The Waterboys

Stripping away some of the U2-like arena ambition that popped up in their early releases, Mike Scott and the Waterboys found a perfect niche on this fantastic 1988 LP. The album plays like an Irish version of the Band or Fairport Convention: simple folk songs delivered within a rock context, sounding very much alive.

While U2 was off discovering America, Mike Scott and crew relocated from Glasgow to
Dublin to draw inspiration from Irish character and culture. The first sound on the
Waterboys' fourth album is a spirited fiddle; the first sound to escape Mike Scott's mouth a
life-filled whoop; the last song a gently moving reading of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats's "Stolen
Child," featuring passages spoken by Tomás McKeown, a Galway-bred traditional... More >