‘Think of it as Jaws in space.’
The high concept for Alien was designed to sell the idea as simply as possible; in the late 20th century the new principles of mass communication were to rely on a gross dumbing down of any message intended for public consumption.
The same principles were applied to many spheres of music, not least of which was an apparent trans-Atlantic fascination with the Celtic roots of acts like Simple Minds and U2, their output shifting post-Live Aid to ever more blank levels of emotional constipation.
It was a tack that ostensibly Cork’s Microdisney could’ve aped, their third album – 1985’s The Clock Comes Down The Stairs – regarded in many quarters as the finest produced by an Irish band that decade.