Prefab Sprout’s comeback gives hope to the over-50s

Every musical career has its own narrative, and most of them include at least one comeback. To come back, you first have to go away; then you have to stay away; and finally, when everyone has forgotten your name, you wander nonchalantly back under the arc-lights and wave modestly to screaming fans and waiting reporters. Well, that’s the plan, anyway. As has been discussed here before, the gaps between record releases for all but the most irresponsibly prolific artists have become so wide that simply making another album becomes a comeback in itself. Thus has the currency of the comeback been devalued. Sometimes it feels as though there’s a different one every day. A few of them could usefully have stayed away a little longer. Just occasionally, though, there’s the real thing. Artist has been silent or underperforming for years, then suddenly pops up with what breathless young critics, reading the press release, call ‘a return to form’. Again, long experience of comeback disappointment makes older and more cynical listeners unwilling to suspend disbelief. We have been caught that way before, too many times. Even rarer than the ‘comeback’ that is a real comeback is the ‘return to form’ that is a real return to form. Last year we had two that I know of, David Bowie (silent) and Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout (semi-silent, underperforming). That’s a lot for a single 12-month period, but you never know, there may have been even more. Prefab Sprout’s Crimson/Red (Kitchenware) is simply their best record in a quarter of a century. I say ‘their’, but of course it’s ‘his’ now. McAloon recorded the whole thing himself with computers, apparently in a shed. Long gone are drummer Neil Conti (1993) and backing singer Wendy Smith (late 1990s), and even Paddy’s bassist brother Martin hasn’t been heard since 2001.