Neither Fish Nor Flesh, Terence Trent D'Arby's second album, arrived on Columbia in 1989 with a subtitle promising a soundtrack of love, faith, hope and destruction, and it goes after every one of them. Introducing the Hardline had made him famous on the strength of that soulful voice and a flamboyant, androgynous swagger, but the multi-instrumentalist didn't hand over a sequel. He handed over a sprawl: loose, searching funk that cares more about mood than about repeating the hits, with "This Side of Love" among its songs.

The public blinked. Reviews came back split, the record did far less business than its predecessor and lasted only four weeks on the UK albums chart. Time has been kinder: later writers have come back to it as a bold, misread record that was simply ahead of its moment.

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