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.

~~~~~

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.

Culture Club: "Church of the Poison Mind"

31 March 1983

"Don't be put off. There's enough modern trimmings here to separate it from the recent swarm of Tamla Motown soundalikes — not least a good tune."

— Kimberley Leston

"The only thing I can remember distinctly are the train journeys I used to take from suburbia to the West End. I would always look out over the buildings and say to myself that I'd never know all the people who lived in them. Or more to the point, that they'd never know me."
— Boy George

In his wonderful memoir Rock Stars Stole My Life, Mark Ellen describes settling in as a writer for Smash Hits and cooking up colourful descriptives with Neil Tennant. Once hugely successful types who'd suddenly found themselves with a pair of flop singles would be 'Down the Dumper'; those still maintaining hits were riding the 'Giddy Carousel of Pop'. As a reader of the Hits, albeit one who was still a good half-decade away from coming into contact with it, this left me imagining groups in these states. Being down the dumper, I figured, left pop stars in a state of unwashed disrepute. Bandmates would gather together in a dank flat, chainsmoking and lamenting their run of bad luck and desperately trying to work out how to get it all back (and doubtlessly failing). The Giddy Carousel of Pop meant money, popularity, adulation, respect and enjoying every last second of it.

Considering what was to come, it's hard to imagine Culture Club riding any kind of Giddy Carousel of Pop, even at their peak. But ride it they must have done since that's precisely what "Church of the Poison Mind" is. Effortlessly pilfering Stevie Wonder's "Uptight", it has a confidence about it that could only come from a group that has an innate understanding of current pop and a knack for capturing varying styles of black music. (As Dave Rimmer notes in his excellent study of UK New Pop in general and ver Club in particular, Like Punk Never Happened, "simply listening to their first three hit singles — as the light lover's reggae of "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" was followed by the neo-Philadelphia balladry of "Time (Clock of the Heart)" and then the big Motown beat of "Church of the Poison Mind" — [is] like flipping backwards through the pages of some glossy coffee-table book on the history of black music") Boy George never shied from charges of plagiarism and even boasted of it ("Culture Club is the most sincere form of plagiarism in modern music — we just do it better than most") long before Noel Gallagher speculated in a Q interview as to whether he should try nicking from "All the Young Dudes" for a third time.

The song itself is really nothing spectacular particularly when held up against their two previous hits. "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?' and "Time" captured people on a wave of wistfulness and, while far from profound statements, were touching and signalled the arrival of a major act. Having gotten their work from the Kissing to Be Clever album out of the way remarkably quickly (it's hard to believe their record company didn't force them into delaying the release of any new material in favour of giving a second shot at chart action to flops "White Boy" and "I'm Afraid of Me"), they were setting themselves up for "an album with the singles coming off it," announced Boy George as if he was the first pop star to come up with such a plan, in order to "get a number one album in America". As the first sign of their imperial period, "Church of the Poison Mind" is exquisitely crafted and fantastically catchy but about little more than their mammoth ambition. It is about being at the top, even in the midst of early-eighties Thatcherite hell.

Even the video, which is naff in a way only Culture Club promos could be, has such a likable energy to it that the whole thing comes off as charming. Cruising in a convertible (with the steering wheel on the right-hand side since only pop stars on that giddy carousel could afford a car shipped over from America!), they're having difficultly hiding their glee: Boy George can't stop grinning as he lip-synchs words of "desolate loving in your eyes" while bassist Mikey Craig and guitarist Roy Hay just appear happy to be along for the ride (only business-like drummer Jon Moss maintains some degree of composure). All of a sudden, members of the paparazzi pop out from some hidden part of the car to snap pics of the band. Ver Club flee in a zany caper that leads the press into a room full of Boy George lookalikes. Running up to the roof of the building, the foursome are suddenly in the cockpit of a Pan-Am jet, headed for an undisclosed — though no doubt glamourous — location. Does any of it make sense? Not even a little. But this is Culture Club getting the most out of their new found fame and more than pleased to show it off.

And this was only the beginning. Boy George was to spend the next two years as one of the most recognisable faces in the world. They reached the top but hadn't the faintest idea about maintaining it. A year on and the Giddy Carousel of Pop would become their albatross. How would they ever be able to handle the grubby old dumper?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Ben Watt: "Some Things Don't Matter"

It's fifteen years on and there's still a decent chance that if you walk into a random coffee house in North America, Europe or parts of Asia that you'll hear some of that second King's of Convenience album. (Or is it just me?) Therefore, it's jarring to go back and read Leston's snotty summation of Ben Watt. Purest slush? Sensitive types bring tissues? (While I don't agree with her, I have to say it's refreshing to hear such criticism) With Everything but the Girl partner Tracy Thorn being such a sparklingly melancholic vocalist, it's easy to forget — or even be unaware of — what a beautifully expressive singer Watt could be when called upon. The baristas could do worse if they ever happen to get sick of Kings of Convenience.

