Magazine clipping of a review by Michael Azerrad of The Go-Betweens’ 16 Lovers Lane album that appeared in Rolling Stone sometime around August or September 1988.
Why yes, I had a subscription to Rolling Stone when I was in high school. What, did you think I was a Maximum Rocknroll gal? Sorry, I wasn’t nearly cool enough for that at age sixteen. Besides, as a recent graduate from Top 40 radio, I found much of punk rock to be both musically and aesthetically displeasing.
But perhaps it was reviewer Michael Azerrad’s affinity for punk rock—as evidenced by his 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life—that led him to pen this lukewarm, three-star review of “modest concept album” 16 Lovers Lane by The Go-Betweens.
And yet...
In this review Azerrad did compare 16 Lovers Lane favorably to one of my favorite albums at that time: Starfish by The Church. While I don’t recall what moment of Go-Betweens discovery came first for me—it was either reading this review or coming across their video for single “Was There Anything I Could Do?” on MTV’s 120 Minutes—that Church reference helped convince me to buy the album.
That ended up being the start of a beautiful relationship. I listened to 16LL many times on my crappy all-in-one stereo before buying the only other Go-Betweens recording I could find at our newly-opened Tower Records in Boston: their previous album, Tallulah.
But it wasn’t until a couple of years later when a friend gave me a mix tape with “Cattle & Cane” on it that I became an evangelist. This was the same Go-Betweens!? Such an elliptical melody, distinctive beat and evocative lyrics. As much as this Rolling Stone review was my gateway to The Go-Betweens, that mix tape was the next step to a deeper fandom.
