Aerosmith: "Love in an Elevator"

6 September 1989

"They are the only band I still mime to in front of the mirror."

— Mark Shaw, along with his dog cat Rover

Rock and roll, it has long been established, is a young person's game. (Though it clearly isn't anymore) When Elvis Presley slimmed down, dyed his hair and squeezed himself into a leather jumpsuit for his famed 1968 comeback he was thirty-four years old, an impossibly advanced age for someone to be singing "That's All Right" and "Heartburn Heartbreak Hotel". Yet, twenty years later, it was relatively young to be in one's mid-thirties. Among the most successful and/or critically acclaimed albums of 1989 were Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy, Paul McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt, Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl and The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels. Singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt at forty had her long overdue breakthrough with the aptly named Nick of Time. Tom Petty moved out of the shadows of his idols and reached a whole new level of popularity with the bestselling Full Moon Fever. Even David Bowie (working a band called Tin Machine) and Queen were still active, even if they hadn't done their most stellar work that year. In this sort of atmosphere, it isn't too surprising that Aerosmith would be bigger than ever while advancing into their forties.

Once a blatant Rolling Stones rip off (Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were the poor men's Mick Jagger and Keith Richards respectively), Aerosmith had been active since the early-seventies. They had early hits in the US with "Sweet Emotion" and the original "Walk This Way" but their fortunes declined as they entered the eighties and it was only when the latter was famously covered by hip hop group Run-DMC that they experienced a revival. Tyler and Perry guested on the rap-rock "Walk This Way" and it gave all concerned a Top 10 hit around the world. Aerosmith were back — indeed, they likely benefited more from the collaboration than Run-DMC ever would.

It's likely that this hugely important single was only a part of the story in their renaissance. While rock had always been intended for younger groups, there was a new found openness towards older acts, particularly in the realm of glam metal. Heart and Whitesnake were both made of up members who had seen their twenties come and go several years earlier and both groups had American number one hits in 1987. Not coincidentally, Aerosmith released their comeback album Permanent Vacation that very year. Both Tyler's screams and Perry's riffs were dialed up to maximum volume. First single "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" played up to metal machismo while subtly undermining it. Their hardcore classic rock fanbase took to it and so did the younger headbangers. Aerosmith were so metal that they even had a logo that could have doubled as a tattoo.

Nevertheless, interest in them in the UK had been minimal. Run-DMC's "Walk This Way" had been a smash but nothing else that Tyler and Perry had been behind managed to catch on. (While "Dude" almost reached the Top 40, follow-up "Angel", which had been their biggest chart hit in the States to date, was a total flop) There was no reason to expect any different from "Love in an Elevator" (or "Eleven and Elevator" as I initially thought it was) which makes its Top 20 performance all the more remarkable. While it may have fluked a hit, it's possible that it unknowingly rode the coattails of Alice Cooper's "Poison", a surprise Top 5 smash a month earlier. One hard rocking American hit could've help push another to a spot that it otherwise wouldn't have had a hope of attaining.

Mark Shaw of Then Jerico reviewed the singles in this issue. Being a rock star more in his own mind than in practice, it's probable that he saw his own aspirations in Aerosmith. A jobbing rock band that had hit it big while doing very much their own thing is something that once appealed to generations of young musicians. The fact that they never lost their humour is also something to be admired in them (even by me and I am by no means a fan). And as much as their music doesn't do much for me, they were always entertainers on a par with their idols The Rolling Stones. Real heavy metal was always about earnest things like the music and the women and wine but Aerosmith were first rate performers who took as much pleasure out of making fun of rock 'n' roll as they did out of trying to carve out their own legacy as rock gods. And perhaps that's how rock bands should go about aging gracefully: by aging with as little dignity and good sense as possible.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Tears for Fears: "Sowing the Seeds of Love"

Roland Orzbal had been so impressed by XTC's attempt to ape the sound of "I Am the Walrus" that he tried it out himself with "Sowing the Seeds of Love". It wouldn't be long before the term Beatlesque would be code for 'boring, three-chord rock' so this slice of Pepperland magic makes for a welcome listen. Shaw loves the bulk of it but isn't overly fond of the song's midsection but the whole five-and-a-half-minutes is brilliant to these ears. A definite should've been Single of the Fortnight — and I imagine it would've been had it been up to your average Smash Hits scribe. A great song but it's sad in retrospect that they were just about done. Then again, The Beatles were never the same after Sgt Pepper so why should it be any different for their protegees of the eighties?

