Ramones: "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" / Prefab Sprout: "Faron Young"

3 July 1985

"Ah, they don't make records like this anymore — unless, of course, "they" are the Ramones who continue to thrash away in their leaky jeans and unhygenic [sic] sneakers as if it were still 1976."
— Tom Hibbert

It had been nearly ten years since the release of the first Ramones album, no great amount of time looking back now but lengthy enough while it was happening. During that time, they had overseen the invention of punk, played about in a New York scene featuring groups that couldn't have been more different from them, witnessed the UK punk revolution take off (then saw it rapidly crumble), saw off contemporaries who all went the pop and/or stadium rock and happened to be not too far away as hip hop began to take off. Everything changed but them.

But not really. They went through drummers, their sound got poppier, they had to endure the trauma of having Phil Spector produce them with firearms present (and possibly aimed in their direction), normal rock star shenanigans. But their core remained with each member retaining their distinctive traits (Joey's deadbeat guttural vocal, Johnny's whiplash buzzsaw power chords, Dee Dee's perceptively dumb lyrics). They were very much still the Ramones.

"Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" was seen as a huge departure because it dealt with Ronald Reagan's controversial trip to a German military cemetery in May of 1985. While the visit was reputedly to commemorate the end of the Second World War, the American president drew the ire of many for laying a wreath near the burial sites of actual war criminals. Surviving victims of the Nazis were upset, as were many in Israel, as well as veterans back in the States. And one Joey Ramone.

The Ramones didn't do politics. (For all of that "left wing entertainers" stuff you hear about, the only member of the group who happened to be open about his political tendencies was Johnny who was never shy of praising Reagan or George W. Bush) Their debut single "Blitzkrieg Bop" borrows from Nazi bombing raids but it's a song about idiots falling in line. Idiocy was their bag. They weren't idiots themselves but performed from the perspective of them. Though college kids would eventually become their core audience, they were really singing to lonely youths from broken homes who dropped out of school, committed petty crimes and were losers — people just like the Ramones.

A good thing, then, that "Bonzo..." isn't quite as political as you might think. In reality, it's about watching the evening news and being dumbfounded by it. Joey looked at Reagan giving a speech at Bitburg and asked himself, "what the fuck is he doing?" but didn't have an answer. Perhaps not knowing quite what to say, the song was co-written by Dee Dee and Jean Beauvoir of The Plasmatics. Having three authors could have reduced the impact of the song but I think they only ended up making it more disjointed. The verses focus on the absurdity of political home truths ("you watch the world complain but you do it anyway"), the chorus is focused on taking shots at that B movie actor currently in the White House and then there's its extension ("my brain is hanging upside down") that sums up a ludicrous situation that leaves everyone in a state of helpless stupidity.

And that's the genius of the Ramones — and I don't even like them all that much.

~~~~~

"This is an English truck-drivin' song about having to eat Yorkie Bars in the horrific surroundings of "service areas" and listening to the ghastly weepies of country crooner Faron Young on a crackling in-cab radio. At least, that's what I think it's about."
— Tom Hibbert

America, America, America. The British love America. Even when they tell you that, in fact, they're very anti-America, there's a sense that they just don't like the brand of America that's being currently forcing itself upon them or that they feel let down that the country they look to has lost its way and has left them adrift.

Pop stars from the UK tend to make no bones about their debt to the US. A lot of them move there (even when they've never attained Stateside success), they all jump at doing vast American tours of cities major and minor (my Law of Tour T-Shirts states that you'll always find the name of at least one town in Oklahoma or South Dakota that no one has ever heard of on it) and some even get into the dodgy business of mythologising it. Because nothing says stick to your roots like pretending to be part of a culture that you don't belong to while ignoring the one you come from.

One may never be more British than when they're to be trying to be American but if one is to do so then the best strategy is either to not be overwhelmed by the influence or to get it completely wrong. Don't go the route taken by U2 (yes, I know they're Irish but it still applies) and pull a Rattle & Hum: soak up Americana if you must but don't act like you're an integral part of it, steep yourself in old school soul and country and rhythm 'n' blues but don't lose your own sound in it, visit Muscle Shoals but don't forget you come from Melton Mowbray.

