Sex Pistols: "Pretty Vacant"

25 November 1992

"It will make your head fall off. It will also make you depressed because it will make some bigwig a pile of money."

— Sylvia "Bitter and Twisted, Moi?" Patterson

"Blistering guitar". "The Sex Pistols created some of the greatest pop in history ever". "This is their finest". "It will make your head fall off". (That one is already quoted above but it bears repeating) Sylvia Patterson is so taken by a re-release of this Top 10 hit from 1977 that she forgets the most vital piece of information: the Sex Pistols are hugely important.

The earliest days of Smash Hits coincides with the lingering after effects of punk. Though it has often been said that the Pistols broke up on the evening of January 14, 1978 at the end of a turbulent show at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, it was only John Lydon who wisely chose to bring this chaotic clown show to a halt. The remaining core of Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Sid Vicious carried on recording singles that would keep the Sex Pistols as a relevant chart concern well after punk had gone past its shelf life.

Singles reviews of this Lydon-free Pistols aren't entirely dismal but they don't do a hold lot to make anyone want to reconsider this period. Cliff White considered "Silly Thing" to be "unsensastional but commendable, no-nonsense punkarama" but he was more than happy to coat down their cover of Eddie Cochran's "C'Mon Everybody" ("If I'm deeply suspicious of most Pistols 'product' that's precisely because I'm pro Punk") though even then he's willing to once again use the term 'commendable' to give props to Sid's performance. (Still, if 'commendable' is the best thing you can say about someone then it can't be all that brilliant, can it?) David Hepworth was on hand for the release of "The Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" [sic.] whose review concludes with a firm slam ("about as revolutionary as The Dooleys and not as well made"; it's notable that his proto-Single of the Fortnight went to fellow punks The Undertones) Finally, Deanna Pearson rips into their version of "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone" ("THERE IS NO SONG TO LISTEN TO — don't be swindled again!") indicating that there would be "No Pistols, No Bee Gees, No Zeppelin in '80". The Sex Pistols continued to have hits but the critics weren't having it and they weren't influencing anyone anymore.

But this would eventually turn around once a whole new generation with no memory of late-stage Pistols began turning fourteen. Grunge didn't even stand in its way. The mid-nineties would see the rise of No Doubt who should have encouraged a second wave of interest in Two Tone ska. Gwen Stefani may have worshiped The Selecter but her fans clearly weren't as keen. By contrast, getting into Nirvana almost seemed like young people were then obliged to explore the Pistols, Ramones and Clash. While I bought London Calling, my best friend Ethan got Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. Influential? Sure though mainly so we could explore other bands; moving on from the Pistols didn't take long. The most shocking thing about hearing their one and only album for the first time was just how slow it all was.

With "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen" being the Pistols' best remembered singles, "Pretty Vacant" has taken on the status as one for the more than casual fans. This is a little curious when you consider that Glen Matlock admitted the influence of ABBA's "S.O.S.", which ought to have rendered it a de facto persona non grata (or, more accurately, a singula non grata) in the eyes of devotees. That said, the Swedish foursome wasn't considered the enemy in the eyes of the punks which may have kept it safe.

Still, there is a question that must be asked about that ABBA influence: what ABBA influence? Though much has been made about the way Benny and Bjorn impacted Glen and Johnny, you'd never know it if you hadn't already told about it umpteen dozen times. Pop fans talk about how Matlock "stole" from "S.O.S." but more "informed" sources will claim that it's the guitar part borrows from it or the bass line is similar. But I don't hear it and not because I can't see how perfect pop could possibly be source material for punk rock. I just don't hear anything of ABBA in it. Given that it's not as good as I remember it being the last time I heard it (which I'm pretty sure was when I was twenty or twenty-one; Never Mind the Bollocks is one of those supposed "essential" albums that has remained inessential enough for me to have never purchased it), maybe it ought to have been more like ABBA.

