Albums: The La's, The La's - BBC In Session, There She Goes

The La's were for all intents and purposes Lee Mavers and John Power. Lee wrote the songs, had the vision, and provided the general masterplan for what The La's were about; proper songs, strong melodies. John provided the Bass, harmonies and endless amounts of enthusiasim.

Most people know The La's because of one song - 'There She Goes', a classic piece of pop songwriting that still sounds as utterly fantastic today as it did when originally released in 1988. The La's wrote many, many more wonderful songs, tunes that evoke the memory of Merseybeat, the artistic purity of Captain Beefheart and the psychedelic vision of Syd Barrett, but still perfectly capture the time and place for which they were written. The Liverpool Lee Mavers wrote about was a very different place from the one The Beatles knew.

Times had changed, times were hard. But Mavers didn't let that stop him celebrating the strength and courage of its people, and from celebrating the beauty in life, no matter what the circumstances. Lee Mavers was a relentless perfectionist, and at was this quest for absolute perfection or nothing at all that resulted in The La's releasing only one album, a self-titled LP that is hailed by many as a modern classic and a blueprint for the so-called 'Britpop' sound that would later dominate the music scene of the mid 90s.

Mavers himself hated the LP, dismissing it as a crude caricature of what The La's were about. Many fans agree. There are dozens of different versions of the LP, some of which have now been given official releases.

But no matter which version you hear, the beauty of the songs will shine through. "Songs are just about passing on a feeling" said Mavers. For him, and the many fans of his band, nothing else matters.

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