Paddy McAloon is a gifted figure and has gradually become recognised as one of the UK's finest musical talents after a few years there in the eighties in which he was considered to be, in Tom Hibbert's words, "flitty and too clever by half". Perfect pitch, prodigious talent, songwriting skills to die for are among his strengths. What he doesn't possess is an understanding of America and doesn't pretend otherwise. While he would later explore it in greater depth on the 1988 album From Langley Park to Memphis, "Faron Young" is an early example of coming to grips with not quite getting America. (Even earlier dry runs, such as "Cue Fanfare" and "I Never Play Basketball Now", appear on Prefab Sprout's first album Swoon)

The truck driver here may indeed scoff Yorkie Bars in service areas in the middle of Northumbria while listening to old country laments, as Hibbert states, but he's at a loss. Not because of his job or strife with his family but because the tunes on the radio that are supposed to mean something to him don't, as Morrissey would sing a year later, say anything to him about his life. Where's the disconnect? Hauling crates of orange squash all over the Britain is not unlike the American trucker on his way through the mid-west, shouldn't the very same songs move them? (Changing stations on the radio dial is obviously not an option in this narrative)

McAloon is projecting but it's more than a little condescending to assume that the working class will react to a careworn country ballad in the same way. Having grown up near the petrol station that his father ran, he may have known more than a little about the tastes of your average trucker and that they might fly in the face of our expectations. Speaking of which, the fact that he was raised in such a working class environment goes against the image of a cozy, middle class youth who studied to be a priest and listened to "Georgie" Gershwin and Stephen Sondheim. 

Expectations are further left like roadkill on the M6 by the song itself. Knocked for preciousness, being too bloody clever for their own good and some impenetrably hard to decypher lyrics, Swoon wasn't appreciated by many at the time. Determined to get people to appreciate what they were trying to do, the Sprouts delivered Steve McQueen, a lush album-of-the-year (well, probably the runner-up to Hounds of Love by Kate Bush) produced lovingly by Thomas Dolby. "When Love Breaks Down" impressed critics (though never quite enough to get them another SOTF) but failed so they doubled-down on the surprise factor with the hard hitting country swing of "Faron Young". It's hard to imagine McAloon and his chums really thought it stood a better chance than the gorgeous single that just flopped (even though it did enjoy a modest chart improvement, at least until its predecessor got released) but it does a great job of proving that they weren't wimps, weren't above doing supposed workingman's music and understood America. Only Prefab Sprout seemed to know that not understanding it is much more interesting.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Sparks: "Change"

I get the feeling it's much easier to get into Sparks retrospectively. You can dabble in various periods and phases and not feel much of an attachment to any one particular Mael sound. Hibbert seems to miss the Sparks of "Amateur Hour" and "This Town Ain't Bit Enough for the Both of Us" but their ambitions are way past that point. Cluttered, sure, but Ron and Russell Mael were never exactly minimalists and something like "Change" is all the better for being loaded with ideas. Perhaps knowing that their days as serious chart contenders were up, they throw together some sweet European synth-pop together with a bit of mid-eighties production and even a tasteful guitar solo. It's now thirty-five years on and they just  keep changing. All hail Sparks.

Lene Lovich: "Lucky Number"

22 February 1979

"Overloaded with quirky ideas on everyday situations, assorted extraordinary voices for each different mood and no mean talent as a sax player, she is more original than any half-dozen New Wavers put together."

— Cliff White

There's something condescending these days about labelling someone a 'performance artist'. It could be down to critics having to resort to such a descriptive because they can't fathom anything else. It may be due to right wing YouTube trolls like Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos being described as 'performance artists' by their allies defenders apologists (the very same people, incidentally, who complain incessantly about campus radicals who allegedly don't respect freedom of speech while refusing to acknowledge that these students might also be performance artists in their own right; I dare say a blue-haired nineteen-year-old collegian knows a thing or two more about performance art than a so-called "classical liberal" with a Patreon account). Or it could be just sexism: men express themselves, women are 'performance artists'.

