Madness: "Wings of a Dove"

18 August 1983

"Bags of jollity and, no matter what they throw into the mix, the end result is distinctively Madness."

— Johnny Black

It seems to be an inevitability of pop that good time groups who have a mission to bring joy to the masses will eventually go melancholic — while doing everything they can to try to get around it. The Beatles pulled it off perhaps most successfully due to having songwriters who went through depression at different times. (John Lennon had his bout during his mid-sixities 'Fat Elvis' period, Paul McCartney just as the group was imploding over the course of their final year and George Harrison, well, pretty much the whole rest of the time) Glam rockers Slade suddenly became all reflective and somber with the material produced for their outstanding film Flame and promptly flounced off to the States to try their hand as an American bar band (with even sadder results). ABBA interspersed their more sorrowful numbers strategically among their bouncy party faves before they all got divorced, put out "The Day Before You Came" and decided to call it a day. George Michael had the smarts to release his darker material as solo singles while saving the joyous pop for Wham!

In a sense, Madness were the only group to fully embrace their melancholy. They all went through it together (even though a key member did depart during this period), they didn't suddenly decide to give it all a big rethink, they didn't use it as an excuse to pack it in and they didn't mask it under another name or label (that would come at the end of the eighties). There are a string of maudlin Madness singles which would only grow progressively more downbeat, reaching its apogee with "One Better Day", a heartbreakingly moving piece about homelessness, but carrying on still further as their creative and cultural relevancy began to dissipate.

"Wings of a Dove" catches the nutty ones edging closer towards melancholy, if not quite ready to resign themselves to. While I mentioned above that they would embrace this phase and go with it, there may have been some hesitation early on, possibly coming from record company executives, band management and production staff as much as the band themselves (if not more so). Previous single "Tomorrow's Just Another Day" dials back on the fun and frolics of "Our House" but the tempo is brisk and it's catchy enough not to depart from the formula that had given them a string of Top Ten hits. (A more accurate version of what they may have had in mind is the slower recording they did with Elvis Costello on lead vocals). Johnny Black seems to imply in his rather backhanded complimentary review — "Best of the Bunch though it's definitely not one of their most memorable songs", he concludes — that the augmentation of a steel band and choir only adds to the fun but I suspect that reserves have been called in to give some life to a pretty sad song — or an awfully serious one anyway. (I've heard this latter stage of Madness' career described as their "adult period", a label that isn't entirely inaccurate but one that I've chosen to refrain from using, especially since it's a term often applied to teen pop acts who make a ham-fisted attempt to grow up by producing supposedly edgy R & B)

So, just how is it sorrowful behind the obvious bags of jollity? Well, Suggs sounds more than a little downbeat in his delivery, a marked contrast from his usual winking, naughty schoolboy act. Opening with the lines "Take time for your pleasure / And laugh with love", I get the impression that either he's not entirely convinced by these sentiments himself or it's a brand of wisdom he's imparting inward. The lyrics in general are a departure from their wonderful character stories of troublemakers mucking about at school and ludicrous sexual escapades to an almost religious invocation to make the most out of life, be positive and "sing for the wings of a dove". It's all a bit self-defeating: by trying to convince us to be happy, they only succeed in coming across as sad.

As Black says, though, this is quintessential Madness, thanks largely to a bravura performance from all present. At the same time, it's by-numbers Madness: neither a standout like "One Step Beyond", "Our House" and "One Better Day" but not dragging quality standards down either. Impossible to dislike as ever but with such a high rate of great singles already in their discography (Divine Madness being probably the best greatest hits album of all time after ABBA Gold) maybe it's understandable that yet another great Madness song can be so callously shrugged off.

Full disclosure: this is almost certainly the only SOTF Madness ever received and, thus, likely the only opportunity I'll have to expound upon them in this space. We've already dealt with The Jam, The Human League, ABC, Dexys Midnight Runners, Wham! and Culture Club who were all at forefront of UK pop in the early eighties but the "chasps" that made up Madness may be the most vital of the lot. Their work is timeless in the sense that people of all ages can take to it: it's easy to imagine them being a big favourite of youngsters going to primary school at the peak of Thatcher's Britain while also enjoying a following among university students and dole queue adults — and managed to retain fans who otherwise got older and moved on from other interests. Their prolonged bout of depression may have been a step too far for most punters but it did little to affect their status as as a national treasure.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

UB40: "Red Red Wine"

A supposed favourite of yuppie dinner parties, "Red Red Wine" is easy fodder for scorn among hipsters. It's a sentiment I'd be happy to brush off if not for the fact that it's a song that's not half as lovely as it ought to be. I'd take the vocals seriously if only Ali Campbell didn't sing every damn song the same way — he's even the weak link on their sharp early material such as "Food for Thought" and "One in Ten". There's also the bad precedent this huge hit (a UK number one at the tail end of a very hot summer, edging out "Wings of a Dove") and its fellow numbers on the Labours of Love album set for ver 40: a seemingly endless list of bloodless cover versions (the nadir being an utterly charmless take on The Temptations' "The Way You Do the Things You Do" though there are plenty of other candidates to pick from); had this pleasantly bland single been a one off then it may have been possible to forgive them. And then there's the video: why on earth is Campbell singing about red, red wine while supping on a pint?

Strawberry Switchblade: "Trees and Flowers"

4 August 1983

"This is simply gorgeous. Rose and Jill are Strawberry Switchblade and on this, their debut single, they deliver deliciously sad and reflective vocals over some luxuriantly delicate music."

