The Bolshoi: "Sunday Morning"

3 December 1986

"Friday is red, Saturday is white and "Sunday morning" is kind of sky blue and pale yellow."

— Vici MacDonald

It was announced in Bitz a fortnight earlier that yet another member of the Hits staff would be moving on. Editor Steve Bush had only departed a month earlier and now the head of design would be joining him on the dole queue. Well, not so much. Bush was off mastermind the success of other magazines and Vici MacDonald would even be "popping in from time to time to write horrible things about The Cocteau Twins and Mike Smith". Ver kids barely had enough time to make Nick Kamen collages on the front of their geography work books before she was back (BACK!) to handle reviewing the singles. Some people can't bring themselves to stay away.

Alas, there was no Cocteau Twins for her to slag off (and, indeed, she refrained from laying into Mike Smith) but MacDonald can always be trusted to take on some sacred cows in her reviews. It's likely that few would have taken notice of her penchant for giving the likes of Madonna, Prince and Bruce Springsteen a good critical duffing over but it might cause a few raised eyebrows now. They were all huge stars then but that's nothing compared with the reverence with which they're held more than thirty years hence. Madge even crops up in the singles page, with "Open Your Heart" sharing a review with "I'm All You Need" by Samantha Fox. MacDonald doesn't think much of the two lightweight numbers and takes the opportunity to point out the curious double standard that Madonna was taken seriously while Fox was dismissed as a "slag" ("either they're both slags or they both aren't", she rightly points out). 

MacDonald saves her harshest criticism this fortnight, however, for the likes of Paul McCartney's "Only Love Remains" ("compare this banal slush with almost anything he did with The Beatles and you really will weep"), Rod Stewart's cover of "In My Life" ("...sounds uncannily like the unsavoury old gent at Waterloo Station who tried to cage 10p off you for a "cuppa" and wheezes most disgustingly if you don't oblige"), Status Quo's "Dreamin'" ("...plonk this record on and you're straight back in 1974 which, as any "oldster" will tell you, was a very horrible year") and the Daryl Hall solo "I Wasn't Born Yesterday" ("why is it that all American mainstream pop songs sound much the same?"). The old farts aren't up to much but at least there are some young guns (and The Pretenders) with records that you'll want to listen to and that MacDonald might deign to give faint praise.

Delighting her most (or disappointing her least) is "Sunday Morning" by The Bolshoi. A pleasant surprise for MacDonald, the song's indie jangle pop contrasts with their supposed goth image. They don't appear especially Wagnerian to me, though this is mainly down to the group's casual demeanour in the accompanying promo. Direct predecessor "Away" (aka "A Way", the ambiguous little scamps) is much more in line with goth rock's spidery guitars, crashing drums, gaunt lead singer and creepy videos but, even then, there's this feeling that they don't quite fit it in — or if they do, shouldn't the umbrella of goth stretch further to include Suede? Either way, it's not as if they gave it all a big rethink since the two tracks both appear on the same album, 1986's Friends.

For her part, MacDonald doesn't even go into The Bolshoi's goth sound and I think her focusing on their look is instructive to understanding goth. The Cure had been through plenty of darkness but they also explored a much lighter side on "The Lovecats" and "The Caterpillar". The Sisters of Mercy were already incorporating dance elements into their sound and this was something that should have surprised no one given that Doktor Avalanche has been a permanent fixture on the drum machine. The Cult scarcely seemed goth at all and were typically little more than an updated and inferior version of The Doors. All About Eve were really just a folk group. The point is, pinning down The Bolshoi as goth is both tricky and easy: they don't really sound Teutonic so they don't qualify but, then, neither does anyone else so why not welcome them into the fold?

