We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It: "What's the Point?"

28 January 1987

"How about a drink sometime, luv, when we can discuss favourite lipstick shades?"

— Wayne Hussey

Simon Evans took over from Kim Clarke Champniss as host of City Limits on MuchMusic at the start of 1992. Though both were British born veejays who would put a heavy emphasis on playing groups from their homeland, the two shared little else in common. KCC was relatively cheerful and he clearly had musical interests beyond so-called alternative music. Evans, however, was one of those guys who seemed to live and breathe the indie scene and he made no secret of his distaste for those who didn't. KCC was a big favourite of mine but there was something to be said for Evans as well. He acted like a pushy older friend who would take it upon himself to guide young viewers in the direction of the stuff he considered to be acceptable. KCC might have had time for pop music of a certain quality; Evans had no use for even the best of it.

I continued to watch City Limits for several months following the changeover from KCC to Evans. The quality didn't fall off and perhaps the only major difference was that the new host didn't tend to fall back on old favourites of his predecessor like Joy Division so much. The music was mostly new and very little of it was popular with the bulk of it coming from England (it would be my first exposure to Blur, Manic Street Preachers and The Wonder Stuff as well as less notable acts like Fatima Mansions and Ned's Atomic Dustbin). Evans must have quickly worked out that grunge was already far too trendy to have any place on his show; the dearth of newer American acts on City Limits may have been part of the reason they ended up introducing the late-afternoon video show The Wedge later in the year, which proved more of a home for the likes of Soul Asylum and Stone Temple Pilots. (In my mind, the two shows really symbolized the gulf between American and British indie)

One night a typically glum Evans introduced Fuzzbox which perked my interest. I was familiar with their chart his from 1989 and even though I knew about their punkier past, they were just about the last group I expected him to be playing. He introduced "What's the Point?" or "Love Is the Slug" or "X X Sex" (I don't recall which but it must have been one of them since they all have videos) before mentioning in a particularly dour voice about their unfortunate transformation into a pop act. I don't know if Evans uttered the words 'sell out' but this was clearly the implication.

I suppose there are a couple markers that reaffirm this idea that Fuzzbox had indeed sold out. Singer Vickie (Vix) Perks was suddenly baring her midriff at every opportunity and some of their new material was co-written by the band with American Liam Sternberg who had also been partly responsible for The Bangles hit "Walk Like an Egyptian". There was a glossiness to both their look and their sound as well. Yet, this makeover wasn't a sell out. Sternberg had worked with them but the music was very much their own. The crunchiness of the guitars was toned down and there isn't as much thrash but the harmonies aren't much different and it's easy to imagine "What's the Point?" as a pop song just as it wouldn't take much to turn later hit single "International Rescue" into a rousing punk anthem. 

Mostly importantly, Fuzzbox never altered their approach, which was to have a laugh. Formed on the fly when some mates who already had a band couldn't find anyone to open for them, they refused to take what they were doing terribly seriously. They soon found themselves supporting Sigue Sigue Sputnik with whom they would draw obvious comparisons. But where Martin Degeville and co. still posed as punks — even if it was all artifice — Vix, Mags, Jo and Tina had little time for such earnestness. Smash Hits was still riding along the influence of design editor Steve Bush who didn't want cover stars smiling; the members of Fuzzbox couldn't stop grinning. Aspirational pop? Yeah, sod that.

Wayne Hussey wasn't one for smiling but he nevertheless a curious pop star. He had departed The Sisters of Mercy after having a falling out with leader Andrew Eldritch in 1985 and promptly formed The Mission. This was during the apogee of goth rock with bands such as The Cure and Sixousie & The Banshees joining them as chart regulars. Being goths, these groups weren't especially media friendly but Hussey did his best to play the game. It never looked like putting in an appearance on Top of the Pops was infringing on his rock star cred and he was down for what the teen pop mags were all about. Smash Hits' then editor Barry McIlheney has since admitted that he was taken to task by his bosses at EMAP for putting him on the cover of the magazine but Hussey had already been on the front of rival journal Number One the previous autumn. You may agree that putting a goth singer on the cover of a top pop mag is a mistake (McIlheney chose him in favour of Janet Jackson which certainly makes it seem like a giant boner in retrospect) but there's no question Hussey was up for the program.

He serves his time this fortnight reviewing the singles. Rockers tend to be loyal to their own kind and dismissive of others but that's not the case here. No, he doesn't care for much of the pop on offer but, remarkably, he's also dismissive of Bruce Springsteen's "Fire" ("What's all the fuss about? Just another song about highways, cars and girls") and doesn't care much for "Gigolo", the latest from The Damned. What Hussey seems to appreciate is youthful enthusiasm, which brings us back to We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It, the name they were still going by (though they were already going by the shortened 'Fuzzbox' in the US but weren't changing it in Britain for some time). For such an apparently amateurish outfit, they were improving and "What's the Point?" was their best single yet. As Hussey says, the harmonies are absolutely superb, their voices colliding and bouncing off one another wonderfully. There's a booming horn section (at least, I think it's a horn section, though it could be them going nuts on kazoos and comb and paper for all I know) and better production too.

It's as if Fuzzbox were already looking to make a change. The funny video has them in pajamas and dressing up as flight attendants, glamourous movie stars, secretaries and — amazingly — Harry Potter, as well as their more familiar shock rock Strawberry Switchblade look. Flip the single over and you get their acapella take on "Bohemian Rhapsody" with yet more brilliantly chaotic harmonies and sense that they're about to collapse into hysterical laughter at any moment. There was so much more to this group than drunkenly playing the same chords and being on the indie fringe. Their minor hits gave them a taste of the Giddy Carousel of Pop and now they were going to ride it for as long as they could. It wasn't anywhere near as long as we would have wanted but they made the most of their chance.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Beastie Boys: "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)"

Some songs sound better in your head than when you actually sit down to listen to them and then there's "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)". After all these years, it's remarkable how familiar yet surprising listening to it can be. It's actually funny: how did I forget about the Beastie Boys once being a laugh? And it's good fun too! The whole idea of Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D being these white rappers is absurd and should never have worked. But work it does. Then, now and forever.

Marianne Faithfull: "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan"

15 November 1979

"If you can handle this, it sounds like Dolly Parton produced by Brian Eno. Only better."

— David Hepworth

Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was written in the spring of 1965 following a trip to England. Obviously there is much more to it but on the surface it's about a young woman who has everything only to squander it all and have to crawl her way out of the hole she dug for herself. Amongst all the acclaim that it garnered and all its myriad themes, it also looked ahead to the wastelands of the sixties rock 'n' roll casualty — and at a time when pop was still relatively banal, with John Lennon's "Help!" being virtually the only other number that looked for some deeper meaning. All those rock stars who would one day crash and burn were still wide-eyed, milk-fed youngsters with nothing but dreams and aspirations.