But enough with dumping on the Sex Pistols. I'm sure plenty of people out there consider them to be "overrated" (though their later stuff sure as hell isn't) without me having to weigh in. For my part, I'm just well past the age in which I can listen to something like "Pretty Vacant" and enjoy it. It wasn't part of my youth so it doesn't conjure up nostalgia. I was much more of a Clash and Jam fan as a grumpy teen exploring old punk. I wouldn't have liked much of what Patterson had to review this fortnight (barring the record below) but I'm not so sure this would have blown me away either. But, hey, it influenced everybody! If you can't enjoy a song yourself, at least you can be happy that other people whom you may or may not care for did. What more could matter?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Deacon Blue: "Your Town"

U2 went indie and so did INXS and I'm sure Then Jericho did or would have. The results varied for other eighties' dinosaurs but it worked fairly well for Deacon Blue. A half-hearted stab at a genre they either didn't care for or knew nothing about (or both) but Ricky Ross and co. brought in impressionist elements, hints of sophisti-pop from their debut album, a touch of stadium rock from their second and some Pet Shop Boys-esque dramatics so it hardly seems alternative at all. They started off the decade going in the direction of miserable blues and folk and roots rock so this change of pace is especially gratifying. One of their top flight singles right up there with "Dignity" and "Real Gone Kid" and a welcome return to Scots singing about miserable industrial towns which no other nationality does as well.

Salt 'N' Pepa: "Expression"

10 January 1990

"I think it's a great song, I love it, but it's not an incredibly strong single. But it was great."

— Matt Goss

The Chart Music podcast team, and show regular Taylor Parkes in particular, often speak about the so-called 'eighventies', a vague period of time in which the seventies and eighties blended into one another. One decade, it would seem, was keen to get started prior to it even beginning while the other desired carrying on well past its time running out. I was just three-and-a-half when the seventies gave way to the eighties so remnants of the 'eighventies' are difficult for me to spot but I am aware of a similar occurance known as the 'neighnties'. No one spoke of the neighnties at the time and it only really seemed to be a curiosity in retrospect. It's odd to think, for example, that the Pixies existed before Roxette or that there was still pop metal as late as 1992 but these weren't remarked upon then.

With the nineties just over a week old, it would have been little too much to expect the past decade to be rid of completely so early on. Instead, we have a very late-eighties pop star reviewing the new releases (all of which would have been written, recorded and cut in the eighties) with his pick for Single of the Fortnight being a very late-eighties rap combo who were looking to shake the tag of having one megahit to hold their hats on. It was going to take a while for the eighties to be extricated completely from the nineties.

Matt Goss last appeared in this space just a few months' ago. Bros had been at the forefront of British consciousness in 1988 but their star had gradually begun to wane over the course of the following year. Craig 'Ken' Logan took a leave of absence (he wasn't on stage with the Goss brothers at their Wembley Arena show in mid-January, much to the bitter disappointment of my sister) before officially departing in the spring. Having been all over the place a year earlier, the public was sick to death of them and their legion of Brosettes was diminishing as allegiances were transferred over to Jason Donovan and New Kids on the Block. Now a duo of Matt and twin brother Luke, they wanted to tell everyone of how serious they were and that they'd be around for years. Yeah, about that...

Bros' attempt at reviewing the singles in Smash Hits in September of 1988 is poor even by the modest standards of guest pop star critics. They recommended poor records and, worse, they made the whole thing all about them. Taking on the task alone this time, I am pleased to report that Matt Goss handles it much better the second time round. He tries a little too hard to prove what catholic tastes he has ("I do like rock — I love Journey") but at least he sticks to giving his thoughts on the music he's been given. That said, he makes a bit of an arse of himself when he knocks the New Kids for being "white boys...trying to sound black and not succeeding". Oh the irony.

Salt 'N' Pepa were another trio that rose to fame in 1988. "Push It" had been a near number one but it is now far more beloved than the song it was stuck behind (Glenn Medeiros' "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You"). Bros' first hit single that year ("When Will I Be Famous") also released the runner-up spot and it led to a further four Top 5 smashes; Salt 'N' Pepa's breakthrough success only led to modest performances subsequently. "Shake Your Thang (It's Your Thing)" rode its predecessor to a Top 30 spot but good luck finding anyone who remembers it today. A fun cover "Twist and Shout" returned them to the upper echelons but, again, when did you last hear it?