MacDonald doesn't appreciate the Catholic guilt of the lyrics, feeling that they "don't suit the mood of the music at all", but I think she's failing to grasp how going to church can cloud an otherwise lovely Sunday. I was nine-years-old in 1986 and I much preferred the last day of the weekend to the first. Saturdays were bogged down by swimming lessons and basketball games: I wasn't able to watch all the Saturday morning cartoons that I wanted and I could never go to birthday parties because of other commitments. Sundays, on the other hand, were all about going for a drive with my family, visiting grandparents, going to the park. En route to wherever we were headed, we would catch the dour faces of people going to church. Spending a nice day at such a miserable place? No, thank you. The Bolshoi seem to have something similar in mind on "Sunday Morning": days that are indeed "sky blue and pale yellow" which end up wasted away in the pointless tedium of a worship service. The video puts singer Trevor Tanner and his band on a sofa in his flat that then ends up in various locations (a pub, adjacent to a swimming pool, on an ice rink) that they would rather be at than in some bloody church. Finally, Catholic "guilt" Vici? (inverted commas are her's) Trevor isn't feeling guilty of anything, he's just had enough pretending to feel guilty — and who can blame him?

"Sunday Morning" is a superb track and evidence that you can't go wrong with a bit of Byrdsian jangle. There may not be a more malleable basis for a song and these supposed goths get so much out of it. A dark bridge ("it's wrong to feel, it's wrong to care, you must not steal, you must not swear" delivered by a scarier Tanner) gives away their roots but it segues in and out so effortlessly that it hardly matters. Get a 12-string acoustic, some gentle piano chords and make it sound as light as a Sunday morning breeze and you've got yourself a hit — or a Single of the Fortnight that somehow misses the charts.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Heavy D & The Boyz: "Mister Big Stuff"

A hip hop throwback to the era of boasting all about how bloomin' wonderful rappers are, I was hoping to enjoy "Mister Big Stuff" as much as MacDonald. Alas, three-and-a-half decades' distance have failed to endear these ears to a sound that Public Enemy ought to have dispensed with not long after. She admits that it's little more than a novelty record (albeit a "happy and jolly and fun" one in her words) and that was always the trouble with groups like Heavy D & The Boyz: they could never get past the high jinks and the comedy couldn't last forever. A shame since Heavy D was a talented rapper who seemed capable of more.

The Bible: "Mahalia"

19 November 1986

"This is highly wistful and contains a wonderfully swoonsome melody — even though the singer is no great "shakes" and I haven't the foggiest what he's going on about."

— 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.

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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.

The Undertones: "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?)"

18 October 1979

"On the other hand, these guys are utter naturals and this is their best offering since their first."
— David Hepworth

With Cliff White gone from the singles review page, Smash Hits was free to try out some new people for the job. The grumpy reviews from Andy Partridge and Chris Difford may have turned them off of the idea having pop stars do the dirty work for them (something they wouldn't go back to for quite some time) but, then, White's often confrontational relationship with cross readers may have prompted others on staff to shy away from the task, thereby prompting the need to bring in these ringers. Red Starr was all about the albums (at least for the time being) and Steve Bush was too busy transforming these rather lifeless, stilted pages into the work of aesthetic art they'd eventually become. Luckily, they found their semi-regular man in David Hepworth, a music critic of the highest quality who wasn't the least bit resentful of the fortnightly burden being placed on him — not yet at any rate.

In an era in which music journalism appears to be on the wane, Hepworth is one of pop's most prominent critics. He currently hosts the excellent Word in Your Ear podcasts along with fellow Hits alum Mark Ellen, he's prolific enough to have published a book every year for the last half-decade and his vast knowledge, wealth of theories and deep Yorkshire brogue make him a regular for radio and online interview segments. How odd that the demise of the printed pop rag would result in a music critic becoming just about famous.