— Peter Martin

It's springtime here in Korea and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. One thing that you soon discover at this time of year is that they don't last long. A week to ten days seems to be the life expectancy of these flowers, although that can really depend on a particularly nasty rain and wind and then all bets are off. Of course, the fleeting nature of the sakura is precisely what makes them so cherished and, so, social media feeds are crammed with photos of the trees and well-placed Korean food trucks do a roaring trade at all the choice locales.

So, that's where I am and maybe it's why I'm finding writing this post about a song with a chorus of "...I hate the trees / and I hate the flowers..." to be so difficult. Sure, I can understand the appeal of staying in all day but that's just because I'm a lazy, directionless bugger, not because I'm agoraphobic. (This song is about agoraphobia, you know) I must say, I had no idea that fear of open spaces could lead to such hostility towards nature so I'm glad Strawberry Switchblade were able to enlighten me. I hope, however, that they weren't also trying to get me to understand the condition since I'm as ignorant now as I ever have been.

Scribe Peter Martin (who, judging from his photos, must be the Hits staff member who most wanted to look like a pop star) is absolutely enchanted by this but I could go either way. Conceptually it works: the very idea of setting lyrics about anxiety towards the outdoors and nature to a lush, pastoral production is a wonderful contradiction and so, too, is the contrast of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall's bored, deadpan vocals with the wistful instrumentation. Also, there's something intriguing about that chorus: in addition to hating the trees and the flowers, Jill and Rose also can't stand the buildings (particularly the way "they tower over me" they reckon). Trees and buildings, nature and development: they're all same it would seem.

Where it comes up a bit short is the feeling I get that so much more could have been achieved without all that fear. Yes, I am aware that you're not going to eek out much of a song about agoraphobia if you're content to explore the world but in a broader context of pop and creativity and inspiration the whole thing seems far too cloistered for my tastes. It's a good start but they were going to have to get out more.

Still, I can talk: I may get out a bit but what have the trees and flowers and buildings ever done for me? 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Style Council: The Style Council à Paris

"One of the most entertaining things about The Style Council", journalist Taylor Parkes considered in an episode of the Chart Music podcast, "was the glee with which they trolled the old Jam fans". Now, he and fellow guest Simon Price and host Al Needham were primarily discussing the homoerotic video for flagship song "Long Hot Summer" but I imagine these tunes messed with the heads of plenty of young English males who wanted the lad who did "Eton Rifles" and "Going Underground" to never change. (The fact that he was already shifting while in The Jam seems to go unacknowledged by many of their fans) No politics, no kitchen sink drama, no motivational truths, just "Long Hot Summer", one of Paul Weller's most poignant songs — one that would join Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" in capturing the lonely dark side of summer pop. The rest of the E.P. is filler with two instrumentals (something of a favourite for Weller and Merton Mick around this time: a year later, five vocal-free tunes would appear on their debut album) and a early take of "The Paris Match" (without the beautiful voice of Tracey Thorn to take it up a notch) but when you've got a career highlight to lead things off it hardly matters, does it? 

Kim Wilde: "Love Blonde"

21 July 1983

"So, it's great to hear Kim roaring back with a bit of finger-popping jazz, a great femme fatale lyric and a punchy chorus. Go to it, gal!"

— Deborah Steels

"She's got that sen-su-a-li-DEE..."

When I was in my late twenties I went through a period of underemployment followed by not having a job at all. When not preoccupied with fretting over my bleak future, I was busy having stimulating conversations with friends, listening to lots of jazz and reading some superb books. (Appropriately, it was during this period that I discovered the works of Geoff Dyer who describes the transition from studying at Oxford to life on the dole in South London: "The difference was the quality of study — which, of course, was far higher in Brixton") Quickly ditching the heavy semiotics, I took to the more creative writings of French philosopher Roland Barthes: Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse (which we'll likely get to in two or three years from now) and Camera Lucida, his study of photography.

In Camera Lucida, Barthes puts forth the notion of the punctum, a detail in a picture, which may or may not be relevant to the image, that touches a nerve in the viewer, typically the very first thing they happen to notice. I flipped out. I scanned every photo available to me in search of a punctum and then, once that source had become tapped, I started trying to spot them in song. (I once wrote a not-at-all-pretentious piece about the "punctures" of Bill Evans' Sunday at the Village Vanguard in which far too much of my attention was on the cover photo, a sign that the 'audible punctum' was beyond me) Of course, music operates differently from pictures. We look at a photograph and take it all in at once; a record we have to experience as it progresses from beginning to end. Still, I became fascinated by trying to listen for moments would grab me, throw me off, hit a nerve.

Kim Wilde's pronunciation is this song's punctum. To anyone thinking that "Love Blonde" is a straightforward jazz-pop ditty about a gorgeous woman who has men wrapped around her little finger, listen to how she makes the word 'sensuality' sound so lacking in, well, sensuality. (I first misheard this number as being the story of a young, working class girl who aspires to sophistication and cocktail bars but only ends up tripping up and exposing her real self, which, as I type, kind of still feels like a legitimate take) The femme fatale in the lyric is only seen to be that way. She's off limits to young men gawking at her and only comes alive when she's out of the public eye ("Situation: no-go zone / But she'll cut loose when she's alone") The attention is empowering and she gives no quarter. While the song was conceived as a joke, it needn't necessarily be taken lightly. Wilde winks audibly at the listener here and there but refuses to ham it up. And if you think she was singing about herself then the mangling of the last syllable of 'sensuality' should remove all doubt: she's just there to observe admiringly from a distance.

