— 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.
~~~~~
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?
No comments:
Post a Comment