I have long had aspirations to be a music critic and Hepworth is one of my inspirations. But his example shows you why I could never really cut it in that field. My generation of hacks has been defined by so-called poptimism. A response to rockist nonsense that predominated in the eighties and nineties, the poptimists laid to rest the concept of having "guilty pleasures" like ABBA and The Bee Gees, instead they chose to evaluate them on their own merit. Old charges that Elvis was no good because he didn't "write his own songs" no longer mattered. The movement spread so quickly that Britney Spears went from being dismissed as yet another pop bimbo in around 1999 to being treated with respect five years later.

Hepworth is no poptimist but he does possess at least one trait that comes in handy in order to be one: he can happily listen to music made by people younger than he is. Nowadays this is nothing special — fifty-year-olds consume K-Pop and there's a good chance you'll see packs of middle-aged friends having a grand old time at an Ariana Grande concert — but back in the day the generation gap meant something. Much older music seemed ancient, newer stuff was just throwaway junk. Older critics evaluating punk could have been beset with resentment but I think they were often better at separating the wheat from the chaff. Acts that presented themselves as all about punk rock snarl could be seen off by those not under its spell; those who had the musicianship and tunes to back them up were easily identified as groups with some merit.

There may be some artists more to his taste (see below) but it's to Hepworth's credit that he's able to see that "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?)" by The Undertones is the best thing on offer here — even if he doesn't go right out and say it. Like the Buzzcocks (also reviewed this fortnight, though not at their best), Derry's finest were one of those punk groups who were able to stretch out their appeal beyond their natural fanbase. While the Sex Pistols and their ilk were still churning out the same old turgid noise to the same fans from three years earlier and The Clash were busy lapping up far too many influences for everyone to keep up, The Undertones were all about bringing pop and punk together. This was most clearly evidenced by the multi-generational appeal of their first single "Teenage Kicks". John Peel famously wept the first time he heard it but it's just easy to picture young children getting down to it as it is forty-year-old DJ's.

I've previously written that "Teenage Kicks" would cast a long shadow over the band but it was one they were trying to escape. "You've Got My Number" is actually a better group performance, with surprisingly intricate guitar work and more propulsive playing from the rhythm section. Feargal Sharkey ("as good a singer as you'll find anywhere", Hepworth reckons though I wouldn't go quite that far) has also improved as a vocalist with a much more authoritative delivery. Sure, it doesn't have that same energy and raw power as their debut and the writing is awfully slight but there's an inescapable feeling that a breakthrough is looming (on a much larger scale, the apt comparison may be with The Beatles when they released "I Feel Fine": not a great pop song but one performed so tightly and with such gusto that it ended up being a slight creative step backwards en route to a given leap forwards the following year). The Undertones would have their biggest run of success just on the horizon.

It's nice to see a band make that great leap forward. The Undertones had that potential and may have been held back somewhat by punk orthodoxy. Nowadays there isn't as much of an opportunity to be privy to musical growth, what with the prevailing poptimist notion that everyone is fine the way they are. It almost makes me wish for a return to rockist values: just don't call me a rockist either.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Nils Lofgren: "No Mercy"

So, what was it I was saying about about the generation gap in pop? Nils Lofgren is a year younger than Hepworth and just a few years older than The Undertones. (These things matter more to an ageist like myself than to anyone being discussed here) Still, "No Mercy" is the sort of clever singer-songwriter ditty that people with plenty of Randy Newman in their record collections really dig. Hepworth admits that "No Mercy" is "pretty melodramatic" (which, incidentally, ruled it out as SOTF in my estimation) but he is utterly charmed nonetheless. Lofgren's vocals may not be to everyone's taste but to those of us with good taste they sound sweet and effortless. A nice if unremarkable record, albeit one ruined slightly by some very unnecessary piped in audience noise. Is there anything wrong with just being in a studio?

Debbie Harry: "French Kissin' in the USA"

5 November 1986

"Why, I was just saying the other day, "What the world needs now is the return of Debbie Harry", and lo and behold here she is, sounding just as brill as she did 250 years ago with Blondie."

