The Bangles: "Hazy Shade of Winter"

27 January 1988

"To some they are just a quaintly old-fashioned rock group who demonstrate the virtues of quaintly old-fashioned rock music but in this day and age when records are brim full of plinky synthesizers and drum machines blipping away everywhere it sometimes comes as a bit of a relief to hear four mad Californians wigging out in the quaint old rock fashion."

— William Shaw

I don't know if it was The Beatles becoming fashionable again, baby boomers flexing their financial muscle or a general ennui with modern production and synths but the sixties were back (BACK!) by the end of the eighties. (It was probably a combination of all three as well as a few other factors) There had previously been a considerable amount of disdain held towards the decade of hippies, flowers and surprisingly dull Who records but this was gradually swept away in the aftermath of Live Aid and the compact disc revolution. The "plinky synthesizers and drum machines blipping away" were only finding a more welcoming home in the works of Stock Aitken Waterman but those singles were for the kids; the grown-ups had all this "old rock", some of which was in effect new old rock.

Of course, there were always rock acts keeping the flame of the sixties going. Power pop inherited it for a while but it was largely kept to the periphery throughout the eighties. US college rock groups may have arisen during the heyday of new wave but many of them owed a much greater debt to earlier times. Indie groups may have looked like punks but their music was often much closer to the hippies they may have otherwise looked down upon. R.E.M. gradually began attracting attention as a kind of southern gothic equivalent of an English folk rock act. Paisley underground emerged applying punk energy to Beatles, Byrds and country rock numbers. Yet, in the midst of this came The Bangles, who are not typically acknowledged as being part of an old school rock revival.

I'm sure that sexism plays a part in this even if they're also overlooked as authentic rock chicks the way The Go-Go's, Pat Benetar and Joan Jett all were and still are. The Bangles were a self-sufficient unit but they relied heavily on cover versions (even though you'd have to look long and hard to find another group that does reinterpretations just as well) and were not above daft pop like "Walk Like an Egyptian" which ensured that critics wouldn't take them seriously. Their glamourous image and pop hooks also made them favourites of youngsters which also didn't do them any favours in attempting to be credible. Yet among all that, they were a great band, "geniuses of immense proportions", as William Shaw puts it. No one else in their day managed to make the sixties sound so current.

The Bangles' cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter" came during the gap between their breakthrough second album Different Light and its follow up Everything and was recorded for the soundtrack to the film Less Than Zero. I haven't yet watched it but I imagined the song playing out along its the closing credits, possibly with Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz preparing to leave their decadent LA lives behind for the more mature pastures of the east coast of the United States — the synthetic eighties giving way to a future that looks back to simpler times. Tipping me off is the fact that it's the last track on its soundtrack so it must be there at film's end, right? Imagine my surprise, then, that it actually comes in right at the start of the movie: McCarthy's character of Clay Easton is coming back to California for the Christmas holidays and the sunshine pop rock of The Bangles is there to welcome him back on his ride from the airport. I guess it's an acknowledgement of how the Golden State was once a mecca of free thinking and love which had descended into free market madness and mountains of cocaine twenty years later but I really should try to track down the movie before I pontificate further.

By Simon & Garfunkel's standards, "A Hazy Shade of Winter" is a rocker. Though always a talented songwriter and arranger, Paul Simon wouldn't really become musically ambitious until his solo career in the seventies, at a time when many of his fellow coffee house singer-songwriters were also spreading their wings. It ended up on their finest album Bookends but it had been written and recorded at the time of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and its flowery, impressionistic themes seem much more suited to the latter. Being so committed to folk music, Simon was not about to do a Dylan by plugging in and this was a rare number of his that you can say has something of a beat to it. I've never been much of a S&G person and I have to say that their version is unremarkable. The dullness of the recording really does an amazing job hiding the great composition underneath.

This version by The Bangles tops the original in every possible way. Susanna Hoffs, Debbi and Vicki Peterson and Michael Steele share lead vocal duties and the foursome are much stronger than Paul and Art, who even I'll admit had much better days in the studio. Rick Rubin's production gives it a shine that is nevertheless grounded in the sixties. Indeed, if anything it sounds much more of its time in the original summer of love than Simon's source material. A brief trumpet flourish that brings to mind "Penny Lane", sleigh bells not unlike "God Only Knows" and one of those insistent acid rock organs provide not-so-subtle reminders that this is a throwback.

Yet, we're still a ways away from the likes of Oasis instantly recalling The Beatles. This is very much The Bangles who were simply utilizing the sixties to make their records better. "Hazy Shade of Winter" comes from approximately the same time as the songs that would turn up on Everything, an album replete sitars, tablas, six-string guitars and baroque pop string arrangements but these only added depth to their sound; by being more like their influences, they ended up sounding more like themselves. 

The sixties was becoming the new thing in 1988. Just four days after this issue of Smash Hits came out, a new American TV series made its debut. The Wonder Years was sentimental but it wasn't as hokey as Happy Days or That 70's Show. It reflected the period in which it came out just as much as the era it was set in. Looking back to a time of idealism seemed like a good way to get us through the cynical late-eighties. Though as Bono would sing later on in the year (with a line that is irreconcilable with the remainder of U2's Rattle and Hum album) "if you glorify the past, the future dries up". Rock star were going to have to decide if they wanted to be part of the present or stuck in its past. Too bad they didn't follow the lead of The Bangles who deftly toed rock's spacetime continuum.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Eighth Wonder: "I'm Not Scared"

A big part of an imperial phase is that a band can get away with anything and still be successful and even tapping into the zeitgeist. As if to prove it, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe gifted their first song to an outside act. Eighth Wonder had been releasing an endless parade of flops (though they did have hits in Italy and Japan) before the Pet Shop Boys entered the picture and ended their losing streak. As Shaw says, there's no sign of the male Wonders on this recording though you can hardly blame anyone for thinking that Patsy Kensit could do all the promotional heavy lifting while the others stayed in the background. She looked great but Kensit wasn't a brilliant pop star, her voice was distinctive but weak and her mannerisms smacked of too many years in stage school. It was decent of Tennant and Lowe to give her such an excellent song but they should have saved it for themselves; the far more throwaway "Heart" would have sufficed but that's a story for another time. Please stay tuned.

Wendy & Lisa: "Sideshow"

13 January 1988

"It churns and stonks along and has some shiveringly pretty singing and the best thing about it is the way they pronounce "sideshow" as "satchel" on account of their "funny" American accents."

— Tom Hibbert

1988. A key year for Smash Hits and for your humble blogger. Pop itself may not have been in peak form but the magazine tasked with glorifying it was at the top of its game. An ace "crew" of music journos with a very liberal use of "inverted" commas made the British youth keep coming even when the pop stars themselves weren't much cop. Traces of the mag's roots in punk, new wave and New Pop remained even as the era of Stock Aitken Waterman and the return of the boy bands was upon us. You might say that late-eighties Smash Hits encompassed the entire decade.