The group had a quiet 1989 but at least they managed to get out of it without anyone jumping ship. DJ Spinderella, Salt 'N' Pepa's very own Ken (admittedly it was difficult to accept that an outfit with two people in the group name would be a trio), would be a mainstay until being abruptly terminated in 2019. Much of the year was spent working on their second album and "Expression" was to be the first single. Fans expecting another "Push It" weren't going to be disappointed.

In spite of Goss' odd recommendation (see the quote above), "Expression" would ultimately end up being held off until finally being released that April. (It appears in the ALSO RELEASED THIS FORTNIGHT sidebar, reviewer Sian Pattenden having a much tougher selection of singles to sift through as the neighnties really began to heat up) This postponement may have contributed to its shockingly poor chart record as it only just crawled into the bottom of the Top 40. Any worries that they were heading down the dumper would quickly be reversed when follow-ups "Do You Want Me" and "Let's Talk About Sex" made them relevant all over again.

Goss points out that their singing in the chorus makes for a nice change and he's right. Doing tough comedy rap was only going to take them so far and working out a new approach turned out to be the right move. The other big change "Expression" marks is an embrace of feminism. They aren't explicit with this message but just who were these young women trying to encourage if not teenage girls? When they first arrived they seemed horny and up for a laugh but now they were trying to go deeper and mostly pulling it off. I don't suppose this is the "message" that rap fans of the time would allude to but it's a message all the same and one that your Public Enemies and NWA's weren't interested in pushing into their material.

What's missing is originality. With an oft-repeated chorus imploring listeners to "express yourself..." they were either knowingly or unknowlingly inviting Madonna comparisons. "Express Yourself" had been a global hit for Madge only six months' earlier and it couldn't have helped the chances of Salt 'N' Pepa's comeback. Why it was chosen to mark their return is anyone's guess even if it's a well-intended effort. I don't imagine they meant to copy Madonna but that's not how it would've been taken. For his part, Goss doesn't bring this up and it's possible no one noticed.

The first Single of the Fortnight of the nineties, "Expression" ushered in a period of hip hop becoming much more critically acceptable in the pages of Smash Hits. And, for once, they weren't being lauded for not boasting about themselves as previous wags had gone out of their way to give props to the likes of Run-DMC, De La Soul and Redhead Kingpin. Hip hop could finally be taken as hip hop and there would be plenty of room for the braggarts, do-gooders, gangstas and hippies. Salt 'N' Pepa would carry on and continue to do well throughout the decade ahead. As for Bros, well...

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Deacon Blue: "Queen of the New Year"

"Ha-Hoo-Ha!" Timing, as they say, is everything. Ver Blue's second album When the World Knows Your Name had come out about nine months' earlier. I got it for my twelfth birthday and I have always associated it with the hot summer of '89 as a result. Sure, there was this song about the New Year that opened it (as well as two further numbers that mention Christmas) but the big choruses and drums and all that yodeling made for fun listening on warm evenings as well as car trips around the south of England. Jump ahead to the start of 1990 and "Queen of the New Year" suddenly made sense and became my favourite song on an album that was now all about snow and ice and staying in. An LP for all seasons even if the cool kids weren't having any of it.

Deacon Blue: "Real Gone Kid"

5 October 1988

"Scottish popstrels Deacon Blue are a bit of a mystery. They've had one medium-sized hit with "Dignity", a minor one with "Chocolate Girl" and now they're about to have a huge one with this."

— Graeme Kay

In the early part of 1988, Ricky Ross, singer, chief songwriter and leader of Glasgow's Deacon Blue, was just getting to work on his band's second album when he went to a record company meeting. Just two songs — "Real Gone Kid" and "The World Is Lit by Lightning" — had been completed but things already looked promising for a group that had enjoyed critical acclaim a year earlier for their debut album Raintown but had little in the way financially to show for it. An A&R rep for label CBS enthused that the struggling group had at least one big hit forthcoming. "I was quizzical", Ross would later claim, "which one? I had no idea".