Marianne Faithfull has to date never recorded "Like a Rolling Stone", perhaps because it's a little too on the nose (and for multiple reasons at that). Nevertheless, this Dylan classic could have easily been written about her. Her mother came from Austro-Hungarian nobility stock and her father was a noted scholar and intelligence operative so she should have had a life of privilege ahead of her. Though her childhood was marred by illness and less comfortable living conditions, she still had the connections to move in exclusive circles. By the time she was nineteen she had already married, signed a recording contract, had a baby, become a pop star and had separated from her husband. Such activity at a tender age would be too much for most of us to handle but the remainder of the sixties only saw the whirlwind life continue. Just the fact that she was dating Mick Jagger alone could have caused her to spiral out of control. In retrospect, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that everything would soon go wrong. Her career petered out, she got hooked on smack, lost custody of her little boy, developed anorexia nervosa and was homeless for two years. Yeah, it's probably understandable that she attempted suicide.

Faithfull's late-seventies comeback was hardly storybook. Her masterpiece Broken English was met with positive reviews but it didn't return her to the the Top 40 and she still had years of personal problems ahead of her. Yet, her artistry begins here. Confessional and raw like nothing else since Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album from 1970, it's no wonder she chose "Working Class Hero" as one of two cover versions for it. Neither one of them was ever working class but that's precisely what makes their respective interpretations interesting. Lennon's original is soaked in bitterness while Faithfull's is all about desperation. A blue blood having to scrounge for everything, her only hope is to be a working class hero: it's something to be and there was little else for her.

"The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" was the other cover from Broken English and it was selected as its maiden single. It's no more commercial than any of the album's seven other tracks but it was fortunate enough to have been sourced from Dr Hook, who were just days away from having a number one single in the UK with "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman". Composer and poet Shel Silverstein wrote a lot of songs for the Medicine Show so he may have figured it would work sung from a man's perspective. Ray Sawyer's quivering vocal isn't ideal but I suppose putting all the sympathy on oneself at the expense of Lucy Jordan's story is one way to go; he did all he could for her and now he's more broken than she ever was.

Faithfull's reading is, appropriately enough, much more faithful to who the song is about and who it would have been aimed at. Though not quite thirty-seven (she was almost thirty-three, arguably no longer an advanced age for women in pop: Debbie Harry and Anni-Frid from ABBA were both just a year older and Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie was thirty-six; that said, none of them ever sounded as old and world-weary as she did), she feels as if she's at an age in which youthful dreams have vanished and all that is left is to make do with the lonely existence of a bored housewife ("she could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers / Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way"). Only a final descent into madness and suicide allows for a glimmer of joy to come through as the protagonist finally gets to ride "along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair".

Refusing to play the victim of everything that befell her over the past decade, Faithfull is a much stronger woman than she is typically credited. Yet, the troubled life continued and she admitted to David Hepworth in the following issue of Smash Hits that "using herself as the main attraction of a freak show" was part of an emotional game she was playing. This may ruin Broken English as a work of searing honesty and pain but it only revs up just what a complex and fascinating character she's always been. She was a casualty of sixties excess yet refused to point fingers. She was a poor little rich girl who played folk songs in chic bars in 1964 yet pulled off a post-punk/new wave sound with far more conviction than Jagger and the Stones managed on something like "Shattered" from their Some Girls album. She was the girl described in "Like a Rolling Stone" — and, damn it, she was going to tell everyone exactly how it feels.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Manhattan Transfer: "Birdland"

Much as I have tired of the comments section below YouTube music videos from the seventies and eighties filled with "I'm building a time machine: who's with me?", I must say that I don't fault the sentiment. It's a shame there isn't room in mainstream pop for a vocal jazz quartet like there used to be. Having said that, "Birdland" isn't great. Weather Report's original is extraordinary: beautifully played by all concerned and catchy as all hell. The Manhattan Transfer clearly love this Joe Zwainul composition but it becomes far too much of a celebration of their impeccable taste in jazz to take it seriously as a song. The lyrics of Jon Hendricks are like Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" dialed up to eleven. To be fair, I haven't been able to think up a lyrical theme that's any better so maybe they should have just scatted over the whole thing. "Birdland" is such a brilliant and sturdy number that they didn't manage to ruin it but neither did they do it any favours.

Aretha Franklin & George Michael: "I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)"

14 January 1987

"So could this be post-Wham! George trying to reach a more "serious" audience by teaming up with a "soul legend"? Yes, it probably could."

— William Shaw

1987 is now upon us and thus (a) it is now officially the late eighties and (b) the younger generation of pop stars was beginning to wake up to the reality of the post-Live Aid landscape. Artists in their forties were no longer commercial poison and many began to be seen in much closer proximity to the likes of Phil Collins and Sting than they would have been at the beginning of the decade. The burgeoning compact disc boom meant that reissues were viable ('87 being the year that The Beatles' back catalog was released in the new format, giving the Fab Four a new found relevance — but more on them in a few months) but many of the dinosaurs were having success with new material as well. Younger acts were suddenly in danger of falling behind and they began dialing back on the synths and getting all roosty. Others went for the cross-generational duet.

Soul music had been the basis for a lot of figures in British pop of the eighties, a fact not lost on at least one high profile star from twenty years earlier. Aretha Franklin was already aware of George Michael as early as 1984 when "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" hit number one in the United States. Immediately recognizing his talent, she made a play for his compositional services only to be turned down due to the young pop star's modesty, considering it "ludicrous" that he could ever write a song for her. Aware that she had to get with the times or remain a cloistered relic of the past, she she was keen to strike some new musical allies, many of whom happened to be British. In 1985, she teamed with Eurythmics on the hit single "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves", a song that gave a spark to the often clinical and lifeless work of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. The following year she did a brave but uninspired cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" for the Whoopi Goldberg movie of the same name with a guesting Keith Richards on guitar. Yet, the guy from Wham! remained reticent. Fortunately for her, the songwriting team of Simon Climie (who would soon have pop success as one half of Climie Fisher) and Dennis Morgan weren't so shy — though perhaps they should have been.

And about that song of their's: it's not terribly good, is it? William Shaw says it's "not up to much" (and this is his second SOTF on the bounce to be given his thumbs up in spite of the shoddy songwriting) but if anything that's an understatement. Tom Ewing considers the lyrics to have been written using a "set of gospel magnetic fridge poetry" which is harsh but sadly accurate. Luckily, Franklin gets the blustery, over-the-top nonsense which she was able to belt out as only she could; Michael's lines are much more restrained about having "made it through the heartache" and how he "just laugh(s)" at all the disappointments (how very big of him).

It's a vocal dream match and they both do well even if there's no doubt who's the star. Franklin gets top billing (doing the duet was the brainchild of her very hands on record label boss Clive Davis and Michael was just on the cusp of the mega-stardom he would reach with his album Faith and its dinghy-load of hits later in the year; the majority of generation gap match-ups from "Streets of Bakersfield" by Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens to "Justified and Ancient" by The KLF and Tammy Wynette gave main artist credit to younger acts with their older partners getting a 'featuring' or 'with' in front of their names) and those lung-busting Ahhh's are what everyone is expecting. The real highlight, however, is her gospel-influenced responses to Michael ("I know you did") which, for whatever reason, he doesn't reciprocate. At any rate, this is still one of his best vocal performances and would anticipate his beautiful singing on 1990's Listen Without Prejudice.

