— Gary Clark
"The lyrical content is great too. Straight to the point. Batmaaan...Batmaaaan!!"
— Kit Clark
"I've heard that the Joker has cigars that blow people's heads off. Sound good to me!"
— Ged Grimes
And the streak is over. After thirteen issues of Smash Hits and fourteen Top 40 hits, at last we have a flop. The last time a chart non entity had been named Single of the Fortnight was way back in January of 1989 when Tom Doyle handed the crown to Squeezebrain & The Machine featuring J.J. Jones for "Lovegroove". In the six intervening months we had gigantic worldwide smashes ("Like a Prayer", "Back to Life"), hits for artists on the rise ("Manchild", "Say No Go"), chart returns for faded stars of the past ("Nothing Has Been Proved", "I'm Every Woman") and at least one gem that hardly anyone remembers anymore ("You on My Mind"). But they all dented the Top 40. This one? Not so much.
Mainstream popular culture in the summer of 1989 was all abuzz over Tim Burton's Batman. Beetlejuice had been released a year earlier and proved to be a hit. For the director's next project to be the Dark Knight, the hype was tremendous, even in this pre-internet age. Displaying a trait which would eventually become tiresome, Burton returned to the well by casting Beetlejuice star Michael Keaton in the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman but the other big stars (Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger) were not rehires. Prince had even signed on to put together the soundtrack. This Batman movie was going to be a big deal.
The British, however, were just going to have to wait. Hollywood blockbusters would typically be delayed prior to being shown outside of North America and in this instance, Batman wouldn't come out until closer to the end of the year. Thus, they had to make due with the music and Prince's "Batdance" single swiftly rocketed up the charts and only came up short of becoming his first UK number one because of the immovable Soul II Soul. The soundtrack also did well, giving the Purple Perv his second chart topping album. If the British weren't one hundred percent sold on Batman, at least Prince could be relied upon to shift some "units".
Strategic reissues are nothing new in the music business, especially when rival record labels are concerned. I knew less about the record industry when I was twelve than I do now in my forties (and I still don't know much about it) but a re-release of the original "Batman" from the sixties' TV series at this time didn't surprise me at all. I had spent a year in England following the charts and there had been a drippy and pathetic power ballad that got to number one simply because of a Coke commercial. Shortly after arriving the previous August there had been two different versions of "He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother)" vying for chart supremacy at the same time. (I didn't care all that much for the better-known recording by The Hollies but it is vastly superior to the deplorable "reading" by erstwhile Righteous Brother Bill Medley from the soundtrack of Rambo III) That autumn, Tom Jones teamed up with synth experimentalists the Art of Noise for a cover of Prince's "Kiss"; the much better original by his nibs would be promptly back in the shops even though no one bothered with it at that point.
Giving their thumbs way up to the Neal Hefti composed, Nelson Riddle conducted "Batman" are the Scottish threesome Danny Wilson. A zany trio, they crafted meticulous records but never acted as if they were above the pop "game". Indeed, they could easily have acted all high and mighty about their choice for Single of the Fortnight while rubbishing the state of current music. In fact, they don't have a lot positive things to say about most the other pop fare but they keep their negativity to the music and to poking fun at their contemporaries, as one should. Neneh Cherry's admittedly rather twee "Kisses on the Wind" reminds them of the jingle for Skittles, The Lilac Time are compared to a flat bottle of energy drink Lucozade, they consider putting the Then Jericho sleeve on the turntable in place of the actual record ("I bet it would sound a lot better!"), Big Fun are dismissed as being not unlike poor chocolate biscuits and the latest from Simple Minds sounds "like a Billy Idol record that somebody had spilt their tea on" (irrefutably true). Slagging off modern pop has never been such fun!
Still, it wouldn't have killed them to have a pop at "Batman" for good measure. With Hefti and Riddle in charge it was always going to be a sturdy enough theme tune, one that a good chunk of the populace would still be familiar with to this day. While the chorus is kept afloat by a rudimentary surf rock beat, it is the funky jazz solos in the bridge that really brings it to life. The cries of "BATMAN!" may well be iconic but they sure are lacking any kind of passion. The overly emotive Neal Hefti Singers would've been a welcome improvement on these staid lasses. Otherwise, there's not much to quibble about though I'll still take The Marketts and their outrageous cover version over this.
Finally, it's worth noting that this would be my final issue of Smash Hits. When it hit the shops in the last week of July, I was on a coach tour in Italy with my family along with an assortment of British and American tourists. By the time the following edition had been published, I was back in Canada. In the meantime, we would return to Britain for a few days before our departure on August 4. One of my final activities in the UK was a day trip to London with my dad and sister. My mum chose to stay home and get things packed. In her haste she grabbed the stack of Smash Hits and Number Ones on the floor next to my bed and threw them out (as well as the oversized farewell card that everyone in my class had signed for me on my last day of school which, naturally, I had intended to keep). This issue was one of the few that survived the purge. The singles review by Danny Wilson was something I would re-read over the next few years as I began to contemplate a way in to this pop world, a place I am still nowhere close to penetrating.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Shakespears Sister: "You're History"
Bananarama had Keren, the good looking one, Sarah, the confident one, and Siobhan, the talented one. (She would be replaced by Jacquie, the other one) That was the narrative at least. Shakespears Sister began as a solo project for Siobhan Fahey following her departure from the 'Narns but it gradually became a group with helium-voiced Marcella Detroit joining in. Gary from Danny Wilson reckons it sounds too much like Eurythmics while Ged wonders if Fahey's hubby Dave Stewart worked on it in secret. Proof that going all dark and edgy can't save a poor record, even if the good looking one, the confident one and the other one were proving to be no better off with their awful reworking of the once great "Cruel Summer".
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