Nick Heyward: "You're My World"

24 August 1988

"So has "young" Nick adandoned his old ways and given up on those fearlessly commercial snorters of yesteryear? Has he heck!"

— Alex Kadis

I'm on Twitter quite a bit (@PaulMargach, gimme a follow!) and I recently began participating in a challenge called #PopInjustice. Every day, we post a single that somehow missed the UK Top 40 and then moan about how moronic the British public were for spurning said record in favour of some giant pile of flaming crap from The Firm or Bombalurina. Of course, it's easy to bemoan a beloved flop but there are more factors at play than simply blaming a bunch of dumbass consumers and their lousy taste in music. Some records fail due to poor or nonexistent marketing, others because a lack of budget behind them. Some because of bad reviews, others because of pop stars refusing to play the game. And some just slip through the cracks.

This issue of Smash Hits includes a feature in Bitz about once-big pop acts that had disappeared but were back (BACK!). "Being a pop star," the piece begins, "is a lot like being the pilot of an interstellar vehicle that's a-whistlin' its way through the galaxies and byways of outer space, is it not?" The intro goes on to describe the pop life as reaching the heavens before slipping into a black hole, never to be heard from again. But some manage to climb their way out of ver hole and the Hits was determined to celebrate them all! "Returning" are Marc Almond, Dead or Alive, Europe, Billy Mackenzie, Spandau Ballet, Midge Ure and Nick Heyward. All had once enjoyed pop success (Almond, Mackenzie, Ure and Heyward with Soft Cell, The Associates, Ultravox and Haircut One Hundred respectively) but their fortunes had begun to dry up more recently. Of this lot, only Almond would enjoy a sustained return to the charts while the rest would return to the black hole from which they crawled out of. Or something.

I was a bit hard on Nick the last time he came up in this space (let me just say that I wrote it in haste at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea just prior to taking a lengthy trip back to Canada for a visit and my lack of consideration clearly shows; I'll be revising it at some point in the future) despite the fact that I've long been fond of Haircut One Hundred and "Love Plus One" in particular. But being only four or five years old back in their Pelican West heyday, I wouldn't discover them until much later. It was only in 1988 that I started to become aware of Heyward and it was all because of Smash Hits.

"You're My World" is practically the definition of the term 'radio friendly' but I never heard it at the time. I would be starting school in Billericay, Essex in September so perhaps I missed Heyward's "comeback" record playing during the day. He also appeared on Wogan at around this time but we were a family still trying to work out English culture and what happened to be on the telly (my parents gravitated first towards sitcoms like Square Deal and No Frills). If he did happen to pop up on Saturday pop-centred show Going Live, I wouldn't have seen it since my parents were determined to spend as many weekends away from our sad little Basildon hovel as possible. In effect, this was a single that existed only on the pages of Smash Hits — even though I was still a fortnight away from discovering the magazine at all. (My real introduction to Nick would be in reviews of the sadly overlooked I Love You Avenue album and in a future Single of the Fortnight that I'll be getting to before long)

"You're My World" doesn't crop up on any of Heyward's compilations which makes me wonder if he has a low opinion of his work from this time. While the eccentricities of his Haircut One Hundred material have been ironed out, this is still the work of an exceptional craftsman. The early eighties for many songwriters had been about mixing indie curios with jazz and funk influences and his resulted in the rise of acts such as Aztec Camera and Prefab Sprout. By the end of the decade, much of this quirky pop had transformed into smooth sophisti-pop with groups like Breathe and Johnny Hates Jazz and Living in a Box dulling what had come before. Heyward still looked to sixties pop for inspiration while also adding touches of synth-pop and even a sly bit of Stock Aitken Waterman to keep things current (those generic backing vocals on the chorus are straight out of the SAW playbook, though they were also being used by the Pet Shop Boys).

The single slipped by this young Canadian who had just arrived in the UK and hadn't yet begun to explore the charts. As for everyone else, there may be all sorts of reasons they chose to take a pass on "You're My World". But we all missed out. Great singles by gifted songwriters don't come along all the time. We would have to wait until the next time Nick Heyward would be back (BACK!).

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Level 42: "Heaven in My Hands"

A consistent chart act coming off their biggest album, it probably seemed like the good times were only going to continue for the jazz funksters, especially with this being best single they'd ever release. Little did they know it was beginning to wind down. "Heaven in My Hands" got snapped up by loyal Level 42 fans but neutrals weren't having it and it quickly slid down the charts. Considering the abundance of pop hooks, strong metal influence and a nice horn section, you'd think they were open for business to as many listeners as possible. (Even Bros bassist Craig Logan constantly bringing up his idol Mark King in interviews didn't help them reach a new audience; though, in fairness, "Ken" was the one that no one paid any attention to) All over the place in 1987, it's possible that people had had enough of them a year later but, yet again, they were the ones missing out. The black hole of pop beckoned.

