The La's

Mavers claimed 12 sets of sessions, nine drummers, seven producers, about three years and reportedly a million pounds, none of it finished; Go! Discs released the Lillywhite version built from backing tapes and guide vocals, per Classic Pop. Lillywhite told MusicRadar that he knew the songs were absolute diamonds but getting them on tape wasn't so easy, and that if one song went wrong Mavers would consider the rest bad and the band restarted. Hedges recorded 35 songs per Albumism, and told it his standards were so high that you're never going to reach them. Bob Andrews produced "There She Goes" and Mark Wallis added production and engineering. Mavers wrote every song. It reached 196 on the Billboard 200.

AllMusic gave 4.5 stars, Entertainment Weekly an A-plus, NME 8 of 10, Q 5 stars and the Village Voice an A-minus; Christgau said Mavers has the gift. NME placed it around 153 on its 2013 list of the 500 greatest albums, and Pitchfork 14th among the 50 best Britpop albums. "Timeless Melody" was planned as a single and aborted after test pressings.