Roxy Music: "Jealous Guy"

19 February 1981

"Ferry croons through half closed eyes, saxophones serenade breathily and some individual takes it upon himself to whistle for the last half hour."

— David Hepworth

It was at some point in my first year in Korea that I first took in a Noraebang, a Korean singing room. While the friends I was with quickly chose favourite songs, I took my time leafing through several of the large binders they had. I had no interest in the usuals ("Sweet Caroline", "Take Me Home Country Roads") and wanted to choose something clever. At some point I happened upon "Jealous Guy" and was impressed that they had a John Lennon song other than "Imagine". These catalogs listed a karaoke serial number and song title but also the artist. "Snowbird" (yes, I checked) had Anne Murray, "Baby I Love Your Way" had Peter Frampton: the given singers or groups were those most associated with the songs listed. But "Jealous Guy" had Roxy Music down as the artist. Roxy Music???

Now, don't get me wrong, I love me some Roxy, something I have written previously in this space. I often listen to "Virginia Plain" and think that it's the greatest single ever made. The first four albums are absolutely brilliant as is most of the fifth — though for some reason I've never warmed to "Both Ends Burning". They then went on hiatus and were never the same after they returned but they never looked foolish either. I'm not as convinced by Avalon as others are but it's still fine for what it is. I never need to listen to their later stuff but I wouldn't look down upon anyone who wished to do so.

As many probably remember (I don't mind you; I was just three-and-a-half), the shocking murder of John Lennon at the end of 1980 resulted in a flooding of the market. Long term, this meant a gradual re-evaluation of The Beatles to the point where now the grandchildren of their original fans will tell you that they are their favourite group. But in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, it was Lennon's solo material that "benefited". "(Just Like) Starting Over" had actually been heading down the chart at the time of his death but it swiftly rebounded all the way back to the top, giving him a rare solo number one. In North America, it was the singles from the Double Fantasy album that took the lion's share of the chart space but in Britain "Imagine" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" were both reissued. Then, "Woman", Double Fantasy's second single, came out and Lennon remained at the top. If the British had turned their backs on him over the previous decade since The Beatles' split, they were doing everything they could to make it up to him now.

This glut of Lennon product perhaps explains why tributes weren't over-abundant at first. George Harrison's loving "All Those Years Ago" wouldn't get dropped until the spring, by which point the grief had subsided. It gave the Quiet One a Top 20 hit but an earlier release arguably would've done far better. (Tom Ewing's not-entirely-positive memories of thia time suggest that there was even a bit of a backlash, at least from some corners of the music consumer community) Paul McCartney sang backing vocals on "All Those Years Ago" and wouldn't release his own salute to his old friend, "Here Today" on the Tug of War album, for another year. This left a gap and it was filled by a passable cover of "Jealous Guy" by Roxy Music.

Originally written by Lennon during The Beatles' meditation retreat in Rishikesh, India with the Maharishi in 1968, it was initially known as "Child of Nature". Living in an ashram did him a world of good and it sparked a prolific songwriting period after years of being lost in a sea of drugs. With too many songs already in the can and a similar but slightly superior McCartney number ("Mother Nature's Son") in contention, it was withdrawn from consideration for the so-called White Album. (He would revisit it a few months later during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions; heroin, Yoko Ono's miscarriage and legal troubles all conspired to curtail Lennon's songwriting in 1969, a time when many other older compositions — "Across the Universe", "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", "Polythene Pam", "Mean Mr. Mustard", even the subpar "What's the New Mary Jane?" — were dusted off for potential releases) The melody stayed with him and it would eventually be re-written as "Jealous Guy", one of the high spots on his Imagine album from 1971.

Even at a time when relatively few 45s would end up being taken off albums (at their creative peak, Roxy Music typically had just one), it's surprising that "Jealous Guy" was never a single in Lennon's lifetime. Phil Spector created as many bloated, overproduced numbers as he did masterpieces but there's no arguing with the gorgeous echo he conjured up to accompany Lennon's piano introduction. While the lyrics on "Child of Nature" (or "On the Road to Marrakesh", as it would also be known) never really worked, these are thoughtful and confessional, a clear result of the much more open words on the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album from 1970.

