The Divine Comedy were founded in 1989, by Neil Hannon who had been the only ever-present member of the band until he was joined by John McCullagh and Kevin Traynor. Their first album, "Fanfare for the Comic Muse", enjoyed a minor success and was later deleted. A couple of equally unsuccessful EPs – "Timewatch" (1991) and "Europop" (1992) – followed, with newly recruited member John Allen handling lead vocals on some tracks. After the commercial failure of the "Europop" EP, this line-up soon fell apart.