Cloudcuckooland by The Lightning Seeds

Cloudcuckooland, the Lightning Seeds' debut, arrived in 1990, and at this point the "band" was really just Ian Broudie, the Liverpool guitarist, singer and producer who'd done time in Big in Japan, Care and Original Mirrors, making records in the studio on his own terms. He produced it himself, and a couple of Liverpool scene mates dropped by: OMD's Andy McCluskey and the Icicle Works' Ian McNabb.

The result is sunshine in a bottle, bright indie pop with chiming guitars, spangly keyboards and melodies that go down like lemonade. "Pure" is the prize: Broudie's first hit at home and the only time the Lightning Seeds cracked the American top 40. It would be a few more years before the project grew into a real touring band.

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