ABC: "All of My Heart"

2 September 1982

"A stately arrangement full of elegant flourishes and studded with truly memorable detail encases Fry's courtly vocal and simply compels you to play it again and again. This record is going to number one. Not least because I have money on it."
— David Hepworth

What The Human League were to 1981, ABC were to '82: suddenly widely successful, flourishing creatively with a terrific album stuffed with potential hit singles, making inroads around the world and tipped to be the future of British pop. Beyond asking them, there's no way of knowing if they modelled their pathway to success after ver League but there certainly are striking similarities. Both got things started with nice, low-key singles that proved to be a breakthrough while still missing out on the Top 10 — "The Sound of the Crowd" and "Tears Are Not Enough" respectively — which they then followed up with improved chart fortunes that really got the momentum going — "Love Action (I Believe in Love)" and "Open Your Heart" from ver League, "Poison Arrow" and "The Look of Love" from ver "C" — before finally releasing albums that sold like mad and were salivated over by the critics — Dare and The Lexicon of Love. All that was left was a killer single to take them over the top: "Don't You Want Me" performed the trick less than a year earlier and now it was "All of My Heart"'s turn.

But did it stand much of a chance? A clear standout on an outstanding album, it nevertheless lacks the immediacy of its chart predecessors - not to mention non-single album tracks "Show Me" and "Many Happy Returns". Being as grand a record as they'd ever cut, however, it couldn't not be a single. Fans who'd only previously been exposed to their hits may have looked on in wonder at this great leap forward while other may well have been turned off by the pretentiousness of the single's cover, its B-side being a classical overture of their work, the adult nature of the video and the image of them on the cover of this fortnight's Smash Hits. It's possible, in other words, that they were attracting new listeners just as others were starting to go off them.

Musically it's as magnificent as David Hepworth says and proof that Trevor Horn's work behind the production desk involved far more than plugging in the fairlight synthesizers. Roping in Anne Dudley to orchestrate its gorgeous score was a final touch. Lyrically, however, things are a different matter. Far from the kind of Costello/Weller-type wordsmith, Martin Fry tended to keep things simple, though sometimes in a complicated way. Opening with "Once upon a time when we were friends / I gave you my heart, the story ends / No happy ever after, now we're friends" made me wonder at first if he really thought things through. Then, after several listens, I began to think that he was righter even than he lets on. Settling for friendship when one party clearly wants more never works out, despite what an endless parade of rom coms will have us believe. "All of My Heart" is about laying it out on the line for that special someone, being rejected and then trying again. There's a desperation at play that results in an over-abundance of clichés ("wish upon a star", "...at the end of the rainbow") while being resigned to a situation that will never work out ("Skip the hearts and flowers, skip the ivory towers"). Fry's vocalising deftly balances the melodrama and the nihilism in a way few of his contemporaries could ever think to pull off.

In the end, "All of My Heart" was a Top 5 hit but it came short of the top of the charts, with Hepworth having lost a few quid along the way. Getting there instead was fellow reviewee "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" ("A hit, quite possibly," concludes His Nibs) by Culture Club, another group who were looking to become widely successful, flourish creatively, make inroads abroad and become yet another future of British pop. 1982 had to give way to '83.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five: "The Message"

"Rap has a message," I'd often hear schoolmates say with a condescension that never failed to get under my skin — and I'm sure that's precisely what they were going for. Quite what that message supposedly is no one ever bothered to elaborate on. Maybe Grandmaster Flash can provide The Answer. It seems life is pretty damn hard, loaded with injustice, petty crime and poverty. Good, well done. I always felt that blues, folk, punk, reggae and soul artists had all been avoiding these hard hitting issues, so it's a credit to rappers that they were finally being tackled. I'm always suspicious of pop songs that are praised mostly for their importance and influence but there's not much to say about its quality. Though by all means opt for "The Message" if you believe that rap has a message; I like my hip hop futuristic and mind-expanding so I'll have me some "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa instead.