Ross must have had poor commercial instincts since it's easy to see which of the two was the potential hit. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that the (sort of) "title track reaches for the skies and falls flat", it certainly isn't an especially notable song and wouldn't have been good enough for Raintown. "The World Is Lit by Lightning" has its place on second album When the World Knows Your Name (as you will no doubt see, it isn't the title track at all but it does contain the line "when the world, when the world, when the world knows your name" repeated several times so I suppose it qualifies) as respectable filler but there's not much to recommend it beyond Lorraine McIntosh's angelic backing vocals.

The hit that both a record company flunky and Smash Hits scribe Graeme Kay foresaw, however, was everything that those admittedly top notch 45's from Raintown — the classic "Dignity", "Loaded", "When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring)", "Chocolate Girl" — could only dream of being: it grabbed the listener's attention. If you already happen to be paying attention, then it does so effortlessly; if you happen to be daydreaming or thinking of something else, it still hooks you in via involuntary toe-tapping or singing along without you even noticing it. You may not swoon the way I do whenever I put it on but that's okay.

A common trait of Scottish bands in the eighties and nineties was that they tended to look west rather than south. Wet Wet Wet were all about Marvin Gaye and Al Green. The members of Texas favoured Ry Cooder and, later, Motown. Greg and Pat Kane from Hue & Cry were Sinatra fanatics. Teenage Fanclub and other groups in their circle who never made it (yes, I'm thinking of you, BMX Bandits) were all obsessed with The Byrds and Big Star. Jim and William Reid had a little more interest in English pop and rock but the foundation of The Jesus & Mary Chain was built on The Velvet Underground. Deacon Blue were much the same — they were named after a Steely Dan song for god's sake — only they had much broader influences, particularly when held up against some of their sophisti-pop contemporaries.

This musical catholicism made them harder to compartmentalise. While Raintown had been the child of The Blue Nile's first album A Walk Across the Rooftops (a seminal record, particularly for a generation of Scottish groups), When the World Knows Your Name was all over the place when it came to sources of inspiration. Opener and eventual single "Queen of the New Year" and deep cut "Your Constant Heart" borrowed from country music, while "Circus Lights" is not unlike an anthemic Simple Minds number. Side one's closer "This Changing Light" had guitarist Graeme Kelling doing his best impression of U2's The Edge. "Fergus Sings the Blues" is their own answer to Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" with a pasty Scotsman fronting an "authentic" soul group. (Their influences are even more pronounced on some of their b-sides: the 12" release of "Real Gone Kid" includes covers of both Sam & Dave ("Born Again") and Hüsker Dü ("It's Not Funny Anymore"); the 12" of follow-up "Wages Day" had a surprisingly sensitive take on Julian Cope's "Trampoline")

"Real Gone Kid" itself is low on roots rock beyond a bit of honky tonk piano played by Jim Prime but it is able to condense stadium rock of the time into something with pop hooks. While U2 were tripping on Americana and the sixties, Deacon Blue were managing something not dissimilar without shoving it down people's throats or pretending what they were doing was somehow still contemporary (I always say that the problem with the John Lennon tribute "God Part 2" is that the line "don't believe in the sixties, the golden age of pop / if you glorify the past, your future dries up" is that it's irreconcilable with the rest of the Rattle & Hum album). While ver Blue had a sizable adult following in Britain from this point on (while the 1988-89 batch of singles performed much better than the earlier bunch, they still weren't megahits, implying that older fans in particular were holding out for the album which wouldn't be released until the following spring), they also appealed to a section of pop kids: those of us who didn't care for metal and weren't ready for indie but still liked guitars. Then Jerico weren't far off from this either but their lyrics weren't as good; Transvision Vamp were in the mix too but Wendy James made it difficult to take them seriously.