The post-punk/new wave period of the late-seventies saw a spike in performance artists in pop — and, naturally, the bulk of them were of the fair sex. Much of it came from them having roots in glam rock but one that was dependent on the charity shop: one couldn't afford giant platform shoes and colourful face paint and, thus, had to rely upon dungarees and scarves and god knows whatever else happened to be available. Queue Lene Lovich, whose image of braided pig tails, black lace handkerchiefs and silk dresses was as DIY as any of her music.

This also happened to be a time in which women in pop either looked beatific, tough or were dripping in sex. Folk singers had their long hair and their jumpers and their cats and rockier types wore jeans and t-shirts and all looked like Suzy Quatro and the sex kittens all wished to be Debbie Harry or one of Charlie's Angels. But the generation coming out of punk wanted none of that (Chrissie Hynde and Patti Smith would be the exceptions) and went about trying to look alluring but not quite sexy, scary but not tough, independent but not cozy. Kate Bush wore leotards and frilly dresses but she did grotesque ballet routines in the promos of her great batch of early singles. Siousxie Sioux was never beautiful but you couldn't look away from her. The Slits got their kit out for the cover of their remarkable album Cut yet they look way too much like they don't care what you think to provide titlillation — and, indeed, the same goes for Bowwowwow's Annabella Lwin a couple years' later (which was for the best considering how worryingly young she was). All this got female artists the attention and respect they deserved until Toyah came along and ruined it for everyone. Male rock critics didn't know what to do with them and so they became 'performance artists'.

Lene Lovich wasn't selling sex, women's lib or happiness, just the concept of being Lene Lovich. She's in a state but plays to the camera in the video for "Lucky Number" without a shred of bashfulness. It appears at once greatly rehearsed and wholly natural: every little quirk — her eyes popping out, the way she pranced in the direction of the audience or camera — would have been honed over the previous decade as she developed her craft yet seems very much an extension of her unique personality.

Lost among all of Lovich's mannerisms and her appearance was "Lucky Number", a great pop song with hooks and everything. The early take which provided the flip side to her 1978 Charlie Gillett-produced cover of "I Think We're Alone Now" is an example of sturdy post-punk put together on a shoestring. Getting an advance from Stiff Records allowed Lovich and longtime personal and professional partner Les Chappell to add some bells and whistles and it comes across more like vintage new wave. Either way, it's a dynamic recording with Lovich in control with an expressive performance and a great madcap band to back her up. Handclaps,  a tambourine, surf guitar, tribal percussion, gentle backing vocals: had they not been careful there's no way it all would have worked. 

The one (minor) knock against it is that the song's narrative might be too swift. She moves from independence in its opening verses ("for me, myself and I is all I've ever known") to an uneasy feeling that she can't quite pin down ("an imminent attack upon my heart I fear") to finishing up with acknowledging that there's someone else out there for her ("I never want to be apart from you my dear") and it all progresses just a bit too easily. I'm all for brevity in pop but a more gradual progression in her feelings would make it more believable. But, then, why be believable when she's already so convincing?

Dressing up in S&M gear during the punk era may have been considered legit but when it came to Adam Ant dawning his famed 'dandy highwayman' look suddenly he was a sell out. But few would have thought to call him a 'performance artist'. Few were as shameless in their attempts to grasp pop stardom as Steve Strange and he, too, was never considered a performance artist. It's just the women from that time who had that label stuck to them. Maybe they were the only ones putting in the time to give a real performance and do something original with it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "Oliver's Army"

This is the old scamp's finest three minutes but Cliff White doesn't see it that way. My "giving it a clever slant on the state of war" is his "serious 'message' song"; my "tune you can never get enough of" is his "clapped-out old pop melody". He even considers Costello to be as "humourless as a stuffed trout" which is...well, okay, I'll give him that. While I'm not again hearing people rip into my most disliked of favourite singers, I can't listen to "Oliver's Army" and not hear it as anything but perfect — except for his use of the n-word but, then, I'm not a YouTube "classical liberal".