Rockers Revenge featuring Donnie Calvin: "Walking on Sunshine"

19 August 1982

"It stands out from the crowd because of the depth and rhythmic density of the arrangement which teases the melody with endless invention. And, leaving all that aside, it's a new dance classic."

— Neil Tennant

Looking over the charts in the eighties, it's interesting to note how often American dance music was able to penetrate the UK Top 40 yet failed to garner much interest at home. Some, like The S.O.S. Band and Cameo, enjoyed early success in the States before achieving fame across the pond, while others like techno pioneers Inner City were never able to gain much of a footing at all. Of course they all found fame on the R&B and/or Dance Music charts which only goes to show how ghettoised black pop music was at the time. The British, unencumbered by (musical) prejudices, just lumped it all together and let punters go out and vote with the few bob in their pockets.

Written and recorded by Eddy Grant, the original "Walking on Sunshine" probably didn't have much potential for club play. It is a dance number but better suited for a Mardi Gras parade in the middle of Port of Spain than Studio 54. Reggae adjacent, it brims were sunny vibes — even if it's let down by a horribly weedy synth driving the arrangement — and a lighthearted vocal from Grant, who may not give the sort of powerful throaty performance with which he's capable but one that suits the record nonetheless.

The Arthur Baker-led Rockers Revenge got hold of "Walking on Sunshine" and added some much needed big city sizzle. Yes, the clubs got a hold of it and took it to the top of the Club Play Charts but it's just as easy picturing this blasting out of a boombox on a street corner in the middle of Harlem — assuming, of course, that radio was having anything to do with it. Perhaps no one quite knew how to classify it. I for one love how this seems to be a throwback to a wonderfully catholic New York scene. Rap was beginning to emerge, the DJ's from the disco boom were looking at ways to move on, home computers were making programming and sampling as easy as playing an instrument and there was room for funk, synth-pop, soul and reggae mixed together in such a landscape.

By now a committed fan of dance music, it's easy to hear this track having a profound affect on Neil Tennant the budding pop star. (Honestly, I had no idea that an offshoot of this blog would be to act as a deep dive into the psyche of the future Pet Shop Boys vocalist as he goes from Smash Hits scribe to stardom but I might as well go with it at this point) Just as important, New York's musical culture was rubbing off on him as well. All he needed was to find an NYC studio boffin of his own.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Raincoats: "Running Away"

While we're on the topic of cover versions that top the originals, here's indie faves - because of course they're indie: how could you call yourself 'The Raincoats' and not be indie? - The Raincoats running with their take Sly & The Family Stone's "Running Away", from their massive There's a Riot Goin' On album. Once again, it's updated with a fresh coat of paint and all the better for it. Charming and stately in the crack hands of Sly and co., it becomes irrepressible and snotty when done by the London foursome. The childish naughtiness of running away from home in the original stands in marked contrast to the comical teenage apathy of taking off and not giving a shit. Quite which one you prefer depends on your tastes — though I can't conceive of anyone opting for the lousy Paul Haig version — but the fantastic trumpet of Harry Becker puts this one over the top for me.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "Man Out of Time"

5 August 1982

"Excellent, but so is everything Elvis does. What he needs is another "Oliver's Army" — a big hit that will become a standard — and this is not it."
— Tim De Lisle

Did The Beatles give everyone the wrong idea about creativity and success going hand in hand? The fact that they were able to parlay their wildly popular early hits into works of increasingly greater experimentation, introspection and sophistication all the while maintaining their commercial dominance is probably more astounding today since no one else has been able to replicate it. Even among the Fab Four's contemporaries there was little correlation between artistic achievement and the charts. The Beach Boys were starting to falter commercially just as Brian Wilson was delivering his masterpiece Pet Sounds, The Byrds found themselves releasing one better album after another with ever decreasing sales and The Kinks best album suffered the indignity of missing the charts completely. (Of course I'm cherry picking examples that suit me here but it only goes to show that there was never a rule to go by; not that anyone ever suggested there was a rule...is it possible to strawman yourself?)