For myself, 1988 was the year in which everything changed. I began to slowly get into music over the first several months of the year which would only serve as a teaser for our move to England that August. My sister began buying Smash Hits, we never missed Top of the Pops and I quickly took to sitting through the entirety of Bruno Brooks' Top 40 rundown on Sundays. (Saturday morning pop-centred fare such as Going Live and The Chart Show was a rarity, however, since we went away a lot on weekends) Many of my childish passions had been left behind in Canada, never to return. I also discovered my love for travel and took my first steps towards becoming the person that I am today. (Read into that whatever you will...)

In the world of ver Hits, '88 began right where they'd left off. Tom Hibbert takes the reigns once again as singles reviewer. Nothing new here, this was his tenth "go" at it. Turns out, it would also be his last. Hibs had been with the top pop mag for a while, a throwback to the days when critics were about his age, not several decades younger. He would act as inspiration and mentor to a generation of excellent writers but this chapter was beginning to close. He wasn't yet done — it wasn't as if there was anyone else capable of replacing him as Black Type — but as this was his last kick at the singles "can" then this entry can be his farewell. And what a run it was: from getting me to shift ever so slightly on Big Country to making me suspect that he used his position in order to give the covert impression that modern pop was nothing but crap

His final SOTF was awarded to Wendy & Lisa for their single "Sideshow" and, for once, I don't think he's trolling anyone either. He reckons it's "really groovy" and "frightfully "sexy", if you will pardon the term". A much more convincing case than his justifications for the likes of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Limahl and even Heart. Hibs actually liked at least one pop song from this time? Yes, I believe he did.

The Revolution had been modern pop's answer to Duke Ellington's orchestra. Both organizations had immensely talented figures at the forefront and both were backed by musicians with considerable abilities of their own. People like Johnny Hodges, Barney Bigard and Cootie Williams all seemed like stars but their lofty status only remained while under Ellington's employ; on their own, they could never escape his shadow. Not unlike Prince's backing band. The Purple Perv had a formidable lineup that had helped him through his prime years and it seemed like these people were all stars in waiting as opposed to, say, The E-Street Band, a group that looked like they'd end up right back in Asbury Park, NJ as plumbers (or accountants in the case of Max Weinberg) if The Boss had ever had them disbanded.

On the other hand, Ellington knew that he needed the key members of his group. The departure of Hodges in 1951 resulted in a lukewarm four year solo career for the alto saxophonist and a bit of a creative downturn for Duke. He composed with particular soloists in mind and struggled a bit with one of his top players missing. Prince had been underpaying his musicians for some time and his decision to augment The Revolution was unpopular. He would eventually blow the group up and the success of the resulting solo trilogy — Sign o' the Times, The Black Album and Lovesexy — must have led him to believe that he was better off doing everything himself. Being a generational talent — as multi-faceted musically as Paul McCartney, as chameleonic as David Bowie, as prolific as Miles Davis — this was something he was always capable of but the price he paid was the end of his great period.

Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman decided to venture out of the ashes of The Revolution as a duo, though one that also utilised former Revolution drummer Bobby Z. as well as Wendy's twin sister Susannah, who had been a member of Prince associate act The Family. Carrying on where they left off, their sound's source is unmistakable. Fair enough too since Prince's influence was all over the world of pop in the late eighties so why shouldn't his former bandmates indulge? It did, however, keep them tied too much to Prince who they would never fully get away from.

Much of Wendy & Lisa's self-titled debut album is about them finding their feet and establishing a sound of their own. A lot of the time it works and it mostly does on "Sideshow" except for the fact that it revels a little too much in its obscurity. In sending up their also-ran status as a mere 'sideshow', the pair display a degree of humour that Prince often lacked but there's the worrying sense that they were predicting their fate. Of course, this is easy for me to say in 2021 but listeners in 1988 may not have taken them seriously if they weren't in on the gag.

Otherwise, it's a perfectly nice pop-funk-soul number and one that holds up well alongside Prince's work from the same time. They're both excellent musicians and good vocalists, even if I wouldn't exactly describe their singing as "shiveringly pretty". It's far from being a mind-blowing performance but it suggests that they were on to something. They were sure to be the Next Big Thing — all they had to do was move themselves away from the Last Big Thing.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Fall: "Victoria"

Mark E. Smith and whoever else happened to be in The Fall (was Brix still a member?) displayed a bit of thing for the sixties back in '88. Faithful and fun covers of both The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" and The Kinks' "Victoria" resulted. They're both good but the latter is preferred despite its predictability. One can almost imagine Ray Davies believing all his royalist irony but you won't make the same mistake with Smith. Musically it lacks the charm of the original but there's a strong group performance and Smith "sings" it with far more swagger than Davies. A good effort that deserved to give The Fall a second top 40 hit and one that you might want to listen to a few times. Unlike "A Day in the Life", in which once will suffice.

The Beat: "Mirror in the Bathroom"

1 May 1980

"Hear it twice and you feel like you've known it for years."

— A Small Creature (in Shorts)

Ska music first came into my life about thirty years ago. We were visiting my grandparents in the small southern Alberta city of Lethbridge. My mum and grandma were out shopping; my dad and grandpa were happily drinking rum and Pepsi and playing crib. Being in a the middle of a desolate trailer park on the outskirts of town, my sister and I turned on the TV and we quickly settled on MuchMusic, Canada's equivalent of MTV. They were showing a feature on the history of ska, with emphasis near the end on how Jamaican and British acts had influenced Canadian groups. It was riveting and as soon as I discovered it was being rerun, I taped it off the VCR and I would go on to watch it many times over the next few years. (Sorry, I can't seem to find it on YouTube — maybe someday)

With all due respect to Bedouin Soundclash and King Apparatus, I wasn't bothered about the effect ska had on Canadian bands. The Jamaican groups were pretty good and I still love Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop" though I really ought to investigate that scene further. No, what made me so fascinated — indeed, what got me to watch it several times on a well-worn video tape — was the British acts of the post-punk era. The Specials, The Selecter, Madness, The Beat. What a crew. I was exposed to "Gangsters", "A Message to You, Rudi", "Bed and Breakfast Man" — I even managed to learn to appreciate "On My Radio" once it had ceased getting on my nerves.

"Mirror in the Bathroom" was also featured in the ska documentary and it quickly became a big favourite of mine. I'd never heard it before and really the only thing I knew about The Beat was that two of them had also been members of Fine Young Cannibals (guitarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele, one of whom can be seen in an archived group interview doing something peculiar; Beat singer Dave Wakeling does the talking and his bandmate sits glumly while occasionally picking up a drink just to smell it. To this day, I sometimes wonder if I'll ever encounter that beverage that you're only supposed to sniff). I knew a bit at the time about Madness because "Our House" had been a number one in Canada but the British ska acts were otherwise unknown to me. I would soon become a big fan of The Specials but The Beat were all about this one song. Turns out, I wouldn't be alone.

