Culture Club: "Church of the Poison Mind"

31 March 1983

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

— Kimberley Leston

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Ben Watt: "Some Things Don't Matter"

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

Bobby O: "She Has a Way"

17 March 1983

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

— David Hepworth

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Tracey Ullman: "Breakaway"

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

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

3 March 1983

"Whatever can be going on in Holland?"

— Johnny Black

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Rip, Rip + Panic: "Beat the Beast"

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

JoBoxers: "Boxerbeat"

17 February 1983

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Orange Juice: "Rip It Up"

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

Prince: "1999"

20 January 1983

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

— Dave Rimmer

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Belle Stars: "Sign of the Times"

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