Pillow Lips is an album by the English band Modern English, released in 1990.[3][4] It contains a rerecorded version of "I Melt with You", which charted.[5] The album peaked at No. 135 on the Billboard 200.[6] The band again broke up after promoting Pillow Lips.[7]
Production
The album was written over a period of 18 months, and was produced by Pat Collier.[8][9][10] Modern English recorded it as a trio.[11]
Entertainment Weekly wrote that "even the lightest, most eager and abandoned melodies on this album tap a deeper vein of feeling than most songs do."[16]Trouser Press thought that "the diverse record contains some easy-to-like bounce-pop ('Beauty', 'Care About You') but other tracks either drift along listlessly (like the enervated title tune) or sag under clichéd lyrics ('Life's Rich Tapestry'...) and equally unimaginative melodies."[17]
The Ottawa Citizen stated that, "now with the band trimmed back to a trio, the sound is tighter, the spirit more lively, and the approach better conceived."[14] The Los Angeles Times concluded that the album was "recorded without a permanent lead guitarist in the group and suffers accordingly, with a thin, techno-pop approach somewhere between OMD and late-period Sparks."[18]The Dallas Morning News determined that, "having provided us a near-perfect pop song, the group now delivers a hodgepodge that includes everything from neo-Modern English to country to watered-down Big Audio Dynamite."[19]
AllMusic noted that "older fans of the band despaired of their new, slicker variant."[12]