Hipsway: "The Broken Years"

19 June 1985

"If all their songs are this excellent we're going to hear an awful lot more of them."

— Chris Heath

Though a potential career ambition of writing for Smash Hits was staring me right in the face, I spent the bulk of my teen years hung up on making it as a pop star. Why scribble a bunch of nonsense for the magazine, went the gist of my thoughts at the time, when I could appear in it instead? I thought a good ride on the giddy carousel of pop — but I couldn't get it to go anywhere in practice. I lacked talent, wherewithal, pluck, determination, confidence and any other distinguishing traits that separate successful musicians from everyone else. I guess I could write lyrics passably by the standards of a fifteen-year-old (I only knew two other people who wrote songs at that time and they both "played" in the same "band" as I did - and they were both a year younger than me!)

Musically speaking, the only thing I could ever manage was to hum a vague melody - likely based on a tune I'd just heard — while repeating a word or phrase. These "ideas" wouldn't be taken any further: I'd have it swirling around in my mind for a while before getting distracted by something else and moving on. There was never any potential in them so why would I bother with just an insignificant trifle? Or perhaps I should have stuck with it. Listening to "The Broken Years" there's not a whole lot else to it beyond a catchy funk riff and a simple chorus of the title repeated and repeated. Simplicity at its finest — unless of course you want something inspiring or something that takes you someplace or the feeling that you're connecting with a song.

Chris Heath is captivated by the little that's going on and his analysis is mostly spot on. Yes, it does kind of sound like a "punchy mixture of The Kane Gang and The Smiths" and, indeed, there isn't anything "startlingly new or original about it" (to bring these two observations together, indie groups going through a Chic phase was old hat by the mid-eighties so it's really no wonder "The Broken Years" didn't catch on). I might even give him the point that it's "sung brilliantly by the deep-voiced Graham Skinner" but I'm not sure that suave and carefree vocals are called for. These broken years he sings of should seem difficult and ought to have taken a lot out of the populace and, you know, be broken. Hardship isn't something that comes out of the very confident Skinner and I'm not convinced they've been all that broken for him — or that he even has much empathy for those who have been through hard times. To be fair, however, I'm not sure anyone could have pulled out a good vocal from such terrible lyrics. "Ah, broken by the years / Lie in the broken years / Just like always everyone / Token of my fear...": 1) what are you boys talking about? and 2) no, scratch that, I don't care.

The one thing it might have in its favour is a thrilling quality that most of the other records this fortnight lack. From the heavy hitters (Dire Straits, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna) all the way down to once-great indie acts (quite the fall from grace for Pink Industry), there isn't much else to recommend so I guess Hipsway can nab a SOTF by default. Of course, Heath's review is much more glowing than that ("This, the first single by four blokes from Glasgow, is simply the best record I've heard for months") to which it could be suggested that something needed to come along to drag pop out of the slump it was going through. To some extent, that's true. Overly-slick records with little by way of substance (like, cough-cough, "The Broken Years") were easy to come by in '85 but one had to look elsewhere. Other issues of Smash Hits for one. Heath could have found irresistible cowpunk, nonsensical yet charming sixties pastiche and first rate Teutonic dance pop to explore. That was the thing about the eighties: the best stuff rarely rose to the top but it was still in there to discover for ourselves.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Style Council: "Come to Milton Keynes"

A grotesque travel brochure for the infamous New Town, "Come to Milton Keynes" is effectively Mrs. Thatcher's "no such thing as society" quote in song — which, granted, was spoken two years after Paul Weller wrote this but it's not like the Tories hadn't been acting like this was the case all along. People have their little homes, they lock themselves away, draw the curtains and pretend like everything isn't going to hell outside. Good material on which to base a song but this is merely good. Quite why they chose to release a cut that works well on their excellent album Our Favourite Shop but which doesn't really do much on its own is anyone's guess. The probably the first sign that things weren't quite right and that a half-decade's creative roll might just be up.

