Lene Lovich

Among new wave’s more idiosyncratic personalities, Lene Lovich fused eccentric artistic leanings with an ear for concise pop melodies, a blend that drew her to Stiff Records, the imprint known for embracing such eccentricities. The label turned her buoyant “Lucky Number” into a surprise U.K. Top Ten entry in 1979, momentum that sustained modest chart activity through the first years of the following decade. By the early 1990s she had withdrawn from recording, yet she mounted sporadic returns in later decades, among them the 2005 album Shadows and Dust.

Born March 30, 1949, in Detroit, Michigan, Lene Lovich lived in the United States until age thirteen, when her mother relocated her and her three siblings to Hull, England, in 1962. There she encountered guitarist Les Chappell, who became both her musical partner and longtime companion. The couple settled in London in 1968, enrolling in art school and immersing themselves in a bohemian milieu. Lovich spent subsequent years traveling across Europe, performing as a dancer, busking, and taking part in experimental theater productions, experiences she would later channel into her recordings. Before that, however, she played with the short-lived group Diversions, which issued one album on Polydor before disbanding.

In 1976 she cut a Polydor single of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” then joined French dance artist Cerrone for the track “Supernature.” The following year Lovich and Chappell reworked Tommy James & the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now,” a version that prompted Dave Robinson to sign her to Stiff. After the label reissued the single, it released “Lucky Number,” which climbed to number three on the British charts.

Capitalizing on that breakthrough, Lovich joined the Be Stiff Route 78 tour and hurriedly completed her debut album, Stateless. The extracted single “Say When” reached number nineteen. Her second album, Flex, surfaced in 1979 alongside the single “Bird Song,” while the 1981 New Toy EP yielded a Thomas Dolby-penned title track that became a U.S. dance success.

No Man’s Land ended her most commercially active period in 1982, registering modestly on Billboard in the United States yet failing to appear on the U.K. charts. She resurfaced in 1987 with “Don’t Kill the Animals,” a duet with Nina Hagen featured on WaxTrax’s PETA benefit compilation of the same name. Two years later Pathfinder Records issued March, after which she stepped away from music. Sixteen years later she returned with Shadows and Dust in 2005. Around its release she resumed live appearances, sharing stages with Hawkwind and the Dresden Dolls. Performances continued into the early 2010s; in 2012 she formed the Lene Lovich Band with Subterraneans guitarist Jude Rawlins, and the pair also reissued her Stiff catalog on Flex Music. Ten years afterward the same material was compiled by Cherry Red as the four-disc box Toy Box: The Stiff Years 1978-1983.