— Tom Doyle
"Do you have a message for your young fans?"
Their 1991 single "Where the Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off You" returned the Pet Shop Boys to the UK Top 10 and trolled everyone in pop — if Tennant and Lowe really are the grand ironists they're purported to be, they would have considered this to be the ultimate coup. It got the airtime, appeared on their amazing greatest hits Discography and is still spoken of either lovingly or with derision to this day but it shared space with another song. "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" was originally a new jack swing track on the Pet Shops' 1990 magnum opus Behaviour (a certain humble blogger's favourite album of all time) but it had been remixed to appear on a double A-side with the unique mash-up of a U2 hit and a Four Seasons classic.
"How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" is one of a lone line of ironic numbers from Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, stretching from "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" on 1986's Please to "Your Early Stuff" and "Ego Music" from their overlooked 2012 album Elysium. Tennant chafed at the claim that they made "pop records about pop records" but his track record typically failed to back him up. Nevertheless, their attempts at ironic pop resulted in some brilliant songs, the best of which (the B-sides "Miserablism" and "Shameless") even manage to evoke some empathy with the subjects they were mocking.
There isn't much empathy in "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" and fans have often wondered who it's about. Given their open disregard for U2, it could easily be assumed to be about the Irish foursome but there were others hinted at. I've always thought it was about Bros, who were the inspirations the song's line about "longevity". At any rate, it's about the do-gooder nature of pop stars at the end of the eighties — and how everyone was expected to have a message for their young fans.
It started off with Live Aid and it would only snowball from there. Because of abject poverty in Africa, because of the rainforests, because of Apartheid, because of, because of, because of. Pop stars became expected to have a cause and, as such, they were all supposed to have a message for their young fans. Hip hop artists were quick to jump on this, prompting fans to self-righteously proclaim that rap had a "message", while implying that other genres didn't.
Madonna never fully embraced the idea of having a message or a fashionable cause to get behind — unless, of course, you count her later embrace of Kabbalism as a "cause" — but the new found maturity of her late-eighties work had her more invested in issues. While it was clear to see that the likes of Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, k.d. lang and Cyndi Lauper were all feminists to one extent or another, few would have thought to use the term to describe Madonna. That is until "Express Yourself".
"Like a Prayer" had been a mammoth single both in terms of its success and the way it positioned Madonna as a creative force. The album of the same name proved to be a breakthrough (even if I personally see it as no better than predecessor True Blue) but it wasn't exactly packed with potential hit singles. (A curiosity of the time is that she never managed to pull off the extravagant seven-or-eight-singles-off-the-same-album approach that Michael Jackson had perfected) In truth, there were only two to choose from and they would follow one another back into the higher reaches of the charts around the world. One was a magical song that demonstrated her innate understanding of current pop and the other was "Express Yourself".
In fairness, it did well at the time and remains a firm favourite among her fanbase. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, even if its message remains much more potent than the song itself. Sonically, it's a return to the "wave pool pop" of "Open Your Heart" and "Papa Don't Preach" albeit lacking their catchiness and charm. It doesn't help that Madonna relies way too much on her husky vocal style, never one of my preferred characteristics of her's. Still, I'm not crazy about it but I suppose it works in the context of a song about female empowerment. The David Fincher-directed video is one of the more memorable promos of the time but the image of a chained up Madge starkers on a bed doesn't really wash with the wise, big sisterly advice in the lyrics.
As I said above, Madonna wasn't one for heavy-handed message songs and "Express Yourself" is a good example of why. The message is a positive one but there's not much to the record otherwise. And that's the trouble with getting caught up in having a message for your young fans since the pop music typically suffers. Luckily, Madonna pushed through and she followed with "Cherish", a magnificent single that displayed all of her patented pop flash while leaving the message well behind. A good move.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Baby Ford: "Children of the Revolution"
The idea of fusing glam rock with acid house is a good one but how well did Baby Ford pull it off? Cover versions of classic pop and rock songs were notoriously dodgy during this time, though the success of S'Express' "Hey Music Lover" (originally by Sly & The Family Stone, though it was a relatively obscure number) must have been encouraging. So, what of Baby Ford's interpretation of T-Rex's "Children of the Revolution"? Well, it's better than it deserves to be and ver Babe expertly mimics Marc Bolan's sultry whispered style of singing. Yet, why would anyone bother with this facsimile when they could put on the original instead? Or listen to something else? Or doing something else? Or get on with your life?
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