Roxy's cover opens with something that sounds like an effects pedal, a tool The Beatles used a lot of in 1965. There's no attempt to ape Spector's production and they mainly go for making it sound as much like a Roxy Music song as possible. Considering how poor their recent covers of both The Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" were, they don't make such a bad job of it this time 'round, even if it still comes nowhere close to the original. On the one hand, Ferry's vocal delivery is a little too nonchalant but I suppose that it's a better option than getting too melodramatic. As David Hepworth says, the whistling goes on and on and, in general, there's prolonged fadeout — a trick Roxy Music would repeat a year later for "More Than This" — which unnecessarily pushes the recording close to the five minute mark.

As tributes go, the decision to do "Jealous Guy" is curious to say the least. They had "Imagine", "In My Life", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Instant Karma" to choose from but they went with something from Lennon's dark heart. Not one of his songs of scorn like "Sexy Sadie", "How Do You Sleep" or "Steel and Glass" but one in which he atones for his own misdemeanours. Lennon is now seen as a bit of a problematic figure. His penchant for violence meant that many of the women in his life suffered under his fists. While some may wish to have him "cancelled", others would rather avoid having to address this thorny issue. But one person who did address it was Lennon himself. He struggled with his demons and used the medium of his songs to deal with them. He went to his grave having still not resolved all of them but at least he made the effort. When people say that we shouldn't judge similarly problematic types like Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson, it's because they "aren't here to defend themselves". The same goes for Lennon though he left a record of apologetics rather than silence. He may not be able to defend himself but at least we can try to understand.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Duran Duran: "Planet Earth"

"This isn't just dull," Hepworth complains, "it's an old kind of dull". Given how hugely successful Duran Duran would soon become (they're up for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the first time this year), you have to wonder if Heps was proud that he failed to see anything in them from the get go. The likes of The Human League and Spandau Ballet took their time having hits but the Duranies managed to hit the ground running, no matter what grouchy music reviewers thought. The New Romantics were as much old school glam rock devotees as they were punks and it's the spirit of '72 that gives "Planet Earth" its energy and charm. The "old kind of dull" is now all that skeletal post-punk and new wave that wouldn't go away; this is indeed a retread but one done with enough oomph that it hardly matters. Duran Duran would go on to do much better — as well as a whole lot worse — and this was a fine start to one of the better singles bands of their era.

Guns N' Roses: "Nightrain"

23 August 1989

"Makes other rock bands look crap."

— Mike Soutar

I hadn't been gone a month and it was as if I'd never been there. I left the UK on August 4th and immediately went back to the life I'd left behind. The same friends I had nothing in common with (and even less so now), the same summertime routine of sleeping in, swimming lessons and slurpees, the same aimlessness that would fester for a good many years. It would be some time before the experience of living in Britain would sink in. As for the old world itself, it never knew I was there. This issue of Smash Hits bears little in common with the pop scene that I had just left behind. Groups were coming, groups were going, groups were returning, groups were pretending.

As everyone says, pop stardom is fleeting. The fame window only remains open for so long. In this issue's singles review, Mike Soutar examines a handful of acts who were just about done with their rides on the giddy carousel of pop. Johnny Hates Jazz had spent 1987 and the early part of '88 enjoying a string of hit singles and a big fat smash album before vocalist Clark Datchler decided he'd had enough. Now, they were back (BACK!!) with Phil Thornally doing the singing (I think he once had a cup of coffee in The Cure and would eventually write "Torn", the global hit for Natalie Imgruglia in 1998) but they were soon to discover that they weren't about to strike gold a second time. Soutar predicts it's either sink or swim for the latest Danny Wilson single (it's the former) and they would promptly vanish. The London Boys had had a pair of big hits but their momentum was about to disappear with third attempt "Harlem Nights Desire". As for The Jacksons, what in god's name were they still doing around in 1989 anyway?

Even some of the bigger names here were soon to fall off somewhat. Gloria Estefan's Cuts Both Ways was her best album yet but her music would never be the same following the terrible bus crash at the start of 1990. All this Batman nonsense wasn't doing Prince any favours and it would be some time before he got back on track. Madonna was peaking but she too was entering a rather fallow period that wouldn't be set right until close to the end of the nineties. Bobby Brown (see below) promised a future that never came — unless, of course, you happened to be anticipating a future of creative bankruptcy, violence and a craft service table of choice narcotics.