Considering the weightiness of her previous batch of singles, it's strange to think that people had Wilde down in the dumb blonde bimbo category. Prejudice towards her hair and image obviously played a part but so too was the implication that her dad and brother were doing much of the heavy lifting. Just reading back at the glowing reviews her two previous records received, it's easy to spot that Marty and Ricki Wilde being praised just as much. That may be right or wrong but at this point it appears to be a situation unique to her; other solo artists weren't having to share the acclaim among critics with their songwriters and/or producers. (This isn't to downplay the crucial role the two played, just to give Kim her due as one of her generation's premier vocalists, one who made those outstanding tunes and pristine productions into such fantastic singles)

"Love Blonde" is Kim Wilde's third Single of the Fortnight — and on the bounce to boot — making her the first act to hit for a trifecta. Having seen her chart fortunes dwindle with her remarkable trilogy of devastatingly bleak singles ("Cambodia" followed by previous SOTF'ers "View from a Bridge" and "Child Come Away"), it provided a welcome relief to fans and got her back into the Top 30. Not a big hit, no, and it would be a while before she began to really storm the charts again, but it's a single that adds luster to her already admirable discography. Having a record based in early rock 'n' roll and jazz (which I suspect may even be in on the joke: the likes of Weekend and Rip, Rig + Panic were then being heaped with acclaim, in no small part because of their use of jazz, a music that is to be taken seriously not like that synthy new wave rubbish) is a wonderful one-off for Wilde and a testament her underrated vocal range. She may not have had "sen-su-a-li-DEE" but she was way ahead of her peers in the game of crafting dazzling pop.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Altered Images: "Love to Stay"

Having never come across the Alts prior to starting this blog, I had been looking forward to exploring the work of a very fondly remembered early eighties act. Then I put on "I Could Be Happy", which I reviewed last summer. I wasn't impressed. People told recommended other songs but they left me similarly unenthusiastic. Are we supposed to be charmed by this stuff? Do people think it's cute? I'd pretty much given up until I reluctantly put "Love to Stay" on last week and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it sparkles where prior singles are dull and flat. It's the sort of thing not unlike what Saint Etienne would be doing a decade later. Indeed, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs would've happily traded in their vast collections of French Yé-yé and Belgian popcorn records to have composed something as elegant as "Love to Stay". Nevertheless, it somehow missed the Top 40 and Altered Images were pretty much done. And just as they were hitting their stride too.

Echo & The Bunnymen: "Never Stop"

7 July 1983

"Easier to dance to than philosophize about, which is all well and good."

— Dave Rimmer

It has now been just short of a year since I first launched VER HITS and we've already come across a few acts more than once (and that's not even including the so-called "cop" picks I've been making). In these cases, it's been interesting seeing how each managed to progress — assuming, of course, that's what they were striving for. ABC's second effort ramps up the loucheness of their first, while Kim Wilde's second kick at the SOTF crown is a tinkering of her patented gloomy song stories that had made her a darling of the Smash Hits staff. The Jam were progressing towards their demise, "Beat Surrender" being as far as they could possibly go. (Only Bobby O's pair of star singles hints at a static level of creativity; for all I know, he could well have cut his two entries at the same session)

We last encountered Echo & The Bunnymen here back in September with David Hepworth anointing a SOTF upon "The Back of Love" which also happened to be their first hit single. I describe it as a "breakthrough" for the Bunnies and Heps seems particularly pleased to discover that they at last seemed "fed up with loitering in the backwaters of hipness". Jump ahead eight months later (fifteen if you insist on going by what the calendars recorded) and there's Dave Rimmer pleasantly surprised that they've finally come out with something you might want to dance to rather than ponder over. Ian McCulloch and his Bunny chums seemed to have a lot of trouble shaking their reputation for making music that isn't necessarily to be enjoyed but should make their fans feel vastly superior to those poor, uninitiated sods.

Rimmer is so pleased by this apparent shift that he might be guilty of overdoing the praise a touch. While it's hard to disagree that it's "probably the best Bunnymen single ever", I don't know that I'd go so far as to describe the opening as "joyous" or that I'd sum it all up by saying that it's "sheer bliss". Nevertheless, there's plenty here to admire. Musically damn-near flawless (now who's overselling), the cello, disco percussion and "what sounds like someone tapping out a tune on the ribs of a skeleton" manage to overshadow some fantastic Will Sergeant guitar playing (the instrumental break in which he does some fast-paced chugging followed by some fun with a whammy bar is remarkable). Rims is also taken by McCulloch's "heartfelt vocals" but they sound like Mac doing what he always did (and probably still does): a more powerful Terry Hall, a less melodramatic Bono, a Robert Smith you can relate to (yet, strangely, not close to as compelling as any of them). Distinctive enough — when a random song comes on I certainly know when it's not him — if not exactly individual, his histrionic wail couldn't have suited the Bunnymen sound better. If he's heartfelt on "Never Stop" then he's equally affecting elsewhere. (Still, I suppose it provides the only Top of the Pops clip of McCulloch untucking his shirt mid-performance — or is it? — so perhaps that gives his nibs points on the soulful scale)

