S'Express: "Theme from S'Express"

29 June 1988

"Yes, I admit to being a bit of a seventies revivalist — and quite proud of it too I am."

— Marc Andrews

Cor! Yet another special edition of VER HITS!!!

Every so often I get the urge to pull away from top pop mag Smash Hits in order to see what some of the less celebrated music journals were up to. I have already taken a look at reviews from both Record Mirror and Star Hits and now it's time for Smash Hits Australia!

As a Canadian, I have always been vaguely jealous of the land Down Under. While my homeland is bigger and has more people, Australia is generally better known. They have exotic animals, while we have the beaver, which only prompts everyone — myself included — to giggle like schoolchildren. The country is on an island (or is it a continent? No one seems able to offer a satisfying answer on that one) and they're the big boys of their neighbourhood, while my homeland is just north of the nation that perpetually overshadows us. They had big pop stars and their telly was popular; we had singers that were a joke and hardly anyone in Canada watched our domestic TV shows, let alone anyone else. (This even carries on in South Korea where I currently live: Australia is one of the few countries that gets a special Korean name — 호주, which is pronounced 'ho-ju' and guarantees, fact fiends, that there's at least one country in which Australia and Austria do not enter back-to-back at the Olympics' opening ceremonies; Canada is simply known as the (almost) phonetic 개나다) They even got their own edition of Smash Hits while we had to make do with Star Hits from across the border.

Similar to the US counterpart, Aussie Hits drew heavily from the British original. Both used a mix of original material and copy they nicked from the parent mag. This present issue, for example, includes a piece about Neighbours and future Memento/Iron Man 3 star Guy Pearce and a short feature about a "supergroup" called the Australian Olympians recording a charity single called "You're Not Alone" in anticipation for the Seoul Olympics (well, I wasn't expecting much so at least it didn't disappoint!). Aussie content fleshes out Bitz, RSVP and the letters page but much of the remainder of the issue contains articles recycled from Blighty (including pieces on Pet Shop Boys, Debbie Gibson and Bros). And fair enough, it's not like the average Australian pop kid would've been privy to "real ale" Smash Hits.

The Australian version obviously doesn't measure up to the original but it is streets ahead of the American Star Hits. Two things give it the edge: (1) the tried and tested humour of the UK edition is present and correct and the Aussie staff does a commendable job keeping up with it and (2) the singles review page appears to be a regular part of the magazine (though I only have two proper issues to go by). The Americans wanted to focus on album reviews, leaving the singles to only be included seldomly (I only decided to write about bloody Until December giving "praise" to Corey Hart because the options were so limited) but Smash Hits isn't Smash Hits without both 45's and LP's.

A big thanks to Michael Kane's excellent Flickr page for providing the scans from this issue. I highly recommend it for everyone who loves their music magazines.

~~~~~

House music was supposed to be the sound of the future. Electronics and samples were the way music was headed. It wasn't so much a "guitars are on the way out, Mr. Epstein" scenario and more a "we can just use Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner rather than get a guitarist of our own". Odd, then, that Marc Andrews would listen to "Theme from S'Express" and hear the past.

Mark Moore was the house boffin who seemed to be the most willing to pretend to be a pop star. I just posted the other day about the difficulties that DJ's had playing the pop game but the man behind S'Express seemed more amenable to this world. Coldcut seemed to find a way around it by recruiting glamourous vocalists to front their records but they weren't interested in embracing the spotlight themselves. Tim Simenon could happily mug for the camera in Bomb the Bass' videos but he was still an awkward band figurehead. But Moore did promo, had little trouble looking like a pop star and would even get himself on the cover of Smash Hits.

Moore's idea was to dispense with the mixing desk and make S'Express seem as much like a real band as possible. Looking like Chris Lowe or Vince Clarke with a keytar in hand, he made himself into the man behind the music, which of course he was. Jocasta, Michelle and Linda Love are credited in the Original Soundtrack album sleevenotes though it's unclear what they actually did. This was well in advance of controversies surrounding fake lead vocals on Black Box and Milli Vanilli records and no one cared if those striking girls were lip synching to lines like "Come on and listen to be baby now ooh" and "I've got the hots for you". All that mattered was that they were cool and their song was a banger.

And what a song it is. With the basis of the tune pinched from the superb "Is It Love You're After" by Rose Royce, Moore could easily have pieced together something limp that couldn't even approach its source material but the layers of other samples only make you forget about everything that came before. Talent borrows, genius steals, says the old cliche but there's also a certain genius to be found in being able to crib bits of various other records and make them into something that's a marvel in and of itself. Sure, Andrews used to "boogie" and "bump" to some of these numbers when he was a "wee thing" but the future would be all about "boogieing" and "bumping" to these wonderful hybrids for another generation of "wee things".

"Theme from S'Express" had already topped the UK charts for a fortnight when Andrews gives it his seal of approval. As with a lot of popular house music of the time, it didn't do much in North America but it almost made the Top 10 in Australia. Americans and Canadians weren't ready for this type of thing outside of the clubs but Europeans and Aussies recognised it immediately as the glorious pop that it was, past, present and future.

Postscript: We'll be seeing Marc Andrews again in this blog after making the move to Britain and the switch to "real ale" Smash Hits. Stay tuned.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Louis Armstrong: "What a Wonderful World"

So, if S'Express seemed old to Andrews then what of Satchmo? I love me lots of Louis and it can be tempting for us big fans to be dismissive of the later hits like "Hello Dolly", "We Have All the Time in the World" and "What a Wonderful World". He could barely play the trumpet by this point in his life and for me his vocals always take a backseat to his extraordinary soloing. All that said, this was excellent in 1968, 1988 and still now in 2021. While clearly not the most gifted vocalist around, few had more character (he and Johnny Cash still have the most recognizable singing voices in all of western music) and he knew how to emote properly. Used memorably for the Robin Williams film Good Morning Vietnam, "What a Wonderful World" gained a second wind in the summer of '88 and a whole new generation was able to get a glimpse of Pops' genius, even if it was a long way off from the Hot Fives and Sevens. It even got to number one in Australia so Andrews wasn't alone.

Prefab Sprout: "Hey Manhattan!" / Bomb the Bass: "Don't Make Me Wait"

29 June 1988

This entry is the start of an occasional series in which pop groups review the singles and fail to agree on a favourite. The results of this are mixed but Jimmy Somerville and Richard Coles of The Communards prove up to the task by choosing the two best records available. This would also prove to be one of they final print appearances together. Somerville would release a pretty good solo album a year later and Coles would go on to becoming a renowned man of the cloth.