Boozing, dirt-bag hard rockers may have had it right all along. Their philosophy (to the extent that any of them had one) seemed to be get rich, party hard and make the most of every second until it all dries up. Even if they'd end up leaving a trail of rock 'n' roll casualties, the vast majority of them wouldn't have changed a thing if they could live it all over again. And no group seemed to live larger than Guns N' Roses.

Metal groups tend to take a while to catch on. Def Leppard toured all over the place and had two albums that sold respectably — in spite of their very un-metal titles — before they really started to take off with the 1983 album Pyromania — whose title is very metal. Similarly, Bon Jovi did a pair of LPs that hardly anyone bought before releasing breakthrough Slippery When Wet. GNR, however, were different. I always assumed they had some self-titled debut put out in 1985 that nearly got them released from their record label but there is no such album. In fact, Appetite for Destruction appeared to be a potential metal obscurity in its first year before mainstream audiences joined headbangers in purchasing it en masse.

The album came out in 1987 but it wouldn't start to sell until '88. It is, therefore, appropriate that their proper boom in Britain would be delayed until '89. "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "Welcome to the Jungle" were minor Top 30 hits in the second half of 1988 but these were strictly being picked up by metalheads; the pop kids were just going to have to wait. Somehow or other, "Paradise City" was where they began to emerge in the UK. Its Top 10 success was then followed by a remix of "Sweet Child o' Mine" (with Slash's edited guitar solos making it preferable to the original in my opinion) and "Patience", taken from mini album G N' R Lies. The tunefulness of the former and the acoustic mournfulness of the latter was all well and good but what about the Guns N' Roses that drank and debauched themselves into a rock cliche?

"Nightrain" had already appeared as a double A-side with "Welcome to the Jungle" a year earlier. As was customary with the format (barring the odd "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane"), only one song got what little airplay there was to be had and it wasn't "Nightrain". The good news of being spurned the first time was that it still had legs as a single in its own right. Still, just because a record can be released doesn't mean it needed to be.

There's nothing especially wrong with "Nightrain" but it doesn't exactly scream potential hit. While as vigorous as any song with lyrics about being "loaded like a freight train" and "flyin' like an aeroplane" and "feelin' like a space brain" ought to be, it isn't particularly catchy the way earlier hits managed to be so effortlessly. Instead of being that tacked on single that no one needed, it would have been better off being that deep cut that fans reckon really ought to have been a single. It didn't do them any harm and performed better than it deserved (a signal of how big they had become was that a former double A-side and cut from Appetite for Destruction still had legs to get into the Top 20) but no one paying attention to the charts became Guns N' Roses fans because of it. Their fanbase was big enough by this time to guarantee some chart action especially since it's crammed with Axl Rose screaming and loads of high-octane guitar riffage. What more could people want?

Thankfully, they refrained from putting out more material from their first album. The group was beginning to stockpile fresh songs (in an earlier issue of Smash Hits, Rose admits to having a song called "November Rain" that he's determined to put out or else he'll "quit the business") that would result in the highly-anticipated twin release of Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, albums that were almost as big as Appetite for Destruction and which would spawn a string of Top 10 hits. Their inevitable self-destruction would be delayed until afterwards. Not that they have any regrets or anything.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bobby Brown: "Rock Wit'cha"

It never occured to anyone at the time but Bobby Brown and Guns N' Roses were living parallel lives. Both released albums that took a while to get going (especially in Britain) and both were in the midst of their imperial periods when they released these rather substandard singles. Brown's run of hits was surprisingly diverse (the new jack swing of "My Prerogative", the cool R&B of "Don't Be Cruel", the whimsical "Every Little Step") so it stands to reason that a quiet storm number would be on deck. Anticipating Boyz II Men, it's the sort of thing that I've never warmed to in the hands of male vocalists. (Anita Baker, for one, did it way better) The British weren't convinced either as "Rock Wit'cha" only managed to limp into the Top 40. Brown's notoriety was enough to keep him a hit parade regular in the early-nineties but a GNR-esque collapse was coming. Those imperial periods come with a heavy price.

Slam Slam: "Move (Dance All Night)"

9 August 1989

"It's a brilliant example of what a good dance record should be — whereas the Pet Shop Boys isn't."

