New Direction b/w You are the Sun - 1985

 

The next single on the production line was New Direction, punningly known amongst the band as Nude Erection...recorded and issued on the crest of renewed popularity amongst the mods with a cover design to match and an attempt to appeal accordingly.  It has to be said that whoever the Lez Bradley was who designed these modish sleeves for certainly the later singles and most notably the How it all Began album, should have been taken out and shot, because they really were the most awful drawings you could concoct.  There was an idea to "let the fans do the sleeves" and I have to say that for me, well on reflection it didn't work.  The cover of Shout! was ok, but New Direction, How it all Began and Give it to Me were just so hopelessly amateurish that it was almost comical.  And good old Lez even put his address on the New Direction sleeve!  I guess what could be said in favour of the scheme was maybe that it was done as a cost-saving measure, which I suppose is fair enough.  I'll probably find out now that Lez Bradley was a pseudonym for someone known, and he'll come round and get me!

     New Direction's b-side was You are the Sun, a beautiful song and another one of a series of great lost and underrated Gents b-sides.