— Paul King
Bloody hell, ver Hits is already going downhill? Well, not quite but it's in these waning months of 1985 that it took its first steps down the pop mag dumper. It became glossier under editor Steve Bush but that's no matter. The big change is just a couple pages past the singles, under the headline REVIEW. There are three music books being critiqued (including Dave Rimmer's brilliant account of Culture Club and UK New Pop Like Punk Never Happened) and four home video music collections but the biggest space saved is for films. Films. There's nothing like ruining a perfectly good music mag by filling space with films. Bloody films.
You might be beginning to suspect that I'm not crazy about films but my real problem is films overshadowing music. The eighties seemed to have an even number of blockbuster films to albums but the former really began overtaking the latter over the course of the decade and by the nineties we're well into the era when asking someone about hearing the latest record by such-and-such is thoroughly passe while it was commonplace to inquire as to whether they'd seen the newest must-see picture. By 1996 I began to be irked by everyone talking about Independence Day but ignoring R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi. What's the matter with people?
But there's also something worrying about a music mag critiquing films (though — also worryingly — this is something one probably only recognizes in retrospect): it sets a bad precedent. Once a music journal begins getting into other areas it's not long before it does a Rolling Stone and begins going on the campaign trail with US presidential hopefulls or a Q which began dubbing itself "the modern guide to music and more". In the case of Smash Hits, it eventually evolved into a teenager's Hello! with early-nineties cover stars from Neighbours and Beverley Hills, 90210 and pages of celebrity gossip. What about covering pop music?
To be fair, there is some effort here to link the movie reviews to pop. The main film this fortnight is the Merseyside period piece Letter to Brezhnev and it includes a glowing write-up on its soundtrack. There's also a review of The Bride starring Sting and, finally, a short bit about how crap St Elmo's Fire is — which it is. An excellent soundtrack (even though it doesn't look like much cop to me), a pop star moonlighting as an actor and the vehicle for a soft rock anthem. Fine, write about films but keep them based around pop and we're good, okay?
Paul King of King (gee, I wonder where they got their name from?) is the guest singles reviewer in this issue and he seems to have been in a very good mood. He's pleased to have been chosen for the task, is taking it seriously and is in no mood to put anyone down while doing so. The closest he gets to bashing anything is by questioning the mixing of "Blue" by Fine Young Cannibals and the slow-as-sludge pacing of Tracie Young's "Invitation" — though, notably, he still manages to praise the efforts of the artists. Elsewhere, he has nothing but good things to say about the hip (Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout, Siouxsie), the mainstream (Eurythmics and Aretha Frankin, UB40, Dee C Lee) and those with bleak chart prospects (The Woodentops, The Icicle Works...er...The Fall).
To pick "Mark Smith" and his group of Mancuian louts The Fall for Single of the Fortnight, then, must be high praise indeed given the top-notch quality of the competition. I'm not quite as fond of this batch of records as King is but I can't disagree. "Cruiser's Creek" is ace. (Plus, it goes some way to rectifying the film review nonsense)
It's tempting to dismiss The Fall for putting out the same bloody records throughout their forty years together. I once listened to a cassette of their 1991 album Shift-Work with a friend and expressed interest in exploring their work in more depth. "Why?" she asked me, "if you've heard one Fall album you've heard them all". (I shouldn't get too high and mighty, however, as I began thinking much the same thing not long after) Of course, there are those hallmarks — Smith's gravely voice, repetitive guitar and bass parts, a whole lot of darkness — but their sound was regularly tweaked by current trends and whatever life happened to throw at their leader.
Certainly King is correct that Smith had mellowed somewhat by the mid-eighties. Being married to Brix Smith would have helped (for now at any rate) and her presence moved them in a lighter direction (making her probably the only person ever to convince him of anything). This being The Fall, it's not as if they went pop but many of their catchiest pieces — "My New House" and "Spoilt Victorian Child", both from '85's This Nation's Saving Grace — date from right around this time. Nevertheless, he wasn't about to let a happy homelife and a creative purple-patch stop him from spewing bile all over the place.
"Cruiser's Creek" may sound like the name of an Australian soap opera but it seems to be the setting for where yuppies get together in order to make Smith vomit in his mouth. Perhaps using his modest rock star status to get into exclusive parties filled with market traders with sail boats, he immediately feels like a fish out of water. Yet, he seems to be drawn back to it. His world of "street litter twisting in the wind / crisp bags turning" doesn't quite grab him and he wants to be back where he has "nice pink bubbles" in his mouth and everyone has "Bianco on the breath". (I assume he means Calabrian wine) It's easy for him to belittle the wealthy but he's just as snide about his own culture (he couldn't have pleased many of his peers with a line like "no more Red Wedge in the pub or ZTT stuff", perhaps that's why it got excised from the 7" release). Still an angry "young" man but perhaps one who can enjoy himself knocking back expensive wines and trashing everyone he sees. I can see the appeal.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Ian Dury: "Profoundly in Love with Pandora"
Something of a national treasure in the UK, Ian Dury's appeal never quite translated elsewhere. It's quite possible that his best known song internationally is this one, even if The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole TV series wasn't exactly a mega-hit. Sitcom themes released as singles always seem a bit wrong: they never quite sound the same and there's always that rest of the song beyond the thirty seconds you're familiar with (although, at least they stick to the Mole storyline throughout). King is positive (because of course he is) but I suspect that at least half of his enthusiasm is down to wishing a hit for Dury, which is fair enough. Nowhere close to his best work, it is nevertheless a charming little curio and is accompanied by the equally cute "Eugenius (You're a Genius)" on the flip side with Dury trying his hand at rapping. A one off, as "they" say.
