It's Immaterial: "Space" / Lionel Richie: "Love Will Conquer All"

8 October 1986

"It's got a good groove but I'm not very keen on it."

— Martin Kemp

"He's like a black Cliff Richard. I find him nauseating."

— Gary Kemp

As pop stars reviewing the singles go, you'd have to look long and hard to find anyone to match Gary Kemp. He first did the deed back in May, 1983 and if you didn't know any better you could easily assume that he he was a regular member of the Hits staff. His moonlighting gig as critic produced some astute observations, personal reflections that don't detract from the groups he's evaluating and he even has some pretty great quotes (I still love his claim that The Style Council's "Money-Go-Round" is like a "cockney Gil Scott-Heron"). In places, he writes like the pop icon that he was, in others like a star-struck fan. 

This fortnight, however, he's not quite on earlier form. But he impressed me so much the first time round that I'm prepared to make excuses. Let's examine them.

Martin Kemp

Gary's younger brother was either too busy shopping for tunics in fashionable boutiques on South Molton Street or wasn't invited the last time the singles needed evaluating. He chose to turn up this time and their brotherly interactions give it a different tone. Gary is less of a muso around his kid brother and bandmate though he does do more of the talking. And maybe that's the trouble here: talking. His last review was considered and it seems likely that he wrote it. This one is much more in the vein of a 'sit back and chat while the records are on and we'll record your observations. Observations that happen to be largely negative.

Having Martin around also lowers the standards. Even Samantha Fox had the decency to nominate a Price record when she did the singles but Lionel Richie/ Wasn't there anything a little more inspiring? Apparently not. Like the Kemps themselves, Richie was just about at the end of his chart salad days and this limp ballad milks it for all it's worth. Gary's not at his best as a music critic here but his claim that the former Commodore is a "black Cliff Richard" is one I won't argue with. "Love Will Conquer All" is the weakest SOTF since "25 Years" by The Catch (and possibly even further back to Bob Dylan's awful "Lenny Bruce").

The Decline of Eighties Pop

It's been more than three years since Gary last guested as a Smash Hits singles reviewer and a lot has changed. New Pop is long gone and the music scene is now dealing with the aftermath of Live Aid and the rise of the compact disc. Acts — gasp! — in their thrities are doing well with affluent yuppies buying their stuff. This fortnight there's a rubbish offering from Elton John, a poor remix of The Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me", a pretty good "Going Home (Theme from Local Hero) by Mark Knofler and Aretha Franklin's cover of The Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" which nowhere near as good as the Kemps seem to think. Even the likes of Marc Almond and The Pretenders feel like throwbacks. Oh and there's also Cliff doing a duet from The Phantom of the Opera with Sarah Brighman. And even-then milquetoast Bon Jovi seems like something new and exciting by comparison.

Gary had Shalamar (his previous SOTF), The Style Council, Grandmaster Flash, Michael Jackson and Altered Images at his disposal the last time but now much of what's up for consideration is by older acts enjoying a commercial rebirth but on the decline. And what of up and comers like Sinitta? Now you're just being silly.

The Rise of Indie

With just three records to choose from, indie hardly dominates the selection. One of them is even pick by our Gary as SOTF but, significantly, he's focused on its admittedly obvious debt to Talking Heads. Meanwhile, he's less enthused by more contemporary-sounding alternative groups The Soup Dragon (though I can hardly blame him; see below) and The Woodentops. The Woodies would never become a big chart threat but a lot of people got excited about their current album Giant, which garnered rave reviews. Gary and Martin are both unmoved and I suspect it's at least in part due to talking their eyes off what was going on in the clubs and on The John Peel Show. With all due respect to It's Immaterial, trying to copy David Byrne was nothing new and the ground being set by The Smiths was proving to be much more fertile. Gary probably bought those seminal Heads albums like Fear of Music and Remain in Light and, thus, appreciates the rhythm of "Space" but it's a dead end. "Driving Away from Home" managed to transcend their influences but this follow up to its follow up ("Ed's Diner (Friday Night, Saturday Morning)" had flopped in between) is too on the nose with the source material, the polyrhythms not unlike "I Zimbra" and singer John Campbell's intonations coming straight out of "Electricity (Drugs)". "(Love Affair with) Everyday Living", The Woodentops' latest, isn't any more original but at least it had come out of mid-eighties indie, a scene of some relevance at the time, even if this doesn't matter to Gary or Martin.