It was a little later that I began hearing "Mirror in the Bathroom" on the radio. A lot. It also began appearing in movie soundtracks. DJ's would spin it at the clubs. Eighties retro was at its height and it was becoming one of its key songs. For the love of god, Derassi: The Next Generation even named an episode after it. And, yet, it was never a hit single in North America back in the day and there's little evidence that it impacted people beyond a cult fanbase. So, how did it become a song that everyone suddenly seemed to know?

The above observation from David Hepworth "a small creature (in shorts)" gives us a clue. Of course, it was always a great song and was the biggest of their five top 10 hits in the UK. The Beat had been beset with having to call themselves The English Beat on the other side of the Atlantic and it was an add-on that they could never shake (as opposed to, say, 'The Charlatans UK' and 'The London Suede'); the group's lead singer has resided in the US for years and he eventually decided to stir into the skid by forming his own 'English Beat starring Dave Wakling'. Yet, they had a considerable following. When American ska acts like The Might Mighty Bosstones and No Doubt began to emerge, they talked up Coventry ska; Gwen Stefani loved her some Selecter but the so-called English Beat ended up being who everyone flocked towards — and it wasn't for their cover of the Smokey Robinson classic "Tears of a Clown".

Thus, "Mirror in the Bathroom" began to be played, people heard it, heard it again and came away convinced that they'd always known it. Well done to the small creature (in shorts) for seeing this coming. But why this song? Well, there's a familiar new wave sound to comfort listeners while every addition manages not to be off putting. Veteran Jamaican saxophonist Saxa busts out a muscular solo that is miles away from the sort of thing you might hear on "Baker Street" or "Careless Whisper". Their marriage of post-punk and ska put them in a distinct sphere from both Wire and The Specials. Wakeling's voice is authoritative, much stronger than Sting's or Weller's if not quite as unique as either Terry Hall or Suggs (then again, that may well be a point in his favour, at least on this record). The tune stays with listeners long after it has finished and even the title is something you don't forget.

Music fans, particularly those with a fondness for the eighties, often obsess over One Hit Wonders. Some (Thomas Dolby, Soft Cell) are legit examples, even if they may have had more than one hit single elsewhere. Others may have had a hand full of hits but are now only remembered for the one, as I discussed a while back in a post about Eurythmics. But The Beat pulled off the most stunning feat of all: they never had a hit single in North America yet they're remembered for having had one — and it's all because so many of us went through a ska phase back in the nineties.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Gang of Four: "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time"

Gang of Four, Martha & The Muffins, The Monochrome Set, The Revillos and Jah Wobble are all reviewed by the small creature (in shorts) this issue. A wealth of new wave/post-punk riches this fortnight, eh readers? Yes but perhaps there's a little too much of a good thing going on. Smash Hits reviewers of this period were beginning to express frustration at the number of groups still clinging to 1977 punk but I have to wonder when they began tiring of all the clipped guitars, shouty yet robotic vocals and insistent rhythms. It can't be long, can it? Gang of Four are more beloved now than they ever were at the time but this goodwill is almost entirely reserved for their debut album Entertainment! Second LP Solid Gold is more of the same only not quite as good. What they did, they did well but it was old hat and they weren't alone. New Pop (aka the so-called 'Second British Invasion') couldn't have come fast enough.

Billy Idol: "Hot in the City"

30 December 1987

"Accompanied by a thumping drum beat and a manic accordion, the world's Greatest Living Englishman growls and snarls menacingly, strutting his "stuff" to maximum effect."

— Sue Dando

Part 3: Billiam Woos America

Billiam sat in the Pam Am lounge, sipping on his Jack and coke. No one else cared that he was a world famous pop star but, then again, he had been in the UK for just over a week and hardly anyone in the whole country gave a toss. It hadn't been all that long ago that he began looking forward to trips back home. He'd see some old mates, wander around London like he used to and indulge in some proper British chocolate. But lately he had begun looking forward to being back in New York. He didn't grow up there but it's a city with everything. Plus, no one in his hometown cared about him anymore — either that or they cared too much.

A woman in her late twenties entered the lounge. She sat down, ordered cup of coffee and looked at a newspaper. Billiam looked over at her but she was unaware of him staring at her. She looked professional and these were typically the sort of women he steered clear of. The ladies would throw themselves at him so much that he couldn't recall the last time he approached one...

~~~~~

I give up! This is now the third time round for Billy Idol on this blog (with at least one more to go!) and I can't bring myself to keep this short story idea going any longer. It began as a laugh, with a piece describing what I might do with the so-called Just Billiam stories (which was, in truth, just an opportunity to avoid having to write something approximating an actual review); I didn't bother composing story for that entry. I would return to the "series" for the next post covering Sir Billiam in which I tried to describe how a very fictionalized facsimile of the star would have gone about living a rock 'n' roll lifestyle. I don't know if I succeeded but it was good fun to write. Still, that's enough of that. It's time I gave Sir Billiam of Idol his "due" with some legit "criticism".

~~~~~

One of the most striking features about Billy Idol was that he often did better the second time around. He had initially been part of the so-called Bromley Contingent, a pack of punk hangers-on who were a vital part of the genre's image. While chums Siouxsie Sioux and Steve Severin would go on to form Siouxsie & The Banshees, the former William Board put together Generation X, a group of little renown beyond their charismatic frontman. Members would come and go before Idol decided to try his luck Stateside. It would be a good move even though it would take time for American audiences to warm to him.

He smartly snapped up Generation X's final single, "Dancing with Myself", and did it again on his own. The record didn't sell but it became a signature number and it would open the door for future hits. The Don't Stop E.P. followed. It featured a cover of the Tommy James & The Shondells hit "Mony Mony" and closed with (imagine that) "Dancing with Myself" and gave the singer his first entry on the American Hot 100. Six years later, live recording of the former gave him a US number one and a British top 10 hit. UK success was slower than in his new homeland. Singles like "Hot in the City" and "Rebel Yell" did no better than "Dancing with Myself" while they and "White Wedding" all did well in the US. It was only with "Eyes Without a Face" that Idol could lay claim to a single that hadn't been a flop — and even then, it was something he wasn't able to capitalise on.

Idol's British salvation wouldn't emerge until the following year and it would be via that most unlikely of mediums: the remix album. As LP types go, remix albums are low priority, reserved mainly for dance acts to collect various 12" mixes as a supplementary release. Hardcore fans scoop them up just as they would a live album or a Christmas record but casual listeners tend to stay away. But they didn't with Vital Idol, which became his first top 10 album. If Neil Tennant had been sufficiently charmed by the Rebel Yell album with its "blend of disco, rock 'n' roll and daft horror-movie imagery" then the public only craved more only dancier, louder and longer. Billy Idol had always been a caricature of a punk but now he was only just starting to embrace it.