I get the feeling that hacks at ver Hits really had high hopes for Echo & The Bunnymen and that goes some way to explaining why they held their weaknesses — the ultra-hipness, the penchant for philosophy — against them so much and celebrated when they were able to overcome them. From the perspective of three and a half decades on, it's difficult to fully comprehend why they were so esteemed. A fine frontman, an inventive guitarist, a tight rhythm section, sure, but there's something missing that kept them from being special. McCulloch may reckon that they could have easily been U2 but I'd say it's much more likely that U2 could have been Echo & The Bunnymen.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bananarama: "Cruel Summer"

I have to admit my that my enthusiasm for "Never Stop" is reduced slightly because a far superior record got jobbed out of a rightful SOTF. As a boy I always appreciated "Cruel Summer" for perfectly capturing the tedium of a long summer vacation from school, which would always begin so promisingly by meeting friends to go for bike rides or swimming but would soon descend into days on end of nothing but gameshows and reruns on TV. Dealing with summer romance gone sour, this song is so bathed in humidity that it's easy for anyone who has ever had to cope with a heat wave to relate to. The atmosphere is so muggy that it's like being in the middle of a huge city in the tropics with air so thick you have to expend extra energy to make your way through it. The extra touch of a cabasa rattle in the background brings to mind the dense, heat-fueled sound of cicadas. The first classic single from the 'Narns, this is the greatest summer hit since "Hot Fun in the Summertime".

Roman Holliday: "Don't Try to Stop It"

23 June 1983

"Very lively, a good summer record and, with the right breaks, it should be a big hit."

— George Michael

"It sounds like a sophisticated JoBoxers."

— Andrew Ridgely

The lads from Wham! are in the singles reviewer's chair this fortnight and they don't exactly kill it like Gary Kemp a couple issues back. Dragged down a bit perhaps by an uninspiring bunch of records, the pair don't seem to have much to say. In keeping with their group dynamic of one member doing vocals, music, writing and production and the other seemingly content to be a mate and look the part, George Michael takes the lead with the bulk of the little analysis offered up. For his part, perennial other one Andrew Ridgely does trot out the odd perceptive remark (his comment above comparing Roman Holliday to JoBoxers is the closest thing to a fascinating observation) but is otherwise consigned to the background. Good to know that Wham! could never stop being Wham!

We're a long way off from the starkly serious George Michael — not to mention the equally starkly serious facial hair that accompanied his metamorphosis — that pop music fans would eventually become all-too familiar with but we're already seeing a figure in dire need of a sense of humour. He also shows signs of a sizable rock star ego. Unable at times to put the records he's been tasked with first, he says of heavy metal that its one saving grace is that the "attitudes that go with it are far less dangerous than the elitism I bump into once or twice a week at London's trendier nightclubs". Of the sleeve of "Disco Bond" by The Frank Barber Orchestra, he points out that "if I were the sexist pig I've been accused of being, I'd probably say that the only decent thing about this record are the tasty birds on the cover". He's far from the worst offender in this regard but it's a bit sad seeing him make much of this review about himself.

Some records may have a lot going on in their favour yet still manage not to deliver much. Roman Holliday ably merge their obvious debt to fifties doo-wop and rock 'n' roll with post punk soul and touches of ska but they fail to convince in doing so. Their Peel session from a year earlier isn't really to my taste but their strict reliance on older styles feels much more comfortably in their element. Hardly tipped for a ride on the Giddy Carousel of Pop but it's easy to imagine them being good fun as a live act. (In the wacky video for "Don't Try to Stop It" they finish up their hectic day with a gig for some senior citizens which makes me wonder if they were nodding towards older audiences being better at appreciating their swing pop sound) It's hard to imagine what else backers John Peel and The Clash's Mick Jones saw in them otherwise. 

Good, throwaway fun for some, "Don't Try to Stop It" got some of the breaks that Michael had hoped for as it landed in the Top 20. Despite putting their very youthful-looking vocalist Steve Lambert on the cover later in the year, Roman Holliday were pretty much one and done, the follow-up, "Motormania", "enjoying" just a cup of coffee in charts. Novelty songs can have that effect. On the bright side, at least they could go back to being a real group again. You know, like Wham!

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto: "Forbidden Colours"

One of many collaborations between the former leader of new romantic act Japan and the far east's foremost purveyor of eighties' pop, "Forbidden Colours" is from the British-Japanese film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and is described by Michael as a "film theme rather than a song" (as well as "pleasant enough background music": cheers for that Ridges). It could simply be its place in the context of picture about British prisoners of war kept by the Japanese but Sylvian and Sakamoto succeed at bridging troubled cultural differences where Bowie — also, fact fans, one of the stars of this very same movie, strange they didn't have him contribute to its soundtrack...or is it? — did so with charm but little substance on "China Girl". (Mind you, he did get all rumpo with an Asian girl on a beach in the video so you can't say he wasn't doing his part too) A gorgeous song in which Sylvian nicely balances the emotion and restraint, this should have been this issue's runaway SOTF. 

Freur: "Matters of the Heart"

9 June 1983

"If you name looks like a worm and is pronounced like someone being a little unwell, you should have no chance, but this is a suede-skinned, juicy peach of a record."

— Mark Steels

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose double-glazing. Choose a hi-fi. Choose vitamins. Choose Breakfast Television. Choose to purchase your council flat. Choose seatbelts. Choose a sit-down Wimpy. Choose a holiday in Tenerife. Choose nuclear disarmament. Choose to believe Hugh Trevor-Roper. Choose lucozade. Choose peace in Northern Ireland. Choose Steve Cram. Choose getting a video for the kids.