The Spands Sliding Towards Ver Dumper

1983 was a big year for Spandau Ballet. "True" became a worldwide smash and "Gold" (how does that one go again?) did almost as well. They'd already enjoyed eight hits prior to that and would go on to have a few more as the decade progressed. 1986 was the last of their good years chart-wise with the reflective power ballad "Through the Barricades" giving them their last Top 10 hit but it sure feels like they were clinging on to relevance. This may go some way to explaining the less-than jovial tone here. Sure, they complain about the bulk of the records because they're crap but it's possible that were no longer enjoying the pop life to its fullest the way they would have been when they were riding the Giddy Carousel of Pop. Being a pop star had become a chore and being guest reviewers for Smash Hits no longer had the cachet of old. (I guess this resentment of the spotlight comes and goes considering Martin would later appear on Celebrity Big Brother)

Our Gary Wasn't Much Cop to Begin With

Nah, he still kills it with his earlier review. I might bash him and his brother not unlike the way they lay into most of the singles here but Gary's a lyricist, an excellent bass player and her could hold his own as a pop critic. At least some of the time.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Soup Dragons: "Whole Wide World"

Four years is a long time in pop music as evidenced by the skinhead oiks thrashing out this mercifully short single who would scarcely resemble the baggy, floppy-fringed purveyors of joyous indie-dance. There are doubtless sad types in some lowland Scottish town still resentful of them "selling out" but there can't be a better case for why one should just go pop. Much as I want to rip the Kemps for not being aware of what was going on at the time, I can't fault them for finding this a "load of crap". Because that's exactly what it is. You wouldn't think they'd be an act to look out for but, as I say, four years is a long time in pop.

Cyndi Lauper: "True Colors"

24 September 1986

"Looks pretty disgusting on paper, doesn't it?"

— William Shaw

I don't remember the song that was playing. I don't even remember if any song was playing. But I can recall the first time I became aware of Madonna. This was an era of megastars. Michael Jackson had a still-massively popular album and was no less visible two years on from the release of Thriller. Prince was all over the place, the fun-sized minstrel wore little more than a leather jock strap and an a kerchief around his neck and, yet, one couldn't look away. Bruce Springsteen was the everyman who made it big and sang rock 'n' roll like it was keeping him on life support. Culture Club had a singer in drag who was nothing like we'd seen before. Duran Duran made it seem like being in a successful pop group was all anyone could ever dream of — and who could blame them?

But Madonna? She didn't stand out as easily, at least at first. It may have been the weakish voice but, as I say, I don't even think there had been a single of her's playing when I first encountered her. It could have been the fact that she wasn't stunningly pretty but I was seven or eight at the time and her looks didn't factor either way. Maybe it was image that failed to connect. In the end, it was probably all of the above since we already had Cyndi Lauper who managed to do it all much better.

Having spent the entirety of her twenties making of go of this pop business, Lauper suddenly found herself a star at thirty with the global hits "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Time After Time" as well as a giant-selling album She's So Unusual. At something of a loss, she struggled to follow it up but her innate ability to keep the focus on herself meant she was rarely out of the public consciousness. She stole the show on "We Are the World" (not a massive achievement but still) screeching at the top of her lungs and bouncing about like a hyperactive little girl as she stood between the sedate Huey Lewis and Kim Carnes. She was the best thing about the WWF's embarrassing Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, her feisty promos alongside Rowdy Roddy Piper and Captain Lou Albano being TV gold and her post-match celebrations with women's champion Wendi Richter were so jubilant that it almost looked like she wanted to be there. Her Goonies theme, "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough", wasn't much cop at all but she was also the soundtrack's musical director and this led to The Bangles getting an early break.

With all that done in the interim, it must have been strange to finally be greeted by some proper work from her that was decidedly downbeat. Sure, she'd already done "Time After Time" but that was on the heals of an infectious pop hit. What was she doing returning with something so pained? This isn't the "kooky" Cydi we all know and love!