"I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)" is an enjoyable record despite the dodgy songwriting and overblown production but it's hard to escape the feeling that a lot more could have resulted from such a collaboration. Having a song at the ready probably meant that the pressure would be off Michael, who then jumped at the chance of recording with a musical idol when he had previously been so reluctant. Yet, he was one of his generation's finest pop songwriters and would surely have come up with something more inspired than this cliche-fest. Notably his only hit single up until the live "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" (also a duet, this time with Elton John) in which he didn't get a writing credit, it ended up being a warning shot that he was quickly on his way to the very top of the pop world. As for Franklin, it turned out to be her last big moment even as she kept looking out for others sing alongside. The people she began working with tended to be American (Whitney Houston), older (again Elton John, gosh he gets around) or both (The Four Tops). She would have done better to look out for someone on the rise — say, Janet Jackson or Tears for Fears — who was also brash enough to offer a song for her to sing. That's all she wanted.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Smithereens: "In a Lonely Place"

Damn Suzanne Vega was something else back then. The Smithereens were just another solid American college rock group, albeit not one that stood out in any way. But with "In a Lonely Place" she provides the finishing touches to an already lovely song. Hard to say how this would have gone over on college radio and in student union hall concerts but it was appreciated enough in the UK for an sizable indie hit. Its heartbreak is real enough but it never descends into melodrama or self-pity. Maybe there was much more to these Smithereens than I had assumed; the fact that they got Vega to sing with them alone makes me question my previous antipathy.

Corey Hart: "I Am by Your Side"

January 1987

"Corey! My favorite! As long as Corey pays me $20 he can by my favorite."

— Greg Senzer, Until December dirtbag

"The biggest song of all time! The best thing to come out of Canada since the Guess Who!"

— Adam Sherburne, another Until December dirtbag

"He's a poet warrior!"

— Bryan Weisberg, dirtbag from, you guessed it, Until December

Cor! Another special edition of VER HITS!

If you've been following this blog for a while then (a) thank you very much especially if you aren't a family member or friend who's just been doing so out of pity and (b) you'll know that I previously went "off book" by writing about a review from serious-inky-turned-pop-mag Record Mirror just over a year ago. It was the first in an occasional series of pieces looking at singles reviews in magazines that either competed with or were related to Smash Hits. This time, we're going to look at Star Hits, a sister mag based in the USA which was meant to be an American equivalent. It lasted from 1984 through to the end of the eighties (with an eventual rebrand of Smash Hits). It was a nice idea and it resulted in a pop mag that was nearly as good as its longer-lived cousin across the pond. But Americans don't seem to take kindly to taking the mickey out of their music heroes, preferring instead to wading through pages and pages of advertising in Rolling Stone before getting to some highly unfunny prose from P.J. O'Rourke which probably didn't have anything to do with music. American magazines always seemed to suck the life out of pop music.

It can be fun going through old issues of Star Hits to see how it lined up with its forerunner and how the two differed. Longer articles were often pinched from Smash Hits but features such as Get Smart (with Jackie standing in for Linda), Start in place of Bitz, a gossip section that would predate the British publication by several years, the letters page (known as Bold Type rather than Black Type) and reviews were all original. Being a monthly publication, the American mag had more to choose from for its album reviews, often with two or three pages devoted to LPs. The singles, however, lost out and frequently ended up relegated to sidebar status and often weren't included at all. When they began saying that 'home taping is killing music' perhaps they meant that kids were no longer buying singles that they could tape off the radio (or MTV or, if you happen to be Canadian like me, MuchMusic). Aside from a Bryan Adams — more on him in a bit — maxi single on cassette, I didn't buy singles until I lived in the UK in 1989. Later on, I bought a handful of cassingles (Enigma's "Sadeness" and Pet Shop Boys' "Can You Forgive Her" being the only two I'd rather admit to having purchased) but, whether vinyl, tape or CD, these never seemed like items to seek out for North American purchasers. Generally speaking, you waited for the album to come out. But here is a rare singles review from the January 1987 edition of Star Hits. Much like Number One magazine, the task seems to have been given to singers and groups of various degrees of fame and relevance. (It's possible that another factor as to why the singles got such short shrift is that no one on staff could be bothered doing them and they may have struggled securing pop star volunteers)

