Prefab Sprout - Two Wheels Good (Reissue) (2011)

Softening the thorny style of their debut, Swoon, for this 1985 follow-up, Prefab Sprout committed one of the decade's most profound pop moments with "When Love Breaks Down." A sad testament to "the wrecks who leave their hearts," it's anything but wistful. That sort of multileveled smarts didn't help the group with U.S. radio programmers, despite Two Wheels Good's nearly devotional approach to lushness of melody and production. Even better was to come in the form of 1990's Jordan: The Comeback. --Rickey Wright

Smart, sophisticated and timelessly stylish, Two Wheels Good (titled Steve McQueen throughout the rest of the world) is a minor classic, a shimmering jazz-pop masterpiece sparked by Paddy McAloon's witty and inventive songwriting. McAloon is a wickedly cavalier composer, his songs exploring human weaknesses like regret ("Bonny"), lust ("Appetite") and infidelity ("Horsin' Around") with cynical insight and sarcastic flair; he's also remarkably adaptable, easily switching gears from the faux-country of "Faron" to the stately pop grace of "Moving the River." At times, perhaps, his pretensions get the better of him (as on "Desire As"), while at other times his lyrics are perhaps too trenchant for their own good; at those moments, however, what keeps Two Wheels Good afloat is Thomas Dolby's lush production, which makes even the loftiest and most biting moments as easily palatable as the airiest adult-contemporary confection.