My own introduction to the work of Stephen Duffy was thanks to the short-lived supergroup, Me Me Me. It consisted of the aforementioned Duffy alongside Blur’s Alex James and Elastica’s Justin Welch.

Their one and only single, “Hanging Around” is completely of its time: a blast of bright, mindless bubble-gum Brit-Pop optimism. Britain was cool again, “Country House” had beaten “Roll With It” and Tony (the Messiah) Blair would be riding into town to sweep away the gloom. Ah, those were the days.

By contrast, Memory and Desire: 30 Years in the Wilderness with Stephen Duffy and the Lilac Time is a far more sedate, introverted affair covering three of Duffy’s music making, both on his own and in bands.

It’s a bit of a stodgy affair, really: 36 tracks of fairly similar sounding whims: by no means unpleasant, but far from awe inspiring. It prompts the inevitable question: who is this best of for, exactly?

Thirty-six songs on a greatest hits album is a mammoth project by anyone’s standards. Such compilations are usually there to act as an introduction to the uninitiated or a brief précis for someone who can’t quite be bothered with the back catalogue. For such uncommitted, musical lightweights (or people with lives, as the opposing view might have it) a double album like this doesn’t quite do the trick.

It would, of course, be a different story if we were talking about a double-album greatest hits collection of Dylan, Springsteen or The Rolling Stones. Each of these artists (and many other less famous artists) have a wide ranging back catalogue of hits and near misses that would sustain a listener’s interest. Sadly, the same cannot be said of Stephen Duffy.

At the other end of the spectrum, any truly devoted fan of Duffy and his prolific output is likely to have most or all of the songs here. The only conclusion that can be reached is that Memory and Desire: 30 Years in the Wilderness with Stephen Duffy and the Lilac Time (even the album’s name is prohibitively long) is for Duffy completists. And I’m not really sure how many of them there could be.

This said, there is much to like here. Given a more tightly arranged retrospective (with maybe twelve or so tracks), the great moments would be given greater prominence. The most beautiful songs, the most perceptive lyrics, would not be diluted in a sea of…… well, everything else.

“Julie Christie”, with its wide eyed dreams and aspirations, set against a backdrop of grim realism (“You left drama school/for shop floor restless/not by design”) is one such example of the poetic poignancy Duffy can bring to a song. Elsewhere, “Grey Skies and Work Things” and “Black Velvet” with its four-part harmonies and perfect cadences of which even Bach would be proud further Duffy’s abilities.

The songs in general are elegant, but simple affairs: love songs with lyrics about everyday lives being led in every day ways. There are holiday postcards, trips to the cinema and homes set up in squats. As the songs proceed, the traces of Duffy’s influence on Robbie Williams can easily be seen.

There is nothing particularly wrong with any of these songs. It’s simply the sheer volume of them that is so off-putting. Less is, apparently more. Conversely, as Stephen Duffy ably demonstrates here, more is definitely less. 

16/10/09 - First published on noizemakesenemies.co.uk on this link.