— Alex Kadis
Our year in England was moving right along. Though supposedly hardy Canadians, we shivered through a cold, damp winter in our tiny hovel with no central heating. A bandied about trip to Greece over the Easter break never happened, visits from grandparents, my aunt and young cousin and an uncle came and went and we were suddenly left we little to look forward to. My parents began planning our departure in August but this event was still months away and I carried on at school and kept up with the pop charts. Weekend trips became more and more frequent but their appeal began to dwindle in my eyes. That spring we visited Chester, Ipswich, Rochester and Rochester and all I wanted to do in these towns was visit their record shops (which generally involved flicking through singles and LP's in the local Boots, W.H. Smiths and/or Woolworths). The charts had changed as well and some of those mighty acts from the previous autumn were beginning to get left behind.
I had arrived in the UK in August of 1988 while "The Only Way Is Up" by Yazz & The Plastic Population was in control of the Top 40. As I wasn't quite tuned in to what was going on until it began to slip down the hit parade, the song passed me by but there was no escaping Yazz herself. She was tall, lanky and sported short hair that had been bleached white. She may not have looked like a pop star but she sure acted the part and there wasn't anyone else who seemed to be enjoying their time at the top as much as she did. Over the first few months I'd been in Britain, she was a chart fixture: follow-up single "Stand Up for Your Love Rights" was nearly as good as "The Only Way Is Up" and it came up just short of the top spot. She then unveiled a token slow song called "Fine Time" which did well enough, albeit with the gnawing sense that the law of diminishing returns was setting in. So-called "ballads" are often a singer's biggest hit but this wasn't the kind of thing anyone asked for from a dancefloor diva.
It was now spring and it was time for a change. Yazz returned with braids that may or may not have been real and a more girly image. As if addressing that her stature was not what it had been six months earlier, her latest single dealt with a lack of positive vibes. The second summer of love had produced the optimistic "The Only Way Is Up" and then as autumn arrived it was time to "Stand Up for Your Love Rights" but now it was a situation that asked "Where Has All the Love Gone?". Where once she she found hope in spite of not knowing "where our next meal is coming from" now she's found herself in a state of not having enough love to go round.
"Where Has All the Love Gone?" first appeared on Yazz's debut album Wanted. This original version was very much of its time with acid house all over it. The squelching and repetitive piano bits sound really cool now but by the early part of 1989 they had become hackneyed and tired and for the remix they were pushed to the background, giving the song a cleaner pop sound reminiscent of the Pet Shop Boys. The "strings" lend the song an elegance that it didn't previously possess and they place it alongside Soul II Soul, who were then on the rise (and who we'll be seeing on this blog before long). Last year's dance music fad could easily be usurped by this year's and it's a credit to Yazz that she had the vocals and the tunes to adapt to new trends — though not for long.
While I wouldn't go quite as far as Alex Kadis in my praise of "Where Has All the Love Gone?", it is by far the rightful Single of the Fortnight. Granted, this issue's ten selections are a mighty poor crop. Inner City's "Ain't Nobody Better" is probably the closest thing to Yazz having some serious competition and it's a passable (if forgettable) let down after the Detroit techno duo's double whammy of fabness "Big Fun" and "Good Life". There's not much else of note with even the usually reliable Wendy & Lisa seemingly content to remain in Prince's shadow with the inconsequential "Lolly Lolly" — but at least they'd be back. U2 and B.B. King? Nah! Simple Minds? Pass! Given the bleak terrain, is it any wonder Kadis is so taken by a decent Yazz record?
This same issue of Smash Hits includes a short write-up in Bitz with a photo of another short-haired young woman and a headline asking, "Is This Woman the New Yazz?" Lisa Stansfield had been a veteran of close to a decade's worth of pop failure (she even had a Single of the Fortnight of her own way back in 1982) but she was now on the cusp of success for allegedly being just like the UK's biggest dance-pop singer of the time. Similarities were obvious (short crops, working with Coldcut, elastic voices) but only one would emerge as a true global star. Kadis is hopeful that Yazz would be on the road to recovery but her stock would plummet soon enough and a return in 1990 didn't amount to much. By then, Stansfield had started to have hits in North America and I began wondering why the Old Yazz wasn't able to be more like the New Yazz.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Debbie Gibson: "Electric Youth"
And speaking of singers whose chart life was on borrowed time. Debbie Gibson had been a talented musician and songwriter and her 1988 album Out of the Blue was only going to be the beginning. A year later and she was "pushing" nineteen and it was clearly time for her to get serious. "Lost in Your Eyes" did well in the US giving her a second number one single but the British failed to be similarly charmed by it the way they had been so taken by "Foolish Beat" a year earlier. So, how about another upbeat youthful singalong, then? Well, "Electric Youth" proved to be even less convincing than her earnest stuff. "Out of the Blue" and "Shake Your Love" had been glorious pop songs but this was just cheesy and cringe-inducing and the sort of thing that would've been more at home back in '86 to soundtrack the horrible American teen show Kids Incorporated. As Kadis says, songs about generations are generally poor and this is no exception. Yet, I liked it back in '89 but listening to it today I have no idea why.
No comments:
Post a Comment