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— Mark Frith
In a tradition that goes almost as far back as recorded music itself, African American artists found that there were appreciative audiences over in Europe while they were being ignored back home. Jazz musicians continued to face discriminitive practices such as having to use servants entrances and having to stay in black-only hotels while across the Atlantic in countries that still had blood on their hands from colonialism and in the midst of the fascist jackboot they were treated to more appreciative audiences and better pay. In Geoff Dyer's wonderful book But Beautiful there are anecdotes about the normally brutish Ben Webster suddenly mellowing as he rides around the continent by train. The sax great eventually lived out his remaining years in Denmark while others like Bill Coleman, Don Cherry and Dexter Gordon would find similarly permanent homes in various European countries. It's actually a wonder more jazz greats didn't end up relocating over there.
In more recent times, black pop groups like Shalamar and Cameo became stars in Britain even though they had been relegated to urban radio back home. These bands even managed to become beloved in the Old Empire (Shalamar for Jeffery Daniel's mind-blowing Moonwalk, Cameo for Larry Blackmon's codpiece). This scenario repeated itself throughout the eighties. While records such as Kon Kan's "I Beg Your Pardon" came with 'TOP US CHART HIT' emblazoned on the sleeve, groups like Inner City and Ten City were left to their own devices to score entries into the UK Top 40 — elusive success back home did nothing to prevent singles like "Good Life" and "That's the Way Love Is" taking the British listings by storm.
And so it was for PM Dawn — or so I thought. "Set Adrift on a Memory Bliss" had already been a British Top 5 hit when they tried their luck back in the States. For all I knew as a Canadian boy with more than a passing interest in the charts, they were British. I first caught "Set Adrift" on an episode of CBC music show Good Rockin' Tonite and I was certain that it would never catch on in North America. When it did, I figured they'd be quickly forgotten about while remaining stars back in the UK. What can I say? I've been wronger and stupider in my day.
PM Dawn's American success was no doubt aided by the smooth novelty of "Set Adrift" but their willingness to be more conventional going forward was also significant. Called in to contribute to the soundtrack to the 1992 Eddie Murphy vehicle Boomerang (a picture that I had completely forgotten about; I was probably waiting on that sequel to Coming to America to care; I would have a bit of wait ahead of me), they didn't take the lazy cover version route and nobly passed on sampling yet another hit from the eighties that few remembered ten years' on. What they had instead was a love song. An underwhelming love song at first but the sort of thing that grows on listeners when they gradually come to the conclusion that this is what they should have been doing all along.
"Set Adrift" remains their biggest hit and it's their one number that people are most likely to be aware of. Yet, "I'd Die Without You" is the better record and honestly it's not even close. Being present on the Boomerang OST seems like a cagey bit of genre classification on their part. With the likes of Boyz II Men and a duet featuring Babyface and Toni Braxton present and correct, this was effectively a sampler for contemporary American R&B. (Speaking of which, what the hell is 'Adult Contemporary'?) PM Dawn's contribution places them square within this movement while also subtly subverting it. The melodramatic title and Prince Be's emotive vocal give it that much needed 'keepin' it real' R&B vibe but the "breath-taking, mind-expanding love lament" that Mark Frith loves so much puts it a cut above those ultra-smooth Romeos that I once despised. This is far from being the sort of pablum used to get the ladies into bed; this is a crazed stalker, a lonely teenage boy scribbling verse which only he considers to be genius, a pathetic dude in his mid-thirties who can't keep a relationship together
PM Dawn only had about another year left as a relevant pop act which is a shame since they could have been the one male R&B troupe it was okay to like. As I have already discussed, the women were doing the heavy lifting, leaving the men to those drippy love songs that top the charts but inevitably leave those of us without the necessary sweet tooth to be throwing up in the can. American had already embraced PM Dawn and the UK didn't run away from them either. So why couldn't they have remained loyal just as Europeans had been towards generations of African American stars from the past?
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Heavenly: The Fred EP
In terms of pure concept, no new release this fortnight can touch The Fred EP. Oh, isn't irony grand? You get to like things that suck! It's so cool! Flowered Up's version of former SOTF "Deeply Dippy" is the best thing going here, a countrified singalong to send up such a painfully British lyric. If I wasn't already convinced that it was Right Said Fred's only half-decent tune then this confirmed it. The Rockingbirds handed in a rocked up take on "Don't Talk, Just Kiss" which to their credit isn't any worse than the Fred's original but either way it's a piece of crap. Mark Frith reckons Saint Etienne's "I'm Too Sexy" is the highlight but I can't agree. Whatever humour had been present is excised here and what remains is a noisy dancefloor bit of nonsense. I love Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell as much as any obscure music writer you care to name (not to mention plenty more you've never heard of) but their tendency to wink knowingly at their fans was not one of their strengths. If PM Dawn could buckle down and get serious, why couldn't they?
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