The Associates: Popera

ONCE UPON A time (the early '80s), there was something called "new pop". For about a year Morley's pipedream of a chartbusting music that combined pop's flash and dazzle with post-punk's perplexity and unease, come true. Glamour; danceability, luxury, the lore of romance, were revelled in and unravelled, simultaneously, thanks to a creed of "passionate irony".