~~~~~

"People may say they're namby-pamby but I love them!"

— Richard Coles

They may deny it now but 1988 in Britain was all about loving America. People were flocking to Disneyworld and spurning France and Spain as holiday destinations. American football was growing in popularity and looked to be the next big thing. Pop stars and famous actors who would visit the UK were treated like royalty and even someone as innocuous as Sylvester Stallone's mother fawned upon on the popular talk show Wogan. American-themed restaurants were all over the country too. And if all this wasn't enough, I was subjected to the question "are you Amer-eee-can?" (emphasis on the third syllable just as they liked in Essex) wherever I went.

Rock and roll being American, it's easy to see why so many British pop stars fell for the US. Many of them live there, including some who've moaned about the UK being too American. The Rolling Stones embodied the idea of being English yet wanting to be a Yank but luckily they had Mick Jagger to send it up even as they were drowning in Americana. Others haven't had lead singers as clever. Being pro-American is one thing but losing one's Britishness is another.

America has always been at the heart of Prefab Sprout's work. Paddy McAloon's heroes are Burt Bachrach, Brian Wilson and Phil Spector so this would naturally have led him to look across the Atlantic. At first, references to the US were subtle. Their debut album Swoon includes a song about chess legend Bobby Fisher ("Cue Fanfare"), as well as opening with a puzzling number about their neighbour to the south ("Don't Sing": "don't blame Mexico"). "I Never Play Basketball Now" deals with a popular sport that the British hadn't really taken to. Their follow up album Steve McQueen had been named after the great American actor and it opened with a number "dedicated" to country crooner Faron Young (a SOTF back in 1985).

But it was on their third album From Langley Park to Memphis that America became the focal point. "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" would prove to be their biggest hit and it dealt with an aging rocker still clinging to fame due to his one novelty hit. Its subject may or may not be American (I suspect he's British which makes the whole tale even sadder) but it is loaded with references to the US. "Cars and Girls" was an undeserved flop that took the mickey out of Bruce Springsteen. And with "Hey Manhattan" (aka "Hello Manhattan" as Smash Hits erroneously has it) you've got a wide-eyed youngster who has just arrived in New York and has big plans for success — or so he thinks.

What makes this trilogy wonderful — you know, aside from them all being brilliant songs — is how distinctly British their take on America is. The British singer from the fifties with that one solitary hit probably never went to the US — or he flopped spectacularly if he did. Springsteen did much more than make records about "Cars and Girls" but that was the reputation he got lumped with, especially on the other side of the pond. NYC was this destination where dreams either came true or went to die and this is what's celebrated here. The hopeless hopeful who arrives in the States is initially "star struck, Uncle Sam" before admitting that his struggles and failure is down to "bad luck". The promise of making something of himself is dulled by the feeling that he's already being chewed and is about to be spat out by the Big Apple.

