— Ro Newton
Fifteen singles are up for consideration this fortnight and there are some pretty big names as the UK music industry was gearing up for another Christmas number one chart battle. Artists who have already featured on this blog — The Human League, Alison Moyet, Paul Young, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Communards, Cameo — are joined by Paul Simon, a-ha and Amazulu, making the competition pretty fierce, even if hardly any of them were doing their best work. All but one of these new releases ended up making the charts, with even the Wendy Richard/Mike Berry cover of the already hideous "Come Outside" managing a very modest "hit". It seems swoonsome melodies weren't selling so well.
Big names deserve big record labels and many of them are present here too. The punk-era rise of the independents seems to be on the wane a good decade later. Smaller labels disappeared, others got absorbed into one of the larger competitors and many of the prominent indies that were left had strong acts to keep them afloat. On the other side of the Atlantic there may have been some noise about these alternative acts (although I think at the time most of it was known as 'college rock') but the likes of Depeche Mode, New Order and The Smiths all had major label backing in North America which somewhat undermined their indie status. There's only one truly independent release in this issue's singles page and it was on a small label based in Norwich. The Bible were signed to Backs Records in the Norfolk city. Being on a such a small label undoubtedly contributed to the lack of chart success for "Mahalia", even though preceding single "Graceland" did manage to sneak into the listings. In any case, it is by some distance the best record on offer here and Ro Newton is right to make it her SOTF.
"I sing God's music because it makes me feel free. It gives me hope. With the blues, when you finish, you still have the blues".
Newton admits that she doesn't understand what's going on in this song and I might be right there with her if not for the internet — the quote above having been pinched from the introduction to Mahalia Jackson's Wikipedia page. I don't know if Boo Hewerdine had heard or read this statement but the sentiment feeds into his tribute "Mahalia". Her music brings one closer to a kind of salvation, though not necessarily the heavenly kind. It brings people up ("sing my joyfulness") while the Delta blues of Robert Johnson only manages to drag one down, something Hewerdine isn't having ("I can't understand, I won't understand").
With a name like The Bible and a loving tribute to a gospel great, there's a reasonable expectation that these guys may have been into Jesus. Still, Hewerdine doesn't state his or his group's religious beliefs one way or the other so they're none of my business — and they're irrelevant. Gospel music is great because it can appeal all kinds of people — black and white, young and old, religious or humanist — which typically alludes the bulk of Contemporary Christian music, whose practitioners are playing to their own crowd and busy sucking up to Jesus to be too concerned about making great music. But great gospel transcends the pulpit and the pews and reaches people. The devotional and secular come together to the extent that Aretha Franklin's extraordinary "I Never Loved a Man" isn't simply either a hymn to the Lord or a sexual awakening but might as well be both. Jackson's work isn't as aroused but much of it was as politically-charged as it was religious and her music became part of the Civil Rights Movement.
With Newton's comparison to Haircut One Hundred (perhaps she's thinking of it as a less bouncy "Love Plus One"), a prominent saxophone and an obvious debt to black music, "Mahalia" isn't a million miles away from the slickly-produced UK sub-genre that would eventually be dubbed 'Sophisti-pop' (aka 'Soulcialism'). While forerunners such as ABC, The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout and Avalon-era Roxy Music are still regarded fondly to this day, it was quickly hitting a creative nadir even if it was still a commercial goldmine. The Bible, however, managed to avoid lapsing into smooth jazz-pop territory. It helps that their musical palette was much more diverse than your Blow Monkeys or Climie Fishers (the rest of their excellent debut LP Walking the Ghost Back Home touches upon indie rock and, appropriately given Hewerdine's subsequent career path, folk). Also, while Newton isn't crazy about Hewerdine's voice (personally, I like it), it has character and he clearly isn't concerned with how his Sinatra impersonation is coming along. There's even a sense that the sax solos aren't studied to death. And they weren't on a major record label with oodles of cash at their disposal and pressure to dish up the hits. There's something to be said for being on the fringes.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Curiosity Killed the Cat: "Down to Earth"
The Bible were on the outside but how were mainstream sophisti-pop acts doing? On paper, there should be every reason in the world to dig Curiosity Killed the Cat. Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot can really sing, the group can really play and "Down to Earth" is even kind of catchy. Yet, it's unlikable. There's too much confidence in this lot, too much of a sense that they know what they're doing. Ben isn't asking Mahalia to sing his joyfulness because he'll do so himself, thank you so much. The sophisti-poppers all seemed to have phenomenal record collections yet their scholarship seldom translated into the kind of passion and intensity they loved in their soul heroes. Some mucking about on an indie label would have done them a world of good.
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