My deepest thanks to the administrator of the excellent Star Hits Facebook page for all their help with this entry as well as some kind words of encouragement. Do consider joining this group and you can get a better idea of just what a terrific but sadly short lived magazine it was. They post scans of old issues all the time and they are quick to reply to all of your relevant queries.

~~~~~

Hmmm, I get the feeling they're being sarcastic...

Not unlike the those rough around the edges class clowns from school who might rub people the wrong way but possess enough charm and humour to get away with it, there's something to be said for uncouth pop "stars" bitchily crapping on other records. Sure, it's mean-spirited and it doesn't have much of a function but it may also be accurate and entertaining. Still, there's a fine line between ripping into records and taking personal shots at the acts behind them. Most stay well clear of that division, while others manage to deftly balance along it. Then there's the Until December approach.

Until December emerged out of San Francisco in the eighties with a mix of goth, new wave and synth-pop. They looked absurd (though this was hardly unusual for the time) and acted like the worst possible combination of college frat boy culture and the dark and lonely outsider. (To an extent, they were not unlike the contradictory psyche of Kurt Cobain, who lamented Nirvana's work being enjoyed by jocks yet also used his pull to ensure that the last night of the 1992 Reading Festival that they were headlining wasn't filled with "lame-ass limey bands") Nevertheless, their records aren't as atrocious as one might expect. "Heaven", their best song, is half-decent and they may have forged a respectable career as a kind of American equivalent of Pop Will Eat Itself had they carried on. A good thing they didn't though since nothing good can come from flirting with rape culture.

You may have guessed from the picture of them on the singles page and/or from reading their "reviews" that these three guys are (or were, in the case of at least one of them) pukes. Serving up plenty of homophobia, misogyny and unnecessarily crude remarks, they manage to undermine whatever humour and intelligence they may have had in dumping on these pop singles in a much more conventional fashion. Had they dialed it back a bit with just the odd nasty quip, they might have come across as silly jerks with a comically lovable side. But they were anything but and, as if trying to make up for his group's many transgressions, leader Adam Sherburne would eventually have a radical change of heart and go on to form the leftist industrial rock/hip hop group Consolidated. Good on him for that anyway.

But this was a different time, you might be saying. Indeed it was since the gay bashing wouldn't have been deemed fit to print nowadays; back then, it was not only approved of by editors but it doesn't even appear to have even been commented upon. The Bold Type letters page only received one complaint — at least that they saw fit to publish — and it was from one Belinda's Gold Earrings From The Heart (possibly not his/her real name) who objected to their shabby treatment of Belinda Carlisle. Gold Earrings stands up for the singer before questioning Until December's talent (what this has to do with anything is beyond me) and making something of a none-too-veiled homophobic slam of his/her own. If readers did happen to recognize what utter creeps they were then they were righter than they knew.

The first conscious musical choice I ever made wasn't Beatles-Stones, Blur-Oasis or Britney-Christina. It was in about 1985 and it involved Canada's two biggest male singers of the time, Bryan Adams and Corey Hart (sorry Larry Gowan, Kim Mitchell, Gino Vannelli and Alfie Zappacosta). I don't know if this Sophie's choice scenario presented itself to other kids around my age in my homeland but it mattered a great deal to me, at least for a very brief period. "Heaven" (no, not the one by Until December!) or "Never Surrender"? "Cuts Like a Knife" or "Sunglasses at Night"? "Summer of '69" or "Boy in the Box"? Er..."Heat of the Night" or "I Am by Your Side"? Of couse, 'none of the above' would seem the logical option to go for but it wasn't one I was aware of. If only.

I opted for Bryan Adams, a choice which ought to have vindicated me years later as his was the career that remained relevant for much longer but this also ensured that he'd have a lot longer to outstay his welcome, which he did. These (a) or (b) options are frequently petty and it was as much to do about my distaste for one as it did my admiration for the other. Bryan's biggest asset was his songs. In addition to those already mentioned (except for "Heat of the Night"), he had "It's Only Love", "Run to You" and "Somebody"; Corey had little beyond those songs mentioned above and I didn't even think much of them. Angst-ridden and brooding, it's easy to see why a generation of Canadian teens fell for him while virtually everyone else remained immune. As I got older, I would eventually grow to appreciate "Sunglasses at Night" but it never gave me the thrill that "Summer of '69" provided me when I first heard it. Yes, I was one of those Canadians you'd hear saying stuff like "yeah, but Bryan Adams used to be good!"

As for Until December, just what did they see in Hart's "I Am by Your Side"? Clearly they despise it as much as anything else on offer yet they greet it with the quotes above (not to mention Adam's verdict that he's right up there with Phil Collins as "one of the true visionaries of our time"). I suppose they see it as a fitting way to deal with such an apparently meek and mild character. They can slur and piss all over virtually everyone else (they seem to genuinely like Sigue Sigue Sputnik so clearly their taste in music wasn't up to much) but Corey? Corey's not gonna hurt anyone. His music had already lost whatever spark it once had and the little he had to say had been used up and he had become reduced to pledging to always be there for his woman. What could Until December say about him beyond insulting him with praise? And that is what they should have done with every record here. Eurythmics' "When Tomorrow Comes"? The building block of our civilization. Belinda Carlisle's "I Feel the Magic"? You'll swoon yourself silly. Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Rage Hard"? A song and a mustache to launch a thousand ships.

"I guess that does it," Adam concludes at the end of Madonna's "True Blue". "Sixteen Phil Collins reviews. Does Star Hits have enough trash now?" What a shame they had to be even trashier than even the vilest record here. They certainly didn't need to be this way.

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Also "Reviewed" This Month

Dweezil Zappa: "Let's Talk About It"

The one thing that Until December almost manage to get right is their dismissal of this MTV-approved sham. Their penchant for always taking the load road means "singer" Moon Unit Zappa (strangely not given artist co-credit with her "guitarist" brother) is trashed as a "hag" when they should have simply focused on her very limited vocal chops and what an incredibly terrible record this is. I'm no fan of patriarch Frank Zappa (a man who, incidentally, was always keen to point out the phoniness of others except for yuppie MTV veejays) but even he never came close to how wretched this is even on his worst day. You'd think it was all meant to be a joke but the conviction with which Moon sings and Dweez plays convinces me they really believe this. Let's talk about how crap your record is, shall we? (See? You can be nasty and not offend everyone!)

Donald Fagen: "New Frontier"

3 February 1983

"Near MOR fare (of four star quality) from the ex-Steely Dan mainman..."

— Fred Dellar

We're going back a bit for this post. Having decided earlier this year to include singles from before mid-1981, I realised that I had skipped one from the start of 1983. Though Smash Hits had begun giving a more prominent space for Singles of the Fortnight, they failed to do so this time round with largely unflattering reviews of Rockers Revenge and Jimmy Cliff sharing the top left hand spot usually reserved for critic picks. A stingy with praise Fred Dellar (the latest from Michael Jackson is only able to "almost convince you that "Bille Jean" is a great record. Which it isn't") doesn't specify a favourite so I refrained from covering it back at the beginning of 2019 but now that I'm inferring earlier SOTF, I feel more comfortable putting words in his nibs' mouth.

~~~~~

An ambition of mine that I'm sure never to realise is to write a a jukebox musical based on the music of Steely Dan. Glamour Profession, as it is so named, is about a rotating cast of musicians who toil in the studio under the direction of an unseen pair of demanding and persnickety composers named Don and Walt. Beginning at around the time of 1974's Pretzel Logic, just as this organization was transitioning from a "proper" five-piece band into a diarchic unit surrounded by crack jazz and rock sessioners, it examines the hired hands as they rehearse under watchful eyes and, during the odd lull between songs, discuss their lives as working musicians. A backing vocalist, guitarist or saxophonist breaks into a full rendition of whatever song that they happen to be working on (I always imagine "Bad Sneakers" from the Katy Lied album working particularly well) before receiving word that Don or Walt (if not both) are unhappy with that take and wish to do it again (wheels turnin' round and round...).

One scene I've thought about at length (which I nearly wrote for this entry until it dawned on me that I haven't the faintest idea what I'm doing) is about a pair of musician buddies meeting in a quiet studio and catching up before another session is to begin. One has been out of the country and is surprised to discover that Walt is out of the picture. They spend much time discussing the implications of this new arrangement, unable to work out if it's for the best or not. Only one stern teacher barking at them seems to be a plus but then Don doesn't have his old partner to blame for sabotaging the session: the studio musicians will have to take the brunt of the blame. This new direction leads them into a rendition of "New Frontier".

Lead singers who go solo could do a lot worse than stick with what they know. The natural thing to do is stretch out from the confines of a band but does that ever really work out? Why not just do what's easiest: it worked before so why not keep it going? Fans who are already familiar with a group's material can appreciate hearing more of the same from a newly solo artist, especially since it helps dull the sting of a break up. The musically illiterate Morrissey emerged following the dissolution of The Smiths with a number one album and a string of top ten hits. Was Viva Hate a better work than The Queen Is Dead or Strangeways, Here We Come? Not at all but it greatly impressed people that he was able to cut it on his "own".