"Hey Manhattan!" gave Prefab Sprout their third Single of the Fortnight but once again it failed to connect with enough people to get it into the Top 40. It's difficult to say whether their less-than idealistic take on the American Dream kept the punters away since they'd had plenty of flops that didn't hit a similar nerve. If anything, it only reinforced the narrative that they were "too clever by half" (whatever that means) and that they were only able to capture fellow musicians and pop critics. There was already a small but loyal cult of Sprout out there and it's one that remains to this day but they couldn't quite catch on the way we all thought they deserved. Oh well, it's their loss.

~~~~~

"Ah, this is more like it. A great dance record. Fab."

— Jimmy Somerville

The singer from The Communards is none too impressed with "Hey Manhattan!" and opts instead for the second single from Bomb the Bass. A project helmed by young DJ Tim Simenon, it first came to attention in the early part of 1988 with "Beat Dis", a sampled-filled acid house single which reached number 2 on the charts. Coming in between "Pump Up the Volume" by M|A|A|R|S and "Theme from S'Express" by S'Express, it should have joined them as chart toppers but it failed to dislodge Kylie Minogue's massive "I Should Be So Lucky" from the top spot.

Being DJs, Simenon, Mark Moore, The Beatmasters and Coldcut struggled to make pop music a top priority. They had raves to appear at and they were all in demand to produce and/or remix other people's records. They didn't dream of pop stardom and didn't chase it. While Smash Hits and Top of the Pops had difficulty presenting them as performers and pinups, they in turn weren't as accessible and didn't seem aware of how to play the pop game. As a result, follow ups were slow. Not to mention the fact that for the talk of sampling being "theft", piecing together these jigsaw puzzle records proved to be tiring, thankless work. In any case, churning out the product was better left for the likes of Stock Aitken Waterman.

This review of "Don't Make Me Wait" is from the 28 June edition of Smash Hits. The single, however, wouldn't appear on the charts until just shy of two months later, debut at 20 in the last week of August. Did ver Hits get their copy too early? Did Bomb the Bass' record label Rhythm King decide to hold it back? Or were they trying to build up hype? It's impossible to say but it's more than a little odd that a "group" that was taking its time releasing records would have their hotly anticipated second single delayed.

There's another curiosity surrounding this release and that's the status of the other song. The single would eventually be released as "Megablast"/"Don't Make Me Wait" and was a double A-side. Somerville doesn't mention this other track, nor is its title printed on the singles review page. To be fair, I don't blame his nibbs from The Communards. "Don't Make Me Wait" is absolutely superb and it didn't need another tune on the flip to prop it up. A case could even be made that "Megablast" itself was more than good enough on its own and they wasted two potential Top Ten hits by throwing them onto the same record.

Being potentially viewed as "Beat Dis, Part 2" may have made those concerned cool towards "Megablast" so I suppose the more pop friendly "Don't Make Me Wait" had the upside of being something different and unexpected. That said, the former also had a radically different version with British rapper Merlin (who introduces it by asking "who's in the house?" which will crop up when he guested with The Beatmasters the following year) which could also have had single potential of its own. Nevertheless, the single version of "Megablast" is extraordinary and could have been the single of the year had it got the notice it deserved. It is an absolutely thrilling record with all the samples placed with care

Though I do prefer "Megablast" there's no arguing with "Don't Make Me Wait" either and the two could very well be the finest double A-side cut by anyone since The Beatles. With Lorraine McIntosh (not to be confused with the singer from Deacon Blue) on vocals, it has the appearance of a pop song but this can't disguise the devastating sounds within. Simenon would go off the rails slightly with the follow up — a cover of Aretha Franklin's "Say a Little Prayer" — but this once he found a balance between sample-heavy house and dance-pop. Somerville wants nothing more than to dance to it but it's also a great pop song that can be appreciated by those of us who have no interest in doing so. Though they were slow to take to the pop world, the house DJ's of the time proved more than capable of bringing the clubs and the raves into our homes.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Special AKA featuring Ndonda Khuze & Jonas Gwengwe: "Free Nelson Mandela"

A well-intentioned remake to mark Nelson Mandela's seventieth birthday but one that doesn't come close to the original "Nelson Mandela" from four years' earlier. There are some good ideas present and Jerry Dammers was right to bring in some African vocalists for this re-recording but it doesn't work. He may have been better off handing everything over to a crack group of singers and musicians from Africa to see what they could make of it. There's also a too-obvious attempt at keeping things current with some house music that just doesn't fit. The excitement of the original is nowhere to be found here but hopefully it still played well at the Mandela Tribute concert that summer.

The Searchers: "Love's Melody"

24 July 1980

"A record of grace and good humour. Bet this is the last you ever hear of it."

— David Hepworth

The Beatles were massive. They made their hometown of Liverpool known outside of the UK, starting a trend of British bands being associated with where they come from much more than most American acts. Obviously they influenced music profoundly but so, too, did they affect fashion, hair styles and the use of recreational drugs. With their early success came a bevy of Scouse acts, most of whom were run by their manager Brian Epstein. John Lennon and Paul McCartney gave originals to fellow Liverpool act Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas and they were chums with Gerry & The Pacemakers and Cilla Black. But one Liverpool group that didn't seem to orbit them was The Searchers.