This image of Idol as a buffoon didn't travel. He was a bona fide rock star in the US and he played the part to the fullest extent. His appeal crossed genres, with metal heads, pop kids and old school rockers all finding something in his records. American music in the late eighties was getting older and more mainstream and it's to the credit of fans that they made room for someone like Idol to stand in contrast to all the roots rock and MOR.

As 1987 began to wind down, Idol's record label Chrysalis released Idol Songs: 11 of the Best. Yes, it's a chintzy number of tracks for a greatest hits but it wasn't as if his discography was overflowing with golden greats. The live version of "Mony Mony" had just been a hit and his British popularity had never been greater. It was here that "Hot in the City" would get its second shot at chart action. Sue Dando reckons punters were fools to pass up on it the first time round but Sir Billiam was much to close to the punk action from which he was "birthed" to be taken seriously. From the distance of ten years since his pals uttered some naughty language in the company of Bill Grundy, he could be gauged more accurately as a chancer trying to make the most of his modest talents.

The single itself is standard Idol, if less catchy than "Rebel Yell" or "White Wedding". It drips with Americana, something that, again, might not have appealed to Brits in the early eighties but was just what people in the decade's latter half were craving. The Rolling Stones never seemed more English than when they tried to be as American sounding as possible; Idol actually seemed to pull it off better than most of his compatriots. It would be nice if it had more of a dance sound (the 'Exterminator Mix' on Vital Idol is superior to the original single) but '87 was all about getting back to basics so he had that going for him too.

The genius of Billy Idol was his ability to square the circle of people's expectations. Americans took him as a real, blood 'n' guts rocker, the British wanted him to be more of a pantomime act and somehow he managed to be both. And this is something a far more talented individual would never have managed to accomplish. Well done, Sir Billiam!

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Public Enemy: "Bring the Noise"

Sir Billiam tried to be the punk that is all things to all people but he didn't reckon with the real sound of the streets. And it's just as well since an Idol rap tune would be appallingly bad — possibly even worse than the Public Enemy/Anthrax version of "Bring the Noise". This original version, mercifully, is free of guitars but bursting with Chuck D's raps and a metric ton of samples. At a time when hip hop was bursting with boastfulness, Public Enemy were something different and well ahead of all that 'keeping it real' nonsense that would come along in the next decade. They were never really my thing but that's much more on me than them.

Barry White: "Never Never Gonna Give You Up"

2 December 1987

"Ah, Barry White. I love you."

— Lola Borg

The race for the 1987 Christmas Number One was on and this would be a competition unlike any seen before or since. For starters, the winner and runner-up were both excellent singles, a formidable one-two punch on any chart but one that's especially impressive considering the holiday season doesn't normally feature such quality. And while the Slade-Wizzard race in 1973 kicked off the competition and Band Aid-Wham!-Frankie in '84 likely resulted in the highest sales, this may be the most significant Xmas chart battle because this was the year it turned it into an annual tradition with betting shop odds and an entire nation being gripped by it. 

Rick Astley (more on him below) had been on the rise that year and had been a good bet to take the crown with a cagey double A side. Pet Shop Boys had also been in the midst of an exceptional chart run, which singer Neil Tennant would go on to describe as their 'imperial period'. The Pogues weren't in the same commercial league but their exceptional offering "Fairytale of New York" charmed enough people beyond their loyal fanbase to give them their only major hit and the only song of their's that anyone knows. Though "Fairytale..." was the most obviously Christmassy, all three had something of the seasonal favourite to aid their chances.

Elsewhere, the also-rans are a mixed bag. This issue's rightful SOTF should have been a reissue of Dusty Springfield's magnificent solo debut from 1963 "I Only Want to Be with You", one of the greatest pop songs off all time. Reviewer Lola Borg is less impressed by Bruce Springsteen's "Tunnel of Love", the title track to The Boss' masterpiece album from the same year. It's not really single material so I understand her disdain but it's still a vital cog in a brilliant LP. Wet Wet Wet serve up some Yuletide slush with "Angel Eyes (Home and Away)", a song I did like as a youngster but am far less fond of now. There are also two proper Christmas singles, the Rik Mayall/Ade Edmunson heavy metal spoof Bad News with "Cashing in on Christmas" and Run-DMC with "Christmas in Hollis", a number that would eventually become a classic but which unjustly flopped in the UK charts.

Alas, Borg doesn't place a flutter on any of these as she opts instead for the Paul Hardcastle 'Mammoth Mix' of a thirteen-year-old song by Barry White. She expresses fondness for most of the tunes mentioned above but the baritone lothario has clearly won her heart years earlier and this is her chance to recommend him to the youth of Britain. Well, not really. White had already had a hit single a couple months' earlier with "Sho' You Right" (his first UK Top 20 appearance in nearly a decade) and this remix was clearly intended to capitalise on his new found success. Sprucing up old hits was becoming more and more common at this time but older acts didn't tend to have chart longevity. The novelty of someone from the sixties or seventies could get punters into the shops but the law of diminishing returns would inevitably set in.

Originally released in 1973, "Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up" — tune remixed, title edited — was White's second US Top 10 hit as he began achieving the fame for which he is remembered today. It's hard to know what to say here beyond that it sounds like pretty much every Barry White song I've ever heard. British audiences in '87 would have been rightly struck by his distinctive voice (just as many of us were when he made a memorable appearance on The Simpsons in 1992) only to discover that this freshness only applies to whichever White song you happen to hear first. There's nothing wrong with "Never Never Gonna Give You Up", just as there's nothing amiss with anything White ever did. I appreciate the fact that while seventies' soul music was dominated by smooth types like Marvin Gaye and Al Green with their velvety voices to lure the female folk into the bedroom, White's deep, gravelly singing proved just as effective. It's just that if you've heard one of his songs, you can probably guess how the rest of them will go. (And if all of this didn't torpedo its chances, there may also have been some confusion with the title: "Never Gonna Give You Up" by (who else?) Rick Astley had been the year's biggest selling single so what was this song with almost the same title doing?)

