Red Lorry Yellow Lorry: "Monkeys on Juice"

2 August 1984

"The disquieting voice and its strident, metallic accompaniment tickle the spine, and you even want to dance in a funny kind of way."

- Tom Hibbert

Being a goth seems to be quite the commitment. There's applying all that black nail polish and eye liner and lipstick. There's having to dress in a particular way that doesn't look too coordinated but which still fits. There's attempting to look seductive but not overtly sexy. There's putting effort in but not so much that it looks like dressing up. There's having to be a goth without sliding too closely towards parallel genres like punk and metal and country. Like golf and vegetarianism, goth acts as a lifestyle that other the followers of other subcultures could never come close to.

But those are really just the fans. Goth rock stars have decidedly more leeway and not just in terms of image. They may have a pop phase (The Cure), they may name themselves after a Leonard Cohen song (Sisters of Mercy), they may play little more than folk music (All About Eve), they may worship country and western (murder) balladeers (Nick Cave) and they may just be good old rock 'n' rollers at heart (The Mission). (The occult spiritualism of Bauhaus may well mark them out as the only true goths and they didn't even look the part) Which brings us to Red Lorry Yellow Lorry: indie band name, post-punk sound, garage rock influence but they're goth because...the singer has a deep voice?

Opening with a guitar riff not unlike Blue Öyster Cult's classic "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", "Monkeys on Juice" really gets going once some very big and very goth drums - possibly from a drum machine although they don't sound artificial - kick in along with the voice of Chris Reed. As I just mentioned, he's got that full-throated, perfectly enunciated yet muffled pitch that suits goth rock. (Then again, so did Ian Curtis and no one ever called Joy Division goths) In reality, it's mostly a Teutonic record because of the way the production so clearly captures the music but get the vocals on lo-fi. Otherwise, it's competent hard rock.

Yeah, competent. I can't bring myself to get quite as enthusiastic as Tom Hibbert, since, whatever the  type of music the Lorries play, this is not my thing. A good record for what it is, one I haven't minded having on over the last week but one I won't be rushing back to anytime soon. That said, as Hibs also mentions, it's by far the best record on offer as this may well be the poorest batch of singles in a single issue of ver Hits to date. The nineties will be coming eventually so it's not likely a distinction that's going to remain but it's worth pointing out since we're starting to see a gradual decline. The vigour of new pop and new wave is now at an end and there's a scarcity acts and genres to take over. So, why not look to some supposed goth on an indie label for that elusive next thing? It didn't take but it was worth a try.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Residents: "It's a Man's Man's Man's World"

The eyeballed-ones always had a thing for ripping up classic pop and their proposed, though ultimately doomed, American Composers Series seemed just the sort of thing that they could have gotten a lot out of. This was a decade on from the astonishingly horrific The Third Reich 'n Roll and their uncanny ability to shock, amuse and cause physical illness wasn't quite as it once was. A companion single to the George Jones/James Brown tribute album George & James, it is remarkably low key and about as commercial as they'd ever get. ("The Residents have made a listenable record. Was this the intention?" wonders Hibs) That trademark whiny, Louisiana drawl on vocals perhaps gives away that it's meant to subvert the Godfather of Soul's macho posturing (even though I never saw The Residents collapse on stage like a certain sissy vocalist) but there's little by way of weirdness. Stick with Eskimo for some genuinely brilliant Residential loopiness.

Shriekback: "Hand on My Heart"

19 July 1984

"The atmosphere of the whole piece is in fact rather menacing, but the subtle rhythms and constant pace make it more than listenable."

— Muriel Gray

1984 would prove to be a key year in the eighties and not simply because it was the first time I started to become aware of the culture. Blockbuster albums by Prince and Bruce Springsteen sold and sold and sold, MTV was becoming a phenomenon and a new generation of stars were on the way up. It was perhaps the first year fully free of the 'eighventies', the interregnum of the end of the previous decade merging into the current one, as coined by pop journalist Taylor Parkes. Though clearly raised on punk and disco and the like, Madonna and Frankie Goes to Hollywood seemed to operate free of the era that preceded them. Duran Duran and Culture Club and Eurythmics and even the bloody Police seemed fully aware that the spirit of year zero was over and that it was 1984.

