— Caroline Sullivan
Well, what d'ya know? A flop. We haven't come across a chart not factor in some time. Singles of the Fortnight failing to crack even the lowest positions of the UK Top 75 or 100 occurred fairly often in the early days of Smash Hits but it became much more of a rarity in the late eighties and early nineties. In 1979, for example, eleven SOTF ended up missing the charts; a year later, there were nine failures. By 1990, however, only Sly & Robbie's tepid "Dance Hall" and the brilliant Ben Chapman remix of Monsoon's "Ever So Lonely" managed to miss out on the hit parade — and until the first week of September, 1991, this trend would only continue.
For Gary Clail to fail to hit the Top 100 must have been surprising. He and his On-U Sound System organization had enjoyed a breakthrough when their single "Human Nature" managed to make the Top 10. Not bad for a former roofer from Bristol in his mid-thirties. The presence of charismatic LGBT singer and dancer Lana Palley (aka Alan Palley, aka Lanah P, aka quite a few not-so-secret identities actually) must have paid off; she didn't return for follow-up "Escape" which ended up just missing the Top 40. Between the two, there's a gulf that's much wider than more than thirty chart positions: "Human Nature" is unique, catchy and fun in places (though still not exactly my cup of tea) while "Escape" has superfluous backing vocalists and a tune that appropriately continues to escape me.
But Clail had more left in the tank. "The Emotional Hooligan" is such a good title that it also managed to be the name of his debut album, released following the success of "Human Nature". Perhaps his darkest record to date, it didn't have the commercial potential of its predecessors but there's enough going on in it that it's not difficult to picture it returning him to the Top 30 or so. But the fact that it couldn't even manage to make number sixty is shocking. Radio One must've stayed away. The Chart Show clearly didn't want to have anything to do with it. No one decided to take punt based on Caroline Sullivan's recommendation. Oh, how wrong the populace got this one.
Sullivan describes Clail as a "caring, sharing sort" with concern for people being "nicer to each other". He doesn't quite look the part though. He appears distant in his videos for one thing. He also looks like the sort who could've found himself caught up in lad culture had he emerged five years later. The early nineties ended up being a critical time for English men. The working class had been altered dramatically by Thatcherism. Football hooligans had become so notorious that English teams ended up getting banned from playing on continental Europe. Clail wishes to lift these sorts up while Britain at large looked to reduce males to the lowest common denominator: rather than working class types aspiring to becoming middle class, the middle classes looked to lower themselves by becoming ironically working class lads.
Sullivan also notes that a "ridiculous sample of a baking dog, a big one by the sound of it, rounds things off". Indeed, there hadn't been such an arresting sound of howling canines on a record since the Pet Shop Boys' remarkable "Suburbia" (especially in its "Full Horror" extended form). (With all due respect to the memories of Louie and Banana, it clearly beats out the rather pointless barking which closes out The Beach Boys' classic Pet Sounds album) While white boys were clamouring for Public Enemy and NWA records loaded with urban decay, other genres were being ignored if they looked to examine what might be wrong in the 'burbs. Odd, since the supposedly facile eighties had room for crappy English new towns while the authentic nineties apparently had more pressing matters.
Few had time for "The Emotional Hooligan". Being something of a grower, this is understandable. Nevertheless, the punters missed out on a fine record with a message that ought to have been more commonplace back then. And Gary Clail missed out on being sufficiently rewarded for his efforts. Such is the way in the fickle world of pop. You sometimes hit, you sometimes miss but at least there are those who may feel its impact — they're Singles of the Fortnight for a reason, you know.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Wet Wet Wet: "Make It Tonight"
We're not supposed to have guilty pleasures anymore which is both liberating and also a bit depressing. A part of me misses the days when music listeners had those people it was okay to like as well as a handful that we'd never be caught dead admitting to liking. One of mine was Wet Wet Wet. They had a pair of horrible cover versions that I always wanted found myself singing along with and those early soulcialist hits were shameful delights. Somehow or other their third album High on the Happy Side is actually quite good, just about pulling them out of the guilty pleasure hellhole — at least for a little while. Marti Pellow could never hope to match Al Green and it's here that it sounds like he's accepted this hard reality — and all the better for it. "Make It Tonight" is more Nashville than Memphis which seemed to be a more appropriate home for rootsy Scots. No, ver Wets weren't the rootsy types but this shows that they had it in them. Just as they were with Gary Clail, however, the public wasn't interested; "Make It Tonight" only just scraped the bottom of the Top 40. Follow-up, the Celtic folk-tinged "Put the Light On" performed even worse despite also being a fine song. Things looked bleak for Wet Wet Wet until they served up a dismal ballad for the people to lap up. But at least I had my guilty pleasure back.
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