— Dr Robert

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe had been the darlings of UK pop for almost four years by the summer of 1989. Not a whole lot of time, no, but more than enough for them to have seen off a host of groups who came and went as well a series of changes in tastes among the public. Due at least in part to Tennant's previous occupation, they never seemed to lose favour with critics, even when their film was panned or when they toured to mixed reviews. 1989 had been their quietest year to date but they still had yet another Top 5 hit, played concerts in the UK and Asia, wrote and produced successful records for both Dusty Springfield and Liza Minelli and were relevant enough with ver kids that they finished second in that year's Smash Hits reader's poll.

Yet some were beginning to tire of the Pet Shop Boys. Harriet Dell exposed the first crack earlier that summer by not being terribly fussed by their latest single "It's Alright". (Erasure weren't all that impressed by "Heart" but they liked it enough to make it their Single of the Fortnight) Hits "viewer" Alison Taylor of Paisley objected in the letters page to their "obnoxious" attitude in a feature from early July and predicted that the "dumper beckons" for the pair. (Tennant and Lowe memorably fretted over this piece of correspondence in Chris Heath's superb book Pet Shop Boys, Literally; Alison would receive a sternly-word response from "The Boys' Defender" in Leicester in a subsequent issue in August) And now Dr Robert of the Blow Monkeys weighs in not once but twice with his own thoughts about why the Pet Shops aren't up to much. (He also bashes them in a review of Liza Minelli's cover of "Losing My Mind" which they produced; at least this trashing is connected to the record in question)

The "good" doctor wasn't just a member of the Blow Monkeys, mind you. He was also behind the very record he pushes for this fortnight's top single honours. Yes, Slam Slam were a dance pop unit made up of Dee C. Lee of The Style Council and one Robert Howard, aka Dr Robert. He might have mentioned the conflict of interest as Jools Holland, Martin Degeville and Neal X were good enough to do (Loadsa "Francis" Money didn't bring it up either but what's the use of having scruples if you've got plenty of dosh?) but he decided to act as if he just happened to bring in a record at random to share with the peeps at ver Hits. Top bloke.

I'll get to him raving over his own record in short order but I want to discuss his disgust with the Pet Shop Boys first. Robert seems to reckon he's a dab hand at dance music and he's actually not wrong. While the Blow Monkeys were faltering with a series of forgettable singles, he and Kym Mazelle somehow struck gold with "Wait", a fantastic deep house duet that gave the pair of Top 10 hit in the early part of 1989. His band had never shown any inkling for modern house music previously but he managed just fine. Deep house was something that English pop stars were beginning to explore at around this time with both The Style Council and — huh, imagine that — the Pet Shop Boys enjoying chart action with covers of club favourites "Promised Land" and "It's Alright" respectively. To Robert's credit, he managed to compose his own effort. This success must have given him the idea that he was suddenly an expert at crafting serious dance pop, one far in advance of amateurs like Tennant and Lowe. He had bona fides to build up in the minds of the kids and within the industry: why not try to do so by knocking down the competition?

Unfortunately, "Wait" was not something he could easily recapture. The single quickly got snapped up for third Blow Monkeys album Whoops! There Goes the Neighbourhood but subsequent singles "This Is You Life" and "Choice" only benefited minimally, not helped by the fact that neither of them were any good. Robert had to look elsewhere to build upon what he started. The Style Council's cover of Joe Smooth's "Promised Land" had given them a minor hit to go with their Singular Adventures of the Style Council compilation album but the group got dropped by Paul Weller's longtime label Polydor due to being dissatisfied with the deep house-influenced Modernism: A New Decade, an LP that would remain unreleased for almost a decade. So why not join forces?

With Howard, Weller and Lee having been part of the Red Wedge tours, there was every reason to expect more political pop from their latest project Slam Slam. But The Style Council had begun moving away from overtly left wing proclamations in their songs following arguably their finest album Our Favourite Shop and Dr. Robert's socialist convictions were being spurned by record buyers who preferred "Wait" (a song that, to be fair, has a subtle political message of its own). More importantly, very little of the genuine musical talents of these three manage to shine through on a track like "Move (Dance All Night)". At best it captures that tried and true disco parable of ordinary people living miserable lives who find solace in being stars on the dancefloor. Quite what these three very skilled individuals had in mind by churning out bland, tenth rate house music is anyone's guess.