That's not to say that there weren't holdovers. Muriel Gray had a background in a Scottish punk group and became a presenter for The Tube, a program very much in the spirit of launching the kind of groups that began to take off during the new wave/post-punk boom, and a single like Shriekback's "Hand on My Heart" is just the sort of thing that would have appealed to individuals who were already growing nostalgic for the music of a half-dozen years' earlier (which must have seemed like a long way off by the mid-eighties). That they were led by Barry Andrews of XTC and Dave Allen of Gang of Four only ups the ante in the throwback states. Like new pop never happened.

I don't know whether to tip my hat to the lads in Shriekback for trying to carry on with new wave or to dismiss them as out of touch. Certainly post-punk contemporaries Talking Heads — to whom "Hand on My Heart" owes a sizable debt — had long abandoned their angular guitar rock in favour of so-called world music beats and soul music. (1984 being the year of their outstanding concert film Stop Making Sense, in which the group's CBGB roots are barely hinted at) Andrews' former bandmates in XTC were busy carving out their niche in challenging indie pop to ever-diminishing numbers — but, to their credit, they were trying to move forward. Plenty of new wave artists were around in the mid-eighties and a good selection of them had moved on. (Whether they remained successful or not is another matter) Still, much like boogie rockers remaining boogie rockers to the very end, I can't help but admire such a hard-headed refusal to adapt with the times. With some prog rock cred (XTC were always the post-punk band most welcoming to old school Genesis and Yes die hards and Andrews would subsequently join The League of Gentleman alongside King Crimson guitar hero Robert Fripp), they could always fall back on the excuse that they're the ones who are really moving forward while being but a mere retread.

All this would be just bluster if "Hand on My Heart" proved to be a good record but it spectacularly fails there too. The old new wavers had the element of punk rock thrill to fall back on which this single is bereft of. I respect Muriel Gray for picking it since that's what she dug and I suspect that Shriekback wouldn't have been able to pull of any kind of effective modern pop so perhaps it's for the best. The public weren't especially convinced —top sixty! — but they got themselves a SOTF and an obscure blogger writing about their lame record. Could've been worse for a group stuck in the eighventies.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

George Michael: "Careless Whisper"

"George grows up!", exclaims Gray. Pop stars suddenly going all mature and serious rarely works - The Beatles probably only managed it because they did it so gradually that few even noticed - but George Michael is the exception. Smartly dropping 'Wham!' from the credits (even though it appears on their second album Make It Big with Andrew Ridgeley in the rare position of being listed as a co-writer), Michael was able to get himself a new identity as a solo artist free of his happy-go-lucky, shuttlecocks-in-the-shorts image. Gray isn't entirely convinced by this new direction "...just a touch too American to be completely successful") but she must have seen — as surely all did at the time — that this was the way forward and Wham! weren't long for this world. Hardly anyone would have predicted, however, that George would never quite manage to better this.

Everything but the Girl: "Mine"

14 July 1984

"This is one of the best singles I've heard for a long time and it should be a big hit if they've finished their exams and want to do a bit of promotion."

— Andy Taylor

Cor! A special edition of VER HITS!

You've probably noticed that this entry is early. Yes! I've flouted my once-a-week rules and have provided an extra review for your reading pleasure. Except this one isn't from the pages of Smash Hits magazine. Instead, we have the first in an occasional series of pieces about singles reviewed in rival and/or related publications. First up is Record Mirror, once a sturdy tabloid inky that battled it out with Melody Maker and New Music Express but which had recently gone the glossy pop mag route to compete with ver Hits. A special thanks to Michael Kane's fantastic Flickr archive for posting this issue. I highly recommend you visit this page, it makes for a nice companion to Brian McCloskey's indispensable Smash Hits site.