— Barry McIlheney

More changes were "afoot" in the Carnaby St. offices of Smash Hits in the autumn of 1986. Longtime design editor and editor-in-"chief" of the past eighteen months Steve Bush was off to the greener pastures of other magazines. He was the last holdover from the seventies, witnessing the early days of Dexys Midnight Runners, Dexys at their commercial and creative zenith and Dexys' long, painful slide into the dumper — though, alas, he didn't stay long enough for Kevin Rowland's return in drag. He received cross words from Hits faithful who were none-too-pleased that he mixed up the two sides of Madness' first single but he overcame that particular hiccup to help oversee it into the phenomenon it would become. Did you enjoy many of those covers back in the day? The layout? The fonts? The fact that every little single-page photo would "helpfully" point out that what you have is a poster? Be sure to thank Steve Bush for making your teenage years just that little bit less of a nightmare.

With his departure, it became incumbent on the bigwigs to find someone else to thanklessly put together eighty-eight pages of pop delight every fortnight to enthrall ver kids. Choosing not to go in "house", they found their man in Barry McIlheney (aka Barry McWhateverhe'scalled as he's dubbed in the affectionate tribute to Bush in this issue's Bitz). Recently employed at trusty muso journal the Melody Maker, McIlheney decided to immature with age by jumping over to Smash Hits. He has admitted in interviews that everyone at parent company Emap was young, a sharp contrast to the aging staff found at the Maker and this prompted him to cross enemy lines. With a new job on his "plate", you would think the last thing McIlheney would have wanted was more of a burden on his hands. Yet, here he is in his maiden issue reviewing the singles. Wisely, this was not something he did often during his tenure of just over two years.

Given all of his new responsibilities, I'll give him a pass with his choice of a decent-but-nowhere-near-as-good-as-she-used-to-be effort from Blondie's Debbie Harry when he could have opted for vastly superior singles from Billy Bragg (see below) and New Order. With the likes of Cyndi Lauper and Madonna in the pop charts, it's odd that he would express the desire to have a blonde vamp from an earlier time back but I sort of see what he means. First, Blondie were a brilliant group, their run of hits from "Denis" through to "Island of Lost Souls" being pretty much flawless. Then, there's Harry herself: more attractive than those who had followed her, she cut a striking figure on stage and in print and she gave the average heterosexual male that dream image of a dreamy woman fronting a fantastic band (see also: Stevie Nicks).

This desire on McIlheney's part to have her back may have contributed to him overestimating comeback single "French Kissin' in the USA". Just as brill, Barry? Really? Compared to her appropriately icy reading of "Heart of Glass"? The sensual existentialism of "Atomic"? The coy flirtations of "Dreaming"? (To be fair, she restrained her instinct to rap so there is that) She didn't write the song (it was written by Chuck Lorre, who would later create a number of successful but not terribly funny American sitcoms) so she probably didn't have as much invested in it but "Denis" had been Blondie's UK breakthrough back in 1978 and it was a cover version.

Mention of their first British hit brings to mind the last time she tried singing in cod French. On "Denis", she does so because her beaux is a Parisian rogue who has her wrapped around his little finger and she's trying to impress him ("Denis Denis, je suis si folle de toi / Denis Denis, oh embrasse-moi ce soir /Denis Denis, un grand baiser d'eternite), not unlike the way Paul McCartney tries to tap into the tender heart of a French girl on "Michelle"; here, it seems to be in aid of giving her performance a sexy vibe that is otherwise lacking. Repeating the line of "embrassez si Francais" doesn't really do much for me though I suppose at least it's funny that it sounds like she's saying "are you sexay, Francais?".