Bobby O: "She Has a Way"

17 March 1983

"This young producer/performer fashions some tidy electronic disco by artfully splattering percussion across a wide synthetic canvas in search of the sound that surges."

— David Hepworth

Climbing up the wet steps, there are only four things on my mind. First and foremost, is the waterslide I am approaching, my eyes occasionally glancing up at the rapidly descending silhouette of the lucky individual taking their turn and at that particularly cool bend where some water would spill over. Second, is on gingerly taking steps as to avoid band-aids and other foreign objects that have always made public swimming pools repulsive, my toes and the balls of my feet making as little contact with the grubby surface as possible. Third, I am reminding myself to not look directly at any untamed bikini lines that might greet me at the top of the staircase like that one time a couple years earlier. And, finally, I am listening to the music that is echoing through the indoor water park.

I've never paid much attention to music in most public recreation facilities. At roller and ice rinks it serves the invaluable service of pushing skaters along to a fast tempo — while helping to mask just what a tedious act skating is — but the songs themselves matter little. If the in-house deejay happened to put on Wham! or Corey Hart then my ears might have perked up a little but the likes of The Fabulous Thunderbirds or ZZ Top wouldn't have driven me to glide in the direction of the exit. At bowling alleys and snooker halls, it always helped my morale as a hopeless bowler and snooker player to have some light pop and rock music on in the background but, again, the particulars of song and artist didn't matter. But indoor wave pools are another matter.

A horn blasts and there's a flurry of excitement as kids get themselves ready to head back to the pool (unless you happen to be one of those losers who choose to stay in the water when the waves are dormant, especially those weirdos who take the opportunity to, like, swim). I grab my inner tube and lug it out to the deep end. A surge of power pop, hip hop, metal or dance pop echoes out of the speakers and the waves begin. The song itself I hardly notice but the frantic energy, the screams of delight from kids all around me, a leisure centre employee over the PA urging us to ride the waves (surely no one's surfing in here, are they?), my tube crashing into others mix with the music to create a pandemonium. This goes on for a while and I begin to get used to it, my adrenaline has subsided and I can even relax as my tube rocks over the waves. I might even hum along to whatever tune is currently being piped in.

The waves subside after a while and everyone glumly goes back to waiting for the next round. Some head over to the hot pool, while others figure this is the best time to get a hot dog and fries. (The only freaks are those sad souls who stay in the dormant wave pool. Some choose to swim, others just sort of wading, doubtless figuring that they've got the jump on the competition once the waves start up again) A waterslide enthusiast, I immediately head for the stairs. The music hasn't stopped, though its energy has leveled off a bit, and it's only now that I begin to pay attention. Madonna's "Open Your Heart" or "Papa Don't Preach" are songs I often identify with wave pools but so too is Bobby O's "She Has a Way", a tune I feel like I've heard before. Wave pool music works that way: catchy if you choose to listen but unobtrusive if you don't care. I may have been nodding along while standing in line on my tip toes waiting for my go on the waterslide but once the surly attendant signals that I'm up I'm all about the spirit of the slide and any music that happens to be on falls away. Shooting out of the bottom and into the wading pool, I emerge and, assuming it hasn't already wrapped up and moved on to next in the rotation, the song is much the same as I left it forty seconds earlier. She has a way of getting what she wants: yeah, that's how it is at a water park, we all get what we want. I decide to have another go on the waterslide before the next session of waves starts.

David Hepworth prophesied a hit for Bobby O but it failed to materialise. Despite his rave review, Smash Hits neglected to cover him further nor did they bother to print the lyrics to "She Has a Way". This could well have been just the way O liked it too: he wrote the song, did the singing, produced it and had it released on his own O Records label. He had the looks and the sound to be a pop star but perhaps he was content with sharing his work at discotheques and wave pools around the world.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Tracey Ullman: "Breakaway"

An amazingly comedy-free recording — although considering I've never been a fan, I'd say that's the case with much of her work — that provides a spotlight for Tracey Ullman to affectionately zip her way through an obscure sixties B-side. As Hepworth says, it's a very "actressey" record but at least she's approaching it with the spirit of girls round the pub enjoying a drunken singalong. Too bad the video — which Heps expects to be its saving grace — isn't much cop but I suppose I would say that, wouldn't I?