Sticking with a familiar sound also allows the vocalist to control the narrative. Keith Richards was said to have been livid when he first heard Mick Jagger's debut solo album She's the Boss — not because it spat on the legacy of The Rolling Stones but because it sounded too much like them. But coming on the heels of the patchy Undercover, it's not a bad effort and reaffirms the vital role he plays in his day job (though it probably helps that this was prior to Richards becoming everyone's favourite Stone). Bryan Ferry had long held solo ambitions and interspersed albums released under his own name with Roxy Music LPs. Again, the stuff he did on his own is decent but seventies Roxy is a much different beast than eighties Stones. Gradually, however, his band moved away from their remarkable art rock and their polished and slick later work began to fall closer in line with his solo recordings. Avalon was a commercial and critical success and Ferry deftly harnessed it into Boys & Girls, in effect its follow up. (Such was his blurring of the lines between group and solo artist that many subsequent compilations have drawn from both sources)

In a sense, Donald Fagen doesn't really fit in with Ferry, Jagger and Morrissey — which, considering the company, is probably for the best. Steely Dan fell apart following the sessions for their seventh album Gaucho and Fagen appears to have continued where he left off with The Nightfly but there's no sense of him having any prior solo ambitions, there wasn't a grand strategy involved and he wasn't setting out to proven anything to anyone. Eighteen of the album's twenty-eight session musicians were veterans from prior Dan works, with all but two having appeared on Gaucho, including Larry Carlton and Michael and Randy Brecker. That same old exactitude of the playing is present and correct, as are Fagen's witticisms.

"New Frontier" is Fagen's madcap tale of planning a party in a bomb shelter "in case the Reds decide to push the button down". The song isn't traumatically retelling how terrified he was by 'duck and cover' drill exercises or how he was kept awake with worry during the Cuban Missile Crisis but looks forward to the Bomb and the promise it brings. I imagine a fifteen-year-old geek, clipboard in hand, with a list of names that he has earmarked for a spot in the "dugout that my dad built". Is it even a list? Is the coming disaster just a ruse to get the Big Blonde to have a little nuclear fallout with our Donny? So much to chew on here.

Gone from The Nightfly are characters like Hoops McCann with Fagen instead using himself in the role. A bomb shelter becomes a teenage fantasy nightclub and he's the bouncer. The album is often described as a departure in that it got him being much more autobiographical. There's more than a little truth in this and certainly not having Walter Becker around to bounce ideas off would have made it much more convenient to look within. But I'm not so sure it goes into his own life and experiences, just the knuckleheaded thoughts that roamed in his mind. Perhaps this is what the jukebox musical should really be about.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Buebells: "Cath"

With Altered Images, The Associates, Aztec Camera, Big Country, Orange Juice, Simple Minds and Strawberry Switchblade, Scottish pop more than held its own in the early eighties. But what of The Bluebells, a group that lacked both the cool factor and/or the cultural import of their contemporaries? Obviously they'll always have "Young at Heart", a song I previously slagged, to keep the memories alive and the royalty checks coming but "Cath" is a much better song and gives one an idea of just how they manage to fit in. While Kenneth McCluskey didn't have the charisma of Billy McKenzie, Clare Grogan, Jill Bryson or Rose McDowall, the group didn't have a particularly distinct sound the way Big Country and Simple Minds did and they weren't songwriters like Roddy Frame or Edwyn Collins but they might have been the best possible compromise of all of 'em. I'll take "Cath" with "Party Fears Two" and "All I Need Is Everything" and you can have the rest.

UB40: "Rat in Mi Kitchen"

31 December 1986

"I say, just play the horrid beast this tune and when it comes dancing out, brain it with a rolling pin. Ker-blam! That'll teach it."

— Dave Rimmer

In an episode of the hilarious but kind of maligned American sitcom How I Met Your Mother, the characters Ted (Josh Radnor) and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) have made a bet to see who can land the same girl first. Ted initially gets the upper hand and tells his friend all about her. "She plays bass in a reggae band," he enthuses. "Oh, does she know that one song 'mm-mm chaka, mm-mm chaka'?" Barney asks, "what's that song called? Oh right, it's called every reggae song". Though no genre is more identified with a particular sound, I think the idea that all reggae songs sound the same is a recent one — and much of it stems from an octet from Birmingham named after an unemployment benefit form.

There's this idea that UB40 started off well enough with a brilliant debut album and a respectable run of singles before lapsing into cover version hell. There's more than a little truth to this (all three of their UK number ones are covers and they never had a big hit in the US with an original) but it's not quite as simple as its portrayed. They spend much of the eighties relying on their own material and their first album of covers (1984's Labour of Love) is actually quite good. In truth, their only real howler at the time was their weedy version of "I Got You Babe" with Chrissie Hynde. Yes, "Red, Red Wine" set a bad precedent but we'd see scant evidence of it until the nineties rolled around when they began butchering Motown and soul classics. I think it's even possible that they were self-aware enough to know that their spike in sales came with a backlash. Previous album Baggariddim made a case for legitimacy by reworking older tracks with guest singers and toasters. Results were mixed but the successful yet terrible "I Got You Babe" overshadowed the rest of the set and did little to re-establish their reggae cred. UB40 returned in '86 with Rat in the Kitchen. Album's cover and title imply a return to their working class roots but the results fail to match the magnificent Signing Off from six years earlier. But it's fine and Colette Campbell's brief review in Smash Hits pretty well nails it.

Dave Rimmer isn't especially taken with the near-title track "Rat in Mi Kitchen" (he reckons it's "not bad" and considers it a "jaunty reggae number" and that amounts to the musical "analysis") and chooses to focus on its title. Indeed, Rims spends much of the singles page looking at song titles at the expense of content. Fair enough, I would imagine that he was getting bored with doing standard evals for the nineteenth time and decided to take a different tack this time round. (Also, he doesn't exactly have a loaded lineup of records in front of him, what with the post-Christmas lull and all, which also explains his desire to jazz up a poor selection by examining something other than the tunes themselves). And, yes, this is the Title of the Fortnight, albeit mainly due to there not being much else of note.

The song itself is lively enough and it's easy to imagine it being a firm favourite on the touring circuit. There's not much to say about it musically that Barney Stinson hasn't already said and they weren't in any hurry to push away from their established pop-reggae sound. (Significantly, two of their better later numbers, "Reckless" and a remix of the brilliant "One in Ten", were done in cahoots with Afrika Bambaataa and 808 State respectively and are also two of their least formulaic efforts; the two records also both reached number seventeen, fact fiends) Lyrically, it's dominated by sloganeering with hypotheticals ("when I catch you up, I'm gonna pull you up, I'm gonna check out inside your brain") that don't seem to be as menacing as they think. The group had been out of the political game for a while and it shows. It doesn't really work as a dig at Mrs Thatcher (assuming that's who this nutria is meant to be) but as generic advice for the listener it also seems confused. Of course, I initially thought it was all about poverty, having assumed that they were singing about how they were intending to "feast on it": so there's yet another misheard lyric on my part (just once could the correct line be superior to the one I thought up?).

