@stuartk: Ah, okay. I hadn't seen that interview. Interesting.
Another disappointment from the group was their sole Little Village album. I just a coupla days ago read a quote from Nick Lowe about it:
"Little Village was really good fun. Unfortunately, the record we did was no good. I suppose on some level it worked, but Warner Brothers kind of gave us too much time to do it."
So he puts the blame on Warner Brothers?! I have always assigned the blame to the group's decision to establish the ground rule of forbidding the recording of any member's already-written song, insisting that they record only songs written "on the spot" for the album. Not a good way to make an album, or even write a song.
That same rule was established for the making of The New Basement Tapes album and film, but that turned out much better than did the Little Village album.