8 November 1984
"His knowledge of the geography of the United Kingdom is shown up, however, as he assures us that people are rocking the box "all over Great Britain, from Liverpool to Wales". A distance, if I'm not mistaken, of not much more than 20 miles."
— Neil Tennant
Do the best pop stars have crap taste in music? Okay, that's a bit much but do they listen to stuff that's good enough to inspire them but not so good that it shows up their own creativity? Blues, three-chord rock, punk, disco, hip hop: the simplest forms of music seem to have a knack for inspiring loads of great musicians. If you're only ever listening to complex jazz fusion and prog rock and the like, you're liable to become an enthusiast - and even something of a talented muso but is it going to get you making recording sublime pop records? Or take power pop: I'm sure members of The Raspberries and Cheap Trick and Teenage Fanclub have or had fantastic record collections but it didn't stop any of them from making tedious, unadventuresome music of their own. This is Neil Tennant's eighth (and final) go at reviewing the singles and it's clear that his choice picks aren't close to the music that he'd very soon be making. Naturally, the five electro-dance cuts he picked have more than a little in common with what he and longtime partner Chris Lowe would make a highly successful career out of but they lack his wit, charm and pop touches; two of the three pop songs, however, lack the sonic thrills of classic Pet Shop Boys. (The one number not included here would be Billy Idol's which really does go to show you how pop music genius can sometimes find favour with a crap record)
That said, "Rock the Box" is one of Tennant's better SOTF, probably the finest since The Associates' superb "Party Fears Two". As he says, Sylvester - along with writers/producers Ken Kessie and Morey Goldstein - crams absolutely everything in here. To an eighties dance music fanatic like Tennant it probably would have sounded like he had "nicked every electro cliché in the box" but thirty-five years on (and, to be sure, to someone who hasn't enjoyed dance music for nearly as long) it's stupendous, a roaring melange of swift scratching, synthy beeps and boops and effects that could be samples but for the fact that it's 1984 and they could very well have been coming up with this stuff from scratch. It isn't even as banal as Tennant thinks: had this record been made near the end of the decade we would have been greeted with that Funky Drummer sample, a more measured, far less subtle bit of scratching and those whoops and yeahs you used to hear on every single with house music aspirations. It would have sounded, in other words, like every club record of the age; "Rock the Box" gobbles up every idea and still sounds like nothing else out there.
This being a club favourite, however, it falls short lyrically, the words clearly taking a backseat to everything else going on even if Sylvester sings it pretty well. Concerned with how vital it is to rock ver box, there's not much of a story here but, then, why should there be one? As for Tennant's observation about old Syl's lack of "knowledge of the geography of the United Kingdom", it ought to be considered in light of just how little he manages to credit the vast majority of the citizens of his homeland. While "all around Great Britain, from Liverpool to Wales" may be unintentionally funny, the twenty or so miles covered is vast compared to an earlier line which regales of "all around Manhattan, from Brooklyn to the Bronx", an acknowledgement that while Britain had taken to him, the majority of the US wasn't as keen. A nice thought crediting the UK as a whole even if it didn't help the single which only just managed to dent the lower reaches of the charts. (Having said that, it must've sold like mad around Chester)
Finally, this is where Tennant bows out from the singles review chores. Perhaps not coincidentally, we're about to enter a more rockist and indie period in this section of the magazine - a trend which wouldn't begin to right itself until, also not entirely coincidentally, the rise of the Pet Shop Boys. Gone forever are the New York club records by the likes of Bobby O, Rockers Revenge and C.O.D. because their chief backer was busy cutting his own singles. Pop music's gain would be music criticism's loss: a trade off well worth making in spite of the price paid.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Blue Nile: "Stay"
Pioneers of beautiful melancholic pop, taking forever to release albums and using the word 'Stay' as a song title a good ten years before everyone else did, The Blue Nile astonished critics and budding musicians (the ones with good taste in music so they may not have made decent records themselves) while the public remained largely numb to their charms. Resolutely as minimalist as they would ever be, it also happens to be far breezier than much of their noted work, anticipating a track like "Sentimental Man" by a dozen years. Given their minuscule discography and perfectionist tendencies, this could have been a typical part of their sound had they been able to churn out releases at the normal pop star rate. Tennant foresees a possible hit and what a world that would have been.