Nor is "True Colors" a great song. Lauper gives it her best and it's difficult to imagine it done better but those are some pretty bad lyrics she's been given. Just taking a look at them, it 's remarkable that she was able to get anything out of such drivel. I don't know if I'd go as far as William Shaw to say that they're "disgusting" but they're definitely gauche. It's often easy to read the words to a song and be able to sing along but that's not the case here. The use of meter is applied very inconsistently, as is rhyme. Lines often tail off even in the chorus. Having not heard it in years, I refamiliarised myself over the past week and I still find the trailing "...like a rainbow" to be so painfully awkward. But that's from studying the words; as Shaw says, Lauper transforms it into a "Work of Art". Being a singer with such a unique range, from "screaming away like a wild thing" to "whispering away as sweet as can be", she was the ideal choice to take something trite and turn it into something, well, not quite as trite. I don't imagine Anne Murray (the original choice of composers Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly; incidentally, I would expect something so banal to come from professional pop songwriters but not something so poorly crafted) would have been able to transcend it so effortlessly.

Lauper is proud of "True Colors", identifying it with the LGBTQ movement of which she's a strong supporter. It probably helps to have some meaning added on to this lightweight piece. It did give her a second US chart topper but her time at the top was beginning to wind down. Meanwhile Madonna kept her furious pace of recording, concerts and movies going as the spotlight shifted completely. Cyndi Lauper continues to do things her way and it's incredible to think that she still hasn't been honoured by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Who else managed to chip away at the big time, grabbed on to attention, made the most of her opportunity and did so much with so little as her?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Queen: "Who Wants to Live Forever"

Has there ever been a major group with such erratic material as Queen? For every "You're My Best Friend" and "Somebody to Love", there's a "Radio Ga-Ga" or a "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" to cock things up. It's simply amazing their first two Greatest Hits volumes are so popular since they're both so leaden with junk — particularly the second one. With all that said, isn't "Who Wants to Live Forever" incredible? Brian May and Lord Lucan of Mercury do what they both do best to the extent that colleagues John Deacon and Roger Taylor aren't even needed (though the latter is "credited" on Wikipedia with "playing" the drum machine so there is that). Soundtracking the excellent Highlander movie (and, indeed, all those rubbish sequels and TV tie-ins), it surprisingly wasn't a huge hit but it is now beloved by "all the family". Even those of us heretical Queen skeptics.

The Freeze: In Colour EP

20 September 1979

"Thrust on and beat Simple Minds at their own game (what made me say that?)."

— Andy Partridge

What I previously said:

Guest reviewer Andy Partridge of XTC — a rather big part of this maiden blog post I'm happy to report — thumbed his nose at virtually every single on offer this issue, kind of liked "Video Killed the Radio Star" but still wasn't convinced it could be a hit (then again, he hardly possessed cunning smash single instincts, did he?) and the proceeded to give Scots indie noiseters The Freeze his stamp of approval. I can't see why. Whereas Glass Torpedoes must have seemed like an act that people in the know wanted to keep an eye on, The Freeze are just tired, churning out the same unconvincing punk rock that was already a cliche by this point. Clearly some had yet to move on — and that goes for reviewer and reviewed.

With Cliff White flouncing off to the greener pastures of working for a record company, Smash Hits was at a loss. His fractious relationship with irate readers writing in to complain about his reviews may have turned off other members of the Hits staff to take his place as a permanent singles critic. Red Starr was still toiling away at the albums from all the way up in Scotland but having to write hundreds of words of prose on just one song proved much less attractive a proposition (something I know only too well). With everyone else "busy" at other "tasks" it fell to pop stars to pick up some of the slack. In these early years of the magazine, this was a rarity but, happily, ver Hits never quite went the Number One route of getting the likes of the Cookie Crew, Martika and Aloysius Parker (yes, a puppet off The Thunderbirds) to do the singles every single week.

Pop trivia fun fact time: XTC's Andy Partridge was the first pop star to review the Smash Hits singles. (It's something I'm revealing here but I hope that the upside of this blog's obscurity is that I might be able to use it at a pub quiz at some point down the road) Not an especially big act at the time, Swindon's finest were on the verge of a commercial breakthrough with the Colin Moulding-penned "Making Plans for Nigel", though they had already enjoyed a trio of Top 40 albums (with the latest Drums and Wires having been released only a month earlier) along with the acclaim of being a superlative live act. Yet, it still seems recruiting their leader in to sift through the new releases was a puzzling choice even if you consider that the Hits was still a long way off being the home for Stock Aitken Waterman signings. 