The Searchers are probably the one Merseyside group that could have been big even if The Beatles hadn't existed. They didn't share much in common with other groups and were managed by someone other than Epstein. They didn't benefit from Lennon/McCartney originals to give them a footing in the charts and didn't even have the luxury of recording a Beatles' reject. True, they got booked at a club in Hamburg because the Fab Four had already been there and the Liverpool connection likely went some way towards landing a record contract in 1963. Yet, they still managed to do so without Epstein, without George Martin and without strong songwriters. The group that could easily have remained a local concern made it big on their own steam — at least for a while.

In the post-Lennon/McCartney shake up, it became much more commonplace for members of bands to write their own songs. After being gifted a Top 20 hit with Beatles' cover "I Wanna Be Your Man", Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham famously locked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in a room, demanding they write a tune of their own. Groups were suddenly self-sufficient and thrived at the chance to earn royalties and it spurned greater creativity as the sixties progressed. Legit groups wrote their own songs, pathetic, boring bands relied on covers and everyone knew it. Yet, The Searchers couldn't or wouldn't follow suit. Their penchant for older American rock 'n' roll standards may have quickly seemed quaint but it helped them string together an impressive run of hits. But like all the other Merseybeat acts that didn't feature John, Paul, George and Ringo, their time would eventually be up.

Their popularity dried up but they never quite broke up and were able to be more than just an oldies act playing the cabaret circuit. If they never exactly changed with the times then at least they were able to survive as themselves. While longtime members Frank Allen, John McNally and Mike Pender finally took up songwriting, their output still depended heavily on the work of others. "Love's Melody" had originally been done by pub rock favourites Ducks Deluxe as a single from their second album Taxi to the Terminal Zone. Their version has some nice subtleties and it sounds like they put a lot of care into the recording and production. It's a strong performance that finds that sweet spot between roughhouse bar band and tender soulfulness. It even makes me want to explore the Ducks, especially after I discovered that keyboardist Andy McMaster also wrote the fantastic "Airport" by The Motors.

The Searchers took "Love's Melody" and went about making it sound as much like The Searchers as possible. All those check marks that favour the Ducks Deluxe original go out the window but there are still elements to admire and enjoy. Most obviously, Pender's vocals are first rate and well above the throaty cries of lead Duck Sean Tyla. Indeed, those warm and welcome Searcher backing vocals are also present and correct. It also chimes like mad. While not the same kind of live powerhouse as the Ducks, The Searchers do a commendable job playing with some drive. The drums boom all over the place and it's clear they've been schooling themselves on new wave and power pop. Yet, it's very much a Searchers record.

There's something charming and refreshingly unpretentious about the way The Searchers made music. They took songs they liked and made them sound their way. The idea of composing their own material mattered less than making the records they did record sound the right way. It didn't matter if they were doing something by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono, Tony Hatch, Andy McMaster or Alex Chilton; it only mattered that they were The Searchers. While everyone else was busy trying to sound like The Beatles, they were content to make everyone sound like them.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Cheap Trick: "Everything Works If You Let It"

While I will always retain a certain soft spot for the band that did "Surrender", there's no question that Cheap Trick didn't have an endless supply of top material and were in decline long before they went the dreaded power ballad route with 1988's "The Flame". Proof that turning up the volume to eleven can't hold a boring record back, you'd think that having George Martin helming the production would have held them back a bit but he so-called fifth Beatle had an even patchier post-1970 career than any of his famous charges. It's a decent song though and it makes you wonder what The Searchers might have done with it.

Blue Mercedes: "Love Is the Gun"

15 July 1988

"It's by far the most singable swingaway tune to have been released for centuries (well, the last two weeks anyway), even though the lyrics are teetering on the pervesque and we'll never quite know why love is the "gun", but such is the way of this thing they call pop..."

— Alex Kadis

Like all genres and sub-genres, synth-pop has its superstars. The members of Kraftwerk are its founding fathers and Gary Numan its Bowie-esque overlord that all most subsequent acts looked up to. Groups like The Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark emerged out of post-punk while New Order and Sparks evolved out of guitars and into electronics. Pet Shop Boys and Erasure brought top-level songwriting. Depeche Mode were the indie darlings and every North American junior high school's outsider band of choice. These groups all became highly successful and are even admired and/or liked by listeners who identify far more with supposed 'real ale' rock.

But what of the also-rans? The D.I.Y. approach of punk encouraged youths to form their own bands out of the core of guitar, bass and drums. Keyboards and synths weren't required and, if anything, demanded a technical proficiency that went against the spirit of the age. Synth singles and albums were popular but none managed to pull a Velvet Underground: Brian Eno never observed that there was an obscure electro-pop record that inspired everyone who bought it to form bands and invest in a fairlight. The inspiration that the big acts provided wasn't even restricted to those noodling on synths: Numan and Depeche Mode ended up being godfathers to nineties industrial rock by the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Linkin Park.