Nevertheless, "Rat in Mi Kitchen" charmed enough of ver kids who were no doubt prompted into using up Christmas record tokens on it that it got into the Top 20 in the early part of 1987. Having just missed the charts with its pretty good predecessor "All I Want to Do", this was a bit of a coup for the band, who typically only enjoyed considerable hit parade success with each album's maiden single. It also ushers in a run of SOTF from '87 by prominent acts. We'll see an abundance of Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, major chart fixtures and critical darlings as the also rans begin to fade away. Though if you're a fan of That Petrol Emotion then prepare to be dead chuffed.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

XTC: "The Meeting Place"

"An original title but a fairly yawnworthy one", Rimmer sniffs. I cover XTC a lot in this space because I am a fan. Not a rabid obsessive (having each album in one format apiece is plenty for me) but they are one of my favourite groups — and "The Meeting Place" is one of my favourite songs. One of five Colin Moulding contributions to their masterpiece Skylarking (Andy Partridge "only" got nine tracks on the album which prompted a great deal of sulking), it is a beautiful piece and a perfect example of its composer's ability to base a pop song around his innate modesty. For when you're both excited and a little apprehensive about meeting that special someone.

Madness: "One Step Beyond"

1 November 1979

"Now, let's see...which is the A-side?"

— Steve Bush

Good to be careful, isn't it? Wouldn't want to risk having to once again be dealing with some irate readers, would ya? Steve Bush gave Madness plenty of praise for their debut single but all that seems to be remembered is that fact that he mixed up the A and B sides — which, if you think about it, only tells you how good these Camden lads were, that they were able to put something so good on the flip that it could easily be mistaken for a flagship release (though I suppose the inverse of that is that the intended single was so underwhelming as to be assumed to be just filler for the second side).

As if regretting the decision to relegate "Madness" to the other side of "The Prince", Madness chose a Prince Buster cover for their follow up single. Covering the same artist twice on the bounce straight out of the gate seems risky: for one thing, they were sending out the message that they didn't have a great deal of faith in their own material and, second, and more worryingly, it appeared that they were piggybacking on someone else's work and identity. A good thing, then, that their interpretation of "One Step Beyond" bears only a passing resemblance to the original.

Released in 1964 as the B-side to single "Al Capone" (from which The Specials borrowed liberally for their outstanding hit single "Gangsters"), "One Step Beyond" is a slow moving, methodical number. The sax part is so relaxed that it could have been played by the breathy, swoonsome tenor master Ben Webster. Indeed, the horn solos give it a nice jazzy feel that you won't find on its much more famous cover. (Though I would defend Lee "the guy from Madness" Thompson as a sax player in a pop group, he doesn't come close to what Dennis "Ska" Campbell is able to get out of his woodwind) Wisely figuring that there was no way they'd be able to ape the source material, Madness' version injects plenty of hot ska revival energy which just about makes up for the group's limitations. While there is plenty to like about Prince Buster's recording, there's no question which one gets stuck in my head easier and is "really hard to keep still to".

Producer Alan Winstanley, of the famed Langer and Winstanley production team that worked with The Teardrop Explodes, Dexys Midnight Runners and Elvis Costello & The Attractions in addition to their lengthy association with Madness, has said that "One Step Beyond" was recorded short, with just a minute and ten seconds of running time which they then looped in order to flesh it out to appropriate single length. This is not an unprecedented act of studio trickery. Phil Spector lengthened the George Harrison track "I Me Mine" from its similarly brief original studio take for release on Let It Be (he also added an uncharacteristically subtle string section making it the only Beatles' song he failed to cock up). 12" mixes are all about extending pop songs beyond standard radio play length and the vast majority are bases around stretching out the hooks. Bush listens to "One Step Beyond" and wants more (it "ends about five minutes too soon" he reckons) but it's the sort of wish that was better off not coming true. Yes, there is a desire to keep the party going but the repetitiveness would have become exposed had it gone on for much longer.

"One Step Beyond" gave Madness their first of fourteen Top 10 hits. I suggested in my write up on Bush's review of "Madness" that their debut may have been a tiny disappointment when held up against efforts from The Specials, The Selecter and The Beat from the same year. Their early records weren't there simply to prompt kids into the shops but also to encourage them seek these acts out on tours. You like our single? Just wait till you see our show. (The Specials went so far as to record follow up single "Nite Klub" so as to sound live and then released a live EP at the start of 1980, the chart topping Too Much Too Young) Madness proved up to the challenge with "One Step Beyond" and it quickly became one of their hallmark numbers. Though rocksteady and ska would never quite leave their sound, their days as a full-on 2 Tone act were numbered (they'd already left the label after "The Prince" and were now signed to Stiff, home of spiritual cousins Ian Dury & The Blockheads) and it was time to spread out. Luckily, they already had a track called "My Girl" that just needed some dusting off. They're away.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Yellow Magic Orchestra: "La femme chinoise"

Forget (assuming you were ever aware of) all that hooey about them being the original cyber punks, Yellow Magic Orchestra were (and still are) way too much of an original one-off to be so carelessly described. If I was to make a sweeping characterization of them I'd say they were a forerunner to both the fantastic nineties scene of futuristic Japanese retro pop known as Shibuya-kei and a whole generation of French electro-pop boffins like Air, Daft Punk and Etienne de Crecy but even that smacks of the sort of lazy musicology wherein female singers are cited only as an influence on other female singers. Transcending the novelty synth of its day, "La femme chinoise" is masterful with tricks aplenty and something seemingly brand new to discover with every listen. And I figured I'd be sick of it by now.

The Bolshoi: "Sunday Morning"

3 December 1986

"Friday is red, Saturday is white and "Sunday morning" is kind of sky blue and pale yellow."

— Vici MacDonald

It was announced in Bitz a fortnight earlier that yet another member of the Hits staff would be moving on. Editor Steve Bush had only departed a month earlier and now the head of design would be joining him on the dole queue. Well, not so much. Bush was off mastermind the success of other magazines and Vici MacDonald would even be "popping in from time to time to write horrible things about The Cocteau Twins and Mike Smith". Ver kids barely had enough time to make Nick Kamen collages on the front of their geography work books before she was back (BACK!) to handle reviewing the singles. Some people can't bring themselves to stay away.

Alas, there was no Cocteau Twins for her to slag off (and, indeed, she refrained from laying into Mike Smith) but MacDonald can always be trusted to take on some sacred cows in her reviews. It's likely that few would have taken notice of her penchant for giving the likes of Madonna, Prince and Bruce Springsteen a good critical duffing over but it might cause a few raised eyebrows now. They were all huge stars then but that's nothing compared with the reverence with which they're held more than thirty years hence. Madge even crops up in the singles page, with "Open Your Heart" sharing a review with "I'm All You Need" by Samantha Fox. MacDonald doesn't think much of the two lightweight numbers and takes the opportunity to point out the curious double standard that Madonna was taken seriously while Fox was dismissed as a "slag" ("either they're both slags or they both aren't", she rightly points out). 

