Stereo Embers: The Podcast

“Hard To Get" My fascination with Starclub is kind of like one of those people who has a fascination with an unsolved murder. You put the pieces together and none of them make sense. You had this British band made up of schoolboy friends who knew each other since they were 11. They signed the biggest deal for a debut album in the history of anyone on the roster of Island Records (U2, Bob Marley). With “Hard To Get” they released a scorcher of a single that was the perfect embodiment of the manic pop thrill and a few weeks later their album hit shelves. So: you’ve got a great band, a great debut album, a charismatic and handsome frontman--what could go wrong? Well, in many ways, everything did. Starclub had their triumphs, but ultimately, their major label deal sucked the life out of the band and hastened their premature demise. For the '90s and the better part of the oughts, I was utterly lost about why this band hadn’t taken over the world. In fact, at one point in the early '90s I said to my friends that S