A couple weeks' back in the so-called "cop" piece that closes out these entries, I discussed "The Stand" by The Alarm, who I argued were at the forefront of Welsh pop due to there being absolutely no one else. Not true at all. There was Alison Statton, formerly of Young Marble Giants but this time vocalist for post-punk smooth jazzers Weekend, who enjoyed a SOTF a year earlier with "Past Meets Present". One of Britain's biggest acts of the time, Shakin' Stevens, also happened to be Welsh. But it wasn't a region overflowing with musical talent and the very fact that I keep thinking about late-eighties sophisti-pop one-hit wonders Waterfront says it all.

Emerging out of Cardiff in 1983 was synth-pop gloomsters Freur. In fact, they were never called Freur, that was simply how one pronounced their name. They used a symbol and only came up with 'Freur' as a compromise with their record label. A good ten years before Prince cooked up his in-no-way pretentious "name" (with the much lengthier pronunciation of "the Artist Formerly Known as Prince"), this Welsh quartet must have really thought they were on to something with their, in the words of Kimberley Leston, "squiggle resembling a poorly tapeworm". The squiggle got them to number 59 in the charts with their first single "Doot-Doot' (either that or their eccentric name prevented them from getting any higher) and this was its follow-up. Not a great song but a marked improvement over its insubstantial predecessor. Trying for that glacial snyth sound that worked so well on Ultravox's "Vienna" and OMD's "Souvenir", it works out for them musically with a beautifully ghostly sound but it's a lyrical mess. It has lines that seem be meant to be profound but, upon closer study and thought, are mostly just nonsense. "Clowns in the street / The city is asleep / And no one hears a beat"? Hmmm, I'd be interested in investigating quite what they're getting at if I wasn't convinced they were churning out whatever sounds good. If the song's thesis is 'matters of the heart are complicated, you know' then I can't disagree but if leaves me wondering why I should care.

It is perhaps with this musical proficiency/lyrical ineptness in mind that Freur would gradually shift towards techno ambiance. Not strictly instrumental nor with a particular emphasis on samples and/or guest vocalists from the pop/rock "scene" but with certainly less importance placed on vocals. It's not an especially big leap to make going from synth-pop to electronica but it was something very few were able to pull off (indeed, it was a shift not many seemed interested in attempting). Dave Nonis, Mark Almond's mustachioed cohort in Soft Cell, would eventually re-emerge in nineties techno boffins with banjos The Grid but, by and large, your Vince Clarke's and Chris Lowe's who headed up the technical side of their acts avoided going full-on big beat. Freur embraced changes in the musical landscape and ended up as Underworld. 

Choose life. Choose success. Choose film soundtracks. Choose rave. Choose hardwood flooring. Choose Michael Eavis. Choose credibility. Choose the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha-ngna. Choose New Labour. Choose lad mags. Choose ecstasy. Choose authenticity.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Lotus Eaters: "The First Picture of You"

They had a good name for a band, a melody that implants itself in the brain (and not just after a night out, as Steels suggests, even though I totally get singing something tragically romantic when stumbling home alone from the bars...that was basically my twenties), a lead singer with no apparent shyness for mugging for a camera and a song that probably got them a shag or two. So why does "The First Picture of You" feel a bit off? Well, as Steels says, there's a little too much preciousness here but maybe that's to be expected. This was their first single and it's nice but it smacks of dreamy sixteen-year-old idealism. (I keep thinking back to all the rubbish poetry I wrote at that age which does provide perspective: given that I wrote something called "A Fortnight Away She Shall Be", I would've traded my left nut to have composed "The First Picture of You") While it took Freur more than a decade, not to mention a much-needed name change, to build themselves into a success, The Lotus Eaters may have hit it big way too fast. This pleasant but unremarkable song should have been a sign of things to come.

Shalamar: "Dead Giveaway"

26 May 1983

"Keep breathing British air, Jeffrey, the inspiration's mutual."

— Gary Kemp

Recalling those final, painful days at the Melody Maker in a recent Chart Music podcast, guest Sarah Bee mentions overseeing the legendary paper's singles review page with a variety of acts brought in give their thoughts on the latest batch of pop records. "It was always really interesting to hear musicians talk about other musicians and their work", she says, maybe a little generously. "There was such a spectrum of how they'd approach it: some would be very offhand and others would get really nerdy and others were twats, of course. You always get twats."

We're a good ways away yet from twat pop stars coming in to review the Smash Hits singles but the guest critic was always a mixed bag. Some clearly took the task far too seriously, while others — as Bee mentions — couldn't have given less of a shit. Of more significance, however, is that few had much to say. (Chart Music host Al Needham asks Bee who was the worst group she dealt with in her role and she chose the Ben Folds Five for their surly demeanour and utter lack of insight) We'll come across several pop stars covering very much the same spectrum that Bee talks about but sadly few who manage to transcend the novelty.

Spandau Ballet songwriter, guitarist and singer Gary Kemp sits in as singles reviewer this fortnight and it's a cracker. Not, mind you, because he picked the best record on offer (even though he did), nor because he's a brilliant writer (although he does rather well in that regard) but due to some very thoughtful comments that never occurred to me before. The Style Council's "Money-Go-Round" reminds him of a "cockney Gil Scott Heron", while of Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something" he notes that "it's strange how you don't always appreciate tracks so much until they're sitting on seven inch vinyl". Of Spear of Destiny's "The Wheel", he points out that it's a rare guitar track that could wind up a sizable club hit — something I'm inclined to agree with and I don't even like it. Then there's the above quote that concludes his SOTF review of Shalamar's "Dead Giveaway".