The Beatles example may have been what virtually everyone aspired towards — even if they had denied at the time — but few could have expected even a fraction of the same for themselves. Elvis Costello, a passionate devotee of every genre of music from rag time to ye ye and something of a pop music scholar, would've known that better than most.

Tim De Lisle is concerned with Costello's lack of Top 40 action, urging readers to "Buy This Now!" all the while acknowledging that his self-composed singles hadn't gotten nearly enough punters to shell out the requist bob since "Oliver's Army". (I wonder if it rankled the man a touch that following his almost number one hit he only had two more placements on the Top 10, both of which were covers; on the other hand, maybe the old scamp musicologist took extra pride in getting his renditions of "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down" and "Good Years for the Roses" into the upper echelons of the charts) Last week, I wrote about Marshall Crenshaw's "Cynical Girl" and how critics must have scratched their heads in wonder at the clever singer-songwriters they'd slather with praise that would never catch on beyond a loyal cult following. That's Elvis Costello, ramped up to someone people generally knew about and whose albums still sold pretty well but just didn't get the mass acceptance the press felt they deserved.

The centrepiece of Costello's one true flawless album, Imperial Bedroom, "Man Out of Time" is its lengthiest track but a swift five and a half minutes nonetheless. Opening with some a chaotic (possibly drunken) rock-out from the L.P.'s early sessions, it glides smoothly into the song's piano/organ-led dream-like melody. (So effortless is the abrupt transition that you'd think it all been recorded en masse) Tinkling away as if randomly at the keys, Steve Nieve's playing acts as a response to Costello's lyrics with some gentle mocking, adding some levity to what could very easily be an over-melodramatic tale.The nobleman/prominent politician depicted in the song is about to be found out, his entire life is about to crash down upon him — maybe he's going to get caught up in a sensational tabloid scandal or maybe a murder-suicide or maybe he's just a great big paranoid git who's built up guilt in his head and imagines that everything is about blow up: who the hell knows? Whether real or delusional, the pleas of "Will you still love / A man out of time?" are among the most poingiant Costello ever crafted, indicating that his own experiences or thoughts are hidden in the at least a part of this, his greatest song.

Applied to Costello as well is another meaning in the title. Clearly by 1982 he wasn't especially interested in contemporary pop — or even if he was, he certainly wasn't about to start making some of his own, or so everyone must have thought — and he was situating himself deliberately in another era. (At least as far back as the sixites but even to the days of Gershwin and Porter, two of his prime musical heroes) Drafting in Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick is evidence enough of that. Hence the lack of chart success that everyone felt he merited. But he'd soon be giving it all a rethink.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Kate Bush: "The Dreaming"

There are people out there who think that the valley of her career — between the peaks of her astonishing debut single "Wuthering Heights" and her just-as-astonishing album Hounds of Love seven years later — is the real Kate Bush. I don't know any myself, I haven't bothered researching them but I know they're out there because of course they are. And they aren't necessarily wrong. Erratic, sure, but Kate's the type who needs to be all over the place. "The Dreaming" tackles issues with Australian aborigines but all in her own uniquely Bushian style. Barmy stuff but if Kate Bush isn't going to do this type of thing, who would?

Weekend: "Past Meets Present"

22 July 1982

"The title is appropriate, as Weekend's music has one foot in today, and the other in Radio 2 about 20 years ago when it was called the Light Programme."

