— 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.
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.
