Here's a review for The Housemartins The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death album from 1987 from famed rock critic Robert Christgau -

Pop this venomous constitutes a formal leap way beyond the reach of spewing "postmodernists" who can't distinguish between their own ugliness and the world's. Telling the farmer that Jesus hates him or begging Johannesburg not to make any fuss on their account, they're Christians after my own heart: they nurture a righteous rage, and aim it at the right targets. Couching their invective in choirboy cute or lacing their quiet melodies with sulphuric acid, they're subversives after my own heart as well: oppression hasn't sapped their lyricism. They're telling us they're indomitable. Wouldn't it be amazing if they turned out to be right?

which reminds me - Christgau reviewed Boomtown as well -

The upscale mixes and faux-soul exaggerations of generic AOR are such a turnoff that I wouldn't have played this twice if it hadn't been produced by Davitt Sigerson, who's made a career of justifying such mannerisms as critic and artist. Turns out it's got the goods technically--songs, hooks, subtle little touches. And not only do these two studio rats know the follies of their chosen profession, they don't romanticize them much--or else they romanticize them effectively, which is even rarer. Put it all together and maybe you end up with another piece of beautiful-loser mythology. But somehow this fallacy is acceptable in two guys you've actually never heard of, especially two guys with the guts (and interest) to apply their craft to at least one revolutionary fantasy. Sometimes winners are beautiful, too. A-