"Always on My Mind" ended up taking the Christmas Number One, which for some remains one of pop's great injustices in that it denied The Pogues the top spot. I've always been a Pet Shop Boys fan so I can't be objective on this but perhaps we should all be content that such an excellent pair of singles took the top two spots. They may not be quite "Wuthering Heights"/"Denis" or "Are 'Friends' Electric?"/"Up the Junction" but they're close. Sure, it would have been nice if Run-DMC, Dusty Springfield and, yes, Barry White had done better but at least some of the cream still managed to rise to the top.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Rick Astley: "When I Fall in Love" / "My Arms Keep Missing You"

While The Beatles didn't actually invent the concept album, the double album nor the idea of writing your own songs, it seems they can be credited with the first double A side. John and Paul were said to argue about which song got the more prominent side and giving them equal billing was the compromise. This became the standard for double A's but Rick's attempt at the Christmas Number One marked a change for the medium. "When I Fall in Love" was there to get him to the top (even though it ultimately failed to do so) while "My Arms Keep Missing You" was meant to maintain interest past the New Year (even though it was already falling down the charts by that point). A smart strategy that didn't work out and has reduced the B side in name only to obscurity but it would be taken up other acts to varying degrees of success. "When I Fall in Love" is an expertly done copy of the original but it's still a drag and a blot on Rick's debut album. "My Arms Keep Missing You", however, is classic SAW and deserves to be better remembered, though I suppose you could say that about a few of his hits that aren't "Never Gonna Give You Up".

Blondie: "Call Me"

17 April 1980

"The resulting drama manages to suggest empires crashing to dust without getting a single peroxide hair out of place."

— David Hepworth

 

This issue of Smash Hits hit the British newsagents on April 17, 1980. On the same day, on the other side of the Atlantic, the New York Islanders defeated the Boston Bruins in overtime to take a decisive two-games-to-none lead in their National Hockey League playoff series. Two days later, Blondie's "Call Me" would hit the top of the Hot 100; a week after that it would also be at the top of the UK charts. At the same time, the Islanders were preparing to meet the Buffalo Sabres in the next round of the playoffs. On May 24, "Call Me" would be enjoying its sixth and final week at the top of the Billboard listings while the Islanders were busy defeating the Philadelphia Flyers in overtime to capture their first of four straight Stanley Cups.

A band's imperial period is not unlike a dynasty in sports. Said organization is at their peak, they inspire equal amounts of awe, envy and loathing in competitors and/or fans of other groups/teams and everything seems to go their way — even when they happen to release a so-so single or play a bad game. Not every Blondie song from the height of their popularity was a winner but their British fanbase loyally helped them have hit single after hit single (a rare exception can be found in the relative failure of the otherwise excellent "Union City Blue", though it does remain a firm fan favourite). The Islanders struggled during the 1980 and '83 regular seasons and found themselves on the brink of elimination at the hands of vastly inferior teams in the '82 and '84 playoffs yet they persevered, winning a remarkable nineteen playoff series in a row, a record that seems unlikely ever to be broken.

And yet, an imperial period or dynasty in one part of the world may mean nothing elsewhere. While "Call Me" seems to mark a shift from the British version of Blondie to a much more American iteration, their success in the UK never waned until "Island of Lost Souls" missed the top 10 while its accompanying album The Hunter badly under-performed — and even then, they retained enough interest over the years that their 1999 single "Maria" became an unexpected British chart topper. Their American success was much more sporadic with three number one singles and a handful of minor hits. Few in North America even knew the sublime "Atomic" until it appeared in the 1996 film Trainspotting and massive UK hits like "Denis" and "Sunday Girl" remain relatively obscure in Blondie's homeland. (If they had an American imperial period at all, it would have begun with the rise of "Call Me" only to level off barely a year later) Meanwhile, the Islanders were the toast of the hockey world in the early eighties yet their mystique disappeared outside of that specialist realm; ask the British who was the preeminent dynastic sports franchise of the time and they'd say it was Liverpool FC.

"Call Me" suggests that Blondie were on such a roll that they could take a subpar tune and turn it into a pretty good single. Famed disco producer Giorgio Moroder hadn't been present for "Heart of Glass" or "Atomic" but his influence was all over them. Ironically, his stamp is less obvious on the one song of their's that he did produce. Coming in a culture that suddenly had less time for disco, they wisely disguised "Call Me" in layers of guitars and gave it more of a rock beat (David Hepworth's observation that its chord change "could have walked straight out of Status Quo's "Break the Rules" (I kid you not)" is absolutely correct), possibly hinting at a return to a time when Blondie was a CBGB's act that did well in Australia and the UK but were no hopers in America. Well, not quite. While most of the record wouldn't have gone over well in the discotheques, its middle eight ("Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any way,,,") followed by a synthetic instrumental part are very much in line with their dancier side.

This mix of styles makes for something of a mess but Debbie Harry and co. still understood how to craft great pop music so "Call Me" works quite well. Something vital would be missing from their admirable run of first rate singles if it had never been cut or if it had been made much more in line with the classics of their imperial period. Other Blondie hits feel part of a progression, from punk to new wave to disco but "Call Me" sticks out as a number out of time, with only its status as what a band at their most top-of-their-game arrogant could have the nerve to have recorded. Great song? Maybe but it's certainly the ultimate souvenir of the time.

This supposed rockier sound would be quickly abandoned as they returned to working with longtime producer Mike Chapman for the street smart Autoamerican and the singles "The Tide Is High" (lightweight but charming in its own right; it's one of the first songs I knew as a child so I've always had a soft spot for it) and "Rapture" (a great song ruined by Harry's awful rapping), their sole US number one that failed to repeat the trick in Britain. Imperial periods and dynasties all end up coming to an end: Blondie gave way to Michael Jackson, Madonna and Duran Duran while the Islanders would eventually bow out to Wayne Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers. It would be time for others to be at the top, to inspire awe, to be at a peak and to do well even when things aren't quite working out.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Paul McCartney: "Coming Up"

New wave Macca. "Coming Up" owes so much to clipped, post-punk pop-rock of the late seventies that it feels like a pastiche (a suspicion that only grows after watching the amusing video). Probably McCartney's best single since "Listen to What the Man Said", it nevertheless is a worrying indicator that he was running out of ideas of his own at this early a stage of what would turn out to be a creatively barren decade. John Lennon famously heard it as a sign that his former partner was sounding vital for the first time in ages and it prompted him to get his own muse in gear for his bittersweet return at the end of the year. It just goes to show you that they were never the same without each other, doesn't it?

Def Leppard: "Hysteria"

18 November 1987

"And guts are after all what make a great rock 'n' roll band, especially hanging over the top of the trousers."

— Zodiac Mindwarp

Though it's trite to say so, the quality of guest pop star reviewers in Smash Hits has been lacking of late. For the most part, they've never been especially suited to the role but there were occasional Gary Kemps and Martyn Wares to put some real consideration into their choices. Failing that, at least you could rely on Morrissey or Andy Partridge to offer up charmingly bitchy assessments of the new releases. Lately, however, guest critics have been bland or have been far too concerned with building themselves up to bother with anything close to analysis. True, Robert Smith's turn proved to be an entertaining read though it was slightly let down by overly predictable favourites. Gary Numan made it all about himself. Wet Wet Wet and Hue & Cry both attempted the petty bitchiness tack but they lacked the wit and spark to rise above looking like complete prats.

