Luke Haines

by Andy KellmanWell regarded as one of the finest and most prolific songwriters in Britain, ex-Servant Luke Haines has helmed the glam noir of the Auteurs, the broken funk of Baader Meinhof, and the downbeat atmospherics of Black Box Recorder, in addition to releasing material under his own name. During the last seven years of the '90s, Haines issued six records that ranged from fine to spectacular. Since the Auteurs' debut, the Mercury Prize-nominated New Wave, Haines' level of talent as a songwriter and musician has proved to be difficult to measure. Whether mixed in metaphors or straight-to-the-point, Haines' compositions display sly marksmanship, perfectly capable of placing a keen eye on class, politics, sex, and lifestyles of the urban and suburban. Despite the less than upbeat nature of his subject matter, he's an unapologetic pop songwriter. A Haines melody is the equivalent of receiving a knock on the door from someone offering a candygram; but a Haines lyric is the equivalent of discovering that the candygram is being delivered by a land shark.
Hot on the heels of the critical and commercial success of Black Box Recorder's second album, 2000's The Facts of Life (the title track hit the upper reaches of the U.K. singles chart), Haines issued his first solo recordings. Christie Malry's Own Double Entry and The Oliver Twist Manifesto were released within a couple months of each other in mid-2001. The former is a soundtrack to the darkly comic film of the same name, and the latter found Haines flirting further with hip hop production techniques. During the week of its release, Haines called for a week-long National Pop Strike, a period in which any musician could turn in his or her wares and receive amnesty for any and all "crimes" committed against pop.