Lenny Kravitz: "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over"

29 May 1991

"He's sort of stolen lots of bits and pieces from other people and put them together to create his own sound."

— Dannii Minogue

One of the less commonly known Hits-isms is to be "in reception". I do not have the time or patience to see if it ever got printed in the top pop mag but it was a used by Hits staff as shorthand for desperate pop types who weren't going to wait for the press to call them, they were going to call upon them instead. Miranda Sawyer explained that being "in reception" meant that whoever was waiting there wasn't worth bothering with. It was the preferred location of the likes of Sinitta and Dannii Minogue. (Hits staff became so cynical about someone being "in reception" that one day they neglected to notice that Morrissey was paying them a visit!)

Pop stardom seemingly came easy to Kylie but her younger sister had to work for it. Not, mind you, by crafting a series of nifty records or working on her vocals but by being as shameless a pop shill as one can imagine. She was "in reception" enough to get her face on the cover of three separate issues of ver Hits in 1991 alone. With Hits staff having better things to be getting on with, she even got drafted in to sift through the singles — and, by the standard of your average pop star "in reception", she doesn't mess it up.

She's dealing with an odd assortment of "new" releases, some of which aren't new at all. The use of oldie "Should I Stay or Should I Go" in a Levi's advert took it to number one which resulted in a newfound interest in The Clash; "London Calling", title track from their classic 1979 double album, was their third (and final) re-release of the year. Oliver Stone's biopic The Doors starring Val Kilmer ("more Van than Jim", as Q Magazine drolly observed) was on its way and their American chart topper from way back in 1967 was put out to promote it, giving them a belated hit with a song that somehow didn't catch on the UK the first time round. Finally, a supposed remix of Madonna's "Holiday" was given a second life, which was a tacit acknowledgement that Madge wasn't what she once was.

Still, Madonna wasn't the only one delivering subpar work at the time. Pet Shop Boys' "Jealousy" is a great song and an outstanding closer to their masterpiece Behaviour but there was no need for it to be a single in the spring of '91. The once great Deacon Blue had fully embraced middle-of-the-road tedium with, again, a single no one asked for. Gloria Estefan had given up on entertaining people in favour of depressingly trying to inspire them. And who else? Feargal Sharkey? Pass. Kim Appleby? Nah. Living Color? Uh, no. Dannii's old chum and future "charismatic" Christian leader Mark Stevens? No, I don't think we'll be doing that, Let's just jump ahead to the only rock star of the age who still made kids want to be rock stars, even those who were already having hits of their own.

Young and impressionable pop types tend to look up to their betters. Late-eighties' pop was full of artists who worshiped Prince; it mattered little that they couldn't demonstrate an iota of the purple one's creativity or even copy his sound all that well, the important thing was that they had good taste. With post-Batman Prince not being much in the way off "cop", there was room for another pop-rock god for pin up stars of the era to hold in high esteem. A few years' earlier it might have been Guns N' Roses or Terence Trent D'Arby but in 1991 there was really only one act who could reliably fill the void: Lenny Kravitz.

Lisa Bonet's soon-to-be ex has already appeared in this space, from an issue of Smash Hits less than two months' before this one. Then, he was given a "prized" Single of the Fortnight by up and coming star Chesney Hawkes, a youngster of about the same age as Dannii Minogue. While the Aussie singer gushes about equally about the record and his nibs, Hawkes is far keener to wax about Kravitz himself ("What a dude. What a cat"). The two clearly idolize Lenny. They both were pursuing conventional pop careers but there's the sense that they yearned to be earning it the way he seemed to be.

Hawkes had apparently been chuffed about previous single "Always on the Run" but it didn't catch on enough to reach the Top 40. There were no similar difficulties this time as "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" came just shy of the Top 10. Minogue reckons it's "pretty mellow" for him but she likes it all the same and, indeed, so did quite a few other people. As I said a few weeks earlier, he would've done better reversing the order of release of these two singles. "Always..." did little to pave the way for "...Over..." and it probably stood a better chance of riding the coattails of it into a respectable Top 30 placing of its own had it come out second.

The one thing "Always..." has going for it is that it hides its influences a bit better. On ",,,Over...", however, it's easy to agree with Minogue's observation above. Doing his best Marvin Gaye and with an elegant string section on hand, he's paying tribute to Philly soul. Yet, the Beatle-esque melody and use of a sitar confirm that he's borrowing as liberally as she suggests. This also hints that not only was it important for pop stars to have good taste in music but for their heroes to be similar. Liking Prince meant you had good taste but liking Kravitz meant he had good taste.

"It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" sure seemed to be a brilliant record when it came out in the spring of 1991. Not so much now, mind you. There's nothing particularly wrong with it but it certainly doesn't seem as spellbinding as it once was thirty years ago. I don't think it has aged poorly per se, only that knowledge of older pop is far more commonplace nowadays. In spite of Dannii Minogue claiming that it was a mish mash of styles, it seemed to younger listeners that there had never been anything like it. And in a way, that's correct. Such studied, deliberate pop had never been seen before people like Kravitz emerged (at approximately the same time, a quintet in Manchester was ironing out their own sound plundered from vast record collections; they'll doubtless be cropping up in this space before long). It seemed like the coolest music around until I discovered Roxy Music, Curtis Mayfield, Chic, Burning Spear, Laura Nyro, Sly & The Family Stone, Joe Henderson and Emmylou Harris and others who valued true originality. At that point, who needs Lenny Kravitz? 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Pixies: "Planet of Sound"

A "crock of shit" according to the lovely yet potty-mouthed Danielle — and honestly she's not wrong. Pixies have always been one of those indie acts that indie kids adore in spite of some glaring holes in their catalog. Peaking with the great Doolittle in 1989, they were still strong on the following year's Bossanova but the continuing lack of respect for bassist Kim Deal's contributions to the band left them increasingly at the mercy of leader Frank Black's madness. Trompe le Monde was by far their weakest album to date; "Planet of Sound" was representative of their gradual decline as they embraced noise over pop hooks and melody. The imminent arrival on the world stage of a certain Seattle three piece should have made the Boston scene irrelevant but love for Pixies in particular would never fade away. While there are reasons to hold them close to the bosom, there are an equal number of reasons you needn't bother with all but their best stuff. To wit.

