While still at my beloved student newspaper, Nouse, I started what would be an anthology of my five all-time favourite cult heroes. Essays, Dissertations and my unending laziness got in the way yet despite my flaws I am unusually adamant that as soon as I start something I must see it through till the very end. This mystical anthology must continue….
Cult Heroes is a 5-piece anthology detailing the musical careers of music’s greatest lesser lights. The general requirement is that the act or musician must not be generally recognised by the majority of the public. However, these acts through their music have developed a small, but fervent ‘cult’ following. Each piece will introduce the reader to a number of the artist’s finest moments and acclimatize them to the artist’s sound. 
Cue 1989, a distinctly weak year for British music. Simply Red, Phil Collins and Chris Rea dominated the charts, as easy-listening music made by middle-aged, white men became the norm to the ire of our nations youth. Then along come The Sundays fronted by couple Harriet Wheeler and Guitarist David Gavurin. Having met at Bristol University they emigrated to London soon after graduation and began writing songs merely to pass the time of day. Not wishing to become pop stars in the slightest their Smiths inspired jangly indie pop caught the attention of the music press and soon thereafter created a record label bidding frenzy. Gavurin and Wheeler’s wish to remain out of the limelight has most likely contributed to their status as cult heroes like similar privacy seekers Kate Bush and Elisabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins, Massive Attack) – the legend grows the less time spent in front of the camera.
Very rarely does a voice come along that is able to reach for the heavens while remaining delicately telluric – a paradox if ever there was one. Harriet Wheeler is that voice. At once floating across notes with graceful ease, her slight cockney tone carries an air of plucky resolve that grounds itself firmly within a time and place. The infantile delicacy of Wheeler singing about watching the 1969 moon landing as a young girl (“Monochrome”) to that moment of uncertainty over the future that all young adults of a certain age are faced with (“Can’t be Sure”), Wheeler’s voice has an indelible ability to transport the listener to wherever she may choose. Here are her five best vocal and lyrical performances:
5) ‘Can’t Be Sure’ from Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990) – The Sundays’ first single, championed by the late great John Peel. ‘Can’t be Sure’ is a melancholic, bittersweet waltz centring on the staunch defiance that comes to define us around the age of 21, that this life we lead is now ours along with all the conflicts of the heart and mind – “it’s my life, And though I can’t be sure what I want any more, It will come to me later”. While the lyrics may be a tad rudimentary, Wheelers expressive vocals paint a million different interpretations unveiling hidden depths behind her simple refrains. Light and breezy, full of Wheeler’s adolescent yearning and Gavurin’s delicate arpeggiated guitar work, 80’s indie doesn’t get much more gorgeous. 
4) ‘Wild Horses’ from Blind (1992) – This Jagger & Richards penned classic is lifted by Wheeler’s vivacious, fragile voice. Covers are more often than not received with much scorn, failing to advance upon the original recording. Apart from an extra spoonful of delay, The Sundays decide not to stray too far from The Stones’ arrangement, using the song as a showcase for Wheelers triumphant vocal to skip through this lilting epic with all her expressive grace and majesty. The stand out track on what was an admittedly disappointing sophomore effort.
3) ‘Monochrome’ from Static & Silence (1997) – Led in by horns that sound like they were plucked from a late evening vigil, Wheeler transports us to her child self with a naive energy that is as charismatic as it is tender. Her lyrics had become more nuanced by the third album as she romantically makes the Apollo 11 crew sound like two star-crossed lovers – “They’re dancing around, Slow puppets silver ground”. If rumours of an upcoming Sundays’ reunion are not forthcoming, “Monochrome” will stand as their enchanting swan song, an embodiment of everything that dream pop should and could be.
2) ‘My Finest Hour’ from Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990)- The 90’s was a renaissance period for dream pop, with shoe gaze bands Slowdive and Pale Saints utilising its ethereal properties to great success and American, female fronted bands Mazzy Star and 10,000 Maniacs. The Sundays were at the forefront of the movement, indelibly British with the ability to tug at the heartstrings like no other band in the period could. ‘My Finest Hour’ comes very close to its prophetic title. Wheeler’s charms lies in her humanistic doubts and worries – “the words came stumbling out of my mouth, And then I went tumbling out”. The music that attracts the 
most devotion is always able to manipulate the human notion of empathy to create a connection between band and consumer. We feel as they feel, see as they see and the world they paint as artists enrapture us and draws us in.
1) ‘Here’s Where The Story Ends’ from Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990) – Days and weeks can be lost looking up at the clouds, as their shapes morph and pass one by with a gentle tranquility that takes us beyond the world which surrounds us. Here’s Where The Story Ends is that one song, that lilting, transcendental experience which will stay deep within you from day-to-day. The Sunday’s music evokes feelings of childhood, when our whole world flows with a carefree spirit lost as soon as our adult years creep up on us. Nostalgia is a powerful creature, able to stir up a multitude of emotions we didn’t even know we could feel. Wheeler’s lyrics are heavily reliant on that ability to look to the past to make us feel in the present – “It’s that little souvenir of a colourful year, Which makes me smile inside”. Their biggest international hit (topping the U.S. Modern Rock Tracks chart for one week) the song won Gavurin and Wheeler an Ivor Novello award in songwriting 9 years after its release when covered by electronic music duo Tin Tin Out. The Sundays’ finest moment.
Our Broken Record 