Spectral Display: "It Takes a Muscle to Fall in Love"

3 March 1983

"Whatever can be going on in Holland?"

— Johnny Black

I first began this project by going through Brian McCloskey's fantastic Smash Hits archive and making a list of the Singles of the Fortnight. I hadn't yet come up with the idea of blogging every SOTF at this time, I just wanted to have them all jotted down. I soon noticed some peculiarities: some acts received way too many best new record honours, others not nearly enough; there were plenty I'd never heard of before and a few I'd forgotten about completely. Some songs titles also intrigued and/or puzzled me and one I had to double check because it had to be wrong.

I first imagined "It Takes a Muscle to Fall in Love" to be about sex and the male member having to exert its muscle(s) in an amourous clinch. Perhaps, I reasoned, it even harks back to adolescent boys sporting partials and misinterpreting them as feelings of love. (I'm not the only one, am I?) Sex, sex, sex, eh? Listening to it for the first time, it quickly dawned on me that it actually refers to strength and that it really ought to be "It Takes Some Muscle..." or "It Takes Muscles...". (Spectral Display members Michael Mulders and Henri Overduin are Dutch and so the indefinite article may be down to a small error of the non-native English speaker) Love requires you to be strong: not the most original of thoughts but no matter.

"It Takes a Muscle..." isn't for everyone. If you don't like synths then you don't like synths and there's little I can do for you. I could point out that this song could easily be reinterpreted as a heart-wrenching gospel number or a tender country lament or a grand operatic piece but I suppose that will only strengthen your antipathy towards the electronica here. Effective as those potential covers could be they'd likely struggle to interpret the harrowing loneliness of the original. Continental types, such as Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre and Jan Hammer (not to mention the Berlin-period Bowie-Eno), had long been using synthesizers to depict a Cold War industrial town smokestack terrain; Spectral Display take this approach but apply it to individual despair, something that British acts like Black and The Blue Nile would soon be taking up.

Delicate and sparse, the musical arrangement is so perfectly suited to Overduin's vocal, which manages to stray oh so close into melodrama while maintaining a shred of distance. Though mired in pain, the lyrics aren't totally bogged down in the singer's own personal trauma. The song's first verse reads like he's giving advice to a close friend but the remainder delves into his own feelings of loss. He offers a faint degree of hope to his troubled confidant ("You're gonna live tomorrow, if you don't die today") which he contrasts with his own far bleaker state ("Feels like I'll break down tomorrow, if I don't die today"). Yes, he appears to be making someone else's troubles all about himself but what he lacks in compassionate friendship he makes up for with a shimmering tune that puts the listener in the position of being adviser and advisee.

With so many studio boffins of the age using synthy pyrotechnics to wow the listener, it's a refreshing change to hear electronics serve the song — a point somehow missed by M.I.A.'s atrocious cover. Whatever can be going on in Holland? I don't know but I'd love to hear what other Dutch groups were up to if Spectral Display is anything to go by.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Rip, Rip + Panic: "Beat the Beast"

With jazz dabblage being all the rage among post-punk indie types in the early-eighties, it's only right that the stepdaughter of a cog in sixities avant-garde would be in an improvisational mood. Not so much like the work of Don Cherry on  Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come and Free Jazz (in addition to Cherry's own excellent free jazz-waltz Symphony for Improvisers), this is more like Lester Bowie's dixieland-meets-big band-meets-bop-meets-modern craziness style. The song could easily be something recorded by Cab Calloway but Neneh Cherry and her RRP cohorts — appropriately — rip it apart with some wickedly demented soloing that wouldn't be out of place with Bowie's extraordinary unit the Art Ensemble of Chicago. And despite what I said above about dabblage, it sounds as if they were more willing to commit themselves to jazz than some of their contemporaries. A part of me wishes this this constituted the real Bristol sound.

JoBoxers: "Boxerbeat"

17 February 1983

"Hopefully, it'll be bands like the stunning JoBoxers who will blow all the pouting pretties back whence they came."

