Line #66 Music/LloydCole


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lloyd_cole_mainstream.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:The Commotions' Third Album]]
3	-> I was looking for a rhyme for the New York Times\
4	When I sensed I was not alone\
5	She said, "Do you know how to spell audaciously?"\
6	I could tell I was in love.
7	--> "Charlotte Street"
8	Lloyd Cole (b. 31st January 1961) is an English rock/pop singer and songwriter, though he formed his first band in Scotland and is currently based in the USA. He first emerged as the lead singer of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, who formed in Glasgow in 1982 and had four top twenty albums in the UK between 1984 and 1989. The other members were Blair Cowan (keyboards), Lawrence Donegan (bass), Neil Clark (guitar), and Stephen Irvine (drums).
9
10	Cole then went solo, and has recorded a dozen albums as of 2023. The Commotions briefly reformed in 2004 to mark the 20th anniversary of their first album, ''Rattlesnakes,'' but this was never intended to be permanent.
11
12	----
13
14	!!! Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Albums
15	* ''Rattlesnakes'' (1984)
16	* ''Easy Pieces'' (1985)
17	* ''Mainstream'' (1987)
18	* ''1984–1989'', A "best of" album released to close out the band's career (1989)
19
20	!!! Lloyd Cole Solo Albums
21	* ''Lloyd Cole'' (1990)
22	* ''Don't Get Weird on Me Babe'' (1991)
23	* ''Bad Vibes'' (1993)
24	* ''Love Story'' (1995)
25	* ''Plastic Wood'' (2001)
26	* ''Music in a Foreign Language'' (2003)
27	* ''Antidepressant'' (2006)
28	* ''Broken Record'' (2010)
29	* ''Standards'' (2013)
30	* ''1D Electronics 2012–2014'' (2015)
31	* ''Guesswork'' (2019)
32	* ''On Pain'' (2023)
33
34	!! Tropes in Lloyd Cole Songs:
35	* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: "Lost Weekend" has "It took a lost wee-KEND in a HO-tel in AM-sterdam".
36	* AnAesop: "Perfect Skin"
37	-->Strikes me, the moral of this song must be: there never has been one.
38	* AnswerSong: Camera Obscura recorded "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" as a response to the Commotions' "Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?"
39	* TheCasanova: The target/subject of "Down On Mission Street" is a cold-hearted seducer who has just hurt his latest girl -- though apparently, she initially picked him up.
40	-->God only knows how you can hurt her\
41	When you know that's what you do\
42	How does it feel to be so cruel?\
43	Will you never be contented with your life\
44	Will you always be the one who won't look back?
45	* ChainedToARailway: In "Brand New Friend", the dysfunctional pair "swore and lied that we'd tie ourself to the railway line", but they were all mouth.
46	* DrugsAreBad:
47	** Possibly the point of "I Hate To See You Doing That Stuff", though what "That Stuff" might be remains unstated.
48	** "The Idiot" depicts the time spent by Music/DavidBowie and Music/IggyPop in Berlin as an attempt to "Stop being drug addicts", and asks (from their point of view) "How are we still alive?"
49	* GranolaGirl: "So You'd Like To Save The World" is about trying to woo one of these by being as cynical as possible.
50	-->I suggest you start one person at a time\
51	And start with me
52	* HappilyFailedSuicide: "Minor Character" depicts a very undecided girl -- she threatens to throw herself from a bridge, but is laughed out of it. Cutting her wrists is also just an announcement.
53	* LampshadeHanging: "Forest Fire" concludes that its own title "is just a simple metaphor for a burning love."
54	* LiarsParadox: "Opposites Day" has the two-sentence variant ("The next line is the truth\| The last line was a lie" and later "The next line is a lie\|This one is the truth"), both being equivalent to the standard paradox.
55	* OdeToIntoxication: "My Bag" appeared to be such to a cocaine high, though Lawrence Donegan maintained that the guy in the song is an idiot when interviewed in 1987.
56	* RhymingWithItself: In the form of a very clever homophone in "2CV":
57	-->All we ever shared was a taste in clothes\
58	oh we were never close
59	* ShoutOut: Cole is very prone to shout-outs and specific cultural references. For example:
60	** "Rattlesnakes" uses a little name-dropping to establish something about the woman it describes:
61	--->She looks like Creator/EvaMarieSaint in Film/OnTheWaterfront\
62	She reads [[UsefulNotes/{{Existentialism}} Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance]]...
63	** "Perfect Skin" uses references both descriptively and to establish character:
64	--->She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin\
65	And she's sexually enlightened by Magazine/{{Cosmopolitan}}...\
66	...\
67	At the age of ten she looked like Creator/GretaGarbo...
68	** "Andy's Babies" is about the Music/VelvetUnderground.
69	** "The Idiot" is clearly about Music/DavidBowie and Music/IggyPop and their Berlin period.
70	--->We'll move to Berlin\
71	[[DrugsAreBad Stop being drug addicts]]\
72	We'll cycle and swim\
73	Stop being drug addicts\
74	We'll rent an efficiency\
75	You'll take the serious guise\
76	I'll be Music/TheIdiot
77	* SillyLoveSongs: A lot of Cole's songs are about love and romance, but he routinely {{subvert\|edTrope}}s the trope by adding a wry twist. For example, "Undressed" admits that love may be tangled up with {{lust}}, and that the lover may not mind his beloved being sad if she looks good when she's depressed.
78	* WideEyedIdealist: The singer of "Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?" clearly thinks that the person being addressed is dangerously naive -- hence the title question.
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Context Music / LloydCole