Quite how many young people got into them is another matter. The Smash Hits letters page (aka Black Type) would field the odd bit of correspondence from readers inquiring about them and they did all right in the magazine's '89 Reader's Poll coming in seventh and tenth for best group and best album respectively. That said, I knew a lot more people who disliked them than counted themselves as fans (it was basically just me and two other people, one of them being my sister). My friends in the UK at that time, the lousy pals I would return to in Canada that summer, a much nicer group of chums I would cultivate in the subsequent years in junior high and high school, people I have discussed music with here and there, the bulk of Music Twitter, hip and cool music critics: they shared little in common beyond not thinking much of Deacon Blue and wondering what on earth I saw in them. Their young fans must have been out there but I never met any of them.

But that is a vital part of a young person's musical development: finding an artist or group we like that everyone else seems at best indifferent towards. Sure, there was that girl I'd see in the hallways of my junior high who wore a Bauhaus shirt but there's always that person: she just had to find those other alternative rock outsiders and she'd have a community (at least in theory); but in opting for Deacon Blue I might as well have been a Cab Calloway enthusiast in the late-eighties. I tried getting friends and classmates into them ("But I liked it", said an unhelpful Mr Coutts as everyone else in art class demanded it be turned off, even though it was my turn to play a tape), then I used the group's anonymity in Canada to my advantage by keeping them to myself. I would be made fun of for liking lots of music (you weren't even allowed to like the Pet Shop Boys where I went to school) but not Deacon Blue because no one knew who they were. Then I got older and some of the bands I used to be teased for being into were suddenly cool. But, yet again, my favourite Scottish group wasn't part of that revival either.

Still, "Real Gone Kid" was the Top 10 hit that some record label dude predicted and they would go on to have a chart topping album six months later. Hit singles and albums would follow so there were people out there who liked them just as much as I did, if not more so. Quite where these people are, I don't know and at this point it doesn't much matter. I've lived with being just about their only fan I know and if someone cooler than me doesn't like them then that's their loss. Or not.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Hue & Cry: "Ordinary Angel"

Kay's runner-up for Single of the Fortnight and he's spot on here too, even considering the solid competition of Prince, The Human League, Jane Wiedlin, Public Enemy and Tanita Tikaram, who would happen to nab a nomination for Best Single at the notorious 1989 Brit Award along with Deacon Blue. There is the often legit claim that Pat Kane oversings but I think he gets it just right here (though I only just now discovered that he tried to be a "daily genius" rather than a "dilly genius", something I always puzzled over) The tune is sprightly and the addition of a sitar to get it started is one of those chef's kiss things people talk about. A great pop song that just missed out on the Top 40 but they'd have hits the following year with "Looking for Linda", which is every bit as good as "Ordinary Angel", and "Vi-oh-lent-ly", which isn't. An injustice in failure leading to an injustice in success, or something like that.

J.M. Silk: "She's So Far Away"

1 July 1987

"Following in the footsteps of all the other Chicago "House" records that have an entire nation wriggling their rumps all over the dance floors comes this — a "House" record that doesn't sound like one — except for the odd squibbly bit now and then."

— Lola Borg

It's amazing to think what a left field smash Steve "Silk" Hurley's "Jack Your Body" was. It didn't have the benefit of record label promotion, the BBC wouldn't play it and the video looks uncannily like something pieced together by a not-especially-talented YouTuber. Smash Hits didn't bother reviewing it either, although it's impossible to say if that was because they didn't think it merited an appraisal or if they weren't even sent a copy to begin with. Yet, it went all the way to number one. Hurley was back in his native Chicago when he got the news and assumed it had gone to the top of the dance charts. He probably didn't celebrate the way The Beatles did when they found out that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was topping the charts in the US, no.

As if to compensate, Lola Borg is here this fortnight to give her approval to the follow up to the follow up of "Jack Your Body". She doesn't go right out and say it but it seems he hasn't just put out another house anthem full of samples but now has a proper song along as well. You might think that he had another smash on his hands with "She's So Far Away" but it ended up being an even bigger flop than previous single "Let the Music Take Control", which at least came close to a top 40 entry. Hey, wha' happened?

