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120 REASONS TO LIVE

120 Reasons To Live: Lush

Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.

#77: Lush “Ladykillers”

This 1992 Lollapalooza tour diary by Lush bassist Phil King illustrates the early-’90s disconnect between English and American music scenes better than we ever could, although the part where Lush frontwoman Miki Berenyi stage-dives during Ministry’s set and is taken to the hospital undercuts the divide somewhat. Most people on Earth prefer to remember Lush as card-carrying, attractive, ethereal members of the U.K.’s shoegaze movement, but the group’s last album (1996’s Lovelife) ditched the wall of effects pedals and embarked on an Elastica-esque run at Britpop glory. (Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker even duets with Berenyi on the album.) “Ladykillers” was the most compact, direct single from Lovelife, Lush’s best-selling album and a promising restart for the band before it all came crashing down with the suicide of drummer Chris Acland six months after the record was released.