‘We were banging our heads against a wall – the wall won’: the genius pop and tragic demise of Boys Wonder

They swaggered into the late 1980s, a potent brew of punk, glam and basic rock. But they went nowhere, then had to watch as their recipe conquered the charts. Now they’ve returned – so are they wanting back in anger?

The music begins with a barrage of power chords, overtly stolen from the Who’s Gained’t Get Fooled Once more. The opening lyrics are mewled out in an estuary accent: “I get bored so easily – that’s why I solely say howdy.” And the listing of influences from right here consists of the Intercourse Pistols and Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie – earlier than it ends with a brazen carry of the coda from the Beatles’ version of Twist and Shout. When it will get to the chorus, every thing becomes clear: this can be a ferocious, wonderfully camp blast towards the stifling cultural dominance of basic Americana: “Goodbye Jimmy Dean, don’t inform me what to wear / So long Monroe, if anyone cares.”

All this may recommend a lost basic from the mid-1990s, and the gaudy wonders of Britpop. However Goodbye Jimmy Dean was truly by Boys Wonder, a visionary band whose star rose and fell between 1986 and 1988. They have been about eight years ahead of their time, and on reflection, their chronically awkward fit with their era was in all probability all the time going to be their undoing. But while they lasted, they have been great. In 1987, I noticed them acting on the Channel four comedy show Saturday Stay, swaggeringly delivering one other three-minute manifesto titled Shine on Me. I was smitten, however given their large-scale blanking by the music press (and the truth that the world large net had yet to be invented), I used to be left questioning what on earth had occurred to them.