Things don't seem particularly encouraging this fortnight either. Sitting in round the turntable at the Hits office is the former Mark Manning, headliner and leader of Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction and self-proclaimed 'Sex Fuhrer'. Oh, what joy! A filthy biker wannabe who makes dreadful metal records for people who look just like him. He'll love all the rawk music because guitars and reasons and he'll trash everything else because real men don't play synths or try to dress presentably or any of that nonsense that goes with pop music.

His choice of Single of the Fortnight plays into this stereotype but Zodiac isn't so bad. He makes lewd comments about Madonna and Whitney but he happily discusses the quality of their records too. He despises the politics of The Housemartins but digs their latest single "Build". He defends Michael Jackson against charges of being weird (when your stage name is 'Zodiac Mindwarp' you can probably identify with someone who sleeps in an oxygen chamber). He doesn't think Prince is as good as he used to be yet still reckons his latest record "I Can Never Take the Place of Your Man" is "brilliant". He manages to find something complementary to say about everyone even if he's not crazy about all of it. Sure, he's a bit of an oik but it's nice to see this oik likes his pop and isn't married to rock. Call me pleasantly surprised and feeling a big bad that I had judged him so wrong in the first place.

As you can probably tell from the preceding paragraph, the singles page is loaded with big names, with DJ/producer Jellybean being the closest thing to an obscure . Eight of the fifteen acts involved are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And why not? This issue of Smash Hits is from November of '87 and the race towards the Christmas Number One was already on. As it would turn out, none of them were factors a month later and with good reason. Jacco's "The Way You Make Me Feel" and Whitney's "So Emotional" aside, I'm struggling to remember how any of these tunes go. I can understand Madonna choosing to leave the ho-hum "The Look of Love" off her compilations. Mr Mindwarp may indeed enjoy Five Star's "Somewhere Somebody" and "Reasons to Live" by a makeup-less Kiss and he can have 'em.

Among the forgettables is "Hysteria" by Def Leppard (or it did until a month ago when I began listening to it). The title was familiar — it's the name of their breakthrough album from the same year — but the song itself was new to me. Why hadn't I heard this track before? Like a lot of big albums of the era, Hysteria had a lot of singles taken from it. Six records reached the pop charts around the world with another ("Women") being a minor hit in certain territories. And this was spread out from the summer of 1987 through to the winter of '89. Those of us who may have otherwise been neutral to a group like Def Leppard would tire of their omnipresence but this flood of product didn't do them any harm. The album kept selling and they were a lucrative concert attraction so fair play to them. But this glut of charting singles failed to seep into the public conscious with only "Pour Some Sugar on Me" being a tune that you could reliably say most people know (or at least knew back in the day). Their US chart topper "Love Bites" was vaguely familiar to me but it hardly flooded my mind with memories of 1988. Obviously it did well but it ended up being just another Def Leppard single that sounded just like all the others.

Like a lot of metal from the time, it's remarkable how tame it all sounds now. With the charts packed with the likes of Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, White Lion and Motley Crue, hair metal was inescapable. The establishment found it threatening while teenagers were either drawn to it or found it repulsive. It was not a genre that you could go either way on or that you could pick and choose. My own aversion to it was at least as much down to the way it presented itself as to the music. The artists and fans all seemed to look alike and all seemed like outcasts who had nothing interesting to say. Everyone wore their hair long and had Iron Maiden t-shirts but no one was to know that they were all paper tigers. Def Leppard's Joe Elliott was as much a fan of Queen as Black Sabbath and his generation's school of metal in Britain was formed around performing the way the glam rockers did. Their album covers looked dangerous but their music was rather less threatening. It had been been five years since Ozzy Osbourne had bitten the head off a bat on stage but the acts of a charismatic but unhinged frontman seemed to define the genre forever.

Like a lot of rock groups, Def Leppard's strength was in their passion. You could tell Elliott really meant it when he sang, particularly in the choruses where he always seemed out of breath. Their beats and melodies were never as pounding as befits a bunch of Yorkshire headbangers but there was a workmanlike precision to their playing. Their slow songs were, mercifully, not as cynically commercial as those of Cinderella or Poison; "Hysteria" is not unlike a so-called ballad, only that it's just like all their other songs but slowed down a tad. These guys clearly lived and breathed their lyrics and even if they didn't they sounded committed enough to pull it off. And that's "Hysteria" (and, indeed, every Def Leppard song) for you: tough but just tender enough, giving never less than 100% and believing in all those myths of rock 'n' roll but lacking memorable hooks and genuine thrill.

"Hysteria" scarcely seems like metal and perhaps there's a reason for it beyond it being a genre that was constantly shifting its goalposts. Def Leppard had been working with South African producer Mutt Lange for some time and his influence had rubbed off on the Sheffield rockers. Another of Lange's big name acts was Bryan Adams, who had originally been a hard rocker himself as a lad when he joined Vancouver group Sweeney Todd as a replacement for departed vocalist Nick Gilder. The Todd failed to repeat the success of their early Canadian hit "Roxy Roller" but this experience helped launch Adams as a solo artist. The hard rock, metal-adjacent sound continued on his self-titled debut album but the rough edges (Adams' voice excepted) would be smoothed over en route to worldwide stardom. Lange seems to have taken much the same approach with Def Leppard: if Bryan Adams couldn't be metal than why not make metal sound more like Bryan Adams?

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Alison Moyet: "Love Letters"

There's a rule that vocalists who come up through pop have to prove their "chops" by attempting to be jazzy. Generally, this is saved for when a singer is on the back end of their career and is sought out strictly by devoted fans but Alison Moyet chose to do it rather early in her run, perhaps with an eye on the coveted Christmas Number One (she came up short though it still gave her a Top 10 hit). As old Zod says, it's very well done but there's not much to it. She sings the forties standard well and the music is perfectly fine but there's nothing much to get excited about. The fact that they had to recruit French and Saunders to laugh it up in a video for a song otherwise lacking in humour is indicative of just how out of place this cover is. Why didn't she save it for a Tony Bennett duets albums ten years later?

The Communards: "Never Can Say Goodbye"

4 November 1987

"In fact they really should do this sort of thing more often."