— Smash Hits scribe who wishes to remain nameless (or is uncredited due to editorial negligence)

Some odd stuff went down in the Smash Hits singles review in February of 1983. First, Fred Dellar sifts through nearly two dozen records and is so underwhelmed by the lot of 'em that he doesn't bother crowning a SOTF. He has scant praise for Donald Fagen's "New Frontier", Fun Boy Three's "The Tunnel of Love" and Depeche Mode's "Get the Balance Right" but he doesn't even seem all that bothered about any of them. The only notable newby this fortnight is Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" which Dells thinks is just all right (MJ's vocal, the song's beat and Quincy Jones' production "almost convince you that [it's] a great record" which I have to agree with even if I quibble with his concession that it's a grower; I tend to think that it's the type of single that's best played only the once). We're still not quite at the point in which reviewers began concluding write ups of their picks with the sentence 'Single of the Fortnight' but the custom for the past several months has been for the choice cut to be featured in the top left hand side, typically bordered by stars. In this issue we see a doubling up due to the connection of a Jimmy Cliff cover (Rockers Revenge's "The Harder They Come") and a Jimmy Cliff original ("Love Is All") in this coveted spot. The Rockers, who "enjoyed" a SOTF the previous summer with "Walking on Sunshine", build upon the gospel elements of the reggae classic but the New York boombox synths trivialize the original's passion; Dellar is bored with Cliff's new release and, listening to it now, it's amazing to think how hard he managed to fall. (Note: This has now been rectified. I have decided to infer that the SOTF is Donald Fagen's "New Frontier" which may be found here)

So, the above lengthy paragraph aside, let's skip this one and move on to the next fortnight where there is sure to be no problems. Well, other than no credited reviewer. (The singles review page was actually nameless a month earlier as well but I cited Mark Ellen as his name is down on Brian McCloskey's Smash Hits archive)

Sometimes groups come along as if they're trying to fill a void. Bands like Dexys Midnight Runners and Madness were still around in 1983 but they weren't quite the same as when they first hit it big. Kevin Rowland's outfit had changed lineups (again) and were now being billed with the singer/musical director/dictator's name getting top billing; they had also begun moving away from their northern soul roots towards Irish folk. Madness' run of superbly rollicking singles was drying up as they gradually shifted to their melancholy period. (One of this fortnight's better offerings is their latest record "Tomorrow's (Just Another Day)", which masked its dark heart in some bouncy rhythms and production; a version that perhaps better represents this stage appears on the single's 12" release featuring a suitably down in the dumps Elvis Costello vocal and a slowed down pace) Significantly, the two groups also seemed like gangs: a pack of mates who probably grew up in the same neighbourhood and listened to the same music and drank together in the same pub. (It's difficult to imagine the members of Spandau Ballet doing anything together save for shopping for expensive designer clothes)

Clearly whoever reviewed these singles feels there's a void and JoBoxers are just the lads to fill it. They don't play synths, you know, and the vocals aren't wimpy and they don't dress like Bananarama. (Prancing around in the video as if they're performing in The Pirates of Penzance apparently is acceptable although his nibs may well have changed his mind once he actually got to see it) And they play soul which is real music.

I might be able to take this critique seriously if I could manage to understand just what he sees in "Boxerbeat" but it's beyond me. I can't quite figure out what it's meant to be. Is this "Boxerbeat" singer Dig Wayne is going on about some kind of a dance? Old school rhythm and blues has a tradition of introducing a dance craze through song — the obvious examples being Chubby Checker's "The Twist" and Little Eva's "The Loco-Motion" — and they could be attempting something similar here. Trouble is, there's no actual dance to go along with it. Perhaps "Boxerbeat" is a mindset. The lyrics encourage us to keep an open mind, not be so much of a prat and live and let live. Okay, that's fine, I can do that. Now what? Well, you can be part of their pack — just you're "bag" if you dig what Dexys and Madness used to be about.

I don't wish to sound too bitchy here. The tune is punchy and Dig Wayne seems like a decent frontman. My quibble really is with whoever at ver Hits felt it necessary to prop up JoBoxers at the expense those so-called "pouting pretties". Is "Boxerbeat" really any more profound than the upcoming singles from the Duranies or the Spands? Is pretending as if you're an authentic sixties northern soul group any less pretentious than draping oneself in a carpet and painting one's face in makeup? New pop was here and the denizens of the Smash Hits office on Carnaby Street were going to have to deal with it. Belittle the fops, sure, but for the sake of consistency be sure to trash the soulboys while you're at it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Orange Juice: "Rip It Up"

Our anonymous Hits critic thinks "Boxerbeat" is the bee's knees but hates this: I don't know what to say. Everyone's a sucker for those clipped, jangly guitars and, combined with some synth backing that manages to look forward to the squelching sound of late-eighties acid house, "Rip It Up" has a great DIY quality about it. But it isn't simply yet another post-punk obscurity purpose built for the exclusive delight of John Peel and a few Glaswegian art school students, there's real pop aspiration going on here. Edwyn Collins' vocal has swagger which is a refreshing change from the customarily depressed and/or quirky singing you get from indie darlings. History vindicates those of us who opt for "Rip It Up" over "Boxerbeat" even if Orange Juice were no more the future of British pop than JoBoxers.

