Life’s What You Make It

In 2018, Lush co-founder Mark Constantine released a triple-vinyl set, Self Preservation Society, featuring new versions of classic rock/pop from the 1960s and 70s delivered by the likes of Jackie Oates, Eliza Carthy, Teddy Thompson and The Imagined Village. Many of the same artists are back with Lush’s latest triple set, a selection of 30 hits from 1981-1991, ranging from Phil Collins’ ‘In the Air Tonight’ – set to accordion and piano – to Nirvana’s ‘Come as You Are’, reinterpreted by cellist Barney Morse-Brown. The gorgeous voice of Jackie Oates adorns The Cure’s ‘Untitled’ and Leonard Cohen’s ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’, while Martha Tilston is perfectly suited to Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’ and Eliza & Martin Carthy tackle ‘Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam’.

This now historical 20th-century repertoire, redolent of shiny shoulder-padded jackets rolled up to the elbow and the divisive excitements of Thatcherism, retains a huge audience in the third decade of the 21st century, and many a covers band in a wedding marquee has pulled out the songs you’ll find here. But I bet they didn’t sound like this. Perhaps modernity’s true folk music lies in these chart hits that really did sell in their millions (the corrosive income-stripper that is Spotify was a dystopian world away). Packed with musical contrasts, it’s music with a warm analogue glow to it.