Simply Red: "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" / Lone Justice: "Ways to Be Wicked"

5 June 1985

"Simply Red couldn't have chosen a better showcase for their obvious talents — social-comment lyrics attacked by really excellent soul vocals, making a record that's understated but powerful, and impossible to resist."

"Bury your bias and be prepared to fall in love."

— Maureen Rice

Three pop acts, a Radio 1 presenter, a soap actor and a very critical schoolboy: yeah, you might say that Smash Hits went a little overboard with the guest singles reviewers (only one of the past seven editions being done by a regular Hits scribe). I have wondered on here previously if they may have been going through a staff shake up at the time but they could just as easily have been experimenting with going the Number One route of nothing but famous guest reviewers. In any event, order has been restored with some proper music journalists taking back control as we approach the midway point of 1985. It's nice to have you lot back!

Or is it? Frequent guest critics are gone (for now) but there's a new fad going and that's joint Singles of the Fortnight. This issue is merely the first of several in which the reviewer is unable to pick a favourite and ends up going for a pair. (Actually, the following issue sees just one pick but then co-winners are chosen for the next three on the bounce) Perhaps they were happy to use pop stars and others since the critics they had in house couldn't make up their bloody minds! But let's look on the bright side: this just gives me more music to listen to and write about

I must say I'm glad that Maureen Rice has chosen a pair of singles that couldn't be more different in style but which also share a bit in common. One comes from the emerging British soul revival of the mid-eighties while the other is rooted in cowpunk from the heartland of, er, LA. But they were both up-and-coming acts that were looking to a pair of relatively obscure cover versions in order to help them make a mark.

It isn't difficult comparing Simply Red's effort to the original since we've already dealt with it on this blog. The Valentine Brothers wrote and recorded "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" a couple years' earlier and it had been a critical favourite in spite of some modest sales. Picked up by a then-unknown Mancunian new soul act Simply Red, it fared considerably better, getting them into both the UK and US charts. And they don't do a bad job of it but it doesn't quite measure up to the source material. While the production has been spruced up, it isn't as funky and Mick Hucknall's reading goes a little heavy on the passion next to the much more restrained Valentines. There's a sense that they understand the predicament everyone is in when they go their brother, their father ("almighty father": that big predatory lender in the sky perhaps?), even the sleazy turkey round the bank seeking a loan: money's too tight for everyone to mention in this world (being fed the same line even gives it a bit of dark humour). Hucknall seems to be caught up in his own point of view as a penniless blue-eyed soulster and a degree of understanding for what everyone in society is going through loses out. Thus, it lacks depth and it's overwrought but that boy sure can sing.

So, ver Red didn't add anything but at least they didn't cock it up too much to drag the song down. Trouble was, the Valentine original is too good to improve upon. Lone Justice didn't have that potential albatross to weigh them down as they were using an unknown Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers song as a source. (Not simply unknown but also unremarkable enough not to see official release until an extensive Petty boxset years later) Even by Petty's workmanlike standards, his vocals aren't up to much and it all sounds tossed off. In effect, a demo. I'm not terribly fond of Tom Petty but he obviously had much better songs in him than this.

It is, therefore, startling to hear what Lone Justice were able to do with it. The bulk of the praise should be saved for Maria McKee, who simply shreds the lyrics apart with her powerful country and western voice. Where Hucknall can't stop himself from emoting, she knows when to hold back and when, to quote the song, "to stick it in". She sounds confident, flippant and just a bit vulnerable. Remarkable. A shout out, too, for the band who have clearly put a lot more thought into the recording than the Heartbreakers did. Not flashy but disciplined and powerful and I can only wonder just what a treat they must have been live back in the day.

