— Chris Heath
Though a potential career ambition of writing for Smash Hits was staring me right in the face, I spent the bulk of my teen years hung up on making it as a pop star. Why scribble a bunch of nonsense for the magazine, went the gist of my thoughts at the time, when I could appear in it instead? I thought a good ride on the giddy carousel of pop — but I couldn't get it to go anywhere in practice. I lacked talent, wherewithal, pluck, determination, confidence and any other distinguishing traits that separate successful musicians from everyone else. I guess I could write lyrics passably by the standards of a fifteen-year-old (I only knew two other people who wrote songs at that time and they both "played" in the same "band" as I did - and they were both a year younger than me!)
Musically speaking, the only thing I could ever manage was to hum a vague melody - likely based on a tune I'd just heard — while repeating a word or phrase. These "ideas" wouldn't be taken any further: I'd have it swirling around in my mind for a while before getting distracted by something else and moving on. There was never any potential in them so why would I bother with just an insignificant trifle? Or perhaps I should have stuck with it. Listening to "The Broken Years" there's not a whole lot else to it beyond a catchy funk riff and a simple chorus of the title repeated and repeated. Simplicity at its finest — unless of course you want something inspiring or something that takes you someplace or the feeling that you're connecting with a song.
Chris Heath is captivated by the little that's going on and his analysis is mostly spot on. Yes, it does kind of sound like a "punchy mixture of The Kane Gang and The Smiths" and, indeed, there isn't anything "startlingly new or original about it" (to bring these two observations together, indie groups going through a Chic phase was old hat by the mid-eighties so it's really no wonder "The Broken Years" didn't catch on). I might even give him the point that it's "sung brilliantly by the deep-voiced Graham Skinner" but I'm not sure that suave and carefree vocals are called for. These broken years he sings of should seem difficult and ought to have taken a lot out of the populace and, you know, be broken. Hardship isn't something that comes out of the very confident Skinner and I'm not convinced they've been all that broken for him — or that he even has much empathy for those who have been through hard times. To be fair, however, I'm not sure anyone could have pulled out a good vocal from such terrible lyrics. "Ah, broken by the years / Lie in the broken years / Just like always everyone / Token of my fear...": 1) what are you boys talking about? and 2) no, scratch that, I don't care.
The one thing it might have in its favour is a thrilling quality that most of the other records this fortnight lack. From the heavy hitters (Dire Straits, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna) all the way down to once-great indie acts (quite the fall from grace for Pink Industry), there isn't much else to recommend so I guess Hipsway can nab a SOTF by default. Of course, Heath's review is much more glowing than that ("This, the first single by four blokes from Glasgow, is simply the best record I've heard for months") to which it could be suggested that something needed to come along to drag pop out of the slump it was going through. To some extent, that's true. Overly-slick records with little by way of substance (like, cough-cough, "The Broken Years") were easy to come by in '85 but one had to look elsewhere. Other issues of Smash Hits for one. Heath could have found irresistible cowpunk, nonsensical yet charming sixties pastiche and first rate Teutonic dance pop to explore. That was the thing about the eighties: the best stuff rarely rose to the top but it was still in there to discover for ourselves.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Style Council: "Come to Milton Keynes"
A grotesque travel brochure for the infamous New Town, "Come to Milton Keynes" is effectively Mrs. Thatcher's "no such thing as society" quote in song — which, granted, was spoken two years after Paul Weller wrote this but it's not like the Tories hadn't been acting like this was the case all along. People have their little homes, they lock themselves away, draw the curtains and pretend like everything isn't going to hell outside. Good material on which to base a song but this is merely good. Quite why they chose to release a cut that works well on their excellent album Our Favourite Shop but which doesn't really do much on its own is anyone's guess. The probably the first sign that things weren't quite right and that a half-decade's creative roll might just be up.
Though a potential career ambition of writing for Smash Hits was staring me right in the face, I spent the bulk of my teen years hung up on making it as a pop star. Why scribble a bunch of nonsense for the magazine, went the gist of my thoughts at the time, when I could appear in it instead? I thought a good ride on the giddy carousel of pop — but I couldn't get it to go anywhere in practice. I lacked talent, wherewithal, pluck, determination, confidence and any other distinguishing traits that separate successful musicians from everyone else. I guess I could write lyrics passably by the standards of a fifteen-year-old (I only knew two other people who wrote songs at that time and they both "played" in the same "band" as I did - and they were both a year younger than me!)
Musically speaking, the only thing I could ever manage was to hum a vague melody - likely based on a tune I'd just heard — while repeating a word or phrase. These "ideas" wouldn't be taken any further: I'd have it swirling around in my mind for a while before getting distracted by something else and moving on. There was never any potential in them so why would I bother with just an insignificant trifle? Or perhaps I should have stuck with it. Listening to "The Broken Years" there's not a whole lot else to it beyond a catchy funk riff and a simple chorus of the title repeated and repeated. Simplicity at its finest — unless of course you want something inspiring or something that takes you someplace or the feeling that you're connecting with a song.
Chris Heath is captivated by the little that's going on and his analysis is mostly spot on. Yes, it does kind of sound like a "punchy mixture of The Kane Gang and The Smiths" and, indeed, there isn't anything "startlingly new or original about it" (to bring these two observations together, indie groups going through a Chic phase was old hat by the mid-eighties so it's really no wonder "The Broken Years" didn't catch on). I might even give him the point that it's "sung brilliantly by the deep-voiced Graham Skinner" but I'm not sure that suave and carefree vocals are called for. These broken years he sings of should seem difficult and ought to have taken a lot out of the populace and, you know, be broken. Hardship isn't something that comes out of the very confident Skinner and I'm not convinced they've been all that broken for him — or that he even has much empathy for those who have been through hard times. To be fair, however, I'm not sure anyone could have pulled out a good vocal from such terrible lyrics. "Ah, broken by the years / Lie in the broken years / Just like always everyone / Token of my fear...": 1) what are you boys talking about? and 2) no, scratch that, I don't care.
The one thing it might have in its favour is a thrilling quality that most of the other records this fortnight lack. From the heavy hitters (Dire Straits, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna) all the way down to once-great indie acts (quite the fall from grace for Pink Industry), there isn't much else to recommend so I guess Hipsway can nab a SOTF by default. Of course, Heath's review is much more glowing than that ("This, the first single by four blokes from Glasgow, is simply the best record I've heard for months") to which it could be suggested that something needed to come along to drag pop out of the slump it was going through. To some extent, that's true. Overly-slick records with little by way of substance (like, cough-cough, "The Broken Years") were easy to come by in '85 but one had to look elsewhere. Other issues of Smash Hits for one. Heath could have found irresistible cowpunk, nonsensical yet charming sixties pastiche and first rate Teutonic dance pop to explore. That was the thing about the eighties: the best stuff rarely rose to the top but it was still in there to discover for ourselves.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Style Council: "Come to Milton Keynes"
A grotesque travel brochure for the infamous New Town, "Come to Milton Keynes" is effectively Mrs. Thatcher's "no such thing as society" quote in song — which, granted, was spoken two years after Paul Weller wrote this but it's not like the Tories hadn't been acting like this was the case all along. People have their little homes, they lock themselves away, draw the curtains and pretend like everything isn't going to hell outside. Good material on which to base a song but this is merely good. Quite why they chose to release a cut that works well on their excellent album Our Favourite Shop but which doesn't really do much on its own is anyone's guess. The probably the first sign that things weren't quite right and that a half-decade's creative roll might just be up.
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