"By the time you read this, Norm and his mates should be firmly, and rightly, established in the toppermost regions of the "all-important" Top Forty."
— Miranda Sawyer
For all the talk of the indie revolution, it was electro dance music that was at the real cutting edge of pop in the early nineties. (In fact, the Madchester acts owed their success and acclaim to the techno/rave boffins) Much as guitar bands tried to fight back — first by joining in, then by going on the self-defensive with MTV Unplugged, grunge and the modern rock boom — three chords and the truth didn't cut it anymore. Dance music wasn't always my favourite thing but if it could help take a blow torch to rock 'n' roll mythology then pump up the jams till the cows come home, my friends!
Sadly, little of this thrilling dance pop of the era is to be found in either of this issue's Singles of the Fortnight. With so many DJ's, producers and remixers doing pioneering work, there were bound to be less talented types to jump on the bandwagon. Even some of the more creative figures found themselves at a loss. I'm just spitballing but I wonder if the mediums of computers and mixing desks was less conducive to progression as traditional instruments. Fooling around on a guitar, jamming, playing gigs: they can all lead to unexpected results but is this approach as easy to come by with a stack of old funk records to sample from? Dance albums tended to be all over the place while singles tended to vary in quality or be exactly the same.
Norman Cook had been a self-proclaimed poor bassist in The Housemartins (strictly speaking, not true at all) who moved to Brighton following their premature breakup to begin following his real passion DJing. Possibly due to name recognition from his old group, he initially released records under his own name. A double A side would emerge in the summer of 1989 with "Blame It on the Bassline" getting the bulk of the airplay. It's an engaging if unremarkable track that relies heavily upon MC Wildski's thick British accented rapping and samples from The Jackson Five's "Blame It on the Boogie". On the flip was "Won't Talk About It" featuring a near-unregonisable Billy Bragg singing in falsetto (not unlike his vocal on "Wish You Were Her" from his 1991 Don't Try This at Home album). If stripped of Cook's dance embellishments you'd have something not unlike one of those stark early Bragg numbers like "The Milkman of Human Kindness" or "St. Swithin's Day".
The "Blame It on the Bassline" / "Won't Talk About It" single quickly fell off the charts after a fairly modest showing. At some point afterwards, the "solo" project morphed into something closer to a proper group but not before "For Spacious Lies" was released with a credit to 'Norman Cook featuring Lester'. This single tanked but it set him on a path towards piecing together a collective in the vein of Soul II Soul. Then, "Dub Be Good to Me" came out in early 1990 as the debut release of Beats International and it erupted. This extraordinary mix of a cover of the SOS Band single with samples from The Clash's "Guns of Brixton" and the theme to the spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West proved irresistible. Singer Lindy Layton proved to be the thinking person's girl-next-door with a performance that is wise and street smart but also vulnerable and innocent
There's a great deal of variety to the early Cook/Beats singles but they chose to play it safe with the follow-up to "Dub Be Good to Me". Sensing that there was still some life in a single that didn't get much attention ten months' earlier, "Won't Talk About It" was given a revamp with much more of a standard dance beat and Layton replacing Bragg. Soul II Soul had used Caron Wheeler on two singles a year earlier — "Keep on Movin'" and SOTF "Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)" — but they were both equally outstanding and they managed to avoid having one overshadow the other. "Dub Be Good to Me" had been brilliant but this only managed to come across as an inferior retread. Hip hop pair Double Trouble give proceedings a much needed lift in the bridge but it's not enough to keep boredom at bay.
Ultimately, these two records indicate the split that had taken place between Britain and Europe when it came to electro dance music. Cook had left a guitar band and members of The Grid, Underworld and M|A|A|R|S had all come out of the pop/rock world. This led many in UK techno to act like they were in rock groups with music that was meant to be substantial. Meanwhile, their European counterparts were busy putting together acts that fitted in better within the world of pop. Beats, choruses, hooks — all that was left was for these boffins to recruit good looking dancers and singers to front their enterprises. Black Box, Technotronic and Snap! were already here but this was just the beginning.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Chimes: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
U2 were at heart a Christian rock band but how did they keep this a secret from the public for so long? I suppose it helped that they were subtle with their God stuff, no mean feat when so-called CCM is littered with piety that is enough to make a nun sick all over her habit. This cover by Scottish trio The Chimes, however, should've laid all suspicions to rest. Singer Pauline Henry gives this 1987 classic the full gospel treatment making it sound just as you would imagine an R&B U2 cover would sound. Impressive and not a huge drop in quality from the original. It had been just three years since ver 2 had conquered the world with The Joshua Tree but heartland rock didn't seem to fit in with the nineties. A welcome update, if you will. A year later the Pet Shop Boys did something entirely different with another soul searching U2 rocker while Bobo and The Hedge were readying themselves for destroying their own mythologies. Right they were too.
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