The synth-pop gene pool wasn't deep. One of the few groups to come along that largely didn't register with the masses was Blue Mercedes. While they did have a Top 30 hit with "I Want to Be Your Property", it would prove a one-and-done scenario. They did do better on the dance charts and that's where their work belongs, especially if they had come along about five years earlier. Sure, a bit of acid house squelching helps to put it squarely in 1988 but this isn't enough to expose it as dated even at that time,

"Love Is the Gun" is a product of the dance clubs and is not unlike earlier Singles of the Fortnight from Bobby O and Sylvester, only not quite as good. The production/engineering team of Phil Harding and Ian Curnow (who also happened to be Stock Aitken Waterman's "B" squad at their Hit Factory studios, which goes someway to explaining why their names were all over the credits of the bulk of late-eighties' UK pop albums and singles) provide an ecstatic atmosphere but it isn't enough to hide the thinness of the material. SAW's work from this period could vary from excellent (Mel & Kim, some Bananarama) to pitiful (Sabrina, Mandy Smith) but their writing tended to be relatable, even only on a superficial level. Alex Kadis detects some perviness and that could very well be but it isn't the kind favoured by Prince. Seldom has sex sounded so unsexy.

Though far from a selection packed with quality, there are at least two vastly superior records on offer this fortnight. Either INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart" or Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype" ought to have been named SOTF. Kadis has praise for both but instead opts for "Love Is the Gun" for its sheer catchiness. Fair enough but Blue Mercedes only manage to succeed at exposing the limitations of synth-based pop. INXS weren't doing anything fundamentally new on their hugely popular album Kick but they were a surprisingly tight sextet and they were anything but dinosaurs in spite of Michael Hutchence refusing to hide how much he yearned to be Jim Morrison. Public Enemy were paving the way for a hip hop revolution and their lineup of an angry rapper (Chuck D), humourous rapper (Flavor Flav) and DJ (Terminator X) was much more D.I.Y. than anything that had ever come out of punk. One group looked to the past for a creative spark, the other was all about the future: better either of those than the present.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Transvision Vamp: "I Want Your Love"

Kadis concludes by stating that the latest single from Transvision Vamp will "probably be a flop as well". Far from it though. The critics never took to the Vamps but the public loved them enough to give them a number one album in 1989. "I Want Your Love" is the first of two singles with Wendy James singing on them that people of a certain age and from certain regions are likely to know. Again, there was something of the 'we can do this too' mentality to the pop metal here. James was such a compelling figure because she was such a composite: glamourous but in a trashy, working class way, a tough, outspoken feminist yet someone who might just as soon get their kit off at a moment's notice. Not the best singer but a good focal point of the band. Anyway, "I Want Your Love" is stupid but just try not singing along. Can't do it, can you?

Maxi Priest: "Wild World"

1 June 1988

"We're a band who has always written our own material and now we've had a number one with a song written by someone else."

— Brinsley

"It lends itself to reggae perfectly."

— Drummie

"..."

— Tony

Reggae covers of old pop hits are rarely as simple as they seem. While you might assume that a group or artist hears the original and decides to make it sound Jamaican, these tracks tend to have lengthy histories of being given the tropical treatment. UB40's famed rendition of Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine" actually used a version by Tony Tribe from 1969 as its source material, with the band unaware of it previously being a much more conventional MOR pop song when they came to record it in 1983. Boy George's chart topping comeback single "Everything I Own" had first been done in timid fashion by American band Bread; the ex-Culture Club singer instead based his cover on the UK number one by Ken Boothe, which was much more in the style of reggae. Even this fortnight's singles reviewers, Aswad, had a roll in this trajectory: their big hit "Don't Turn Around" had originally been recorded by Tina Turner but the 1994 cover by Swedes Ace of Base is much more in line with the Brit-Reggae threesome.

"Wild World" was written by Cat Stevens and appeared on his hugely popular and influential Tea for the Tillerman album. Not released as a single in Britain, it got some Jamaican spices added to it when Jimmy Cliff took it to the Top 10 at the end of 1970. Not a full-on reggae number, mind you, but one that bridges that opened the door for it. It took a little while but eventually Maxi Priest arrived with a bouncy and summery take on the song, if not quite out of Kingston then certainly from the multicultural Lewisham district of London where the singer grew up.

Released on the cusp of a lovely summer (well, it certainly was in Canada where I was at the time; the Britain we arrived in that August wasn't quite as pleasant), "Wild World" wound up coming in between two controversies, one relatively minor, the other with a significance that is still remembered to this day. They didn't impact Priest's single as such but they are worth mentioning, if only to emphasise the power pop has to create demons while also encouraging us to let them go.