Nevertheless, the single's poor chart performance (on multiple tries at that) combined with the relative anonymity of the pop stars behind it meant that "Move" wouldn't end up being a serious blemish for the parties involved. Further Slam Slam records did well in dance circles and they would even release an album but they were done within a couple years. Weller would kick start his very strong solo career, Lee would pop up here and there and Dr Robert would continue to work with the two from time to time. The Blow Monkeys would end up reforming in 2007 and they're a better band now than they ever were when they were having hits. His nibs went from trying to be an expert at genres he didn't know much about to doing what he does best. There's always going to be a place for singing and writing fine material for a stylish pop group.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Fine Young Cannibals: "Don't Look Back"

Less characterful than "She Drives Me Crazy" and "Good Thing", "Don't Look Back" is actually the FYC single that I think of first when they come to mind. The two big hits were both kind of gimmicky but this one felt like something that came naturally to the trio. Roland Gift's voice sometimes gets on my nerves but the crunching pop power pop drowns him out enough that I'm not so bothered. I understand people not liking it (the record fell way off from the heights of the previous two, particularly in Britain) and even Dr Robert's critique makes sense — yes, it does sound "like The Bangles" (although I'm not sure how that's a bad thing) and it does sound like a "tired piece of American new wave" — but I like it all the same. The riff is a bit like "Day Tripper" and it has frantic energy that's not unlike what lesser known Cannibals Andy Cox and David Steele did back when they were in The English Beat. As I say, it's best to stick with what you know.

R.E.M.: "Stand"

2 August 1989

"It's brilliant. I love this. It sounds like a song we like by a band called The Pixies."

— Shirley Manson

"It's a good pop record and I like it because the guitar solo's slightly incompetent."

— Martin Metcalfe

Oh blimey!! Not another special edition of VER HITS!!!

Until now, special editions of this blog have covered Record Mirror and both the American and Australian versions of Smash Hits but I had yet to write about the magazine's chief competitor and bête noire Number One. Established in 1983, it was never able to escape the shadow of ver Hits despite the fact that it was a weekly rather — than a fortnightly — publication. The writers generally weren't as good (sorry John Aizlewood), the layout looked cheaply done and it catered a little more toward celebrity gossip. They did print the weekly Top 75 singles and albums charts but these listings came from The Chart Show and they never quite matched the proper Top 40 on Radio 1 and Top of the Pops. (In this particular issue, the singles that made up the Top 10 are the same albeit in different order)

It may sound like I was never a fan of Number One but I used to buy it semi-regularly. I could get impatient during that two week wait between issues of Smash Hits and picking up a copy of its poor cousin satiated my desire somewhat, even if I would never shell out for it when the real thing was available. While music journalists such as Andrew Panos and Ro Newton would sift through the new releases in past issues, it had since become all about having guest reviewers by the end of the eighties. Being a weekly, it's clear they often had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find enough pop stars, DJ's and other celebs to do the deed. Among the "big" names they had during my state in the UK were Climie Fisher, Angry Anderson and Swedish "sensation" 2 Brave. Not all of them were third rate but enough were to make the singles review page much more of an ordeal than it was in Smash Hits. It was for this very reason that I held off writing about the singles in Number One until now: I couldn't find a single and/or reviewer that I felt any desire to write about. I didn't buy this issue but I would have had I been paying attention. I would subsequently buy two more import copies of Number One in Canada and I am planning to write about those when they come up.

Martin Metcalfe and Shirley Manson are this issue's reviewers. The lead singer and keyboardist/backing vocalist out of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie respectively, they had one Top 40 entry with the punchy "The Rattler", a record that owed as much to the Celtic stadium rock of Big Country and Deacon Blue as it did to indie stalwarts Orange Juice and The Jesus and Mary Chain and one that deserved to do better than its modest number thirty-seven placing. Much like the group they picked for their Single of the Week, they seemed set for big things. One of them would go on to enjoy a remarkable career but they would have to wait a bit.