The French kiss is about as French as the 1918 Spanish Flu was Spanish. So named because the French are so much more open and far less uptight than the Americans or British, it would only make the act of necking naughtier and more illicit, reserved for the back row of a cinema or one of those lookout points where people park their cars late at night. Harry sings of the act as something sophisticated but the accompanying video makes it clear that the damn Yanks are gonna ruin it all with their tacky, nouveau riche Walmart culture. A young woman in a bikini makes out with a blow up Godzilla flotation device and this is a good ten years prior to freak show reality TV and talk shows. Of course, this would have gone right over the heads of British audiences who happily welcomed Harry back to the Top 10. The mid to late eighties was peak UK adulation for all things American, what with the popularity of Dallas and McDonald's and Michael Jackson and this video fed into that misguided romanticism — though, with the charts filled with offerings from the cast of Eastenders and plenty of novelty song pap, who could blame them? McIlheney advises that we should "listen with eyes firmly closed and tongue in cheek for best effect" but I'm convinced few bothered listening to him. Good thing Barry McIlheney would have the chance to help turn British pop around just as the magazine he was now in charge of was reaching its apogee — and at a time when the Aussies would begin taking over from the Yanks.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Billy Bragg: "Greetings to the New Brunette"

Billy Bragg typically kept his love songs and his political message numbers separate but he brought them together beautifully for "Greetings to the New Brunette". With some of his funniest and most touching lyrics, there's lots to unpack here which space and laziness precludes me from going into too much. It's unclear just what becomes of Billy and Shirley but I'm convinced it's painful and this is his way of saying goodbye with as much dignity as possible. The "new brunette" he sings of may be her replacement for him (a rare case of reverse sexism has to be the fact that men with brown hair are classified as 'brunettes') or his for her which gives the song a heartbreaking climax: someone else will come along but they'll never replace what we had. In any case, "Greetings..." should have been the moment in which the UK gave itself over to Billy Bragg; too bad they were so infatuated by everything American.

Kurtis Blow: "I'm Chillin'"

22 October 1986

"This is the real art of noise."

— Simon Mills

Kayfabe is a professional wrestling term for protecting the secrets of the industry. In the pre-internet days, the magazines and broadcasters acted as if it were a real, competitive sport even if we either knew or suspected that it was all scripted. (I was in denial about the true nature of pro wrestling for much of my youth even though it did always make me wonder how the guy performing the airplane spin never got dizzy when it seemed to almost kill his opponent) Wrestlers were expected to strictly observe kayfabe and not just in the ring. Good guys and bad guys had separate locker rooms and it was considered a no-no for foes to be seen traveling or partying together. Just as the magician isn't supposed to give away their tricks, wrestlers had to act as though it were all legit.

There was a time when the makers of house and rap music observed their own form of kayfabe. Sampling was done liberally, without any thought to getting legal permission. Club DJs had spent the better part of a decade making their own mixes of danceflood favourites and this was carried over when they started to become pop stars. The sight of a young tech geek backspinning a 12" record on Top of the Pops may have looked cool to an entire generation of even younger tech geeks but it wasn't a great visual for the public at large. Mark Moore of S'Express had the idea to go on stage to mime their magnificent chart topping hit "Theme from S'Express" with a three attractive girls as they all "played" instruments and "sang" parts that were all sampled. Apart from this being more of an arresting visual, it also gave off the impression that acts like S'Express were proper bands just like Europe and UB40.

Take the promo for "I'm Chillin'". Opening with a closeup of Kurtis Blow in a trench coat, fedora and shades, he lipsynchs a very computerized "Transformers...don't come in disguise" before he introduces "Tee-Bone", one of three percussionists to appear on the record. Yet, they're joined on stage by a much fuller band. A guitarist, bassist and keyboardist are all present despite the fact that they aren't credited on the accompanying album Kingdom Blow (though the group Trouble Funk are thanked and credited in the video). Is it all sampled? A part of me reckons he's nicked the whole thing even though there aren't any of those cliche Funky Drummer/"ah yeah" sounds that would soon take over house music. Or maybe it was all created organically by Blow and his colleagues in the studio. I'm probably too jaded by excessive hip hop combos featuring rappers, DJs and an assortment of armed guards, spiritual advisors and anti-Semetic professors to recognize a time when sampling wasn't at its backbone. Go-go had been a branch of funk originating in Washington D.C. and had always had real musicians. In marrying (in the words of Simon Mills) it with rap, Blow could rely on the best of both worlds with some first rate percussionists working alongside mixers.

