Happy 30th Anniversary to Adorable’s debut album Against Perfection, originally released March 1, 1993.
We can never predict what will endure. The friendships we think will last forever. The foods that once were our favorites. The songs we play on repeat all summer.
But, things we love in the moment get lost in time.
I have no answer for why this happens. Maybe our sensibilities shift or perhaps the desired object’s underlying lack of substance eventually eclipses its initial luster.
Sometimes, the disappearance hurts. Other times, the distance grows silently; its departure imperceptible.
As an avid music enthusiast for the past 32 years, I’ve been enraptured by hundreds, if not thousands, of songs. Yet, only a small percentage of them—and fewer albums still—persist in perpetuity, coaxing specific parts of my brain again and again.
And not that I would’ve thought to envision the answer, but I wouldn’t have guessed that a random radio find called “Homeboy” by a band with the coy name of Adorable would’ve accompanied me across three decades. However, the truth is: The incendiary “Homeboy”—and the entirety of Against Perfection, like the fiery flower enrobing its cover—still glisten.
As with so many transformative tracks, I’d first heard “Homeboy” on Live 105, San Francisco’s modern rock station—my preferred position on the dial throughout high school. I’d plant myself in front of my stereo, finger ready to pounce, and one day I finally caught the tune on tape. An encouraging feat, but it simply wouldn’t suffice. In the months that followed, I scoured every record store for an Adorable CD. Single, album or boot—I’d take anything.
One day in 1994, more than a year after its release, I finally found the Coventry-based quartet’s debut Against Perfection—a title I’d soon discover describes the tenor of the album, favoring purity over polish.
In an interview with Isolation, Adorable’s singer and guitarist Piotr Fijalkowski noted, “One of the things we were interested in were things that weren’t perfect and we liked the idea that basically it’s the imperfect things in people that make them interesting….We don’t like that perfect boy next door, we find him a bit irritating. We want people to be flawed. I always used to say my favourite James Bond film is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service with George Lazenby and the reason I like it is because he’s really flawed, not as an actor but the James Bond character is very fragile in it. He even cries in it and he is no longer this all-powerful person. He becomes a human being because he’s not perfect.”
Despite being the U.S. version of Against Perfection, the LP I espied lay in the imports section, quietly looming and patiently waiting to be snatched up by my all-too-eager arms. I stared at it elatedly, hardly believing it was finally in my hands. The price was double what I’d ever paid for a single-disc CD before, but there was nary a question: It was mine.
I’d heard opening track and premiere single “Sunshine Smile” on Live 105 before, but still felt a wash of unrestrained delight while the first verse filled my bedroom that evening: “And then she smiled / Just for fraction of a little while / And everything was warm again inside / She’s got a sunshine smile / The kind that warms up the corners of my cold room.” It’s a beautiful song—and I recall my pulse quickening when a crush once quoted the lyrics to me in an email—but fails to properly introduce the driving exuberance of the album.
Instead, the feisty, fuzzy subsequent “Glorious” (which opens both the UK and Japanese versions) rightfully galvanizes the album, glinting with devil-may-care momentum: “And then I awoke from a dream / I didn’t really want to / And then I heard your tiresome scream / I really don't need this / And then you said, ‘Where’s the sun?’ / Well, are you really so stupid / And I don't need you or anyone / Oh, this feeling is glorious.”
I’ve never been especially angsty, but I’ve long craved moments of catharsis. And, having no other place to unleash, I’d run circles around my room, bouncing to the punchy melodies and drinking in the dry wit and wisdom of Against Perfection, my mind alive in thrashing elation.
Listen to the Album:
Once during my freshman year of college, I was just out the dormitory door to class and promptly returned as if in a spell. I put on “Homeboy” as loudly as I’d ever played anything. Effusive, impassioned and darkly victorious, the song spills out poetically (“I’m tripping into the back of my mind / And your words like angels crash inside / And a word and a movement and a touch / And a word and a movement and it’s all too much / It’s all too much”), setting the stage for a wholly satisfying, if totally twisted, outburst of drama (“I want to drown beneath the waves / I want to dig myself a shallow grave / And hold you up for all to see / I want to cut you up, I want to watch you bleed, ever so slowly”).
Although the explosive track, engineered by production wonder Alan Moulder, suggests a tale of romance gone wrong, it’s hard to ascertain precisely what Fijalkowski had in mind when he uttered those murderous words. But, in such bloodletting mysteries, I suppose, lies its immortal charms.
The summer after freshman year, I was working two jobs, defeatedly driving home into the endless evening sun when “Homeboy” flitted onto the airwaves (Live 105, of course). Instantly, the weight of my oppressive routine lifted, a knotty mental tether blissfully untied.
And though I appreciate the psychological release that Against Perfection affords, I also relish its softer, more affectionate side.
The aforementioned “Sunshine Smile” and the swoony penultimate track (on the U.S. version) “Breathless” are sweet love songs which anyone with half a heartbeat would fall for, revealing the band’s emotional versatility—and vulnerability. From insouciant to somber to smitten, Against Perfection ably magnifies myriad moods, fulfilling any and every expectation for youthful exploration.
Yet, despite its lyrical spunk and instrumental brilliance, which I still actively endorse 30 years later, Against Perfection confoundingly is so rarely recognized. Although signed to Creation Records—home to the notable jangly post-punk The Jesus and Mary Chain and shoegaze masters like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, not to mention Britpop powerhouse Oasis—Adorable tragically never attained the level of appreciation and acclaim deserved.
In part, their timing was an issue. While boasting some noise and distortion elements that characterize shoegaze, Adorable were more of a rock band and, unfortunately, neither their label nor the press knew how to categorize or describe them. They were also a few months ahead of the Britpop mania and were all but forgotten by the time the genre really took hold.
Fijalkowski recalls, “I think after we finished the first album we felt really frustrated because we felt that we had delivered our part of the bargain. What I wanted to do was to create a band that was really special and do something worthwhile and valid, and we felt we had delivered that on our first album. Obviously, what we had failed to do was all the other trappings, and managing how we came across in the media. In that part we had failed miserably but musically we felt we had done everything we could. I genuinely don’t think we could have done a better album.”
As probably a direct result of their ephemeral success, I’ve never had the opportunity to see Adorable perform live. It pained me to realize they played three shows in the Bay Area in August 1993, but, as often has been the case, I was too young and too late—just on the periphery of gleaning their greatness.
Although Adorable never got their due, they’re no summer fling or passing obsession. For the fans fortunate enough to know them, they’ll always crash inside, reassuring us—eons later—that not everything we love gets lost in time.