Still, Partridge did have experience in the field, having already made the Angelic Upstarts cross enough for them to threaten him with GBH due to an earlier guest review spot. He doesn't mention who he previously wrote for nor am I able to locate it online but I imagine it was easy to recognise he was the finest literary pop mind this side of Elvis Costello. XTC reissues over the last two decades have been a mixed bag with outstanding deluxe editions of many of their great albums, some decent but could be better box sets and the so-so Fuzzy Warbles series but His Nibs' liner notes have always been brilliant regardless. Priceless quips (though for some reason someone had his claim that "You and the Clouds May Still Be Beautiful" had 'nothing to do with Sting' from Homegrown expunged from the Apple Box notes), some detailed psychological background and loads of popstar apologetics are but some of the highlights of his prose. He is much more effective at scribbling notes about his own work than the material of others but his turn as singles reviewer still makes for a fine if perplexing read.

With twenty-five brand new records on offer you'd think that Partridge would find complimentary words for more than four of them. Then again, his "criticism" isn't especially clear so there may be a handful more that he quite liked but he wished to ramble on with amusing observations in lieu of praise. Works by The Fall ("Souds like the cover, cheap biro, bad relationships"), Noel ("The song is grey. The teeth are yellow"), The Barracudas ("The sort of disc that puts sand in your lunch") and Tommy Band ("...whoops, there's some hairspray on the grooves") are those that fall into this critical grey area. Elsewhere his wryness is such that he offers up an olive branch to all those he spurned in the form of an epilogue: "I'm going away now, so I'll say don't take criticism to heart — I love you all really". A bit sad that he feels the need to apologise for his reviews but at least he's addressing his fellow artists and not a bunch of grumpy Smash Hits readers (they had stern words for him about his thoughts on Sad Cafe and being a pain in the abdomen but I'm sure our Andy got over it in time).

Moving on, I was previously critical of both Partridge and The Freeze for being too stuck in the 1977 punk time warp but I think I was guilty of giving them the brush off far too swiftly. Repeated listens to In Colour have allowed the subtleties to emerge. "Paranoia" is cloaked in speed-freak punk, as is "For J.P.S.": I didn't hear the "good melody" and "good melodies, good, good" respectably but their playing is far too competent and their arrangements much too sophisticate to be merely dismissed as yet another throwback — and with the UK Subs offering up oh so more of the same ("Yesterday's cover, yesterday's sound") this very fortnight, I really do have egg on my face. But it's on "Psychodalek Nightmares" that my short shrift really goes all out. Did I even listen to this bloody song the first time round?

Partridge seems to have played the two sides in reverse order (Steve Bush isn't alone in that regard) and I think he was right to do so. "Psychodalek Nightmares" "buzzes nicely" along for over five minutes and is adventuresome in a way that its mates on the flip side only hint at.  A more unsettling "How Soon Is Now?" done five years in advance and with some of the finest rock violin playing since The Velvet Underground's "Black Angel's Death Song", it really shows how their rich, artier side was what made them stand out. It's as if "Paranoia" and "For J.P.S." are there to ease the old punks in while those of us prepped for something fresh were ready to dive right in on the other side.

Not that any of this is to my taste exactly, just that I wish to offer up a bit a mea culpa for my dismissive remarks above. I turned two years old in 1979 so I was probably getting my music either from Sesame Street or through my mum as she played The Beatles. Now, I'm mostly happy to listen to Fleetwood Mac's astonishing warts and all masterpiece Tusk and the surprisingly catchy free jazz-world music-new age Codona from the trio of Don Cherry, Naná Vasconcelos and Collin Walcott. And Drums and Wires by XTC: because Andy Partridge could be counted on for far more than just a bunch of bitchy singles review quips.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Buggles: "Video Killed the Radio Star"

There are songs that sound better in your head than when you listen to them and then there's "Video Killed the Radio Star", a track dominated so wholly by the twee singing of some lass that it's almost inevitable that you'll forget all about the fantastic tune that mixes old school pop with futuristic production. Trevor Horns "sings" like he's doing Rob Brydon's 'Man Trapped in a Box' routine, the bass jumps around all over the place, the keys twinkle about and only that sad guitar solo hints at anything so gauche as the seventies. The eighties are nearly upon us kids! Too tidy, Partridge? Off yer bike lad!

Sharpe & Numan: "New Thing from London Town"

10 September 1986

"In a fortnight sadly lacking in dazzling delights, this was the only single that demanded to be heard again."