With all due respect to Maureen Rice, I can't imagine seeing these as equals. One's quite good, the other's a blinder. One succeeds by not ruining the song, the other blows apart the original. One manages to make you admire their taste in records (good on Hucknall for picking a Valentine Brothers song), the other leaves you spellbound by the moment that all great songs do: it doesn't matter who wrote it, it doesn't matter what the original sounds like, it only matters what's playing and that you just have to hear it again. Not a tough choice.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Miles Davis: "Time After Time"

Continuing our look at covers, jazz's prince of darkness was more than familiar with interpreting the work of others (to the extent that he would occasionally usurp writing credit from some poor schmoes). Miles Davis was by this point nearly 59 and a long way past his lengthy great period which resulted in works like Sketches of Spain and In a Silent Way. He outlived old colleagues Charlie Parker and John Coltrane but was doing subpar work compared to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington at roughly the same age. Still, there's nothing wrong with his playing here. He makes so much of Cyndi Lauper's hit from a year earlier that you'd hardly recognise where it came from. What lets it down is the very rudimentary backing that feels like jazz musicians resentfully snoozing their way through some filler before they can get to a real tune. I guess he was too old to be the badass he once was in order to whip those cats into shape.

Blondie: "Heart of Glass"

8 February 1979

"Surely you've heard and bought it by now? Brilliantly demonstrating why Smash Hits has dropped all the nonsense of segregating music into different categories, a 'rock' group has made what will undoubtedly turn out to be one of the best, ahem, 'disco' records of 1979".

— Cliff White

~~~~~

Welcome to the one hundredth post on VER HITS! And on a Saturday too! And with a single from six years prior to where we're currently at! How very odd.

But this is no mere one off. I started off this blog with a splendid record from the middle of '81 and pointed out in the introduction a week earlier that very few prior singles were picked out for special attention the way they would be from around that point on. I acknowledged the smattering that had been chosen from previous issues but I've subsequently come to realise that there are quite a few more that passed me by. I've also been finding myself having to infer Singles of the Fortnight from time to time — even up to this past week — and it occured to me that I might as well go back and do so for those that I missed. We'll "start" in February of 1979 when Smash Hits went from monthly to fortnightly and when they ditched the "nonsense of segregating" between disco/soul and rock/pop records. And what a record to kick it all off with!

Weekly posts — currently at the beginning of June '85 — will continue on Wednesdays with these earlier pieces once a fortnight on Saturdays or Sundays. If critics state a favourite then it will be written about; otherwise, I will attempt to infer a SOTF based on how much praise it gets but it will be down to my own discretion. If you disagree then please post a comment below or find me on Twitter in order to give me the telling off I deserve.

~~~~~

I wonder if the person who coined the expression "to sell out" is proud of themselves. He or she really did us all a service by giving us a term in which we could all jealously knock an artist for the crime of being successful. Well done, douchebag.

Also, are music purists content up there on their high horses? Are they pleased with themselves for bashing former favourites who had the gall to stretch out with something different?

I ought to be at the age now where I don't care about such people harping on about "selling out" and I mostly don't but I do pity them for being foolish in denying themselves great music. If a rethink results in something better than what's the point in getting all worked up about it?

Coming off a peerless run of singles — "Denis", "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear", "Picture This", "Hanging on the Telephone" — Blondie were at the peak of their powers but success at home in America continued to allude them. (Did they knock their heads together like The Beatles, T-Rex, Duran Duran, Oasis and generations of UK groups who puzzled over a similar dilemma? There's something comical about a US group wondering how to go about cracking the States) To those who weren't in the know and/or didn't care to find out, it might seem like leeching off of disco would be a perfect way to get themselves that hit they needed. But there's more to it than that.

