— Ian Cranna
Poor, old Jocky Cranna. He had once been this mysterious Scots chap who reviewed the albums in Smash Hits under the pseudonym Red Starr, confessed to wishing to be kissed by a princess (though not Princess Anne), once switched places with colleague Cliff White just to troll the readers and made it seem like reviewing albums was the only thing that mattered in life. Sure, he didn't go out of his way describe all his misadventures with pop types like Lester Bangs and Nick Kent but that only added to his allure: pop stars who reveal everything about themselves in song are bad enough but music critics using their platform for glorified diary entries?
The shine of writing for a top pop mag may have been taking its toll by the late eighties. Punk and its antecedents were no longer influencing the scene and there weren't those thrilling records of old coming out. The last time he did the singles back in September of '86 and admitted that there wasn't much on offer that gave him much of a thrill — and he's in a not dissimilar mood this fortnight as well. Yet, despite his apathy, he is surprisingly upbeat about the majority of the new singles, with eleven out of fifteen receiving mostly positive reviews and only one (Pepsi & Shirlie's Wham-esque "Goodbye Stranger") being dismissed out of hand.
But Cranna wasn't out to heap praise on a catchy pop hit, he wanted to keep discovering new and wonderful gems just as he used to during the heyday of punk. His unique reviews of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" back in 1985 give off the impression that he was really trying to find something else to topple such an apparently predictable SOTF. Why was he so ennamoured with Die Totenhosen and Freddy Love teaming up for a punk/hip hop crossover? Well, two reasons actually: (a) it was and still is awesome and (b) it was unlike anything else at his disposal. Be good but also be different.
Which brings us to his pick from the current issue of ver Hits. Anne Clark had been around and releasing records over the past four years but it doesn't appear Cranna has encountered her before — and, indeed, he's not alone seeing as how I'd never heard of her until recently myself. Being a spoken word artist and having released previous works independently, it is likely she is the sort of individual that may have cropped up in the NME or the Melody Maker while passing the offices of a teen pop mag by. If Cranna had been previously familiar with her then he gives no indication of such in his write up — and I daresay he wouldn't have been so enthusiastic either.
Cranna knows that "Hope Road" wasn't created in a vacuum. He mentions that it's "sort of Laurie Anderson meets OMD" (though I hear it more as Yazoo's "Only You" meets, well, The Flying Pickets' "Only You"), yet it's so unlike anything else up for consideration that it's no wonder it stands out. I used to have a notion that effective pop music cons us into believing that it's fresh and original even if we know that nothing really is.
Clark's tale of meeting some bloke at a party and following up his invitation to his place for dinner the following week is fascinating, if fairly unlikely. I quite like the fact that she sounds unmoved by this potential romance while still being interested enough to pursue it. As she looks ahead to their meet up, she wonders "what happens if I arrive and there is no Hope Road there?" as though she's expecting to be disappointed. Which makes me wonder: was handing out fake addresses a problem back in the day? I've heard of giving out false telephone numbers but telling someone you live on a street that doesn't exist? Not something I've ever had to deal with. More to the point, what does this rogue fellow have to gain by doing this to poor Anne? Getting a fake phone number is annoying but it doesn't put someone out the way an erroneous street would, especially if they happen to reside in another town.
The performance is so convincing, however, that poking holes in the narrative is something left for afterwards. Clark sings/raps in a downcast way that was very much her style at the time and her matter-of-factness makes it much easier to swallow. "Hope Road" keeps making me think of It's Immaterial's fabulous "Driving Away from Home (Jim's Tune)", a SOTF from a year earlier. The two aren't especially similar barring the spoken word nature, with the glib "Driving" giving a carefree look at getting out and seeing the world; Clark's composition takes the listener away from the outdoors and back into their tiny lives in cold, dank flats.
Cranna imagines that it's a metaphor for "politicians and, erm, the world around us" and I wonder if he's thinking of the general election in the UK that would take place just over a month later. Where does being seduced by a political party lead us, to hope or hopelessness? Would a potential (though ultimately unsuccessful) Labour government really make Britain better off than the status quo? Clark offers no response, only the idea that this should be a "message" to everyone and that is we shouldn't trust others, particularly people we've just met. Again, this is nothing new but the way she states it could only have come from her — and in the end, what else matters?
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Voice of the Beehive: "Just a City"
Cranna digs the Bees' "Just a City" but is much more impressed with 12" b-side "D'yer Mak'er", a cover of a North American hit for Led Zeppelin in 1973. The original has the benefit of the loudest drums you'll ever hear on a reggae track (no surprises there) and the very un-Jamaican vocals of Robert Plant; this reinterpretation is no more culturally authentic (which is for the best, really) but it's sadly free of the usual winsome Beehive spirit. Good thing "Just a City" is a perfect slice of girl group-influenced indie rock that only Melissa Brooke Belland and Tracey Bryn could dish up. Hit single "Don't Call Me Baby" and should have hit "I Walk the Earth" are superior but this was a welcome sign of things to come. Why weren't they bigger?
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