— Ian Cranna

Looking at the quotation above you'd think that that "super"group Sharpe & Numan's competition this fortnight is nothing but a bunch of mid-eighties mediocrities and you may not be wrong (UB40? Paul Young? Sir Billiam of Idol? Falco? Nik always-a-laugh-and-a smile Kershaw? Ultravox for god's sake) but for the fact that Ian Cranna is pretty impressed with the bulk of what's on offer. True, there's nothing that's lights out brilliant or anything and some of these acts were beginning to look like relics even then but it's a respectable batch nonetheless. I might not demand to hear any of these again but I wouldn't turn very many off if they came on. If the singles here are low on "dazzling delights" then that certainly goes for this issue's SOTF.

My junior high school library had this one book that my friend Ethan and I spelled each other on perpetual lone. The Rock Book wasn't actually called The Rock Book but that's what we called it (it was something like The Rand-McNally Book of Rock or The McMurray-Douglas Real Estate Book of Rock but I have no idea) and it was something the two of us devoured. It was hardly a flawless work of reference: discographies were leaden with howlers (I'm still looking for that elusive Smiths album Sheila Take a Bow) and the fact that they reckoned The Police merited a larger spread than The Beatles was puzzling but it had a lot going for it as well, not the least of which being that it was the only thing available. While there were write ups on plenty of artists and groups we were familiar with, I tended to be drawn more to the acts I had no idea about. Love had a dead boring group name and didn't have any hits but the cover of one of their albums (Forever Changes, it would turn out) looked good and they were definitely something I promised myself I would look out for (until I promptly forgot all about them; good thing I had a chance to discover them years later). The Jam was Paul Weller's first group (I had no idea he'd done anything prior to The Style Council) in which he actually dared to rock (it didn't sound too promising but I hoped to give them a go). But the act I found myself especially drawn to was Gary Numan.

He seemed a quixotic character with brooding persona that was one part Peter Gabriel at his most outlandish in Genesis and one part Morrissey. British mope rock had its stars (in addition to Moz, there was Robert Smith and Siouxsie Sioux) and synth pop was still a major factor (The Rock Book was my thing in 1990 when two of synth's three greatest albums, Behaviour and Violator, were released; the other one is Dare) and Gazza seemed like a perfect meeting point. Sure, Depeche Mode were around but I always considered them to be too pervy and poppy to really fit in with the glum contingent. Turns out, it was too perfect a crossover. Still, he seemed charismatic, his album covers looked great and he looked like just the sort of figure to woo a moody adolescent. Perhaps it's for the best I never got the chance to listen to his music at the time.

LA act Sparks have recently been re-evaluated. Actually, it seems like they're always being given critical reconsideration, which is strange when you consider they've never really fallen out of favour. I'm not sure what to do with them myself. I got the triple set Past Tense collection last year and though I love material on the second disc, there's not much for me elsewhere. Plus, I think I'm getting weary of being told how underrated they are by everyone on Twitter. (I didn't think it possible to be underrated when you seem to get nothing but glowing reviews but there you go) They are, however, important to this week's entry since they invented the concept of the synth pop duo. Having jettisoned previous members, brothers Ron and Russell Mael managed to similarly rid themselves of glam rock and had become an electronic act by the end of the seventies and the commercial and creative second wind they enjoyed with the No.1 in Heaven album proved influential. While larger acts — The Human League, New Order, ver Deps, Propaganda — would also thrive playing synthesizers, their fuller lineups tended towards bringing guitars and drums and other "proper" instruments in to augment their sound. (Even synth-adjacent duos like Eurythmics and Tears for Fears gradually became open towards more analogue-friendly modes) Pairings had little to work with, a deadpan vocalist and his/her very camera-shy partner doing as little as possible behind a keyboard, but I think that kept them on the right path.

So, the once hugely popular Gary Numan had been seeing his chart fortunes waning for some time and it's a credit to his loyal posse of Numanoids that he managed to avoid the dumper for longer than most. By 1985, he was six years on from the peak of "Are 'Friends' Electric" and "Cars" but he must have seen how the likes of Soft Cell, Yazoo and Blancmange had been doing with vocalist-keyboardist dynamic. He promptly went out and brought in Bill Sharpe of Shakatak to be his very own David Ball, Vince Clarke or, er, other one from Blancmange. The pair got off to a promising start with the Top 20 hit "Change Your Mind" but they didn't immediately follow it up and soon Numan was back doing solo material. It wouldn't be for another year-and-a-half that they would be back: so much for building upon momentum.