— Dave Rimmer

In a recent episode of the brilliant Chart Music podcast, host Al Needham and guests Taylor Parkes and Simon Price discuss a Top of the Pops episode from 1983 in which Siouxie & The Banshees The Creatures perform their cover of the Herbie Mann standard "Right Now". Though a half-baked attempt, it is still them dabbling in jazz, something that a number of groups in the UK began doing, one of Needham, Parkes or Price point out, as they moved beyond soul. "Oh, like Weekend," I immediately thought to myself. (I have to say I took a small amount of satisfaction in these former Melody Maker scribes failing to mention the group that immediately sprang to my mind. Then again, I've only been aware of them myself for just a couple months so I needn't be too pleased with my powers of observation)

Alison Statton is not an especially big name in pop and those that are aware of her are more familiar with her first group of note Young Marble Giants, a trio from Wales who were a major influence on Kurt Cobain and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck (among others, I think) and one of the first acts to be associated with the term 'fey'. Of course being influential is interesting — up to a point at any rate — and worthwhile — so long as said acts themselves are any good — but it matters little if their stuff doesn't do much for you. That said, their one and only album, 1980's Colossal Youth, is pretty good listen, albeit one that you're better off only listening to just the once.

Better and arguably just as influential is Statton's next project, the jazzy new wave Weekend. As fey as ever, if not more so, their album La veriete and its concurrent singles, "A View from Her Room" and "Past Meets Present", are lush where Colossal Youth is sparse, matching better with Statton's deadened angelic vocals — a trait that would go on to influence an entire generation of indie popstresses. While Blue Rondo a la Turk were happy to get fans dancing to their brand of party hopping jazz, Weekend tasked themselves with some moody and reflective jazz pop that can be a tougher nut to crack but far more rewarding in the long term.

Jazz is only a part of what's on offer here: it also has a vaguely early-sixties French sound with touches of Baroque (although I must confess that I don't hear the "imaginary Beatles riff" that Dave Rimmer credits to Weekend guitarist Spike; I guess either he just imagined it or I'm not imagining enough). If "Past Meets Present" has a failing it's just that I don't dig it quite as much as cop pick "The View from Her Room" from a previous post. The sax solo near the end is nice but it doesn't quite leave quite as much of a mark the way the Lester Bowie-esque trumpet playing on "View" does. Statton's vocal, as Rimmer notes, is buried among the rest of the music which sounds pleasant but the lyrics are mostly lost on me; its predecessor has a story to tell about, er, views from some girl's room (or something) which makes it the choice of at least one Smash Hits-themed blogger out there.

"Past Meets Present" went nowhere just as Rimmer predicted but just a few months later Siouxie & The Banshees The Creatures were dabbling in jazz and a new outfit fronted by Jam mouthpiece Paul Weller was touching up his new sound with some Blue Note and the likes of Everything but the Girl and Sade were right around the corner. Give Weekend a bit of credit — or blame them if you are so inclined.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Marshall Crenshaw: "Cynical Girl"

Every pop music scene produces an American singer-songwriter who is widely championed by the music press but ignored by virtually everyone else. The hippies had John Fahey, the more individualist seventies had Randy Newman and the new wave early-eighties had Marshall Crenshaw. (The Generation X equivalent would probably be Elliott Smith although I feel Paul Westerberg fits in with this lot too) Irony seldom works in the hands of Americans so it feels like our Marshall really means it on this one — either that or he really means not meaning it. Good if inessential listening. "I wanna listen to an inessential song / One about love that ain't too long": oh, stop it.

Yazoo: "Don't Go"

8 July 1982

"Vince coaxes a sterling song out of his synthesizer while Alf balances its metallic clip with a deep, emotion-packed vocal that gets better with every hearing."

— Ian Birch

There were a pair of mix-gender duos in UK pop in 1982 (actually there were a lot more than the two — the hair salon model pairing Dollar springs to mind as well as the much maligned Renée & Renato — but for the purposes of this study let's just assume that there were just two who mattered). Both were fronted by unconventionally charismatic women, both of whom possessed deeper than normal voices. Backing them were a pair of moody gentlemen (hardly anything special in the world of eighties electropop) and some icy synths. But there were some differences between the two groups: one was young and inexperienced, the other a bit older and veterans of several bands who either went nowhere or swiftly faded away; one hailed from the detritus of an Essex New Town, the other from Glasgow and Sunderland respectively; one was on the rise, the other was floundering.