A big thanks as always 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.

~~~~~

It was Friday, August 4, 1989. I was wearing the Coca-Cola denim jacket my mother bought for me eighteen months' earlier. The sleeves were much shorter than they used to be. My baseball cap was only able to balance on the top of my head. I had already outgrown the life I had left behind in Canada a year earlier and now I was outgrowing the clothes I had brought with me. Why on earth was I heading back at all? (Oh right, because my parents said so)

Gatwick was a lot brighter and more modern than I remember it being fifty weeks earlier. It had all been a blur when I was first there but now I was just to glum to notice much. Such was my state that I didn't even have a look around. Had I peaked inside the WH Smith's that the airport almost certainly had, I would have noticed that there was a new issue of Number One that I didn't have. It would've added a flicker of joy to a day that I had been dreading. I hadn't wanted to go to England a year earlier and now that I had been here a while, I didn't want to leave. Having a fresh copy of a second-rate pop mag for the eight hour flight back to Canada would have made the trip that little bit less unbearable.

Still, I didn't miss much. The cover "story" involves TV's Lenny Henry answering a series of silly questions as his famous characters Theophilus P. Wildebeeste and Delbert Wilkins, the latter of which he put to more amusing use five years earlier when reviewing the Smash Hits singles. Elsewhere, there's the first in a two-part feature on songwriting/production monolith Stock Aitken Waterman (who bristle at criticism leveled their way while also claiming that groups like U2 and The Smiths are boring), Bruno Brookes' Radio 1 Roadshow Diary (those roadshows never seemed like much fun and this page confirms it) and yet another round of The Genius of Pop, in which various "stars" take a quiz on, you guessed it, pop music. On the plus side, the Indie singles chart is a welcome reminder of what an excellent year 1989 was for alternative music and, as if to confirm it, Martin and Shirley from Scottish group Goodbye Mr Mackenzie review the singles.

R.E.M. had spent much of the eighties quietly building up an outstanding back catalog. A raw, early pressing of the brilliant "Radio Free Europe" followed by the Chronic Town E.P. got the ball rolling and they would go on a hot streak of six albums in six years. Success was modest at first but it grew over the course of the decade, especially in North America where they toured extensively and were a staple of the so-called college rock scene. The word-of-mouth on albums such as Murmur and Lifes Rich Pageant was so good that their slight creative dip beginning with 1987's Document did nothing to halt their momentum. Indeed, single "The One I Love" gave them a Top 10 US hit that year. They had been poised for a breakthrough for some time and now it was coming.

Across the Atlantic things took a bit longer. Both "The One I Love" and "Finest Worksong" came close to reaching the Top 40 but fell short and the same fate befell "Stand" on its initial release at the start of 1989. Albums Fables of the Reconstruction, Document and Green all did reasonably well and, again, a breakthrough seemed inevitable. Then, "Orange Crush" gave them at Top 30 hit which led to a memorable performance on Top of the Pops in which Michael Stipe "sang" into a megaphone. The single fell off a week later but it was looking like this was going to be R.E.M.'s time in the UK. Two short years later and it finally was!

The Green album wasn't exactly packed with potential hit singles so someone decided to give "Stand" another try. It was at this point that Martin Metcalfe and Shirley Manson gave it their stamp of approval in Number One. Perhaps because of it being a reissue, they already seem familiar with it, with Manson mentioning how much she likes the video. But neither of them seem to know all that much about R.E.M. and if you didn't know any better you'd be convinced that this was their introduction to the Athens, GA foursome. Shirley's comment above about "Stand" being not unlike a single ("Here Comes Your Man" perhaps? It was currently on Number One's classic-packed Indie chart and is like a rich cousin to "Stand") by the Pixies implies she knows more about the latter than the former. (To be fair, Pixies were a much better group at that point, their albums Surfer Rosa and Doolittle far outpaced Document and Green, at least in terms of quality if not in numbers shifted) Metcalfe's praise for the "incompetent" guitar playing also indicates how little they knew: Peter Buck was an indie guitar hero to some but he didn't mean shit to the members of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie.

What all this really tells you is that R.E.M. still had a ways to go before conquering Britain. While "Orange Crush" at least has a strong beat, "Stand" and "Pop Song 89" (passed over as a single in the UK) began to expose them as a band that could get repetitive. All three songs have basic opening verses, choruses and not much else. They had nothing on the glorious jangle-pop of "So. Central Rain" not the mournful singalong "Fall on Me". (The Green album did have some nice deep cuts — the achingly lovely "You Are the Everything", the crunchy "Turn You Inside-Out — but overall it's an uncharacteristically inconsistent work) R.E.M. had lost their way and they would use their climb to the top of the pop mountain to reclaim it — for a while at least.