In the middle of 1987, the Pet Shop Boys were returning from the studio with some new material. They had had four hit singles the previous year and looked to build on their success with another batch of 45's. After some debate over whether they should release "Heart" first, they eventually settled on the grand hi-NRG spectacle of "It's a Sin". A song about being manipulated by Catholic guilt, it drew the ire of the administration of Neil Tennant's old comprehensive school in Newcastle but the song resonated with enough people to give them their second number one. Not content with all the myriad sins mentioned in the lyrics, media figure Jonathon King pointed out that it sounded an awful lot like this record from the seventies called "Wild World".

To be fair to the pariah and sex offender, he wasn't alone. Tom Hibbert had been one of Tennant colleagues at ver Hits but this didn't stop him from finding similarities as well — and this likely would have been prior King's allegations begin published. Of course, Hibbs didn't go too far. He claims it's uncannily similar "to the note" but he isn't interested in condemning the Pet Shop Boys for it. If anything, he's complimentary of them borrowing such a "very nice tune". And he doesn't use the P word. King, on the other hand, alleged that they stole it from Stevens (who said he didn't mind; the old troubadour may have had other things on his mind around this time, as we'll soon see) and, in order to make his case, he even recorded a cover of "Wild World" done with the production techniques of "It's a Sin". The single flopped and the Pet Shop Boys promptly sued King but this still didn't stop Chris Lowe from buying a copy because he liked it.

Priest could've run with the controversy but didn't. Had "Wild World" been released as the first single off third album Maxi, it would have come in closer to the Jonathon King debacle. Instead, he put out a decent cover of "Some Guys Have All the Luck", which gave him his first Top 20 hit, and followed that with the forgettable — assuming you've ever heard it — "How Can We Ease the Pain?", which flopped. By June of '88, the situation had blown over. Aswad don't even bother to mention it in their review.

Had all this come about a year later, however, it's likely that "Wild World" would never have seen a single release at all. The news in early 1989 had been dominated by the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran against Salman Rushie for the alleged blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses. Unwisely deciding not to remain silent on the matter, Yusef Islam (aka Cat Stevens' name since becoming a Muslim) wound up in the middle of the situation. He now claims he wasn't prepared for the media firestorm that would erupt but that seems strangely naive of a one-time globally popular singer-songwriter. He made inflammatory statements that he soon tried to explain away as jokes and when he speaks on the matter today he tries to be more rational but always manages to slide in a reference to the offence Rushdie "caused".

The Rushdie Affair, as it has come to be known, understandably didn't have a huge impact on music, Yusuf still being a long way off from reviving his recording career. In protest, however, 10,000 Maniacs had their cover of "Peace Train" deleted from subsequent pressings of their album In My Tribe. Stevens' old music did get taken off of radio stations for a time as well. But Priest never disavowed his cover of "Wild World" and I hope he remains proud of it to this day.

It probably helps that it bears little resemblance to the original. With Jimmy Cliff's version dipping its toe in reggae, Priest's is unabashed sunshine reggae-pop. There's nothing tricky about it and sounds just as you would imagine. More importantly, the hidden misogyny of the Stevens recording is missing here. There's a despicable passive-aggressiveness at the heart of this song, like a pathetic teenage boy threatening the girl that has broken his heart that she will "regret it". If you want to leave, the song's narrative goes, there's the door but there's a lot more to life than pretty dresses and cute smiles and you're going to learn some painful lessons without me. Yes, it's something guys say (I'm ashamed to say that I've said some stuff along those lines, if much more crudely put) and perhaps Stevens was right to put these emotions into song but it doesn't make him look especially good. It wasn't a black eye the way the Rushdie affair had been but it should have dulled notions that he was a sensitive soul.

Priest, by contrast, sings it with a lot more joy in his voice. He doesn't sound heartbroken in the least. He may have misread its meaning but that probably works in his favour. (Not to be confused with whoever transcribed the lyrics for Smash Hits; though I could be wrong, I don't think it's "but just remember there's a lot of bad air beware" but "...a lot of bad everywhere") He doesn't sound like his woman has mistreated him, nor does he sound like he's wishing grave misfortune to her either. It sounds like he's singing a song to the best of his abilities. Sometimes simple is best.

Finally, a small thing about the video. I imagine a lot of people watching it now will laugh at the cut up graphics but this has always been one of my favourite promos. A throwback to a time when videos could capture young people as readily as the songs themselves. "Wild World" is still a great single either way but its video gives it that little something extra.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Morrissey: "Everyday Is Like Sunday"

"It doesn't sit on my street," admits a mostly-silent Tony from Aswad. That's generally how I feel about the bulk of Moz's solo work but "Everyday Is Like Sunday" sits perfectly well on any street, drive, road, boulevard or muse that I happen to be on. They suggest he speaks to disaffected youth (especially young people who can't sing, the trio reckon; of all the things wrong with Morrissey, his vocals are not one of them) and that's true but little would they know how loyal many of these youngsters would remain well into middle age and beyond. Like "Wild World", it's helped along by a good video that manages to make seaside towns look miserable while nevertheless making me want to visit one soon. A great song about monotony that transcends those dreary Sunday afternoons when there's nothing to do. Oh, you were once so great, Morrissey.

Graham Parker: "Love Without Greed"

10 July 1980

"While recognising the virtues of all the above bands, I reckon this is the real Eighties soul music, if only because Parker has the guts and ability to reach into his own life for things to write about."