"Change Your Mind" had been Numan's biggest hit of '85 with solo efforts barring a live EP missing the Top 40 altogether. 1986 got off to a better start with back-to-back chart entries but now all of a sudden he's back with his partner Sharpe in a synth duo. "New Thing from London Town" is reasonably good, not quite up to the scratch of "Change Your Mind" but probably of a higher standard than much of his other recent work. Sharpe's playing does its best to rescue Gazza from the goth rock sewer, its sound not unlike the cinematic darkness of Propaganda's "Dr. Mabuse". Cranna wonders just what this "new thing" is supposed to be and it's a good question (a quick study of the lyrics doesn't reveal much). If it's meant as a statement of intent then Numan doesn't go far enough and it's not helped by being yet another one off effort. A redone version cropped up on solo album Strange Charm and the pair wouldn't be heard from again until they had a minor Top 40 entry in early 1988. Automatic, their one album as a unit, wouldn't come out until '89.

Gary Numan had been resistant to give the Sharpe & Numan tag a proper go, admitting that he didn't wish to alienate the few fans he had left. A pity since the project might have given him the shot in the arm his career needed at the time. It seems he never wished to stray too far in one direction, either by going fully synth pop or by going with a stronger goth-industrial approach. While it may have been admirable for him to try to toe that line, there's too much compromise to his work as the eighties progressed. Synth duos Soft Cell, Yazoo and Blancmange were largely gone by this point but the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure had now emerged and both would carve out excellent careers loaded with hits and strong albums. On the other hand, by the time the one-and-done Sharpe & Numan pet project LP had finally come out a new American act called Nine Inch Nails was busy finishing off their debut Pretty Hate Machine. Trent Reznor has always made a point of citing his debt to Numan but this is arguably a case of the protegee surpassing the mentor. Sometimes you just have to take a side already.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Housemartins: "Think for a Minute"

Housemartins backlash has begun: Cranna despises their "weedy, contrived silliness" and you have to think this is down in large part to "Happy Hour", their huge hit that had ver blokes all over England chanting along while downing pints. Yeah, yeah, the song was in fact about socialism (or something) but they were asking for it with such a stupid video. "Think for a Minute" was the follow up and is a marked improvement to Cranna. I have a lot of time for Paul Heaton and his first two bands but this is too much trying to right a wrong with another extreme. This time it's self-righteousness that harms the record. Heaton and co-writer Stan Cullimore (and later collaborator David Rotheray) would soon come up with much better tunes about society's descent into me first Tory solipsism but I guess this is acceptable as a early go — though, having said that, early flop single "Flag Day" is similarly themed and also superior. Spoiler alert: we'll be seeing them before long when it really starts to go right. Stay tuned, readers.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "Tokyo Storm Warning"

27 August 1986

"The appealing thing about Elvis is that he wraps his ideas up in strong melodies which don't detract from what he's saying. And you can dance to them..."

— Ro Newton

This fortnight's singles were reviewed by Ro Newton, a Hits critic I don't know a great deal about. Very brief bios online say she now goes by the name of Rosemary Barrett but either way she doesn't have a huge social media presence, if she at all. But two things of note about her back in the day: (1) she was a presenter on The Old Grey Whistle Test alongside fellow music journalists Mark Ellen and David Hepworth and (2) she made that most unlikely of jumps from Number One to Smash Hits.

As a boy it would sometimes puzzle me when competing sides would act like their main rival didn't exist. There was no trace of Superman in the world of Marvel Comics and the Avengers were nowhere to be found in DC. A newcomer hero or villain at one wrestling promotion would never be acknowledged as having previously been a part of another. Newton's arrival at ver Hits wasn't trumpeted with a 'she's joining us after a successful stint at rival pop mag Number One', nor was her departure from Numero Uno given a 'she's off to improve the fortunes of Hash Smits and jolly good luck to her!' One can only imagine the hurt leaving her old job caused as well as the suspicion with which her new co-workers held her. Being a Whistle Test presenter, she might not have given a toss which teen pop mag she was toiling for since her heart may have been in indie rock. And who better to give props to in her first singles review at bat than Elvis Costello?

