Q-Tips

An absolutely masterful slab of Scottish pop, the Q-Tips' sole studio LP featured future new wave crooner Paul Young as one of the founder members and rounded out a clutch of covers with original material that planted the band firmly in the vein of '60s-era Motown R&B and British blue-eyed soul. The band obviously love what they do and move flawlessly through nail-on interpretations of Marvin Gaye's "Some Kind of Wonderful," the Miracles' "Tracks of My Tears," and Joe Tex's 1966 smash "S.Y.S.L.I.F.M. (The Letter Song)" — the Q-Tips' first U.K. single. All have superlative arrangements of horn and guitar flourishes, with vocals that are at times a little enthusiastically off the mark but so good-spirited that they can't be faulted. As adept as the covers are, the band bring further credit to themselves across their own material, particularly on the Steve Blandamer-penned "A Man Can't Lose (What He Don't Have)," which is as soulfully grandiose as it is hushed, and on the melancholy ballad "You Are the Life Inside of Me," which relies heavily, and pleasingly, on classic guitar riffs. Both are so good they should have been covers — and it's a delight to find out that they are not. Although the octet took their album into the British charts in August 1980, where it peaked at number 50, they would fracture following the release of a live album, as members departed for their own pursuits. But still Q-Tips remains an indelible gold star on the face of Scottish soul. Like a long-forgotten secret, this guilty pleasure is a treat to revisit.