The purists might have had more of a case had Blondie not held "Heart of Glass" back as the third single from landmark album Parallel Lines in favour of rockier numbers "Picture This" and "Hanging on the Telephone" and well after the LP had hit the shops. Doesn't seem like they had that much faith in its commercial potential, does it? (Either that or they were worried about alienating their New York CBGB's following though you'd think the millions of punters over in Britain, the rest of Europe and Down Under might have been a bigger priority) Of course, there have been plenty of instances of tracks that have been ignored as potential singles that end up busting the charts wide open ("Don't You Want Me" being a classic example) but sell outs are supposed to be far more calculating, aren't they?

And speaking of being held back, it's odd that Debbie Harry and Chris Stein would have sat on this goldmine for as long as they did. Already aware that they had something — gasp — with a beat you could get down to, they even named this mid-seventies composition "The Disco Song". An early recording features some pretty sweet (if overly busy) guitar playing but has little else to recommend it (Harry's vocal being uncharacteristically bland). So poor were its prospects that it didn't make it onto their patchy second album Plastic Letters. 

Finally, Blondie didn't exactly rush to go full-on disco once "Heart of Glass" took off. Follow-up "Sunday Girl" is a return to a rockier sound — as, indeed, is the bulk of Parallel Lines — as are the first pair of singles taken from their next LP Eat to the Beat, "Dreaming" and "Union City Blue", before going all Studio 54 with the brilliant "Atomic". As the group's popularity "became more selective" in the early eighties they only opened themselves up to more styles which they didn't always pull off well; their last swing at NY club sound being "Rapture" which have worked a lot better had it not been for Harry's awful rap "skills".

All of the above, though, is useless but for the fact that "Heart of Glass" is an astonishing piece of work that deserved to be the gigantic worldwide hit that it became. A vocal turning point for Harry, she veers between her "usual Sweet Little Sixteen" sound that Cliff White makes note of and a more mature and relaxed performance ("...in between, what I find is pleasing and I cannot hide...") which really sets up the duality of a relationship gone wrong while looking back with some fondness. It also hints that, yes, she was in her thirties by this time and there was no point in pretending otherwise. Stein's guitar parts have been dialed back in favour of some superb production pyrotechnics and a solid but simple rhythm backing.

I like to think that had I been a committed Blondie fan and was few years older than my nine months old I would have reacted in disgust at the thought of the best group in the world going disco. I might even have resisted purchasing their latest record and tried avoiding it as best as possible. But I would have succumbed eventually. How couldn't I have?

And how do purists who are so obsessed with selling out manage to resist something so wonderful? I'd rather not understand.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Pretenders: "Stop Your Sobbing"

A cover of a deep cut filler on The Kinks' debut album, The Pretenders don't have a lot to work with here but they do all right and manage to top the original. There's a callousness to the way Ray Davies sings it (something you never normally find in a Kinks record) that makes Chrissie Hynde's more understanding reading the preferred version — plus there's something about the words to a song about how you shouldn't be such a baby that sound far more effective being sung by a woman. The group also puts in some much needed post-punk muscle into the recording. They had much better material in them but you gotta start somewhere.

Madonna: "Crazy for You"

22 May 1985

"After this she may be taken seriously and not just ogled at by moronic men (such as me)."

— Simon O'Brien

In a largely negative retrospective look at Blur's Parklife, critic Taylor Parkes mentions a quote from fellow Quietus writer Luke Turner that "you can't trust a band whose best songs are their ballads". Now, I disagree somewhat with the group he's talking about (I'd say it applies more to someone like Neil Young) but I have to say there's something to the overall point. I dig "The Universal" and "To the End" but I'd sooner listen to "There's No Other Way" or "Caramel". I'm glad The Beatles had room for the likes of "And I Love Her" and "Something" but I'd opt for "Eight Days a Week" or "I Am the Walrus" any day. Abba's mastery of romantic fallout in a glossy pop hit is much more effectively done in "Knowing Me, Knowing You" than in their supposed classic "The Winner Takes It All".

But what about the opposite, artists who are unable to do a passable romantic softy and stick to dancefloor favourites and/or rockin' anthems? (This may or may not apply to a group like New Order but at least they deserve props for not bothering with something that they either weren't capable of or not interested in doing) Should they be knocked for lacking a standout slurpsome tune?