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Smash Hits scooped up John Taylor to guest review the singles just a few weeks earlier and, not to be outdone, here is Record Mirror drafting in Andy Taylor to give his thoughts on the new releases. (Rest assured, I already checked to see if Roger Taylor got snapped up by Number One to do the deed around this time but, alas, he must have passed on the opportunity; perhaps he was busy looking at farms to purchase and prematurely retire to) Both had their hearts in harder rock than the poncy art school stuff that Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes were interested in but you'd hardly notice it here with their respective picks. John opted for the slick 'n' smooth sounds of the Kane Gang while Andy made a case for the sensitive jazz-pop of Everything but the Girl - and over a reissue of a Stones classic (his 'almost single of the week') to boot. Hardly the choice cuts of macho axe men.

Andy Taylor was beginning to give the pop stardom of Duran Duran a rethink so perhaps the understated crispness of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt proved to be a welcome pallet cleanser: it wasn't necessarily the sort of music he'd play on but did stand in stark contrast to the artifice being dished up by of the biggest group in the world. As his nibs points out, "it's good for people to get into that level of musicianship and also make it commercial at the same time. It's getting away from quick, cheap and nasty." It's hard not to think he has the band he would soon leave in mind as being quick, cheap and nasty (he'd hardly be alone). (Though I feel at pains to point out that The Power Station may not have been quite the direction to have gone in had they been looking for some credibility. Blimey, this is now the second time I've used TPS as a way of taking a shot at a Taylor; I hope I don't blow my load before we get to them early next year)

So, just what made Everything but the Girl, er, slow, expensive and agreeable? Most obviously there's Tracey Thorn, who must be the most resigned vocalist in pop. Post-punk female vocalists in Britain tended towards a nihilistic, lifeless style of singing and some pulled it off but Thorn managed a sullen realism that could also be beautifully expressive. A line like "I'm okay and I don't need his name, thank you / mine fits me nicely, mine will do" probably ought to be delivered by someone with a flippant confidence like Kim Deal but it's all the more poignant conveyed by sheer sorrow. There's no melodrama, however, as Thorn keeps it tight and too the point.

EBTG's other strength here is just what a staggeringly talented pair Thorn and Ben Watt were. I've written before in praise of their respective solo works but the two functioned even more effectively in tandem. Playing with precision and restraint, they conjure up a mood that glides over the listener. Watt's guitar solo is brief but compliments Thorn's performance perfectly and so, too, does a gentle bit of vibes from British jazz musician Bill Le Sage. The playing in general is impeccable with the unlikely team up of jazz veterans and post punkers working magic together. I'm not sure whether they happened to be sitting their exams at the time, as Taylor maybe a bit snarkingly alludes to above, but it's hard to say if something so superb really had much chart potential. Quick, cheap and nasty may have made his skin crawl but it's always been a proven winner for reaching the top forty.

Record Mirror was very much on the serious end of the pop magazine spectrum and this was a reputation that would be difficult to shake in spite of some cutesy gimmicks they would soon start to rely on. While it's difficult to imagine holdover readers from an earlier era remaining loyal, it's also hard to picture many young people, used to the nonsensical joy of Smash Hits, getting sucked into this world of serious and less sparkly pop journalism. A less sparkly member of Duran Duran, Andy Taylor turned out to be the perfect guest reviewer for them — and, indeed, Everything but the Girl's "Mine" proved an appropriate staff pick. Too bad ver kids weren't having it.

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Also Reviewed This Week

John Lennon: "I'm Stepping Out"

"I'm Only Sleeping", "A Day in the Life", "Good Morning Good Morning", "#9 Dream", "Watching the Wheels": yes, John Lennon enjoyed loafing and daydreaming and leafing through a newspaper with the telly on and pop records playing and (probably) a ham radio on all at the same time but at least he wrote plenty of songs about his slothful ways. (The typically contrary bugger that he was, the first chance he had to rest and relax, during The Beatles' meditation sojourn in India, he began feeling restless, which he was good enough to document in song with "I'm So Tired") A nice change, then, to see him getting ready for a night on the town in NYC — except it isn't anything of the sort. Lennon may indeed be stepping out but it's hard to believe he has much enthusiasm for doing so. The second verse gives away the game by admitting that "if it don't feel right, you don't have to do it", while in the third he basically lists off all stuff he normally does — "baby's sleeping, the cats have all been fed / Ain't nothing doing on TV (summer repeats)" — as to delay having to leave the apartment. Lennon was far more sociable in his later years than some would have you believe but he was at heart a homebody. The record isn't bad but, as with much of his work from the end of his life, it's of more value for what it tells us about Lennon's state of mind at the time.

