Pelican West (1982)

Pelican West is the debut studio album by the British new wave band Haircut One Hundred, released on 26 February 1982 by Arista Records. It peaked at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 31 on the Billboard 200, and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

The album featured three hit singles: "Love Plus One", "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)" and "Fantastic Day". It was reissued on CD in 1992, retitled as Pelican West Plus and including five bonus tracks.

Frontman Nick Heyward later said, "It was a team effort, and everyone had their roles. My job was like the Paul McCartney one in the Beatles' Get Back film. The rest of the guys looked to me for direction, and I had to push them to turn these glorified jam sessions into three-minute pop songs."

Critical reception

Pelican West was well received by contemporary critics. In the NME, Danny Baker commented that the album "contains some of the most summery, stylish and extravagantly repeatable music since Countdown to Ecstasy", concluding that "Haircut One Hundred have made the lightweight – there's no other kind – masterpiece of the decade." Smash Hits reviewer David Hepworth was impressed by "the winning vocals, the sturdy, flexible rhythm section, creamy saxophone, the poignant, exhilarating and thoroughly British songs", adding, "Haircuts know just how far they can spin out their compositions and never resort to empty mannerisms." Dave McCullough of Sounds highlighted the songs' unexpectedly "terse musicality", while Mike Nicholls of Record Mirror said that the group had "blossomed" from "a slight trio tentatively coming to terms with the groove ... into a fully-fledged dance brigade whose abundance of ideas is matched only by their finesse." Although finding the album underdeveloped, Melody Maker's Ian Pye stated that "as it is this could still be the party album of 1982".

In a less enthusiastic review for Rolling Stone, J. D. Considine felt that Haircut One Hundred's "stylized and largely ineffectual funk" undermined Nick Heyward's talents as a songwriter, while in The Village Voice, Robert Christgau dismissively compared the band to the Doobie Brothers. Following the 1992 release of the reissue Pelican West Plus, Andrew Perry mocked the original album in Select as "teeth-grindingly twee" and suggested that it had been championed by "critics combating the onset of middle age by celebrating the infantile".

Among later retrospective appraisals, Record Collector's Mark Elliott dubbed Pelican West "a true 80s classic that captures that 1982 zeitgeist with every breezy sax flourish and fey lyrical twist." In Classic Pop, Paul Lester said that it "was a fabulous piece of work then and remains so now, a gorgeous marriage of pop melody and funk rhythm, shot through with the peculiar worldview of Nick Heyward". Tim Sendra of AllMusic wrote that Haircut One Hundred excelled at "escapist, but never mindless fun, and on Pelican West they bury their arrows dead center in the middle of that target." It was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2006), with critic David Nichols noting in an accompanying essay that "Heyward's non-ironic love for pop shows through in every track."

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.

• Haircut One Hundred
• Nick Heyward – vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar
• Les Nemes – bass guitar
• Graham Jones – guitar
• Phil Smith – saxophone, brass arrangements
• Marc Fox – congas, percussion
• Blair Cunningham – drums
• Additional musicians
• Herschel Holder – trumpet
• Dave Lord – trumpet
• Vince Sullivan – trombone
• Production
• Bob Sargeant – production
• Mark Dearnley – engineering
• Dave Kemp – engineering
• David Shortt – art direction
• Gered Mankowitz – photography
• Peter Hill – sleeve art
• Karl Adams – management

Cultural references

In the 1983 Central TV science fiction series Luna - first series episode two "The Clunkman Cometh" - the villainous Clunkman accepts a copy of the album as payment for alien pet Jazzmine - he reckons the album will be valuable although he himself dislikes "classical music".