Looking back at the early days of the house music scene, British reporters and industry types have admitted that they didn't know what to do with it. These weren't pop stars, they were faceless DJ's. They didn't cavort on stage with sexy guitars, they stood behind a mixing desk, one hand scratching away at a record, the other pressing half a headphone set to their ears. Of course they didn't sing or any of that nonsense! Compounding the problem was that there weren't many figures in print, radio or TV championing it, though it wouldn't be long before Bruno Brooks and John Peel began going all in with the house. As Miranda Sawyer told David Hepworth and Mark Ellen on their Word in Your Ear podcast, Smash Hits had difficulty fitting the square peg of house music DJs into the round hole of pop. (Well, she didn't say those words exactly but I'll help myself to some licence)

But members of the British media shouldn't be so hard on themselves since the house acts of the time were equally clueless. Though Farley "Jackmaster" Funk and vocalist Darryl Pandy were smart enough to make the trip across the Atlantic to appear on Top of the Pops to promote their hit single "Love Can't Turn Around", others didn't bother. British groups who enjoy Stateside success despite more modest sales back home, from The Zombies to Bush, tend to promptly head off to the US to tour the country to death — and plenty of them even more there — but American acts aren't usually so keen to transplant themselves to the Old World. Hurley admits that other priorities got in the way and that his management advised him to stay home.

Amongst a media that hadn't the faintest idea how to handle this new explosion and performers who didn't know anything about the world of pop, "Jack Your Body" became an unexpected number one and, just as importantly, would launch house music in the minds of the British public. The fact that it now sounds simple and primitive shouldn't take anything away from its importance. But for Hurley it was meant to be a lark and wasn't representative of his sound. The single had been credited to Hurley himself but most of the rest of his work was done under the name of J.M. Silk. He was back doing his day job, which didn't involve making the kids in Britain go nuts over a futuristic new sound.

The amazing thing about "She's So Far Away" is how it feels as much a part of the past as anything else. House music had its roots in the underground clubs ever since the decline of disco and the synthesized horns, song structure and strong but characterless baritone of singer Keith Nunnally are very much throwbacks. As Borg says, there are those "squibbly" bits but they're far subtler and not about to catch the ears of the impressionable. On the surface, it might seem more commercial but so too is it much more in line with dance music. Fittingly, the "squibbly" bits are the best part; otherwise, it's effectively an afterthought record that Bobby O could have knocked out half a decade earlier.

As ever within the sub-genres of the rock era, the British quickly took to house music and it would be their own acts who would lead the way, particularly when it came to chart presence. But you have to think they learned from earlier missteps. Bomb the Bass followed up their breakthrough hit "Beat Dis" with much more of a pop-based house number but Tim Simenon hedged his bets by putting it out as a double A-side with something much more in line with its predecessor. Mark Moore recruited three young women to perform some "vox", "sampled vox" (whatever that is) and percussion but also to give S'Express the image of a proper group and not a typical house act with a DJ scratching away at a turntable. The Beatmasters, Coldcut and D-Mob all began bringing in guest vocalists. Even some of the Americans began to follow suit: by 1988, Detroit techno house outfit Inner City scored a big UK hit with "Big Fun" and they spared nothing to make themselves known in the country that had taken to them. When their next single "Good Life" was released, they were being featured in Smash Hits and vocalist Paris Grey could be seen mugging for the camera in a video shot in London. The influential DJ and producer Frankie Knuckles would soon spend considerable time in Britain and Marshall Jefferson ended up settling there. House would gradually become known as techno and now it's basically EDM and, if we still don't know what to do with it, then there's certainly no getting rid of it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Deacon Blue: "Loaded"

"Another miserable Scottish group (of which there are many)", is how Borg describes her initial impressions of ver Blue. Fair enough, they were always a group that had to grow on people and "Loaded" would quickly grow on a certain Hits critic. If only other music hacks would be so generous. Not one of the highlights of their superb debut album Raintown, it is nevertheless a solid number albeit one that doesn't suggest greater things in store. The magnificent "Dignity" aside, their early singles failed to give an adequate representation of what they were all about. It wouldn't be for another fifteen months that they would release something that would make plenty of punters suddenly take notice — even if a good many critics would remain unimpressed.