Echo & the Bunnymen

Earlier sessions with Gil Norton and the drummer David Palmer were scrapped. Pete de Freitas came back and the album was recorded again with Laurie Latham, in Cologne, Brussels, London and Liverpool. Ray Manzarek played keyboards on Bedbugs and Ballyhoo. It reached 4 in the UK and 51 in the US, and went Silver. Sergeant later called the production an overcooked fish.

The early Norton sessions took place at Conny Plank's studio in Cologne. Latham then re-recorded material in Brussels, sometimes spending up to a month on a single song. McCulloch had chosen him for his work on the Stranglers' Skin Deep. The label pressed for a more commercial sound, and Sergeant recalled Rob Dickins playing the band Peter Gabriel's So and saying he wanted them to sound like it. Reviews were mixed and the band disliked the mixing and production. The Guardian gave the reissue three stars.

Pitchfork's Joe Tangari called Lips Like Sugar a hook-heavy reverb bomb splattered over American college radio, and said the backward guitar solo on Lost and Found was more representative of the album as a whole. He added that the organ on Bedbugs and Ballyhoo is plainly Ray Manzarek of the Doors, who also guested on the band's cover of People Are Strange for The Lost Boys soundtrack in July 1987.