Speaking of which, this is pretty old school stuff. Blow is a unconventionally conventional rapper with a diction that could just about pass as his normal speaking voice. There's nothing in the way of goofball antics or put upon toughness and it almost seems like a novelty hip hop number like the "Super Bowl Shuffle". This was still a time in which rap's pedigree didn't go back especially far but neither was it held back by much. Adversarial relationships have always been a part of hip hop but it's refreshing to hear someone express disinterest in it all. Sure, he wants to take male rappers to task for how they diss women ("don't forget LaToya and the Real Roxanne") but he's not out to steal anyone's thunder only to give a boost to himself.

And that's another bit of the old timey rap to look back on with nostalgia: the self-obsession at its heart. Blow isn't trying to impress everyone by showing off his bling and/or the wide variety of female companions he has at his "disposal", only that he's pretty damn ace at what he does. Do I necessarily agree? Well, he's fine, doesn't dazzle the ear but neither does he make me want to hurl. Not much of a recommendation, I know, but there's something to be said for hip hop you can just listen to, enjoy and then switch off. I'm quite happy to be indifferent to a track like "I'm Chillin'" — just as I'm content to believe in kayfabe rap, convinced everyone's playing real instruments and that's Kurtis Blow himself doing the DJ scratching with his voice. You know, just like that guy from the Police Academy movies.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Spandau Ballet: "Through the Barricades"

Gary and Martin Kemp reviewed the singles last time round which means they missed their shot at trashing their latest by just a fortnight. What, they would've been complimentary towards it with Martin possibly even having it go over Lionel Richie as his SOTF? Given how they mercilessly bashed damn-near everyone (including each other's picks), you'd expect fair and impartial treatment of their own contribution. At any rate, Mills does his part in giving the Spands a good (and well-deserved) arse kicking. Having done a stirring three-song, twenty minute set a year earlier at Live Aid, they regrouped in '86 just so everybody could be aware of just how much they still care about stuff. In this case, it's Northern Ireland and (possibly) a Romeo and Juliet-esque tragedy about lovers caught on opposite sides of ver barricades. As Mills says, it's well-intentioned but horrible and the only guitar work of Gary manages to salvage it a bit. Tony Hadley sounds in over his head, though, to be fair, it's no worse than when Simple Minds gave peace in Ulster a go and they were brainy. Dead brainy.

Patti Smith: "So You Want to Be (A Rock 'n' Roll Star)"

4 October 1979

"My copy is cracked but it plays fine."

— Chris Difford

For the second issue on the bounce, Smash Hits editors decided they'd rather a grumpy pop star "do" the singles than a member of their own staff. (Either that or members of the Hits staff decided that they'd rather not have anything to do with the latest releases) Cliff White's departure had left a hole but it would soon be reluctantly filled — most of the time at least — by a very reluctant critic. In the meantime, a very moody Chris Difford of Squeeze follows Andy Partridge as guest singles reviewer. Clearly the pair did such a fine job trashing virtually every record that ver Hits decided to cull the pop-stars-as-music-critics thing; we wouldn't see another for nearly three years when they roped in ABC's Martin Fry in the hopes that he'd be less of a moody bugger.

"So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" (parentheses not being a part of the original since they aren't necessary) was originally an American Top 30 hit for The Byrds back in 1967. Though one of their most recognizable originals it isn't one of the highlights of their brilliant fourth album Younger Than Yesterday. It fills its purpose as an effective opener for the LP but listen to "Have You Seen Her Face", "Everybody's Been Burned" and "My Back Pages" for some true Byrd classics. The song is a cynical jab at the sudden and obviously manufactured rise of The Monkees as well as a rueful look back at their own time at the top and the gradual sputtering out of their commercial prospects. While others could get all high and mighty over reports that the prefab four didn't play on their records, The Byrds could empathize: only Roger McGuinn (along with his trademark 12-string guitar) appear on their breakthrough hit "Mr. Tambourine Man"; the rest of the instrumentation was provided by famed studio group the Wrecking Crew.