Divine: "You Think You're a Man"

5 July 1984

"Against an outrageously catchy melody that could've come straight from the soundtrack of a spaghetti western like Calamity Jane, Divine spits fire into the cheekiest lyric in this batch of singles."

— Linda Duff

We're three or four years earlier than I thought we'd be but this week's Single of the Fortnight marks the maiden appearance of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman on production. They will soon become the dominant force in late-eighties British pop but by this time they're still finding their feet: they're not yet focusing on the songwriting side of their work, they're nowhere close to developing the formula that would take them to the top (and, in time, help prove their undoing) and they don't appear yet to be grooming talent for their stable. No office tea boys, no Australian soap stars, no flop-ridden boy bands, no faded disco starlets, no sassy pairs of sisters, just an obese middle-aged drag queen with a voice that made Leonard Cohen's sound silky smooth.

Some kinks to be ironed out for SAW then? Commercially perhaps — even if "You Think You're a Man" found its way into the top twenty, no mean feat for an untested production team paired with a cult figure from the gay scene — but creatively it's a triumph. The backing is indeed "outrageously catchy" as Linda Duff reckons with a sound straight out of the New York clubs but with pop hooks and gentle New Order-esque synth flourishes to follow the chorus. It's really the record that managed to escape the confines of the discotheques which is how Divine would have wanted it — he had, after-all, been keen to break away from the counterculture straight jacket himself.

Glenn Milstead was no one's idea of a star but that wasn't about to stop him. His alter ego Divine proved a smash in cult circles but was one that could never establish itself in the mainstream. Working on "trashy" films with John Waters, he eventually moved towards Hi-NRG disco-pop that was similarly enjoyed by a loyal following but ignored by the masses. Having already had a pair of near miss singles in the UK, perhaps he was primed for the big one. No wonder he gives such a monstrous performance.

Which brings us to that voice. Listening to it I am always blown away by the sheer roughness of it. (I'll sometimes sing it to myself in a manner as gravelly as possible only to come up short in comparison when I put it on) Even Duff's Eartha Kitt meets Gary Glitter description doesn't really do it justice but I'm lost on trying to better it. Quite simply, Divine roars out some spiteful invective in the direction of an ex-lover which luxuriates in the lousiness of the vocal. Someone with a real singing voice could make something of it — say, Cher or Pat Benatar or, indeed, Eartha Kitt — but no one could make it so camp and so hilarious and so intimidating and so joyous all at once. Could anyone have been man enough to have satisfied Divine?

A note on this issue's singles reviewer. Linda Duff was a mainstay of Smash Hits — as well as its American cousin Star Hits — for a number of years focusing on the Get Smart column. As Brian McCloskey has said, she was the internet before there was the internet. Whenever readers had a question concerning their favourite pop stars — if, say, they had gone down the dumper or if there was some bizzare rumour going round — she'd be the one to set everyone straight. This was to be her only shot at reviewing the singles. Divine is no longer with us and neither is Linda Duff: a pair of one off's you just don't see anymore.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Neil: "Hole in My Shoe"

More of an outright comedy record than Divine's but nowhere close to as funny, this is a faithful rendition of Traffic's psychedelic sixties hit courtesy of Neil from eighties sitcom favourite The Young Ones. When you have lyrics about bubblegum trees and dew on the grass that's stuck to your coat the satire sort of writes itself so our Neil (aka Nigel Planer) has an easy job. I suppose it must have been funny at the time — like The Young Ones itself — but those days are long gone. Then again, the original wasn't much cop so what hope did this remake have? Sorry, Neil, but I suspect a glowing critique wouldn't have done much to lift your spirits anyway, would it?

The Kane Gang: "Closest Thing to Heaven"

21 June 1984

"This isn't bad. Actually, it's a good song."