— David Hepworth

Though it had come and gone over the previous two decades, British soul was just beginning to pick up steam in the 1980. Northern soul, a particularly English sub-genre which had been about dancing in clubs in Wigan to obscure American records from the sixties, was on the wane but some of its biggest fans were recording music of their own. When Dexys Midnight Runners hit number one in the spring of that year with "Geno", they both immortalised a legend of the scene while marking shift in its sound from American to British. People in the UK were no longer just its fans, they were now becoming its stars.

David Hepworth devotes a lengthy passage in this fortnight's single review to a trio of British soul singles. The follow up to the smash "Geno", "There, There My Dear", is given consideration along with newbies from The Q-Tips and The Step. Dexys were enjoying their first flurry of success — which they would quickly squander within months — and "There, There My Dear" catches them do what they do best: the rhythm never lets up, the horns keep it all together and Kevin Rowland shows off why he is one of pop's all-time great frontmen. The Q-Tips failed to have a hit with "The Tracks of My Tears" (a Smokey Robinson standard that no self-respecting Brit-Soul group of the time didn't do a cover of) but they were a renowned live act and they would soon launch the solo career of Paul Young. The Step only released a handful of singles before fading away and it's possible that the world simply wasn't ready for sharp-dressed mods playing blue-eyed soul until Paul Weller decided they were. 

Hepworth gives them all respectful reviews but he isn't convinced because of the presence of Graham Parker, the real soul man of the age. It probably helps that he got his start back in the sixties playing soul.

Pub rock is a genre that is difficult to define. On the rise between the end of glam and the start of punk, it was full of talented individuals, many of whom were excellent songwriters and/or great all-around musicians. They tended to be massively knowledgable about music as well. There was nothing especially new about the pub rock sound but it was exciting and good at getting crowds riled up into a frenzy. In short, it did very well played in pubs. Individuals didn't emerge out of pub rock, they found themselves in it all of a sudden.

Graham Parker took up music at a relatively late age. Finished with his schooling, he didn't have the option to start playing gigs since he was still a novice. He didn't begin playing the guitar until he moved to the island of Guernsey, hardly the sort of place with a thriving music scene he could latch on to. He went back to Britain only to relocate again to Gibraltar to do more odd jobs. Again, not exactly a hot spot even though he did join a band and would wind up being featured on local TV. Being away from where it was happening might leave most people lost but Parker learned to be self-sufficient and the relative isolation made him a more distinctive songwriter. Less concerned with what was going on, he could delve into acid rock and folk but he always came back to his true love soul.

"Love Without Greed" is by no means a soul number. I'm not even necessarily convinced that it's "real soul" either. (Surely if we're looking to songwriters drawing from their own lives then folk musicians like Richard Thompson and John Martyn ought to have been described as "soul") But it's a great record. Addictive right from the start, the playing is tight and anything but showy but the band plays beautifully in service of the song. There is no let up. Parker's vocals are exceptional too. Those pub rockers tended to be phlegmy but he isn't annoyingly so. For all his musical influences, it sounds like nothing except for a Graham Parker song making him a genre unto himself.

Something of a songwriter's songwriter and a favourite of critics, Parker never really achieved the fame he deserved. It's incredible listening to a record like "Love Without Greed" and wondering why it didn't get a chart position. Hepworth doesn't even foresee it happening and that has to be down to earlier Graham Parker and The Rumour records having a history of modest sales. Younger contemporaries connected to pub rock like Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson could rely on energy and punk cred to get themselves into the charts (though neither proved able to sustain their success), while Nick Lowe had charm and humour to aid his cause. Ian Dury was a character that people admired and Dave Edmunds had a familiarity with the public. Parker lacked all of these and only had his considerable skills to fall back on. 

Soul music? Who's to say? But those soul revivalists should have been paying closer attention.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Carlene Carter: "Ring of Fire"

Pub rock also had a country bent to it. One might expect Nick Lowe to produce records by his then-wife Carlene Carter that sound overly reverential of good old fashioned cowboy music but that's the last thing he wants to do. Carter herself shows little interest in replicating her step-father's recording of her mother's composition. Sort of a missing link between The Byrds fusing space rock with country and the alt country movement of the nineties, there are synths and a new wave production to complement the mariachi-western classic. It kind of feels like a novelty song but it deserves to be taken seriously, at least until the next time you feel like shocking your friends with the blasphemy of a classic.

Kylie Minogue: "Got to Be Certain"

18 May 1988

"And so the debate rages across the land."

— Richard Lowe

The team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman last earned themselves a Single of the Fortnight all the way back in the summer of 1984 with the much-better-than-I-thought-it-would-be "You Think You're a Man" by Divine. An awful lot changed in the four years since: the SAW production team's client base grew and writing songs became a much more standard part of their MO and they enjoyed their first UK number one with Dead or Alive's memorable "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". They took in established acts like Bananarama and had a US chart topper with their cover of seventies hit "Venus". They began making stars out of performers such as Sinitta and Rick Astley. Divine, who had one of their first hits, passed away in March of 1988. And, on a seemingly unrelated note, an Australian soap opera began broadcasting episodes on the BBC.