MacDonald saves her harshest criticism this fortnight, however, for the likes of Paul McCartney's "Only Love Remains" ("compare this banal slush with almost anything he did with The Beatles and you really will weep"), Rod Stewart's cover of "In My Life" ("...sounds uncannily like the unsavoury old gent at Waterloo Station who tried to cage 10p off you for a "cuppa" and wheezes most disgustingly if you don't oblige"), Status Quo's "Dreamin'" ("...plonk this record on and you're straight back in 1974 which, as any "oldster" will tell you, was a very horrible year") and the Daryl Hall solo "I Wasn't Born Yesterday" ("why is it that all American mainstream pop songs sound much the same?"). The old farts aren't up to much but at least there are some young guns (and The Pretenders) with records that you'll want to listen to and that MacDonald might deign to give faint praise.

Delighting her most (or disappointing her least) is "Sunday Morning" by The Bolshoi. A pleasant surprise for MacDonald, the song's indie jangle pop contrasts with their supposed goth image. They don't appear especially Wagnerian to me, though this is mainly down to the group's casual demeanour in the accompanying promo. Direct predecessor "Away" (aka "A Way", the ambiguous little scamps) is much more in line with goth rock's spidery guitars, crashing drums, gaunt lead singer and creepy videos but, even then, there's this feeling that they don't quite fit it in — or if they do, shouldn't the umbrella of goth stretch further to include Suede? Either way, it's not as if they gave it all a big rethink since the two tracks both appear on the same album, 1986's Friends.

For her part, MacDonald doesn't even go into The Bolshoi's goth sound and I think her focusing on their look is instructive to understanding goth. The Cure had been through plenty of darkness but they also explored a much lighter side on "The Lovecats" and "The Caterpillar". The Sisters of Mercy were already incorporating dance elements into their sound and this was something that should have surprised no one given that Doktor Avalanche has been a permanent fixture on the drum machine. The Cult scarcely seemed goth at all and were typically little more than an updated and inferior version of The Doors. All About Eve were really just a folk group. The point is, pinning down The Bolshoi as goth is both tricky and easy: they don't really sound Teutonic so they don't qualify but, then, neither does anyone else so why not welcome them into the fold?

MacDonald doesn't appreciate the Catholic guilt of the lyrics, feeling that they "don't suit the mood of the music at all", but I think she's failing to grasp how going to church can cloud an otherwise lovely Sunday. I was nine-years-old in 1986 and I much preferred the last day of the weekend to the first. Saturdays were bogged down by swimming lessons and basketball games: I wasn't able to watch all the Saturday morning cartoons that I wanted and I could never go to birthday parties because of other commitments. Sundays, on the other hand, were all about going for a drive with my family, visiting grandparents, going to the park. En route to wherever we were headed, we would catch the dour faces of people going to church. Spending a nice day at such a miserable place? No, thank you. The Bolshoi seem to have something similar in mind on "Sunday Morning": days that are indeed "sky blue and pale yellow" which end up wasted away in the pointless tedium of a worship service. The video puts singer Trevor Tanner and his band on a sofa in his flat that then ends up in various locations (a pub, adjacent to a swimming pool, on an ice rink) that they would rather be at than in some bloody church. Finally, Catholic "guilt" Vici? (inverted commas are her's) Trevor isn't feeling guilty of anything, he's just had enough pretending to feel guilty — and who can blame him?

"Sunday Morning" is a superb track and evidence that you can't go wrong with a bit of Byrdsian jangle. There may not be a more malleable basis for a song and these supposed goths get so much out of it. A dark bridge ("it's wrong to feel, it's wrong to care, you must not steal, you must not swear" delivered by a scarier Tanner) gives away their roots but it segues in and out so effortlessly that it hardly matters. Get a 12-string acoustic, some gentle piano chords and make it sound as light as a Sunday morning breeze and you've got yourself a hit — or a Single of the Fortnight that somehow misses the charts.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Heavy D & The Boyz: "Mister Big Stuff"

A hip hop throwback to the era of boasting all about how bloomin' wonderful rappers are, I was hoping to enjoy "Mister Big Stuff" as much as MacDonald. Alas, three-and-a-half decades' distance have failed to endear these ears to a sound that Public Enemy ought to have dispensed with not long after. She admits that it's little more than a novelty record (albeit a "happy and jolly and fun" one in her words) and that was always the trouble with groups like Heavy D & The Boyz: they could never get past the high jinks and the comedy couldn't last forever. A shame since Heavy D was a talented rapper who seemed capable of more.

The Bible: "Mahalia"

19 November 1986

"This is highly wistful and contains a wonderfully swoonsome melody — even though the singer is no great "shakes" and I haven't the foggiest what he's going on about."

— Ro Newton

Fifteen singles are up for consideration this fortnight and there are some pretty big names as the UK music industry was gearing up for another Christmas number one chart battle. Artists who have already featured on this blog — The Human League, Alison Moyet, Paul Young, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Communards, Cameo — are joined by Paul Simon, a-ha and Amazulu, making the competition pretty fierce, even if hardly any of them were doing their best work. All but one of these new releases ended up making the charts, with even the Wendy Richard/Mike Berry cover of the already hideous "Come Outside" managing a very modest "hit". It seems swoonsome melodies weren't selling so well.

Big names deserve big record labels and many of them are present here too. The punk-era rise of the independents seems to be on the wane a good decade later. Smaller labels disappeared, others got absorbed into one of the larger competitors and many of the prominent indies that were left had strong acts to keep them afloat. On the other side of the Atlantic there may have been some noise about these alternative acts (although I think at the time most of it was known as 'college rock') but the likes of Depeche Mode, New Order and The Smiths all had major label backing in North America which somewhat undermined their indie status. There's only one truly independent release in this issue's singles page and it was on a small label based in Norwich. The Bible were signed to Backs Records in the Norfolk city. Being on a such a small label undoubtedly contributed to the lack of chart success for "Mahalia", even though preceding single "Graceland" did manage to sneak into the listings. In any case, it is by some distance the best record on offer here and Ro Newton is right to make it her SOTF.

"I sing God's music because it makes me feel free. It gives me hope. With the blues, when you finish, you still have the blues".

Newton admits that she doesn't understand what's going on in this song and I might be right there with her if not for the internet — the quote above having been pinched from the introduction to Mahalia Jackson's Wikipedia page. I don't know if Boo Hewerdine had heard or read this statement but the sentiment feeds into his tribute "Mahalia". Her music brings one closer to a kind of salvation, though not necessarily the heavenly kind. It brings people up ("sing my joyfulness") while the Delta blues of Robert Johnson only manages to drag one down, something Hewerdine isn't having ("I can't understand, I won't understand").

With a name like The Bible and a loving tribute to a gospel great, there's a reasonable expectation that these guys may have been into Jesus. Still, Hewerdine doesn't state his or his group's religious beliefs one way or the other so they're none of my business — and they're irrelevant. Gospel music is great because it can appeal all kinds of people — black and white, young and old, religious or humanist — which typically alludes the bulk of Contemporary Christian music, whose practitioners are playing to their own crowd and busy sucking up to Jesus to be too concerned about making great music. But great gospel transcends the pulpit and the pews and reaches people. The devotional and secular come together to the extent that Aretha Franklin's extraordinary "I Never Loved a Man" isn't simply either a hymn to the Lord or a sexual awakening but might as well be both. Jackson's work isn't as aroused but much of it was as politically-charged as it was religious and her music became part of the Civil Rights Movement.

