Cameo: "Word Up!"

13 August 1986

"So prepare to Cameosisize (? - Ed.) yourself because things are looking very good indeed!"

— Simon Mills

A confession: I used to think it was pronounced 'ka-may-yo'. Down the hill from where I grew up there was (and still is) a Cameo Beauty Salon and for some reason it came up in conversation with my sister. In my defense, 'ka-may-yo' does sound like the name of the soap designed to cleanse your pores. For some reason, this falter on my part stuck and she never failed to remind me of it whenever we were in close proximity of Cameo Beauty Salon — which we always were — and she'll still bring it up to this day. But I think I prefer my mispronunciation and if the group of the same name had looked and sounded like Chic then it would have been a crime for them to be known as anything other than 'ka-may-yo'.

I long assumed Cameo amounted to an outrageous, sexed-up equivalent of Chic but that's really not what they were. Starting off as a funk outfit, the group evolved over time picking up disco, hip hop and synth pop influences. In Larry Blackmon they had a charismatic frontman, all intense eyes and a bright red cod piece to dazzle audiences. Though they were gradually making progress on the charts — 1984 "She's Strange" was the biggest of their modest early hits — they wouldn't truly cash in until "Single Life" nabbed them a Top 20 hit in the UK. (How it missed the US Hot 100 completely is beyond me) A great mash up of swing beat, electro-funk and European synth production wizardry, it's remarkable for how conventional it is. Blackmon sings on it for god's sake! The instruments and samples aren't piled on top of each other! "Single Life" could easily have been the foundation on which they built an impressive run of funk-soul hits but why stay still?

So, instead of more of the same, Cameo just went with more. Sampling themselves (unless they first cribbed the "whistled spaghetti western theme" from elsewhere before using it on "Single Life") the record momentarily baits the listener into thinking they're doing that retread that must have seemed so inevitable. But this one is hits harder, more like a Prince song that doesn't feel the need to launch into a bunch of gaudy guitar solos. Blackmon is sort of rapping on this one, albeit in a fashion that is campy. It's almost as if he'd only been told about hip hop and figured this is how you're supposed to rap. It's tempting to think what LL Cool J or Run-DMC would have done with this but in getting the raps right, they would've ended up getting the record wrong. A line like "wave your hands in the air like you don't care" is trite no matter what you do but, voiced by someone with the mannerisms of an aerobics instructor, it at least seems genuine done by Blackmon; keeping it real rappers of the time could never not care.

Simon Mills is absolutely riveted by "Word Up!" and it's easy to understand why. It's a culmination of everything great about black American music at the time and a tour-de-force performance by Cameo. On the other hand, I wouldn't go quite so far as to say its "a frighteningly good record". While I admire Blackmon's unique attempt at rapping, it takes some getting used to and it gives off a lingering feeling that we're in novelty song territory. Also "frighteningly good"? I'm one to over-gush a song or album I'm enjoying but not to this extent. Just off the top of my head I couldn't tell you if I've ever heard a song that I thought to be "frighteningly good". Anyway, the public weren't turned off by this oversell as it hit the Top 3 so what do I know?

Cameo milked their British success with three more Top 40 hits taken from their 1986 album Word Up! but they failed to repeat it with their next set of singles two years later. People had moved on and the charts reflected different tastes but I have to wonder if a part of their undoing was down to their biggest hit. They crammed everything into "Word Up!" and made it impossible to follow. They chose to keep moving forward from the superb "Single Life" but there was nowhere else to go from here. They had used up all their tricks.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Human League: "Human"

Mills complains that his colleagues tried to strongarm him into making this SOTF which makes me wonder if this was a common occurrence round the offices of ver Hits. Was the bulk of abuse faced by original reviewer Cliff White coming from his co-workers (which he then chose to blame on the kids writing in)? Did Dave Rimmer become the office pariah when he dared question the genius of "Billie Jean"? Did the staff conspire to torpedo Sigue Sigue Sputnik 's future after Martin Degeville and Neal X made such a mockery of the singles? Here, I think his chums have a point, even if I understand giving it to 'Ka-may-yo' instead. With Philip, Joanne and Susanne all well turned out for the video, "Human" is appropriately polished with the Jam & Lewis songwriting-production team giving it that (in the words of critic and chart analyst Chris Molanphy) 'rain on the windowpane' sound. Mills is having none of it, claiming Phil can't sing or something. Uh, and what of Larry Blackmon? Not exactly the smoothest of pipes either. Whatever, like "Word Up!", "Human" is a fantastic pop song but one that also saw them begin to lose their way a bit.