1984 saw the release of Goodbye Cruel World, Costello's disastrous post-divorce ninth album that almost no one likes. He has subsequently gone into spin mode on it, declaring that it's his worst album of good songs or best album of crap songs or something but in any event, the entire experience was enough to get him to try something new. With that in mind, he ditched the eighties production and sythns and did a roots country work called King of America. He even ditched his longtime band The Attractions in favour of some crack American sessioners. It's a big improvement on Goodbye... but still flawed. After a while the clever yarns, funny lyrics ("She said that she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use" is still one of the best lines he's ever come up with) and rootsy tunes get a bit on the wick and I'm never able to make it much past the tenth track "Eisenhower Blues". Again, a different approach was in order.

Getting back with fellow Attractions Steve Nieve, Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas with King... in the can, Costello discovered that there wasn't much left for him musically. No one in the group liked each other anymore and so they made the best of a bad situation by thrashing away at their instruments. As if to compensate, Costello put his pen in overdrive, writing lengthy verses for at least two tracks of their latest release Blood & Chocolate. A big favourite among his still-loyal following, it's a good marking for just how much Declan MacManus one can take. Turns out, I can only take so much but it's his most avowedly rock album since This Year's Model so there are people out there who reckon it's one of the best things His Nibs ever did.

Newton praises his melodies but in this respect Blood... is probably his weakest album to date. His bandmates often sound like an especially glum bar band so perhaps he just didn't have much to work with. Lyrically it's all over the shop with the twice rejected "I Hope You're Happy Now" ("...it almost sounded like pop music," admits its author, doing his best to justify an uncharacteristically bland song) making the cut along with the unnecessarily long "I Want You". But this approach wasn't for naught as it did get a piece like "Tokyo Storm Warning" out of his system.

They say that a day in Bangkok is too much but a week isn't enough. Apparently that's Costello's take on the Japanese capital too. You arrive and there are neon signs with chicken scratch hiragana and katakana characters, grotesque cosplay youths and oddball mascots and, bloody hell!, where am I?!? Culture shock is bad enough just crossing the Atlantic but here in the Far East? At least they speak some form of English in Vegas! Of course, you eventually come down and discover that the people are friendly, the food's great (if a little too salty) and all that crap that bugged you out at first is actually pretty cool. You love Japan — until you come back.

The above has never been my experience visiting Japan (aside from all the good stuff) but I know what it's like to be alienated by a massive Asian city. Bangkok, Jakarta, Singapore, Seoul: they've all irritated and freaked me out at various times for different reasons. What I never did was equate any of them with conflicts in Afghanistan or Kosovo. I don't know where Costello gets the idea that his aggrieved and jet lagged self is somehow looking at Tokyo through the prism of the Falklands, Palestine and South Africa but at least he got a good song out of it. Verses come at you in waves with loads of impressive imagery ("Between the Disney abattoir and the chemical refinery", "Japanese God, Jesus robots telling teenage fortunes") that either means everything or nothing.  Indeed, the chorus shrugs its shoulders ("what do we care?") but I'd much rather sing along with whatever the hell Costello's going on about.

The downside, however, is that it's best consumed just the once. Just as albums like Dark Side of the Moon and OK Computer never sound as good on repeated listens so,too, does "Tokyo Storm Warning". There aren't any hidden elements or musical touches to rediscover and the endless verses can become heavy-handed rather quickly. That doesn't mean it can't be appreciated further, just that weaknesses do creep in after a few plays. Newton is reminded of The Rolling Stones' classic "Satisfaction" but for me it's more like Dylan's brilliant "Highway 61 Revisited", albeit without the humour, playfulness and siren whistle. The Bard is very much at the heart of what Costello is doing here and the comparison almost works. If it is his "Desolation Row" then it's only because nothing else qualifies.

Newton's recommendation didn't do much for its chart prospects as it stalled just inside the Top 75. In addition to its stream-of-consciousness lyrics, radio programmers and listeners may have been turned off by having to flip the single over just to hear the second half of the song. In any case, it never had much commercial potential but it retains a special place in the Elvis Costello canon, despite it being a bunch of codswallop. Or, and here's a thought, perhaps precisely because it is.