Neighbours was a smash and proved to be even more successful in the old country than down under. Everyone seemed to watch it and you just knew that those snobs who claimed to never watch it secretly did. I came to the UK that August with no awareness of it whatsoever and went about my first five days there similarly ignorant of it. Then, we visited our distant cousins in the north east of Essex and they showed it to my sister and me. From then on, we never missed it for the remainder of the year we spent there. From that first viewing, it was clear that the star of the show was a frizzy haired young woman who was kind of mouthy. On the show, her name was Charlene but in real life she went by Kylie, a name I'd never heard before. Nicola, Becky and Chris, our fourth or fifth cousins, told us that she was also a pop star. (Little did I know that she was already on the charts back in North America, no mean feat considering Neighbours never meant anything across the pond)

Kylie Minogue didn't invent the concept of soap stars cutting records but she certainly popularised the practice. Before her, actors on soaps might put out a single and possibly have a hit; after her, it was assumed they all would. And while many became successful, no one pulled of the career shift as well as she did. She tried her hand at films but they never usurped music. Nowadays singers try to make the jump to the more lucrative field of acting; Kylie went the other way and she achieved far more success making records then she did on TV and movie screens.

Minogue's relationship with SAW was different than any of their other acts. She quickly became their cash cow and deserved to be the focus of their attention during their waning years in the early nineties. Other acts would depart but she remained loyal to them. By 1989, their output was rapidly declining but she seemed to receive first refusal of all their best stuff. Recruits to the SAW stable — Sonia, Big Fun, the bloody Reynolds Girls — became increasingly uninteresting which only made her stand out more. Even the stuff they were handing off to Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan wasn't quite as strong as what they gave her. Her image would change drastically and she made a push for greater creative control but she was reluctant to break away from the people that made her.

It took some time, however, for Minogue to get their prime cuts. Her first hit was "I Should Be So Lucky" which has a certain moronic charm and it remains insanely catchy (annoyingly catchy, sure, but catchy nonetheless) but "Got to Be Certain", the follow up, has little to captivate beyond Kylie's cheeriness. It's more of the same, just nowhere near as good. It probably doesn't help that it's a recycled SAW product. Originally recorded by Mandy Smith earlier in the year, it remained unreleased until her debut album Mandy was reissued in 2009. With her glamourous image and infamously getting involved with Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones when she was just thirteen, the song's narrative of a bright girl trying to learn lessons from heartbreak probably suited Minogue better than Smith, who was more at home doing pop based around wrapping boys (and, to be sure, aging rock stars) around her little finger.

Re-using their originals was nothing new for SAW. The UK follow up to the global smash (and still culturally relevant) "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the forgettable "Whenever You Need Somebody", which had already been recorded in considerably different fashion two years earlier by female vocalist O'Chi Brown. In turn, Astley would go on to reject the insipid "Nothing Can Divide Us" which SAW then handed off to the more vocally lacking Donovan. The Minogue album track "Turn It Into Love" ended up getting into the charts after being released as a single by longtime stable vet Hazell Dean. 

SAW were hardly the types to put a great deal of care into their compositions but they were at their best when they wrote with an eye on their charges. Stock and Aitken have claimed to written "Never Gonna Give You Up" with Astley in mind and the hit singles they had with sister act Mel & Kim reflect the duo's tough, working class backgrounds. Even "I Should Be So Lucky", which was famously rush written as Minogue was waiting to meet them for the first time, was perfect pop fare for Kylie the girl next door. (There's an even more obvious case of the trio tailor-making a song which we will get to soon)

The debate, as Richard Lowe says, would go on for some time. SAW's records kept selling and the charts would be awash in their hit factory sound. Kylie Minogue would bear the brunt of the backlash against them but she came out of it with a bit of a creative renaissance and is still going strong in her fifties. I don't imagine many people would've bet on her career having these kinds of legs.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Elton John: "I Don't Wanna Go on with You Like That"

Ah, that "popping" percussion. Richard Lowe is taken by it and I have to agree that it's the one saving grace of a grim tune. While Elton John's slow songs post-"Sacrifice" began to get increasingly sappy and predictable, it is his piano-based rockers from around this time that commit even greater sins. This was long before YouTube and Spotify and "I Don't Wanna Go on with You Like That" counts on people's memories of the likes of "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" or "Philadelphia Freedom" being sketchy so they will assume that this is vintage Elton. It isn't. Whereas David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney were in similar creative doldrums at the time, they would all find their way back to something approaching their old heights, the Rocket Man never did. Still, that popping sound is pretty neat, huh?