After sufficiently spending the morning with pop masters Grant McLennan and Robert Forster, can someone please explain to me why The Go-Betweens were not, at one point, the biggest band on the face of the planet?

In terms of pure, perfect pop, nobody can touch this band, and this is coming from a gigantic Smiths fan (with whom they are often compared). Nearly every song in the entire Go-Betweens catalog could have easily topped the Billboard charts, yet somehow they never quite broke, taking the spot as one of the biggest and best cult bands of all time. Sadly, the band were trying to make a career out of this music thing, and when it became clear their poor sales weren’t going to turn around, they called it quits (they did, however, manage to reunite in the 2000’s with members of Sleater-Kinney, but that’s a whole different story).

Since it is currently clouding up outside, it seems fitting to share with you the video for “Spring Rain” from Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express, their “dark” opus from 1986.

Pop music, meet your master.