Ocean Colour Scene

After Cradock joined the band, they signed a deal with John Mostyn, the Birmingham-based manager behind Fine Young Cannibals, Alison Moyet, and The Beat. "In the '80s, he was kind of Mr. Birmingham," Fowler said. "He set up a label, so the deal was waiting for us."

The name Ocean Colour Scene was chosen simply by browsing library books and combining words the band liked; no symbolism, just something that sounded right. "We didn't want it to be 'The something,' because we thought that was too retro," Steve Cradock said on The Leona Graham Podcast. "And then also there's a lot of bands around, like Blur and Pulp with just sort of monosyllabic names and so we didn't wanna go that way either." So, the band spent a week in Solihull Library. "We were going through all of the film books - the film guide books - looking for names in there," Cradock added, "and it took us a week and then we just sat on it because it didn't sound like anything else."

Their debut single, "Sway" (1990), was released in September 1990, and the band were initially grouped with the Madchester and baggy scene. In hindsight, they felt that association hurt them. The label remixed their self-titled debut album trying to chase trends, but it flopped, leaving the band broke and briefly back on the dole. "We started recording the first album with Jimmy Miller, who was the Rolling Stones producer from '67 through to '74," Fowler told Songwriting Magazine. "Basically, it didn't really work out with him, so it was re-recorded. By the time it came out, we weren't interested in it; everyone else was into Nirvana."