— Richard Lowe

Not everyone can be a Dylanesque voice of a generation — and fewer still should ever bother trying to be one. Political figures in pop are supposed to be earnest folkies but they come in all shapes and sizes and play all kinds of music. Some don't even "look" particularly political and their best music may have nothing to do with protest whatsoever. The rise of Thatcher resulted in a lot of great anti-Tory pop but standing up to the Iron Lady shouldn't have been just for Billy Bragg and Paul Weller — and, indeed, the Red Wedge movement wouldn't have gotten very far had it been so limited. Jimmy Sommerville and Richard Coles represented the synth-pop side of political protest in the UK at the time when most of their colleagues were disinterested in getting heavily involved. The Communards weren't the most talented of synth acts but it's a credit to them that they devoted much of their time during their two year peak to socialist causes when they could've been doing more lucrative forms of promo. (Notably, they were probably the biggest group in Britain in the late eighties not to get a Smash Hits cover)

I have previously been down on The Communards in this space and with good reason since "Disenchanted" wasn't very good. They would go on to enjoy a massive number one success with their cover of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes' "Don't Leave Me This Way" which seemed to put them in the company of Marc Almond, Simply Red and UB40 as acts that seemed to do better with other people's material than with their own. They weren't around long enough to fully descend into cover version hell but if they couldn't reach people with the so-so stuff that Jimmy Sommerville and Richard Coles wrote, they could always fall back on a standard. And quite right too. Their covers represented a creative step forward while their originals seemed to hold them back. 

Originally a hit for The Jackson 5 in 1971, "Never Can Say Goodbye" wasn't one of their more distinguished hits. Michael Jackson's youthful vigour on "I Want You Back" and "I'll Be There" is nowhere to be found and their recording just glides by. It sounds like a filler on one of their studio albums and it's surprising Motown deemed it good enough for single release. (The fact that it did as well as it did probably says as much about The Jacksons as a cash cow than the record itself) Gloria Gaynor's discofied cover is much better and it's clear that Sommerville was a fan. (It's also a welcome reminder that she had far more in her than "I Will Survive") Still, it sounds reigned in by seventies' dance music production orthodoxy. Can't anyone do this song and just let it all hang out?

Emulating Gaynor wasn't a difficult task for Sommerville but the spark of genius here was from whoever it was who figured the music should try to keep pace with the high octave vocalist. Sommerville often sounds out of place when attempting balladry or cod-reggae and the best solution is a hi-NRG recording that tries to be every bit as audacious. This is the music The Communards love to listen to but it is also fantasy of how they wish their favourite records would sound. The single's video  Admirably avoiding sticking to the safe formula that made "Don't Leave Me This Way" so big, they don't leave anything on the table as they go for a big dancefloor sound. The song's video presents Sommerville and Coles in a disco with several musicians who may or not have played on it but their performance quickly evolves into a giant discotheque rave up. Need a palette cleanser from all the agit-prop at a Red Wedge gig? "Never Can Say Goodbye" could rip a crowd into a frenzied ecstasy no matter their musical affiliation. Much like Stevie Wonder's epic "Another Star" on Songs in the Key of Life, it's the kind of dance track that you hope will never end.

Sommerville's political convictions were such that he didn't have to prove anything to anyone through the medium of his songs. "Smalltown Boy" had been his one truly successful issues number and it may have eaten at him that he hadn't been able to replicate it with The Communards. Yet, "Never Can Say Goodbye" indicates that his pop instincts had remained sharp. His partnership with Coles was soon to wind down and a solo album beckoned. It would only be at this stage that he was able to marry his gay rights activism with this kind of hook-leaden dance music. The result was "Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)", another piece of dancefloor magic. 

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

John "Cougar" Mellencamp: "Cherry Bomb"

He looked like a more put together Jon Bon Jovi with a voice even more rugged than Bruce Springsteen. John Mellencamp was never the superstar either of them were but 1987 was his year, especially if you happen to be from Canada where his album sold and sold and sold and where "Cerry Bomb", "Paper in Fire" and "Check It Out" were on a seemingly never-ending loop on the radio. He didn't make the same impact in Britain but it's nice to know that Richard Lowe is charmed by the Coug. Roots rockers love their nostalgia and few did it better. It certainly helped that Mellencamp had such an outstanding band to back him. Props in particular to Lisa Germano for some lovely violin. Maybe all those Canadian dads who bought The Lonesome Jubilee were on to something.

The Pretenders: "Talk of the Town"

3 April 1980

"It takes three plays to pull you towards it and kisses you full on the mouth on the fourth."

— David Hepworth

As far as bands young musicians might want to emulate, one could do a whole lot worse than use The Pretenders as a model. They had a charismatic leader (who also happened to be one of her generation's finest songwriters) backed by a trio of first rate musicians. All four looked cool as well, the sort of rock stars who looked like they were making the most of the experience of a lifetime. They were widely popular, enjoying hits around the world, some of which remain well-remembered to this day. Who wouldn't have wanted to be in The Pretenders? (And, yes, I write this well-aware that two members of this same band would be dead within three years of the release of "Talk of the Town")

The early eighties was the dawn of the video age in pop though it would not be for another two or three years that they would begin to be seen as works of art in their own right. Promos were basic with groups just going through the motions miming to their latest record. Nevertheless, there were enough clues in these vids to get an idea of the bands involved. As a teenager I would look down upon singers who had the temerity to smile in their music videos; I knew that they would never be caught dead grinning like an idiot if they were performing the same song in a concert. Non-singing band members who'd mouth along with the vocals in videos also drew my ire: I can't hear anyone singing in the background so why is Bryan Adams' lead guitarist pretending to be harmonizing with his nibs in the video for "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You"? I'm not really even that keen on seeing Bryan doing the singing so why would I ever want to watch a studio musician lip-synch a power ballad?

So, allow me to give my nod of approval to The Pretenders for refusing to stoop to such a level. Chrissie Hynde seldom seems to smile in real life and I don't certainly don't expect her to do so in a video. Her cohorts are a little more willing to mug for the camera but at least its just in an effort to look like goons enjoying their fame rather than in the smug satisfaction that they're not taking the pop star life not quite too seriously. Despite contributing backing vocals to the first two Pretenders albums, James Honeyman-Scot, Pete Farndon and Martin Chambers aren't shown joining in with the group's lead singer. One mouth piece Pretender was more than enough.

And with a vocalist like Chrissie Hynde, who gives a toss if anyone else happens to be singing? Not a conventionally great singer, it would be quite easy to be turned off by the sound of her nasally whine and, indeed, I understand anyone who doesn't care for her voice. But unlike very few in pop, her vocals are multi-dimensional. Confident yet oozing vulnerability. Sensual but not conventionally sexy. Expressive yet reigned in by the limitations of her voice. No, Hynde couldn't sing the phone book: what point would there be in that?

She could also write a decent tune and "Talk of the Town" is one of her better efforts. With many influences going back to at least the sixties, Hynde's forerunners are difficult to pinpoint. Obviously, she loved The Kinks enough to do a pretty good cover of "Stop Your Sobbing" (and, indeed, to wind up in a relationship with Ray Davies) but their sound isn't overly apparent. She owes much more to someone like Elvis Costello — who has admitted a debt to her in turn on "You'll Never Be a Man", even though I've always heard the Get Happy!! cut "Men Called Uncle" as far more Pretender-like — with his intricate word-play and innate sense of melody. Lines like "Who were you then? Who are you now? / Common labourer by night, by day high brow" could easily have been nicked from the Declan McManus songbook, even if she doesn't go out of her way to try to cram a pun in the way he would have done.