African American musicians have been transplanting to Europe for the better part of a century. Trumpeter Bill Coleman was among the first, recognising that he was being treated with far more respect in France than in his homeland. With jazz's appeal in the States on the wane after the Second World War, there became an increasing financial incentive to settle across the Atlantic. Ben Webster, Bud Powell, Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker and Don Cherry were among the stars who made either a permanent or long-term move to Europe. The practise became a little less common in the rock era but Jimi Hendrix was a fixture of swinging London, Marvin Gaye lived for a time in Belgium and Tina Turner is now a Swiss citizen. Quite whether the members of Shalamar ever contemplated uprooting themselves to Britain is something I am in no position to answer and I'm not even sure if they did any recording there but Kemp seems to think that the UK was doing them some good and I suspect for more than just the financial benefit.

Beginning perhaps with Northern soul, black American acts began to figure out that there were appreciative audiences in Britain where few-to-none existed back home. Much as Kemp enjoyed their previous album Friends, it was West Coast soul-funk record in a world of West Coast soul-funk records. "Dead Giveaway", as well as much of its parent album The Look, seems to be more the result of playing intense shows in York, Blackpool and Southampton in which Jody Watley would be rendered near-hoarse, Jeffery Daniel would be soaked in sweat and Howard Hewett would be replacing guitar strings on a nightly basis.

The mutual inspiration Kemp talks about is that Britain gave a shot of adrenaline to the members of Shalamar while upping the creative stakes for bands all over the country. Established acts such as Imagination, JoBoxers and, yes, ver Spands could only look on in awe at how Daniel, Hewett and Watley were able to whip crowds into a frenzy. The sort of act everyone could learn from.

So, Shalamar had another hit single in the can and had found a new life in the UK. A shame, then, that it was all about to implode as Daniel and Watley were soon to depart, wasting the momentum that had been building. If only they'd taken Kemp's advice to keep breathing in the British air.

Smash Hits was obviously pleased enough with Kemp that they would eventually ask him to come back to review the singles again, this time with his brother Martin along. For his part, Kemp seemed to have sufficiently enjoyed the task to give it another go. Only a select number of pop stars returned to the singles review chair and with only one twat among them. Sit tight readers.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

David Bowie: "China Girl"

Kemp admits that he didn't get a chance to listen to this one, figuring that the Hits brass assumed he'd already heard it on the album Let's Dance. (To be fair, it was probably the last David Bowie LP that you could take for granted that people in the business would be familiar with) It's now been two years since the death of Dame David and the reverence with which he is spoken of hasn't subsided. And they're probably right to do so. He had a tremendous run of singles from "Space Oddity" to "Ashes to Ashes" with some pretty great albums thrown in too. He was also an artist's artist and a musician's musician: even if you didn't happen to care for every twist and turn in his lengthy career, you had to admire him for trying. Not so much here but still. A boring record by Iggy Pop standards a half-dozen years earlier, it replaces the original's sleaze for sophistication but not to better results. I suppose it's a production tour-de-force from Nile Rodgers even if those Asian rhythms are a cliché and were more charmingly used by Buck Owens on "Made in Japan". Bowie should really have been paying attention to Shalamar: the inspiration might have done him good.

C.O.D.: "In the Bottle"

12 May 1983

"Mr. Hip Hop himself, Man Parrish, had a hand in producing it and, needless to say, Dave Rimmer's had it on import for weeks."

— Neil Tennant

As has been discussed on here before, Neil Tennant was busy getting his musical aspirations in order while also toiling away the Hits. (I was going to say he was doing so in his space time but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the two tasks crossed over quite a bit) Pop dominance wasn't the forefront of his mind as this early stage, however; what he and partner Chris Lowe envisioned was to cut a single in the States that would only be available on import in the shops in Britain. With the balance of power in the hands of the big record labels at the expense of the indies and the spread of HMV, Tower Records and the Virgin Megastores in the nineties, imported music became easier to get but it still retained a certain cachet, if only to get a shrink-wrapped compact disc with an IMPORT sticker emblazoned on it. Nevertheless, it's not quite the same  as poking around in a dusty old shop and coming across a record that somehow worked its way over the Atlantic or ordering the latest 12" dance sensation from an obscure enthusiast label (or so I hear, having never done so myself).

Sigh, another Tennant review, another piece all about the Pet Shop Boys. Readers of this blog will doubtless be wondering if I have nothing else of note to say about eighties' dance music and they're not wrong. If anything, this project has only upped my appreciation of ver Pet Shops as a pair who managed to cram the best bits of disco, hip-hop and synth-pop into their sound while deftly avoiding the pitfalls of their some of their forefathers. In short, what got them out of the specialty import shops and into every Our Price, Boots, WH Smith's and Woolworth's. In terms of song structure, no one influenced them more than Bobby O; as far as sampled sound effects go, we may look no further than C.O.D. Indeed, the first fifty-or-so seconds of "In the Bottle" practically sound like an awkward instrumental megamix of songs from the first PSB album Please as well as some of its accompanying B-sides.

Where they don't work so well is on "In the Bottle" itself. A cover of the Gil Scott-Heron number from his Winter in America album about rampant alcoholism in the black community, it trades in the lush R & B groove and soaring flute of the original in favour of some hard-edge breakbeats (as was the style of the time). Scott-Heron's relaxed, effortless vocal, too, is dropped with preference on an angry rap. Choices made: nuance loses out but I can definitely see opting for a bitter take on this song. 