Tracey Thorn: "Goodbye Joe"

6 January 1983

"This'll catch on and the whole of '83 will be flooded with bare-footed types in jumpers and slacks strumming away on bar-stools. You just wait.

— Mark Ellen (attr.)

My local newspaper — the one that tried a bit not to be overly right wing — used to print weekly music charts when I was a boy. I don't remember if they were local, national or conjured up by a bored music journalist but what always stood out was something called the 'College Rock Top Ten'. The name itself was puzzling since surely University Rock makes far more sense. Even I knew that the best students went to uni and those not good enough had to settle for college (turns out, that's mostly a Canadian thing). More important, just who were these people on this chart? I probably had a vague idea about R.E.M. since they were starting to become well-known by '87 but the rest meant absolutely nothing to me. I suppose the likes of Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth and The Pixies appeared but that's just projecting on my part.

The other thing about so-called college rock that flummoxed me was the discovery that these groups generally weren't university students themselves. While many certainly had at one point attended post-secondary school, these people tended to be older, full-time touring musicians, who were signed to record labels of varying size and prestige and did the rounds of the late night talk show circuit and MTV (MuchMusic in Canada). I had always figured that college rock groups started in one university, played gigs at their student union and got played on their campus radio station before eventually getting picked up by other schools in the area and, in time, all throughout North America. College students playing to other college students: imagine that.

Tracey Thorn had been a student at the University of Hull where she met another young aspiring singer songwriter named Ben Watt. Both were signed up by indie label Cherry Red Records as solo artists but they also brought their considerable talents together for Everything but the Girl, one of the seminal jazz-pop acts of the eighties. Their music would later on be labelled as 'sophisti-pop' but it would never be classified as college rock, strange considering they were probably the closest thing to it.

Just as last week's entry had an issue with the title, this one may have credited the wrong song — or failed to give equal billing. Among the comments on YouTube is one from someone called 'aramanth' who claims: "Smash Hits made a huge mistake in reviewing this in 1984 (sic.). The single she released was Plain Song (sic.) but Smash Hits played the other side Goodbye Joe and made it Single of the Fortnight! Great song though..." The Wikipedia page for "Plain Sailing" says that "Goodbye Joe" is its b-side. Go to Discogs, however, and you'll see that they were released as a double a-side (it's even etched on the back of the sleeve). Ellen maybe could have reviewed them as a two-fer but I suppose that's his prerogative. For all we know, he may have just pulled the record out of its sleeve and played the side that happened to greet him.

Originally laced with irony by The Monochrome Set, "Goodbye Joe" is given a mournful treatment as performed by Tracey Thorn. Silly, inconsequential fun in its original form becomes stately here. While it could be said that she manages to strangle all the humour out of it, perhaps one of Thorn's great talents is to find the tracest elements of sorrow and tragedy in even the most trivial of songs and still manage to avoid self-righteousness or melodrama. She also plays a prescision guitar solo, the sort of which provided the foundation for Belle & Sebastian's very existance. (Her partner Watt was meanwhile busy inventing everything that made Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience worthwhile)

Its companion piece, "Plain Sailing", is equally affecting. First released on her '82 solo debut A Distant Shore, the original version is full of echo and has a sparseness that goes with all-acoustic, no-special-guests works. Redone for the legendary 99p Cherry Red compilation Pillows & Prayers, it has sleigh bells (or bells of some kind) added to help give it a breezier pace. They're a welcome decorative touch and one that doesn't feel crassly commercial. Yes, I know we're supposed to appreciate the rawness of indie darlings recording on a shoestring but the single release is more professional and fleshed-out without sacrificing any of the original's beauty.

Only Thorn's vocals give an indication of what was coming and that was jazz pop. It took a little longer to catch than Ellen predicts but it eventually would. And that's the other thing about what college rock ought to have been: young performers leaning from musical dons above them. All those who would later be described as 'fey' and 'twee' learned from the craft of Thorn and Watt.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Level 42: "The Chinese Way"

With Tracey Thorn and her ilk moving in the direction of jazz, it's only right that there would be others moving away from it. Slowly transitioning from jazz-funk to mainstream pop, it's easy to see that Mark King and his Level 42 chums were struggling with quite how to pull it off. King's bass playing channels Jaco Pastorious and is easily the best thing about this catchy but not quite likable tune, while a Gould manages to look like Keith Jarrett but fails to play like him. It would be a while before they could squeeze a nifty pop tune like "Something About You", "Lessons in Love" or "Heaven in My Hands" (my own personal choice cut by ver Levs) but at least they were up for the challenge. Plenty of other jazz fusionists and prog rockers took to pop as though it were completely beneath them; good on the Isle of Wight's favourite sons enjoying themselves in the pop game.