Lenny Kravitz: "Always on the Run"

3 April 1991

"He finds these grotty studios to work in so he can get the worst sound he possibly can."

— Dizzy the Dog with Chesney Hawkes (with more from a wonderful pet and some guy here)

The sixties are back. (BACK!!) Or they're still here. (HERE!!) In fact, they never left. (LEFT!!)

Indeed, the decade that people supposedly can't remember has never gone away. What has changed is the way we approach it. Some groups have tried to hide the influence, as though they were attempting to deny any connection, while others are proud/unashamed of their debt. This brings us to the nineties when everyone gave up and stopped pretending that the sixties didn't matter. They owed everything to that time and there was a whole new generation of rock stars who wanted everyone to know it.

The age of hippies and James Bond is all over the singles review in this issue of Smash Hits. Guest reviewer Chesney Hawkes is the son of Chip Hawkes, who was a member of beat group The Tremoloes (the same act that Dick Rowe signed to the Decca label instead of The Beatles; if "groups with guitars are on the way out" then The Tremeloes didn't get the memo). Lenny Kravitz was so open about his love for the sixties that he thought there was something wrong with people who didn't worship John Lennon. Jellyfish (see below) were adored by critics for their alleged return to old school power pop. Legends (both in their own minds and in reality) Cher and The Rolling Stones have new releases. A fast fading Bananarama have a cover of a classic from the golden age. Hawkes likens Milltown Brothers to The Byrds and (wrongly) thinks that Alison Moyet's "It Won't Be Long" is a cover of The Beatles (it doesn't even sound like them despite what he thinks). His nibs even saves most of his derision for records that aren't drenched in flower power and all that gooey stuff of old.

Not unlike Chet's own current chart topper "The One and Only", which may well have been the last number one single of the eighties. There's a big, shouty chorus, some big drums, a big, rockin' guitar solo. So very big. Though low on synths and with permed mullets strictly forbidden, it isn't an obviously blatant rip off of Richard Marx and Icehouse but the similarities are there. Nik Kershaw's songwriting talents are on display with hooks that are difficult to resist but after a month at number one in the UK it became almost a kiss off to a fast fading era. Rather than signalling Hawkes as a budding superstar, he began to fade almost as soon as "The One and Only" began going down the charts. (In North America he seemed like even more of a throwback when the single became a hit on the back of Doc Hollywood starring Michael J. Fox who didn't appear to have much of a future in the nineties — at least for the time being)

Lenny Kravitz was another rock star in waiting in the first half of 1991. I had assumed he was in his early twenties at the time but he was in fact nearly twenty-seven. Not a giant gulf, no, but it's notable that his rock 'n' roll idols back in the sixties had all made it at a much younger age than he was. His following was modest but he had influential backers. He was then married to Lisa Bonet from The Cosby Show and Different World, he opened for the likes of David Bowie and Bob Dylan, he co-wrote Madonna's "Justify My Love" and produced the noble but dismal Peace Choir cover of Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance". It was only a matter of time before he would become as big those he surrounded himself with.

But not quite with "Always on the Run" (aka "Mama Said", which would become the title of his second album released at around the same time). There's no doubt it's an excellent rock song — and not just because of a guesting Slash with a typically magnificent guitar solo. Kravitz has always been a bit of an underrated vocalist, able to do smooth and silky when called upon but with an equal facility for gusto-filled sandpaper singing as he does here. A classic for budding air guitarists everywhere. But it's hard to understand why he and/or the A&R people at Virgin thought it would be an ideal first single. As we'll see in a few weeks, he had a much more commercially viable record in the waiting that would put him over the top. Had they left "Always on the Run" on the shelf for a bit it would have made for an effective second single, one that would have thrown people who thought he was America's next soul music great.

Hawkes' review really doesn't get into the music a whole lot, preferring to praise Kravitz as "one helluva dude". With his image, looks, lifestyle and beautiful wife, there's a lot to admire in him even if his songs aren't to your taste. Being a wannabe rocker himself, our Ches may have looked up to a figure like our Len and who can blame him? Young men around the world who dreamed of being a rock star had few living role models and the job fell to him almost by default. Chesney Hawkes could be the "One and Only" all he wanted, we all yearned to be Lenny Kravitz, even those of us who could give or take his music.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Jellyfish: "Baby's Coming Back"

Beatle-esque — or so say miserable baby boomers who want nothing more than to spoil all the best music by claiming it's just a product of when they were young. I know my Beatles pretty well and I'm quite sure they never did a song that sounds like this. Still, Jellyfish had their influences and they weren't Duran Duran or Bon Jovi. While a part of this early-nineties' rock revivalism (if a fairly minor one considering they weren't exactly superstars), the San Francisco foursome were also suckers for pop and their videos and image made them stand-out from all those bands who were looking increasingly like ruffians on the street. Hawkes is impressed and hopes it will be a hit (it wasn't though it definitely deserved to be). He also observes that they sound like they're "stuck in a 60s timewarp". Of course, so was everyone in 1991. "Baby's Coming Back" is utterly brilliant, by the way. With all due respect to Lenny Kravitz, this is easily my favourite of the bunch this fortnight. They're time together would be short-lived and not overly successful but Jellyfish burned bright — or bioilluminated bright if you wish to be technical.