Prince: "1999"

20 January 1983

"This is beaty, bouncy and seemingly about cramming in as much partying as possible because Judgement Day (ie The Bomb) approacheth. In a word: fab."

— Dave Rimmer

I turned six in the spring of '83 so I'm probably not the best judge but I can't believe that people were giving much thought to the millennium back then. I recall first hearing about the return of the Hong Kong colony to China a few years later — I was a news buff at a fairly young age — and thinking that 1997 was so way off in the future that it hardly merited consideration.The fact that the year 2000 and the millennium was approaching didn't occur to me until the mid-nineties when everyone began talking about Y2K and, in my pedantic family at least, how 2001 was the year everyone should be recognizing since "there wasn't a year zero". (It never occurred to us that there really had never been a year one either) But to adults it was fast approaching — assuming humanity was going to survive long enough to see it.

The Bomb was something everyone heard about back in the day but it wasn't something I was particularly afraid of. (I was far more scared of volcanoes, giant Pacific Northwest slugs and the hole in the Ozone layer) We never did nuclear war readiness drills in school and Communism may not have seemed quite so threatening at a time when the world of Reagan and Thatcher was so bleak. To the older generation, however, the threat of nuclear war was still very much in the air. While some went out and protested, others were getting down and enjoying those few precious days that they had left. People like Prince.

"1999" is the beginning of Prince's ascendancy to pop's aristocracy. The fun-sized genius had his moments prior to this (as Dave Rimmer mentions, "I Wanna Be Your Lover" is a prime example) but this is where he kicks off the work that he'll always be remembered for. I've long had mixed feelings towards him myself. I admire his willingness to do his thing without thought for anyone else, his immense talent and the fact that he was always so balls out prolific in an era when more and more of his contemporaries were going three or four or five years between albums. As for his music, his songs have never thrilled me quite as much as I feel they ought to (the closest was probably when I first heard either "When Does Cry" or "Purple Rain" and even then I was too young and weirded out by his image) and I've never been too crazy about his weedy voice. Is it too much of a backhanded compliment to suggest that he might be the ultimate artist just to have a nice, all-bases-covered greatest hits package?

Appearing on every good Prince compilation, "1999" is one of those ones I can happily give a listen to, even if I hadn't actually done so prior to this past week for well over a decade. Taking the same snappy melody that he would put to good use on "Manic Monday" a couple years later (I must say I'd never noticed the similarity until the other day but clearly others have picked up on it for some time), he and his soon-to-be-christened band The Revolution pump out a saucy funk rhythm that really provides the blueprints for the emerging new jack swing movement — Janet Jackson's still awesome Rhythm Nation being something repeated plays of this really put me in the mood for. Fantastic and something that Prince may have never bettered.

The end of the Cold War is now nearing its thirtieth anniversary but "1999" is still relevant due to the imminent threat of climate change. It's looking more and more as if the damage is irreversible and it's only going to get worse. Maybe it'll soon be time for humanity to accept that its days are numbered. Partying like it's 2999 might be all we have left.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Belle Stars: "Sign of the Times"

Between "1999" and Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" and Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" and U2's "New Year's Day" there may not have been a more quintessentially eighties singles review page in ver Hits than this fortnight's — even if they're offset by a reissue of The Beatles' "Please Please Me" and something called "Vintage English Rock & Roll" by That Hideous Strength, whoever they are. Missing out on the eighties retro nights, however, is The Belle Stars and their almost-a-future-Prince-song-title "Sign of the Times". The Belles had been a on cover version kick with their three previous singles and their penchant for studying the classics paid off grandly on this wonderfully catchy number. Rimmer is guardedly impressed, saying it's a "cover in disguise" and isn't especially into the spoken word bits but to these ears its an easy runner-up SOTF. The sound of The Belle Stars getting it right, even if only the once.

Tracey Thorn: "Goodbye Joe"

6 January 1983

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

— Mark Ellen (attr.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Level 42: "The Chinese Way"

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