"Love me now forever"

Call it bad good luck: they sold a lot of records, teased up their hair, even had a Molly Ringwald-John Hughes film titled after one of their most scabrous numbers. Until 1984 the Psychedelic Furs' catalogue embodied the ultimate '80s paradox, one which has been thankfully disavowed by most acts since Nirvana, hip-hop, girl-pop, boy-pop, and the Internet made such paradoxes seem parochial if not Victorian: if you secretly want to sell records and the records are actually selling, throw a tantrum. Ignore the sequins with which your tunes are garlanded. 1982's Mirror Moves caught the P-Furs before the paradox smothered their aesthetic impulses. Here's my review. And "President Gas" never seemed so prescient.