Back in the early 90s I remember writing a letter to NME (or it may have been Melody Maker, I can’t quite remember). I was annoyed at the amount of hype they were giving to a couple of new bands, undeservedly I felt. The bands in question were Suede & The Verve (or Verve as they were at the time). I thought these two bands were overrated and that the band that should be getting the attention was Adorable, who I thought deserved to be absolutely huge. As I often say, my predictions are almost always wrong.
The reason I thought this was due to their début single, Sunshine Smile. A splendid mix of fuzzy guitars and a thundering rhythm, the song was a call to arms: it came out in 1992, as shoegazing was starting to wane but before Britpop had hit. In many ways Adorable were a dry run for Oasis – signed to Creation, front-man Piotr Fijalkowski had a knack for giving good quote, although he had both the gob of Liam and the brains of Noel. According to Wikipedia Oasis have quoted Adorable as an influence, and certainly early Oasis singles bear a passing resemblance to Adorable’s sound, which took shoegazing style guitars and added a dose of pop sensibilities & rock tempos.
Obviously Adorable weren’t huge. They hit the top end of the Indie Charts a few times, with Sunshine Smile as well as the equally excellent singles Homeboy & Sistine Chapel Ceiling. Unfortunately their (excellent) debut album, Against Perfection, failed to do much business at all, and after releasing another, much weaker second album, they split in 1994. By then of course both Suede & The Verve had been surpassed by the meteoric rise of Oasis and whilst my 17 year old self was probably wrong, Adorable certainly left some amazing tracks for us to remember them by.
Subshine smile by fdecomite on flickr