— John Taylor

Not exactly a ringing endorsement from John "Most Fanciable Male" Taylor, is it? Sometimes it's not about the record one happens to think "isn't bad", it's those singles that aren't even that good. And what a bunch of duds his nibs had to endure. Prince & The Revolution's "When Doves Cry" ("...doesn't do anything previous efforts haven't done before"), Bob Marley & The Wailers' "Waiting in Vain" ("I prefer him more abrasive"), The Pointer Sisters' "Jump (For My Love)" ("...this doesn't cut the mustard") and Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It" ("I'm disappointed. Where's the raunchola this week?") are among the lackluster hopefuls up for Taylor's consideration. The fact that they're all now arguably classics is just hard cheese.

I feel well-disposed towards Taylor's cavalier attitude towards these records mainly since they dovetail nicely with my own. Sure, Prince's name was made by Purple Rain and its singles but this was material very much in keeping with what he'd been doing a year earlier on the better 1999 album (although I can't let Taylor's remark that "everybody's getting heavy these days" slip by unchecked given that other pop stars cum guest reviewers could very well have said the same thing a few months later over The Power Station). Marley was never the same without original Wailer cohorts Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, his cutting lyrics and musical vision having been tamed by his late-seventies status as a spokesman and concert attraction. "Jump" is one of those eighties throwbacks that doesn't deserve all its film soundtrack space and TV commercials — and even being interrupted by a jubilant Simon Le Bon with news that they've risen in the US charts is not able to lift his disinterest. Turner's effort is better than most here but it's still far from what she was capable of. How the mighty have fallen.

Some, then, may want to jump in with a quip like "who's John Taylor to be knocking Prince? What's he ever done?" which is understandable enough but leaves out two significant factors: (a) this is John Taylor, bassist of Duran Duran who were still riding the success of "The Reflex" — which, though far from perfect, is more thrilling than anything Prince Rogers Nelson would ever record — and (b) he's giving his thoughts on a stack of new releases, what do his musical bona fides have to do with anything? (I mean, apart from helping land him this gig as guest reviewer?) Why bash a film you didn't care for if you haven't made one? Why knock a politician if you've never made a run for political office?

As for the SOTF itself, it's not too bad though it's hardly my choice cut here. (That would be The Human League's "Life on Your Own" even if I can fully understand not opting for something so rum) "Closest Thing to Heaven" is a fairly early example of eighties sophisti-pop, a sub genre which would come to rule the charts at the close of the decade, with it's clipped guitar parts and delicate synth backing. Martin Brammer was even a bit ahead of his time with a smooth yet mildly sandpapery vocal which would also become all too common in later years. The lyrics strive for a profundity which simply isn't there but I suppose that sums Thatcherite-era aspiration up as well as anything. Still, it's a song that creeps up on the listener, the sort of thing you end up tapping your feet along with in spite of yourself. (Taylor himself seems like he could go either way with this one but gradually gets into it)

John Taylor gave his thoughts on twenty-two singles for this issue of ver Hits, thirteen of which he didn't care for. He's hardly the grumpiest character to evaluate new releases — but, rest assured, it won't be long before we get to him — he just wasn't that into a lot of what he heard. Simple really. It would be interesting to see if he now regrets his disdain (he admits that he doesn't begin to appreciate Prince songs until a "drunken night in a sweaty club gets me into them" so he may well have come round on at least one) but I rather hope he doesn't. Long may you hate sub-par pop, John Taylor!

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Bluebells: "Young at Heart"

Another pop "classic", though not quite as disliked by Taylor as the others (even if "music to tie knots to around the campfire" sounds a bit wry), "Young at Heart" originally appeared as a deep cut on Bananarama's Deep Sea Skiving but was reworked by co-writer Robert "Bobby Bluebell" Hodgens into the only song The Bluebells will ever be remembered for. It's dangerous for a people in their twenties to do a song called "Young at Heart", as if they have the faintest idea what that could possibly mean at such a tender age. At least the 'Narns version doesn't pretend to be offering up some sagely advice or any of that claptrap but this one has a misplaced world-weary quality which grates. Stick a fiddle on, put some older people in the video and cheerily admit that being young at heart is a key to happiness and — voila! — a big hit, big enough that it was even able to get to number one nearly a decade later. Proof that there is indeed a fine line between catchy and annoying.