One of the sharpest and most prolific British songwriters of his generation, Luke Haines helmed the glam noir of the Auteurs, the broken funk of Baader Meinhof, and the (mostly) downbeat pop of Black Box Recorder, and has since released esoteric material under his own name. During the '90s, Haines issued six albums, ranging from the Mercury Prize-nominated New Wave (1993) to How I Learned to Love the Bootboys (1999). After Black Box Recorder's second album, The Facts of Life (2000), Haines embarked on a solo career, applying his caustic wit to a wide spectrum of styles and subjects on albums including The Oliver Twist Manifesto (2001), 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s & Early '80s (2011), British Nuclear Bunkers (2015), Setting the Dogs on the Post-Punk Postman (2021), and All the Kids Are Super Bummed Out (2022, with Peter Buck).