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Also Review This Fortnight

New Order: "State of the Nation"

Nowadays everyone sings with their eyes closed and likes New Order but that wasn't always the case. They made a string of good but not great LP's and had a run of singles that was pretty damn impressive but they seldom put out anything that people went bananas for and were kind of taken for granted by the pop world — and I can certainly see why with "State of the Nation". Another six minute-plus single, it's helped rather than hindered by Factory having the good sense to edit it down for the 7" mix. A supposed protest song, the lyrics are really just a textbook example of how Barney Sumner would telegraph his rhymes. The tune a is vaguely jangly throwback to "Everything's Gone Green" but which seems out of date next to follow-up single "Bizarre Love Triangle". Nothing special and they did much better — even if they also did worse.

Madness: "Madness"

6 September 1979

"The A-side is a cover version of the 1964 cult single, and the B-side is the band's own tribute to Prince Buster."

— Steve Bush

This would be an accurate summation of what's on the A and B sides if it wasn't completely wrong. Steve Bush's error may have been because he was sent a botched promo copy, because his Smash Hits mates purposefully gave him false information or because he made a careless mistake. And, while the purported flip is clearly the superior track, I can kind of understand why might have assumed "Madness" to have been their lead single's flagship song. It's an introduction to a new band where "The Prince" is a call back to a name from the past. Ver kids could have got their rocks out to some jolly rocksteady fun and it's easy to see why it could make a popular concert standout. And who kicks their career off by longing for an old ska veteran to make his return: didn't the members of Madness want to show off what they were capable of?

The late seventies ska revival seemed to come out of nowhere and, if you weren't a Coventry scenester, you would have had good reason for assuming so. Unknown acts became stars overnight as everyone came flying out of the gate. The old Coventry Automatics were now The Special A.K.A. and they debuted with the brilliant "Gangsters", catchy as all hell, something everyone would want to dance to but with a dark heart of aching melancholy in Terry Hall's vocals. Flip the single over and you got "The Selecter", an eponymous number which is almost as wonderful as its better-remembered A-side. Pauline Black's singing is an acquired taste and the group was never quite as "special" as their ska associates but it's a great track in its own right and you'd have every reason to believe they had as much of a future as anyone. The Beat chose to get things started with a cover of Smokey Robinson's "Tears of a Clown" (matched with their own "Ranking Full Stop" as a double A), something of a risk if you consider that Motown/Northern soul fans were still an influential presence at the time and their distaste for a tenth rate rendition of a Miracles classic could have torpedoed the chances of Dave Wakeling, Ranking Roger and the rest. Good thing they did it well and their Kingston-Motor City crossover may have only led to a more widespread acceptance of British ska.

Also recording their first single at this time was a group from Camden Town. Midlands groups could very easily have spurned a bunch of wacky Londoners but Specials leader Jerry Dammers saw something in them, even if he himself couldn't quite quantify it. "I went to see them and they were really basic," he observes, "just like a school band". Indeed, with Suggs being just eighteen, they were barely out of that playing-Cockney Rebel-records-on-full-volume-in-the-sixth-form-common-room-much-to-the-dismay-of-the-school-headmaster phase that we all go through. (Or was that just me, even if I went to high school in Canada, played Beautiful South albums in the school drama room and my teachers were the only ones who didn't tell me to turn them off) Their playing was rudimentary but they did have a couple songs including future hit "My Girl". Dammers signed them up for a one off 2 Tone single.

The result is not something you'll find on a Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Debut Singles list (notably, they also left off "Gangsters" so they may not have been looking at ska when they put it together) but "The Prince" is a tremendous work and a sign of things to come. In isolation, however, it may have seemed like a slight let down next to their 2 Tone compatriots. The Special A.K.A, The Beat and The Selecter had all been pounding out sweaty ska classics live but Madness didn't come from this same world. More closely connected to Ian Dury, they were entertainers and songsmiths. Politics played a part of their sound but there was so much more waiting to come out. Ska remained though more often in spirit than in practice. They weren't to know it at the time but they were set to be the group we would all want to bring back whenever they'd disappear like Prince Buster.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Gary Numan: "Cars"

Taken all the way to the top of the charts then and regarded as a post-punk, synth-pop classic today, it's amazing there aren't more who see through the emptiness of "Cars". "Are 'Friends' Electric?" is still extraordinary and ought to be the one everyone remembers. Sure, Trent Reznor still reckons it's the bees knees (and he's right) but it doesn't get the love of this "disappointing" follow up. Far more purely synthy than its predecessor, "Cars" lacks the ecstatic thrill of the best records of its (or any) time. Gary Numan would admit trying to pen a hit and he certainly succeeded but a musical achievement this ain't.

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.

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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.