It's possible that you were able to guess that I am referring to Eurythmics and Yazoo from the above but you may be surprised to discover which one was happily riding the Giddy Carousel of Pop while the other could only look on with envy, hoping themselves to go for a spin soon. Every mum's favourite synth-pop group would soon have its (very prolonged) day but for now it's Basildon "super""group" Yazoo's turn to grasp on to chart success for dear life.

Coming off the initial burst of success for Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke had become alienated by, well, everything. Being unhappy with hitting the charts, touring and fan adulation might prompt some to start giving life a rethink but he was promptly in a new band and back in the Top Ten within just a few months. Quitting ver Mode may seem like a giant-sized blunder in retrospect but for (a) the synth-goth overlords would have been equally synthy but far less gothic and lordly had Clarke remained their chief songwriter and (b) Yazoo ended up being the best group he was ever to be a part of.

Which brings us to Alison "Alf" Moyet. A blues singer round Basildon way, she placed an advert in the Melody Maker and received only one reply. (I used to think that they hooked when Clarked returned to his old Essex stomping grounds following his departure from the Mode and discovered her crooning Roberta Flack hits in some dreadful Pitsea pub but, in effect, she found him) While other female singers of the time were content to warble out a vocal apathy or something downright weird, Moyet must have seemed positively old school by comparison — even though she seemed to apply some punk ferocity to belting out numbers with Aretha Franklin-like power.

Her extraordinary range is on full display on "Don't Go" but it lacks a fabulous musical performance to service it. The follow-up to their poignant debut single "Only You", it feels rushed, as though they felt an urgency to get a second single out while the going was good. While Clarke may have coaxed a sterling song out of his synth, as Ian Birch notes, his synth sure didn't coax much out of him. The song itself is rather good though and it's a minor crime that it hasn't become a standard by this point. (It's very easy to imagine "Don't Go" being interpreted across several genres by the likes of Shelby Lynne or Lauryn Hill or, yes, a bloke could sing it too, Rufus Wainwright) A shame that a little more care wasn't put into the recording.

It's impossible to say if Yazoo could have been Eurythmics — although as alternate scenarios go, it's certainly easier to swallow than Echo & The Bunnymen being U2. They had superior songs to hang on and a better vocalist in Alison Moyet but they weren't as keen to garnish their material in strings or some slick guitar (a much easier proposition for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, neither of who played synthesizers). I was going to write that Clarke and Moyet weren't chancers like their contemporaries but she was a struggling blues singer looking to put together a rootsy group when he rang her up so they were as opportunistic as they come. Maybe they just lacked that it factor that everyone talks about. (But then did Eurythmics have the it factor? Seriously? Those two?) You don't get it factor coming from Basildon.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Dexys Midnight Runners & The Emerald Express: "Come on Eileen"

From number one hit in '82 ('83 in North America in an era when it could take several months for a hit single to make its way across the Atlantic) to staple of eighties retro, it's hard to imagine a time when "Come on Eileen" wasn't ubiquitous but the early nineties were just such a terrain for once and future favourites to be cast aside. It was a song I'd read about and wanted to hear but I was unable to do so until I found it on a dodgy Rock 83 compilation tape of my sister's. I was beside myself with joy. A departure from their soul 'n' horns sound of the previous two years, this nonetheless fits in perfectly with their run of pristine singles. Birch wonders how much better it would be if Kevin Rowland had injected a dose of humour into it but wit was never their bag. For all of us who ever figured we could get a woman into bed by showing off our record collections: how wrong we all were. (Please see Tom Ewing's wonderful review which provides vastly more insight into this pop landmark than I ever could)