"So You Want to Be..." is also a very much a part of sixties pop for its brevity. Clocking in at a just over two minutes, it isn't even the shortest song on the under half-an-hour Younger Than Yesterday. (The David Crosby-penned "Mind Gardens" drags to a lengthy three-and-a-half minutes though that may also be due to the fact that it sucks) With singles getting the shaft over the course of the seventies, songs could get more expansive for longer albums. This worked when it came to artists who put a premium on solos and six minute-plus workouts from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Herbie Hancock and Yes became routine. But it didn't do much for songwriting discipline.

The Byrds splintered into a million offshoots but this song remained powerful for some up to the late seventies. British rock group Charlie took it upon themselves to update it for more complex times. Rather than being done from the perspective a wet behind the ears lad with no concept of musical skill, "Killer Cut"  examines how a group with some experience might take that crucial step towards stardom. What you need is to get that "one killer cut" that you can write by "stealing the best bits from those top forty hits". Then, all that is needed is that "radio play" ("all day, all day"). It sort of undermines the simplicity of how to cut it as a brainless pop idol: actually there are lots of steps to take and it only seems easy.

Rather than giving a similar rewrite, Patti Smith chose a straight up cover of "So You Want to Be..." which more deliberately misses the point of the original. The playful cynicism of The Byrds' reading (which Charlie tries to much less effectively mine) is dispensed with in favour of a very sour tone. Smith isn't trying to send up anything, she's bitter about success coming easily to others when she had to struggle at her craft. She could have gone the pop route and could have capitalized on the popularity of her hit single "Because the Night" but she has chosen to go her own way.

Smith's version is double the length of the original. Chris Difford has mixed feelings about the end result, saving his praise for the production work and guitar playing of Todd Rundgren. It's probable he doesn't think much of it as a song and he appears not to be aware of who previously did it ("she never wrote it" being his lone comment on the matter). Being largely unaware of the song's context makes it easy to judge that this is warmed over rockist nonsense. This is not one of Smith's compelling vocals as she wails away like an especially strung out Grace Slick. The playing is repetitive and lacks the subtle magic of McGuinn's guitar, Chris Hillman's bass and the excellent trumpet solo from the late South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela. The song's four short verses are quickly dispensed with but this only gives Smith and her group licence to keep on going.

As with Andy Partridge a fortnight earlier, Difford finishes up with an apology to all those hopefuls he bashed. While the leader of XTC did so because he paid the price during a previous review, Squeeze's guitarist and songwriter realises that the task was "no piece of cake" and that he forgives all the dismissive critics of their previous hit singles "Cool for Cats" and "Up the Junction". When pop stars get all uppity over critics they often rhetorically ask if they've ever written a song or been in a band or played a gig. Apparently, you have to have experience playing pop in order to judge it. Difford now knows that there are two sides to this and that being a writer for a top pop mag may be just as difficult as being written about in a top pop mag.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The 45's: "Couldn't Believe a Word"

"A Stiff product with a suburban lyric," the author of "Up the Junction" dryly observes. Hitting a little too close to your own muse, Diff? "A love song with a twopenny organ sound," he continues. You mean the sort of sound that Steve Nieve played so wonderfully on Elvis Costello's "Radio Radio", that sort of thing? "A monkey on your shoulder and I'll give it three". Yeah, I don't know what those words mean. "But out of what?" Well, you tell us, Chris. I think it's a nice song that really shows how influential Costello was already becoming and ought to have made The 45's a band to look out for. But you do it your way.