Rocktrospectiva: The Finest "Laughter" Turns 35

 

Released on 11 September 1989 "Laughter" was the third studio album by English alternative rock band "The Mighty Lemon Drops., it was the first album to feature "David Newton" as the primary songwriter, the album spawned two singles "Into The Heart Of Love" with peaked the modern rock singles at Billboard and also "Where Do We Go From Heaven". 

 

The album offered and interesting vocal arrangements and tasteful guitar, The Mighty Lemon Drops, decided in early 1989 to name their new album Laughter to reflect the group's shift in musical direction focuses into a more pop sound and to distance themselves from other bands with whom they had often been compared. There's definitely more lightness as opposed to all the dark stuff we've done. due the band wanted to lose all that. This really impressed people with this new sound direction and also the Press found a more opened style that set the band apart their doomed and gloomy sound in the line of  Echo and the Bunnymen.

 

The recordings were sort of difficult, during the sessions for Laughter, bassist and co-writer Tony Linehan left the band after recording two tracks for the album, "All That I Can Do" and "Second Time Around". According to Newton on Lineham departure: "We had spent the best part of four years with each other most days, and that will magnify any differences personality-wise or musically you might have. It was a stupid situation really and Tony now considers it a mistake on his part to leave, but we were also still quite young and things like this happen, Marcus Williams joined the band as the new replacement, this brought a new fresh approach that result in a more pop friendly sound featuring a horn section, layered guitars and a fantastic vivid live sound, remarkable tracks are "Into The Heart Of Love", "Where Do We Go From Heaven", the raw vibrant energy on "Happy Head" and the tighter "World Without End"  

 

Their two singles the album produced hit the jackpot, "Into The Heart Of Love" peaked No. 5 on Modern Rock Tracks chart, and "Where Do We Go From Heaven" peaked No. 8, this proppeled the album to reach No. 195 on the Billboard 200 in March 1990. The critics called the album a fantastic released and the band's far best, althought in the UK the enthusiasm was less positive, but at least this helped the band the join The Ocean Blue and John Wesley Harding on a 70-date concert tour in the U.S.

 

Laughter Track List: 

 

1. At Midnight

2. Into The Heart Of Love

3. Where Do We Go From Heaven

4. The Heartbreak Thing

5. One In A Million

6. Written In Fiction

7. The Real World

8. All That I Can Do

9. Second Time Around

10. Beautiful Shame