Do the best pop stars have crap taste in music? Okay, that's a bit much but do they listen to stuff that's good enough to inspire them but not so good that it shows up their own creativity? Blues, three-chord rock, punk, disco, hip hop: the simplest forms of music seem to have a knack for inspiring loads of great musicians. If you're only ever listening to complex jazz fusion and prog rock and the like, you're liable to become an enthusiast - and even something of a talented muso but is it going to get you making recording sublime pop records? Or take power pop: I'm sure members of The Raspberries and Cheap Trick and Teenage Fanclub have or had fantastic record collections but it didn't stop any of them from making tedious, unadventuresome music of their own. This is Neil Tennant's eighth (and final) go at reviewing the singles and it's clear that his choice picks aren't close to the music that he'd very soon be making. Naturally, the five electro-dance cuts he picked have more than a little in common with what he and longtime partner Chris Lowe would make a highly successful career out of but they lack his wit, charm and pop touches; two of the three pop songs, however, lack the sonic thrills of classic Pet Shop Boys. (The one number not included here would be Billy Idol's which really does go to show you how pop music genius can sometimes find favour with a crap record)
That said, "Rock the Box" is one of Tennant's better SOTF, probably the finest since The Associates' superb "Party Fears Two". As he says, Sylvester - along with writers/producers Ken Kessie and Morey Goldstein - crams absolutely everything in here. To an eighties dance music fanatic like Tennant it probably would have sounded like he had "nicked every electro cliché in the box" but thirty-five years on (and, to be sure, to someone who hasn't enjoyed dance music for nearly as long) it's stupendous, a roaring melange of swift scratching, synthy beeps and boops and effects that could be samples but for the fact that it's 1984 and they could very well have been coming up with this stuff from scratch. It isn't even as banal as Tennant thinks: had this record been made near the end of the decade we would have been greeted with that Funky Drummer sample, a more measured, far less subtle bit of scratching and those whoops and yeahs you used to hear on every single with house music aspirations. It would have sounded, in other words, like every club record of the age; "Rock the Box" gobbles up every idea and still sounds like nothing else out there.
This being a club favourite, however, it falls short lyrically, the words clearly taking a backseat to everything else going on even if Sylvester sings it pretty well. Concerned with how vital it is to rock ver box, there's not much of a story here but, then, why should there be one? As for Tennant's observation about old Syl's lack of "knowledge of the geography of the United Kingdom", it ought to be considered in light of just how little he manages to credit the vast majority of the citizens of his homeland. While "all around Great Britain, from Liverpool to Wales" may be unintentionally funny, the twenty or so miles covered is vast compared to an earlier line which regales of "all around Manhattan, from Brooklyn to the Bronx", an acknowledgement that while Britain had taken to him, the majority of the US wasn't as keen. A nice thought crediting the UK as a whole even if it didn't help the single which only just managed to dent the lower reaches of the charts. (Having said that, it must've sold like mad around Chester)
Finally, this is where Tennant bows out from the singles review chores. Perhaps not coincidentally, we're about to enter a more rockist and indie period in this section of the magazine - a trend which wouldn't begin to right itself until, also not entirely coincidentally, the rise of the Pet Shop Boys. Gone forever are the New York club records by the likes of Bobby O, Rockers Revenge and C.O.D. because their chief backer was busy cutting his own singles. Pop music's gain would be music criticism's loss: a trade off well worth making in spite of the price paid.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Blue Nile: "Stay"
Pioneers of beautiful melancholic pop, taking forever to release albums and using the word 'Stay' as a song title a good ten years before everyone else did, The Blue Nile astonished critics and budding musicians (the ones with good taste in music so they may not have made decent records themselves) while the public remained largely numb to their charms. Resolutely as minimalist as they would ever be, it also happens to be far breezier than much of their noted work, anticipating a track like "Sentimental Man" by a dozen years. Given their minuscule discography and perfectionist tendencies, this could have been a typical part of their sound had they been able to churn out releases at the normal pop star rate. Tennant foresees a possible hit and what a world that would have been.
