‘Mystery man’ is from one of those strange albums that the music industry throws up every now and again – a fantastic album that no one has ever heard. 

Released in 1991, despite a few rave reviews and inclusion on a couple of critics’ best-of-the-year lists, ’24 Years Of Hunger’ barely registered before sinking into obscurity and deletion. Which is where it has remained ever since. 

One of the reasons it didn’t break through is that ‘Mystery Man’, the most arresting song on the album, was over-looked as a single in favour of two other very good but less dramatic songs. In hindsight, sounds a little like someone was playing safe whereas they should have taken the plunge. 

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So in ABON 0046 I rather cavalierly concluded that Robert Smith is a great songwriter but that some of The Cure’s recorded output can occasionally be a little too loose or lethargic and might benefit from the surgical insertion of a thumping, drum-based backbone. Well…

In 1989 there were signs of a new rock revolution that was beginning to take over the World. Or at least the third of the World that wasn’t taking E’s and dancing, or pretending to be Iceberg Slim and rapping. Grunge was looming on the horizon. Which meant guitars, noise, guitars, feedback, guitars, mess and guitars were back. And loud and exciting again after a mid ’80′s that was either keyboard dominated or used the guitar in an admittedly often beautiful, but more jingle-jangle manner. The revolution was rarely better demonstrated than when J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and his very loud and very definitively non jingle-jangle guitar were on top form. And he was on this occasion when he took The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’ and proceded to inject into it that much-needed bit of backbone while beating it to within an inch of its life in the process.

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1985 was a low point in recent music history. The experimentation of the Post Punk phenomenon was over. Even Hip Hop and Rap were taking a breather after the first initial boom. Grunge, Britpop and Acid and Rave were still just over the horizon. We were in a transitional phase – waiting for the next mini revolution or two. This wasn’t the first time music had paused whilst catching its breath and as a result produced little of worth. 1961 and 1962 had seen similar low points – caught between the heyday of Rock’n'Roll and the first offerings of what would become the British Invasion bands, the Surfin’ Scene and the Spector Wall of Sound.

The Throwing Muses were one of the first groups to show a way forward post 1985 that was as exciting and fresh as the first few years of the ’80′s had been.

‘Hate My Way’ is from their 1986 debut album. It was written and sung by Kristin Hersh. In addition to being a great singer and guitarist, Kristin is also a very special songwriter. She manages to create songs about some of life’s blackest themes – mental illness, suicide, death, anorexia – that are, despite their subject matter, often things of fragile beauty. And ‘Hate My Way’ is a prime example of a potentially very dark lyric being at the heart of, and the springboard for, a very beautiful and, I think, moving song. So how does she do it? Why is this song beautiful and life-affirming rather than ugly and depressing?

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