A Flock of Seagulls - Modern Love is Automatic (1981)

This is a song about a robot and an alien who fall in love in Japan; the alien is incarcerated, but (as the rest of the album implies) he calls through space and initiates an invasion of Earth.

That was the genius of Mike Score, lead singer of A Flock of Seagulls, yes the one with the hair. aFoS in its prime only lasted 3 albums before its equally-genius guitarist Paul Reynolds left, and its subsequent albums were mediocre. But in their prime they produced a number of high-quality songs. “Modern Love is Automatic” was not only the first song of their best-selling 1982 eponymous album (which included the hits “I Ran” and “Space Age Love Song”) but it was also a track on their 1981 ep named after this song.

As a songwriter, Mike Score was susceptible to cliched lines (in this song, “they should know better by now” for example) but in his defense he was in his early 20s when he wrote it. And his ability to write memorable lines was a large part of what made their hits successful. Their third album “Story of a Young Heart” had only a single moderate hit (“The More You Live The More You Love”) but the album as a whole told the story of a young man who committed suicide, exploring the associated emotions and events with a depth that suggested the band as a whole was growing.

Unfortunately it did not happen. The pressures of touring (perhaps exacerbated by Score’s demanding nature) led to Thompson’s leaving, and the band’s rapid decline. In some alternate universe the band stayed together and put out a number of additional first-class albums, perhaps in the same vein as Tears for Fears or Depeche Mode. If only there were an alien or a robot in that alternate universe who could transmit those albums to us. Instead, let us appreciate the songs that we do have, one of the best of which is “Modern Love is Automatic”.