With Newton's comparison to Haircut One Hundred (perhaps she's thinking of it as a less bouncy "Love Plus One"), a prominent saxophone and an obvious debt to black music, "Mahalia" isn't a million miles away from the slickly-produced UK sub-genre that would eventually be dubbed 'Sophisti-pop' (aka 'Soulcialism'). While forerunners such as ABC, The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout and Avalon-era Roxy Music are still regarded fondly to this day, it was quickly hitting a creative nadir even if it was still a commercial goldmine. The Bible, however, managed to avoid lapsing into smooth jazz-pop territory. It helps that their musical palette was much more diverse than your Blow Monkeys or Climie Fishers (the rest of their excellent debut LP Walking the Ghost Back Home touches upon indie rock and, appropriately given Hewerdine's subsequent career path, folk). Also, while Newton isn't crazy about Hewerdine's voice (personally, I like it), it has character and he clearly isn't concerned with how his Sinatra impersonation is coming along. There's even a sense that the sax solos aren't studied to death. And they weren't on a major record label with oodles of cash at their disposal and pressure to dish up the hits. There's something to be said for being on the fringes.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Curiosity Killed the Cat: "Down to Earth"

The Bible were on the outside but how were mainstream sophisti-pop acts doing? On paper, there should be every reason in the world to dig Curiosity Killed the Cat. Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot can really sing, the group can really play and "Down to Earth" is even kind of catchy. Yet, it's unlikable. There's too much confidence in this lot, too much of a sense that they know what they're doing. Ben isn't asking Mahalia to sing his joyfulness because he'll do so himself, thank you so much. The sophisti-poppers all seemed to have phenomenal record collections yet their scholarship seldom translated into the kind of passion and intensity they loved in their soul heroes. Some mucking about on an indie label would have done them a world of good.

The Undertones: "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?)"

18 October 1979

"On the other hand, these guys are utter naturals and this is their best offering since their first."
— David Hepworth

With Cliff White gone from the singles review page, Smash Hits was free to try out some new people for the job. The grumpy reviews from Andy Partridge and Chris Difford may have turned them off of the idea having pop stars do the dirty work for them (something they wouldn't go back to for quite some time) but, then, White's often confrontational relationship with cross readers may have prompted others on staff to shy away from the task, thereby prompting the need to bring in these ringers. Red Starr was all about the albums (at least for the time being) and Steve Bush was too busy transforming these rather lifeless, stilted pages into the work of aesthetic art they'd eventually become. Luckily, they found their semi-regular man in David Hepworth, a music critic of the highest quality who wasn't the least bit resentful of the fortnightly burden being placed on him — not yet at any rate.

In an era in which music journalism appears to be on the wane, Hepworth is one of pop's most prominent critics. He currently hosts the excellent Word in Your Ear podcasts along with fellow Hits alum Mark Ellen, he's prolific enough to have published a book every year for the last half-decade and his vast knowledge, wealth of theories and deep Yorkshire brogue make him a regular for radio and online interview segments. How odd that the demise of the printed pop rag would result in a music critic becoming just about famous.

I have long had aspirations to be a music critic and Hepworth is one of my inspirations. But his example shows you why I could never really cut it in that field. My generation of hacks has been defined by so-called poptimism. A response to rockist nonsense that predominated in the eighties and nineties, the poptimists laid to rest the concept of having "guilty pleasures" like ABBA and The Bee Gees, instead they chose to evaluate them on their own merit. Old charges that Elvis was no good because he didn't "write his own songs" no longer mattered. The movement spread so quickly that Britney Spears went from being dismissed as yet another pop bimbo in around 1999 to being treated with respect five years later.

Hepworth is no poptimist but he does possess at least one trait that comes in handy in order to be one: he can happily listen to music made by people younger than he is. Nowadays this is nothing special — fifty-year-olds consume K-Pop and there's a good chance you'll see packs of middle-aged friends having a grand old time at an Ariana Grande concert — but back in the day the generation gap meant something. Much older music seemed ancient, newer stuff was just throwaway junk. Older critics evaluating punk could have been beset with resentment but I think they were often better at separating the wheat from the chaff. Acts that presented themselves as all about punk rock snarl could be seen off by those not under its spell; those who had the musicianship and tunes to back them up were easily identified as groups with some merit.

There may be some artists more to his taste (see below) but it's to Hepworth's credit that he's able to see that "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?)" by The Undertones is the best thing on offer here — even if he doesn't go right out and say it. Like the Buzzcocks (also reviewed this fortnight, though not at their best), Derry's finest were one of those punk groups who were able to stretch out their appeal beyond their natural fanbase. While the Sex Pistols and their ilk were still churning out the same old turgid noise to the same fans from three years earlier and The Clash were busy lapping up far too many influences for everyone to keep up, The Undertones were all about bringing pop and punk together. This was most clearly evidenced by the multi-generational appeal of their first single "Teenage Kicks". John Peel famously wept the first time he heard it but it's just easy to picture young children getting down to it as it is forty-year-old DJ's.

I've previously written that "Teenage Kicks" would cast a long shadow over the band but it was one they were trying to escape. "You've Got My Number" is actually a better group performance, with surprisingly intricate guitar work and more propulsive playing from the rhythm section. Feargal Sharkey ("as good a singer as you'll find anywhere", Hepworth reckons though I wouldn't go quite that far) has also improved as a vocalist with a much more authoritative delivery. Sure, it doesn't have that same energy and raw power as their debut and the writing is awfully slight but there's an inescapable feeling that a breakthrough is looming (on a much larger scale, the apt comparison may be with The Beatles when they released "I Feel Fine": not a great pop song but one performed so tightly and with such gusto that it ended up being a slight creative step backwards en route to a given leap forwards the following year). The Undertones would have their biggest run of success just on the horizon.

It's nice to see a band make that great leap forward. The Undertones had that potential and may have been held back somewhat by punk orthodoxy. Nowadays there isn't as much of an opportunity to be privy to musical growth, what with the prevailing poptimist notion that everyone is fine the way they are. It almost makes me wish for a return to rockist values: just don't call me a rockist either.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Nils Lofgren: "No Mercy"

So, what was it I was saying about about the generation gap in pop? Nils Lofgren is a year younger than Hepworth and just a few years older than The Undertones. (These things matter more to an ageist like myself than to anyone being discussed here) Still, "No Mercy" is the sort of clever singer-songwriter ditty that people with plenty of Randy Newman in their record collections really dig. Hepworth admits that "No Mercy" is "pretty melodramatic" (which, incidentally, ruled it out as SOTF in my estimation) but he is utterly charmed nonetheless. Lofgren's vocals may not be to everyone's taste but to those of us with good taste they sound sweet and effortless. A nice if unremarkable record, albeit one ruined slightly by some very unnecessary piped in audience noise. Is there anything wrong with just being in a studio?