— William Shaw
It was early August and a nice summer was moving along. We had only just moved into our new house a few weeks' earlier and I was too busy enjoying myself to think much about the changes that were still to come. August 19th was only a few days away but it might as well have been months as far as I was concerned. I was too busy enjoying my childhood to notice that my world of comic books, swimming lessons, Saturday afternoon wrestling shows and tree climbing was winding down.
What awaited me in England was a world of Aussie soaps, school discos I never attended (even if I secretly wanted nothing more, especially if it meant getting the chance to chat up a girl), wearing a uniform and pop music to be obsessed by. Of course, childhood doesn't disappear overnight, nor did I instantly become a cool first year with mature interests. We had been in Britain a while and I suddenly began reading The Beano — and I wasn't bothered that my mates look down upon it as "childish". Good thing, then, that there was Smash Hits to ease the way for young people suddenly dealing with maturity and puberty who weren't quite ready to be properly grown up.
This issue of Smash Hits was in the newsagents when we arrived in the UK on the 20th of August 1988. My sister and I were still some ways away from discovering the music scene for ourselves (which wouldn't really begin until after we started school in September) but the contents here only bear a passing resemblance to the pop scene we'd quickly become obsessed with. Brother Beyond are on the cover and they were only just starting their year-long ride on the giddy carousel of pop and Kylie is featured in Bitz but many of its other pages are filled with people who'd be just about irrelevant a month later. Five Star, The Funky Worm, Voice of the Beehive, even Climie Fisher and Mica Paris were just about done as hit makers. But just as I was still clinging to childish things, a top pop mag wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to some relics (a fortnight later they'd even profile faded pop types who were back — BACK!! — to try their luck again; it didn't work out for the bulk of 'em). (For more on this issue, please check out the excellent Giddy Carousel of Pop's interview with the great Jude Rogers)
Spagna was another one of those people who seemed to new arrivals like they were from a whole different time. Sporting a notoriously frightful wig and looking older than your typical popstar (was it the piece that did it?), the Italian singer was a disco throwback who ended up falling just short of the number one spot with her 1987 hit "Call Me". There's not much to it but it is indeed highly catchy and I'd even say it's a shame it wasn't able to usurp MJ's "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" from the top spot. Much to my surprise, it had been her only previous UK hit until "Every Girl and Boy" and it's probably her only song people of a certain age will remember.
"Every Girl and Boy" (not "Every Boy and Girl" as Smash Hits has it, though I will say the line "every boy and girl / in the world" would've worked about as well as "every girl and boy / enjoys" if not better) has grown on me a bit over the past few days. I'm still not especially crazy about the metal guitar solos and power chords but I have caught myself singing it at random every so often so there is that. The sort of number that I don't need, didn't ask for and would never seek out but I'm glad it exists all the same.
With all due respect to Spagna, her Single of the Fortnight needs to be looked at in the context of the miserable collection of new releases it is up against. I'm the first person who will defend late-eighties' pop but even I have to admit the selection here is poor. While many will knock the Italian singer for being dated, at least what she was doing at the time could be described as "current". Big Country were churning out that same old uninspired stadium rock, Van Halen had long since become a parody of themselves and as for Heaven 17, well it's rich that they chose to leave The Human League because they didn't want to go pop. It's more of the same from Natalie Cole and UB40 only vastly inferior to what they used to be capable of. A-ha sounding like they're in the midst of losing the plot (though they would come roaring back a bit at the end of the year with the charmingly daft "You Are the One"). A batch of singles that would've doubtless led me to periodically sticking a pencil in my (insert orifice of your choice here) just for some relief. Critics can be a prickly bunch and it's to William Shaw's credit that such a grim selection of records didn't open the door to a page of deeply hostile prose.
~~~~~
Also of some cop
Climie Fisher: "I Won't Bleed for You"
"Love Changes (Everything)" had been on the radio a bit that summer in Canada. I liked the song a bit but wasn't thrilled by the guy with the raspy voice, who sounded an awful lot like all those other raspy-voiced singers of the age. But there was something of a tune in there. This one, not so much. "Love Changes" and the excellent hip hop mix of "Rise to the Occasion" gave people the impression that they were yet another top notch synth pop duo in the tradition of Yazoo, Pet Shop Boys and Erasure but they show their true colours as professional songwriters trying to make it as stars with this. It didn't even matter how many photos they took of Simon Climie in a vest, they didn't look the part and didn't sound like it either. But they weren't going to trouble the charts for much longer and could return to what they were best at.
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