Bloody hell, ver Hits is already going downhill? Well, not quite but it's in these waning months of 1985 that it took its first steps down the pop mag dumper. It became glossier under editor Steve Bush but that's no matter. The big change is just a couple pages past the singles, under the headline REVIEW. There are three music books being critiqued (including Dave Rimmer's brilliant account of Culture Club and UK New Pop Like Punk Never Happened) and four home video music collections but the biggest space saved is for films. Films. There's nothing like ruining a perfectly good music mag by filling space with films. Bloody films.
You might be beginning to suspect that I'm not crazy about films but my real problem is films overshadowing music. The eighties seemed to have an even number of blockbuster films to albums but the former really began overtaking the latter over the course of the decade and by the nineties we're well into the era when asking someone about hearing the latest record by such-and-such is thoroughly passe while it was commonplace to inquire as to whether they'd seen the newest must-see picture. By 1996 I began to be irked by everyone talking about Independence Day but ignoring R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi. What's the matter with people?
But there's also something worrying about a music mag critiquing films (though — also worryingly — this is something one probably only recognizes in retrospect): it sets a bad precedent. Once a music journal begins getting into other areas it's not long before it does a Rolling Stone and begins going on the campaign trail with US presidential hopefulls or a Q which began dubbing itself "the modern guide to music and more". In the case of Smash Hits, it eventually evolved into a teenager's Hello! with early-nineties cover stars from Neighbours and Beverley Hills, 90210 and pages of celebrity gossip. What about covering pop music?
To be fair, there is some effort here to link the movie reviews to pop. The main film this fortnight is the Merseyside period piece Letter to Brezhnev and it includes a glowing write-up on its soundtrack. There's also a review of The Bride starring Sting and, finally, a short bit about how crap St Elmo's Fire is — which it is. An excellent soundtrack (even though it doesn't look like much cop to me), a pop star moonlighting as an actor and the vehicle for a soft rock anthem. Fine, write about films but keep them based around pop and we're good, okay?
Paul King of King (gee, I wonder where they got their name from?) is the guest singles reviewer in this issue and he seems to have been in a very good mood. He's pleased to have been chosen for the task, is taking it seriously and is in no mood to put anyone down while doing so. The closest he gets to bashing anything is by questioning the mixing of "Blue" by Fine Young Cannibals and the slow-as-sludge pacing of Tracie Young's "Invitation" — though, notably, he still manages to praise the efforts of the artists. Elsewhere, he has nothing but good things to say about the hip (Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout, Siouxsie), the mainstream (Eurythmics and Aretha Frankin, UB40, Dee C Lee) and those with bleak chart prospects (The Woodentops, The Icicle Works...er...The Fall).
To pick "Mark Smith" and his group of Mancuian louts The Fall for Single of the Fortnight, then, must be high praise indeed given the top-notch quality of the competition. I'm not quite as fond of this batch of records as King is but I can't disagree. "Cruiser's Creek" is ace. (Plus, it goes some way to rectifying the film review nonsense)
It's tempting to dismiss The Fall for putting out the same bloody records throughout their forty years together. I once listened to a cassette of their 1991 album Shift-Work with a friend and expressed interest in exploring their work in more depth. "Why?" she asked me, "if you've heard one Fall album you've heard them all". (I shouldn't get too high and mighty, however, as I began thinking much the same thing not long after) Of course, there are those hallmarks — Smith's gravely voice, repetitive guitar and bass parts, a whole lot of darkness — but their sound was regularly tweaked by current trends and whatever life happened to throw at their leader.
Certainly King is correct that Smith had mellowed somewhat by the mid-eighties. Being married to Brix Smith would have helped (for now at any rate) and her presence moved them in a lighter direction (making her probably the only person ever to convince him of anything). This being The Fall, it's not as if they went pop but many of their catchiest pieces — "My New House" and "Spoilt Victorian Child", both from '85's This Nation's Saving Grace — date from right around this time. Nevertheless, he wasn't about to let a happy homelife and a creative purple-patch stop him from spewing bile all over the place.
"Cruiser's Creek" may sound like the name of an Australian soap opera but it seems to be the setting for where yuppies get together in order to make Smith vomit in his mouth. Perhaps using his modest rock star status to get into exclusive parties filled with market traders with sail boats, he immediately feels like a fish out of water. Yet, he seems to be drawn back to it. His world of "street litter twisting in the wind / crisp bags turning" doesn't quite grab him and he wants to be back where he has "nice pink bubbles" in his mouth and everyone has "Bianco on the breath". (I assume he means Calabrian wine) It's easy for him to belittle the wealthy but he's just as snide about his own culture (he couldn't have pleased many of his peers with a line like "no more Red Wedge in the pub or ZTT stuff", perhaps that's why it got excised from the 7" release). Still an angry "young" man but perhaps one who can enjoy himself knocking back expensive wines and trashing everyone he sees. I can see the appeal.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Ian Dury: "Profoundly in Love with Pandora"
Something of a national treasure in the UK, Ian Dury's appeal never quite translated elsewhere. It's quite possible that his best known song internationally is this one, even if The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole TV series wasn't exactly a mega-hit. Sitcom themes released as singles always seem a bit wrong: they never quite sound the same and there's always that rest of the song beyond the thirty seconds you're familiar with (although, at least they stick to the Mole storyline throughout). King is positive (because of course he is) but I suspect that at least half of his enthusiasm is down to wishing a hit for Dury, which is fair enough. Nowhere close to his best work, it is nevertheless a charming little curio and is accompanied by the equally cute "Eugenius (You're a Genius)" on the flip side with Dury trying his hand at rapping. A one off, as "they" say.
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