So-called ballads have long been the refuge of those seeking acclaim and/or a potential hit single but they're not to be overdone and are best avoided if if they can't be pulled off well. I grew up in the early-nineties when all that dying breed of heavy metallers had left was a "More Than Words", a "Silent Lucidity" or a "To Be with You" just to stay afloat. They all stunk, as did power ballads, r & b smoochers and all that crap that soundtracked films at the time — but more on that later. And, yet, this stuff makes a pop star legit?

It's strange to imagine a time when Madonna wasn't taken seriously but it stands to reason that in the midst of her early run of buoyant pop hits that she'd be dismissed as a passing fad with inconsequential songs and a sexed-up image smacking of desperation. Frequently described as a most calculating songstress, it's likely that she had to feel her way around the machinations of stardom before she could begin to manipulate the industry. How to be taken seriously? Well, slow songs can do the trick - and what about a nice movie career on the side too! (But, again, more on that in a bit)

The only trouble was Madonna's voice was never able to pull off a good love song the way someone like Anita Baker did effortlessly. Simon O'Brien is impressed by her vocal chops on "Crazy for You" but I respectfully disagree. This is where her irritating habit of using that deep, almost guttural inflection begins ("...you feel it in my kiss"), a quirk which smacks of her being unable to hit a more appropriate note. Her limitations aren't as obvious on "Lucky Star" and it's something I think she even began to make a virtue out of as she really hit her stride: I'd argue that one aspect of "Cherish" that makes it so adorable is that she sounds so normal and relatable and it's easy to convince yourself that you're singing along with it just as well as she is. But the slower numbers really do expose what a mediocre singer she's always been.

The other problem here is that it all feels very generic and not from the singer's own life. Previous singles all tapped into that old disco trope of leading a depressingly ordinary life before becoming a star in the clubs at night (Madonna even expanded upon it by becoming the one disco urchin who then made something of herself by day) but "Crazy for You" is just another love song. She didn't meet this guy at The Fun House and they didn't light the place on fire with as they cut a rug; he's just some dude she's hung up on. Well, good for her but I'm not convinced that the material here matters to her.

Appearing in the eighties film Vision Quest (not a sci-fi flick, much to my surprise) starring a very mid-twenties Matthew Modine playing a high schooler and a supposedly older Linda Fiorentino in a very unflattering perm, "Crazy for You" probably does a good job of providing some pathos for the doomed lovers. (I say "probably" because I haven't actually seen it but I think the accompanying video gives away enough clues) It even got Madonna a role as a singer in a bar, perhaps enhancing her film ambitions. But it also had the effect of putting a record at the service of a film, a trend we'll see a lot more of going forward.

Madonna would quickly figure out the key to be taken seriously but she couldn't quite shake the desire to do more ill-considered love songs. "Crazy for You" is poor when held up against the likes of "Into the Groove" and "Borderline" but it's actually superior to future wheepies "Live to Tell", "Dear Jessie" and "This Used to Be My Playground". Ballads and films weren't going to do the trick and it's only right that such an unconventional pop star would have to take an unconventional route to legitimacy. Time to start thinking about being ambitious and clever, Madge.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark: "So in Love"

Long unique both for being an act not widely known for hailing from Liverpool (O'Brien doesn't seem aware of it as he praises both China Crisis and The Icicle Works due to local "bias" but is dismissive of this: is Wirral not Merseyside enough?) and being pilloried for becoming less pretentious (this is the group that had two singles in tribute to Joan of Arc), OMD were entering the mid-eighties having gone through some ups and downs but seemed to be weathering the changes in pop better than most. "So in Love" deserved better than its modest top thirty position but it could be that many agreed with O'Brien's take that they needed another "Enola Gay". On the other hand, it earned them their first American hit, setting them up for a breakthrough the following year. It's no "Souvenir" but a worthy single nonetheless.