It's in the production of lead C.O.D.'er Paul A. Rodriguez and boffin Man Parrish where it comes apart. Aside from having a song about the ill-effects of boozing being lost on your average clubber and/or breakdancer, there's a pointlessness of putting together a song with such an important message only for much of it to be drowned out by this all-you-can-eat buffet of effects. It's as if Rodriguez and Parrish knew all about crafting music to be danced to but hadn't the faintest idea about making pop records. Cue Tennant and Lowe.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Aztec Camera: "Walk Out to Winter"

Aztec Camera shared a lot in common with fellow eccentrically-named groups Prefab Sprout and Scritti Politti. All three transitioned from D.I.Y. indie darlings into purveyors of smooth sophisti-pop and were led by talent figures who gradually took charge to the extent that their "bands" became glorified solo projects. "Walk Out to Winter" was never as appropriately bleak as the snowy wastes of the title imply and it seems on this single version Roddy Frame decided to go full-on breezy mode. Some fantastic janggly acoustic guitar playing closes out a song that impressed Tennant by being their first attempt at pop. Too bad C.O.D. weren't up to it too.

Fun Boy Three: "Our Lips Are Sealed"

28 April 1983

"This, however, is the definitive version — slower and more atmospheric, lending that simply breathtaking tune an air of brooding passion. And when Terry sings 'hush my darling, don't you cry', you want to rush up and give him a big hug."

— Deborah Steels

It's the middle of 1981 and a single has been released by an LA all-female quintet. It's immensely catchy with a chorus you find yourself singing along with almost from the off. The sunshine power pop helps propel a defiant song about not giving a crap what other people think and the singer's cheeriness makes it easy to buy what they're selling. It's a bit slow to take off but it eventually becomes an enormous hit in several countries — except for in England where the public are far too cynical for such stuff.

Jump ahead nearly two years and a single has been released by an all-male vocal trio with backing from mostly female musicians. It's catchy in an ominous way that sticks to the listener long after it's been played. The rumbling low key funk mixed with deep-voiced backing vocalists and a stark cello helps propel an uneasy song about wanting not to give a crap what other people think and the singer's brittle monotone makes it easy to buy what they're selling. It's a big hit in England but it doesn't do much elsewhere — it's presumably way too depressing for those bloody foreigners.

A co-write by Fun Boy Terry Hall and Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's, "Our Lips Are Sealed" is reputedly an account of their hook-up while on tour together in 1980 (when Hall and bandmates Lyndval Golding and Neville Staple were still members of The Specials). Since they both had a hand in it, it seems wrong to suggest that the FB3 version is a cover of the original. Rather, it acts as a response to it.

While both have their merits, I can't see how anyone would possibly opt for the Go-Go's version. Where Hall's vocal offers up heartbreak, Belinda Carlisle's reading is so blandly cheerful that it lends little to the song. It's a shame that Wiedlin didn't have the opportunity to take the lead as her brief solo in the bridge (the 'hush my darling' part that won Deborah Steels' heart) is arguably the best part of their recording. It also suggests what she might have done with it. Syrupy but with a coy wink, I get the feeling that Wiedlin could have offered up an interpretation that is kind and reassuring with a sly 'but don't you dare piss me off or I'm spilling the beans, buddy' air. (A demo of Hall and Wiedlin singing it together would be ideal but since they collaborated on it via correspondence I don't expect to ever come across such a thing) Still, The Go-Go's version is hard to dislike and does a nice job of flipping off nosy busyboddies.

Hall's vocals are superb but so, too, is the performance from the entire expanded edition of the Fun Boy Three, suddenly a misnomer for two reasons — and that's assuming that the 'Fun' in their name was meant to be ironic. Golding and Staple have less to do vocally than usual but their guitar and percussion parts are both excellent. The eight-or-nine-piece "Three" come together to play an understated groove that's not unlike the work of Talking Heads at around the same time. (I thought this was an incisive observation until I remembered that chief Head David Byrne produced it) As Steels says, this is absolutely divine and the best they'd ever do. (But then they were pretty much done by this point. Hall seemed to have a knack for dropping out of groups right at their peak. During the turbulent summer of 1981, he was riding high as lead vocalist of The Specials, who'd enjoyed a two year run of seven top ten singles on the bounce — and each one is still absolutely brilliant. "Ghost Town" was their second chart topper and immediately captured the zeitgeist of the miserable Thatcher years — and, yet, the definitive Specials line-up didn't survive to see out the single's chart run. Golding, Hall and Staple promptly banded together as Fun Boy Three, a more modestly successful combo but one that still had seven top twenty entries before winding things down later on in 1983. I'll have to see if Hall's third group, The Colourfield, managed a similar career trajectory)

In preparing to write this piece, I found myself listening to the Fun Boy Three and The Go-Go's back to back. (I also tried out the scarcely recognizable Urdu version that ver 3 ended up using as a B-side but the once was enough) The former's heavy, sorrowful treatment was nicely contrasted with the sunshine power pop of the latter. Hall's sorrow is replied with a terse 'quit moping, you silly sod!', while Carlisle's jubilant defiance is then met with a stern rebuke of 'don't you dare trivialize what we had' — and so on in an argument that no one quite comes out ahead in. While the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Richard and Linda Thompson cut whole albums of lost love anguish, Terry Hall and Jane Wiedlin managed to cram all sorts of therapy and dirty laundry into one smashing song.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Alarm: "The Stand"

Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones weren't what they used to be and we're still at least a decade out from the rise of Manic Street Preachers and Super Furry Animals and Catatonia and (uh, excuse me while I throw up in my mouth) Stereophonics and so Welsh pop music pride centred around The Alarm. Looking and sounding like a provincial Canadian bar band hoping to get their big break through an appearance on cheap local TV (if you follow me), their playing is spirited and, as Steels says, the harmonica intro is the best part. Not bad, not bad but more the result of this issue's singles being not unlike the Welsh music scene of the time: The Alarm stand out because there's not much else to choose from.