Sadly, Hynde's place in the new wave pop revolution has been diminished by lazy rock scholarship that insists on placing her squarely as a female artist. She's typically listed along with the likes of Patti Smyth, Lene Lovitch and Siouxsie Sioux as a leading light of the fearless new woman in rock but this narrative tells only a part of the story. While others entered the male-dominated music industry to provide a female alternative, Hynde has been a woman playing men's rock better than the majority of her male contemporaries. "Talk of the Town" could have been written by Costello or Paul Weller but it happened to be composed by Chrissie Hynde who happens to be a woman who invited herself to a man's world.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Phil Lynott: "Dear Miss Lonelyhearts"

Phil Lynott was always one of the more admirable figures in rock and he remains an Irish national treasure to this day. I'm not a big hard rock guy but I've been charmed by Thin Lizzy records over the years. That all said, I can't muster up much enthusiasm for his debut solo effort. Clearly influenced by the pub rock singer-songwriters like Costello, Ian Dury and Nick Lowe, it's impressive that Lynott decided to go the smart aleck route but the results are much too ordinary for such a unique individual. Perhaps he'd had his fill of combining metal with traditional Irish folk song and that's fair enough but, as David Hepworth suggests, this smacks of a fun little extracurricular activity and he needed to get back to his day job.

That Petrol Emotion: "Genius Move"

21 October 1987

"I like what they do because it sounds like they're enjoying themselves and it sounds like they could go wrong and I like that in a record. They are a group that's got integrity."

— Robert Smith

Integrity. Integrity. Not a word you hear a lot in music circles anymore (to the extent that I'm not sure whether to poo-poo Robert Smith for being so cliched and dated or if I should tip my hat to him for being so bloody novel). It's an obvious throwback to simpler, more rockist days when you were supposed to play your own instruments and write your own songs. A term frequently used yet seldom expounded upon. U2 allegedly had integrity but Rick Astley didn't and no one ever bothered to question this line of thinking; it was true simply because that's what we all believed.

I've knocked populism in the past in this space but it's worth considering that its forerunner wasn't up to much itself. Rockism was all about the dogma that old school rock 'n' roll values were all that mattered. It's why Bruce Springsteen remains slightly overvalued and why Tom Petty is worshiped for making a career out of creating the same pleasant but unremarkable Tom Petty records. Why power pop is considered a gold standard yet is all-too-often boring. Schoolmates who liked grunge or gangsta rap belittled me for being into Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode (even though members of both groups wrote their own songs and played their own instruments) because my stuff was "queer" while their's had a "message". Exploring past eras, Led Zeppelin was revered but ABBA was a "guilty pleasure" (again, the Swedes wrote their own songs, something the drunken Brummie foursome didn't always do). For all its sins, at least poptimism is all about judging the quality of music, not the supposed "integrity" of the artists.

I'm not sure Robert Smith is a rockist (I'd be very surprised to discover that's what he is) but integrity is important to him. The Cure grew out of punk and that generation was as protective of its spirit as they were down on the prog rockers and stadium theatrics that came before it. Keeping the flame of punk going in the indie scene mattered to a lot of people in the underground, especially with 1987 being the most eighties year imaginable. The writing/production assembly line of Stock Aitken Waterman was beginning to dominate the charts (Smith also reviews Astley's tepid follow up to "Never Gonna Give You Up" and has already had enough of them), rock dinosaurs were back and the post-punk generation was beginning to fade away so it's no wonder a fragment of what had been part of the scene ten years earlier would be so warmly greeted by some.

All this may read like I'm dumping on Smith's stint as singles reviewer but there's lots to enjoy in his write up. He makes several amusing remarks (of Astley's "Whenever You Need Somebody", he says "I'll probably find myself completely mortalled in Fellini's disco in Stockholm and dancing to this"; of The Fat Boys' Falling in Love", "...it's a very thin foundation on which to build your career — being fat. I speak from inexperience of course"; the great thing about the latter is that it's funny whether Smith means or not, especially given the rounder state he is in of late) and some of his tastes mirror my own (I think I love him just a little bit more because of how much he hates Eurythmics). He does better when trashing the records he doesn't care for than when he struggles to provide much of substance to say about his favourites — and I don't blame him. All in all, he does well in the role and was good enough to be asked back for a second time (he, in turn, must have enjoyed the task enough to have accepted the invitation) which we will get to next year.

This is the second appearance on this blog for That Petrol Emotion, the first being earlier in the same year when Shane MacGowan gave his approval to "Big Decision". It's notable that two guest reviewers who were close to the same age and both children of punk would be their biggest supporters in Smash Hits. The single "Swamp" was released in the summer of '87 but no one bothered reviewing while Barry McIlheney gave a positive critique of their album Babble, one that didn't fawn over the group's "integrity". The likes of NME and Melody Maker were enthusiastic of them but they, too, were there to keep the punk fires burning in the indie scene. While they didn't go so far as to brandish the word 'integrity', there was always a sense that they were championed by people who admired what they stood for rather than what they created.

"Big Decision" didn't do much for me either but at least a vague hint of its chorus and tune has stayed with me over the past few months; on the other hand, I've been listening to "Genius Move" over the past week and I still can't remember anything about it. I put it on and it goes about its business as if refusing to want my attention. As is inevitable, Smith mentions the connection to The Undertones, a band he used to like though not love since he never cared for Feargal Sharkey's voice. And, yeah, the Shark's singing is an acquired taste and I can understand it not being everyone's thing but implied here is a preference for the generic vocals of Petrol frontman Steve Mack. And while the young American doesn't ruin "Genius Move", he isn't able to make it rise above the competition either. And no one does in the end. There's nothing wrong with it except that it's just another pained indie hopeful in a scene drowning in them. You may believe that alternative acts from the eighties are "overlooked" or that they "deserved a bigger audience" — just don't say "criminally underrated", a term that no longer has any meaning — but the special groups tended not to fall through the cracks. Groups that were much better than That Petrol Emotion, though they did have integrity, I'll give them that.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Jesus & Mary Chain: "Darklands"

Smith considered the latest from the Reid brothers for SOTF and he would've done better had he gone with them. A little less thrilling than their early work (Smith admits it "isn't particularly stunning" and implies that he's much fonder of The Jesus than the single itself; I suppose they oozed integrity too), "Darkness" requires more time to digest but the listener's patience is rewarded by the multitude of hidden depths. As Smith notes, the Reids were masters of pinching melodies and riffs from a bevy of sources and making it seem like it was all their doing. They sound less like The Velvet Underground here but that could just be because they sound more like everyone else. Amazingly, no one managed to sound like them.