Is "There She Goes" the perfect pop song? Well, it has strong arguments. And the rest of the La's album is a collection of perfectly crafted under-3-minutes pop songs.
I listened to this album when it came out. I had it on tape but never bothered to buy it on cd. So it was a good album but I always felt that something was missing.
No matter how good these songs might be, they sounded too rooted in the 60's and they lacked that extra ingredient that makes a band special. Most of these songs could have been on any early Beatles' album. It's impossible to listen to the excellent "I Can't Sleep" and not think of the Who's "I Can't Explain". And "Failure" sounds like early Stones.
And there wasn't one Morrisey or Michael Stipe to add charisma to the whole package.
After almost 20 years, the La's finally made their way into my cd shelf through this deluxe-edition and they surely deserved it. There is definitely plenty of good song-writing here. As main bonus there is a different version of the album (the so called Mike Hedges Album) that sounds raw and lo-fi. In fact I prefer this version to the more polished original. So this is a must for fans.
Back to the question, is "There She Goes" the perfect pop song? Musically it's flawless but I always thought the lyrics about heroin just don't fit such a pretty song.