The Valentine Brothers: "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)"

14 April 1983

"This was around on import for many moons before anyone was bright enough to release it. Is it too late now? Well, it's still a great record: the disco version of what Reagan's doing to the inner cities of the USA, with foundations in a solid synth bass line and a sax that soars into the sky."

— Dave Rimmer

I made a passing reference to Thatcherite hell in last week's entry and it's something that came up over and over throughout the eighties in UK pop. Albums such as Pink Floyd's The Final Cut, The Style Council's Our Favourite Shop, Pet Shop Boys' Actually and Julian Cope's Peggy Suicide can all be boiled down to chronicles of a dreary England in the midst of the Falklands War, riotting, shabby new towns, union busting, the AIDS crisis, football hooliganism's apogee and the dominance of media empires of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell. Some pop stars took dead aim at Mrs. Thatcher in song: Elvis Costello mocked her in "You'll Never Be a Man" and then went one better eight years later when he fantasied over her death in "Tramp the Dirt Down", a sentiment echoed by Morrissey, who one might expect would've had some political sympathies with the Iron Lady, in "Margaret on the Guillotine". The Specials' "Ghost Town", Hue & Cry's "Labour of Love", Billy Bragg's "Between the Wars", Depeche Mode's "Everything Counts", The Housemartins' "Flag Day", Wham!'s "Wham Rap!"...I'd go on but I think I've made my point — plus I can't think of any more.

So, that's Britain but what of the USA at this time? I had trouble thinking of a song about Ronald Reagan and/or Reaganite America until I remembered The Ramones' "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg". Beyond that, however, there's not much. Some older liberal rock stars came up with tunes condemning the old coot's vulgarity and there are lots records about his involvement in the arms race but many of those are by the likes of U2, INXS, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Genesis and Midnight Oil, thereby much more of an international concern than anything Mrs. Thatcher was up to. As for what real Americans were dealing with in the decade of post-New Deal individualism and tax cuts for the wealthy, there's not much to go on.

In this void we say hello to John and Billy Valentine. While it would be nice to place them in the context of politically conscious black American pop, it's rather difficult to do so since "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" is a one off for them. Appearing after a brief overture which opens their second album First Take, the song concludes and is followed by four smoochtastic love songs before wrapping up with an instrumental rendition of the present song and a reprise of the overture (which ought to have been the finale if we're being technical) — I think it's fair to say that the duo didn't exactly have a glut of material with which to pad their latest album. (The track's placing near the LP's opening could be taken as a warning to any interested ladies that these Valentines are (appropriately) romantic but perhaps a wee bit too cash poor to show them a really good time but better that than leaving the message of 'oh, and by the way, we're broke; you don't happen to have a ten spot you could lend us, do you?' for the end)

The remainder of their discography may be politically apathetic but that only underscores the poignancy of this attempt. These are average guys, interested in women and having a drink and watching sports on TV, they're not concerned about pollution or Apartheid (not sufficiently to have recorded and released songs about them at any rate). A lack of cash in their pockets is what's driving them. The bank turned them down for a load but treated them with dignity and family members can't help because they, too, are feeling the pinch but the government has been giving them the runaround. The supposed economic stimulus of tax breaks has resulted in an improvement in their lives. This is, of course, nothing new or profound but is a welcome change in an American music landscape of the time so lacking in everyday problems.

With vocal stylings clearly influenced by Marvin Gaye, it's tempting to wonder if this is the sort of thing he ought to have been doing during his final years rather than pissing them away on nauseating sex tracks. With Marvelous Marvin's What's Going On already a massive influence, you'd think this would be right up his alley. The only trouble is, Gaye's work had his ego to deal with, putting himself at the centre of everything he did. (A key track on What's Going On is "What's Happening Brother" in which an out of touch Gaye is gamely attempting to reconnect with his people, community and the world around him while never quite managing to shake the feeling that it's all about him) "Money's Too Tight" has an everyman quality about it that Gaye could never have pulled off, even when his creative faculties were still intact.

A minor hit on the Billboard R & B charts, it's unlikely that it or the First Take album did much for their finances. Luckily, they were to make a pretty good windfall from a cover a couple years later by yet another British act who also had a problem with Mrs. Thatcher.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Creatures: "Miss the Girl"

As extra-curricular musical projects go, you could do worse than The Creatures. Paring down the sometimes messy sound of Siouxsie & The Banshees to vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and percussionist Budgie, there is a great deal more space for the singer's uniquely expressive deadpan to stand out with just some outstanding jazzy gamelan vibes to back her up. While the melody is not unlike XTC's annoying "Melt the Guns" from their 1982 English Settlement album, the pair do far more with it and in far less time. These two goths sure did pull off that exotica stuff.