The future of rock was there on page 42 of this issue of Number One and not just due to the Single of the Week. Shirley Manson was a young Scots pianist and backing singer who would one day be part of a group that would rival R.E.M. in the 'biggest band in the world' stakes. Garbage was a subtly fine group that cleverly merged American grunge with UK shoegaze, filling a void that no had even noticed. They weren't exactly a favourite of mine but they certainly gave some life to the depressing music scene of 1995 that was overloaded with ghastly US frat rock and the self-parody ridden Britpop. Meanwhile, R.E.M. spent the year I graduated from high school on a highly lucrative world tour that proved to be the beginning of the end for them. And all this from a pair of groups that had two minor hits between them in 1989. Yeah, those big breakthroughs would come eventually.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

The Beatmasters featuring Betty Boo: "Hey DJ / I Can't Dance (to That Music You're Playing)"

Paul Carter, Manda Glanfield and Richard Walmsley weren't exactly pop star material but they knew more than a little about crafting great dance pop and finding charismatic stars to lead the way. They brought back P.P. Arnold for the appropriately-named "Burn It Up" but most of their guest stars were young. Cookie Crew, Merlin and, this time, Betty Boo: it looked like they had found the future of British hip hop and house music. Alison Clarkson had a tough style and pin-up looks and her Betty Boo character ought to have become even bigger. "Hey DJ" does the trick of setting up Boo as a player while once again affirming The Beatmasters as an overlooked force in British dance-pop. One of those fine records that I missed out on because my mum and dad just had ship us back home. The nerve of some people.

Fleetwood Mac: "The Farmer's Daughter"

5 February 1981

"A cunning choice from their live album."

— Mike Stand

Indeed. What could be better than to promote a live album with a single recorded in a studio?

We like to think that the live experience is authentic and it's an easy delusion to maintain if we so desire. We don't have to examine the stage to see the setlist and name of the city taped to the stage. We can convince ourselves that the between-song banter ("let's play this song...you know, the easy one...even you can play it!"; oh, the hilarity) is impromptu. We can rationalize that the singer getting choked up in an emotional moment was a one-in-a-lifetime thing and there's no way he or she would repeat the trick the next night.In truth, however, these sorts of tricks are easier to spot than the secrets of a scripted wrestling match. And pop stars know it and that's why most live albums are embellished in the studio.

In 1979 Fleetwood Mac chose to follow the insanely successful Rumours with Tusk, a supposedly difficult double album that supposedly turned millions of fans off. It's difficult now to understand why things fell off so spectacularly for them: for all those catchy if somewhat jarring new wavy tracks from Lindsay Buckingham, there are still the contributions of Stevie Nicks and, in particular, Christine McVie which underscore the fact that they hadn't changed all that much at all. (Songs like "Sara", "Storms", "Brown Eyes" and "Never Forget" hold up against anything else they ever did, to say nothing of excellent Buckingham cuts like "I Know I'm Not Wrong" and "Tusk", probably their finest single) It didn't sell anywhere close to its predecessor but factors such as changing tastes and the two disc set being pricey likely contributed at least as much to their commercial decline.

Nevertheless, there was still enough of an audience out there for them to embark on a world tour that was even bigger than two years earlier when they toured Rumours. Playing well over a hundred shows in North America, Europe, Japan and Oceania in just under a year, Fleetwood Mac's setlists leaned heavily on material from both Rumours and Tusk, as well as their 1975 self-titled album which kicked off the group's Buckingham-Nicks golden era. Being so well stocked in quality songwriters, they weren't much inclined towards padding out their repertoire with cover versions. As such, "The Farmer's Daughter", a deep cut on The Beach Boys' 1963 album Surfin' USA, was never performed on the tour, not even in a backstage soundcheck for a selection of family and friends.

On the Live album released at the end of 1980, "The Farmer's Daughter" features a smattering of cheers at the end and the recording is drenched in echo: just what you might expect if they were playing a lighthearted little number for shits and giggles while warming up for a concert in Champaign, Illinois or Valley Center, Kansas (no matter how obscure, there isn't a US city bands won't play even if they'll bypass metros of several million in other countries); in fact, it was recorded during the Tusk sessions, minus the crowd noise and effects. If live albums could be enhanced in the studio, why not cut songs in the studio disguised as live?

Why did they choose to record it all? It's hard to say but Buckingham was a lifelong fan of Brian Wilson while McVie was in the midst of a relationship with Dennis. The Beach Boys spent the early part of the seventies flourishing creatively with albums such as Sunflower, Surf's Up and Holland but their stock had fallen by the time Fleetwood Mac were on the rise. Their increasingly poor run of albums of late didn't harm their status as a popular live act and the two groups were among the most popular concert attractions in pop. More to the point, the original dates back to their early period as a surf rock group and little if any care seems to have gone into their recording of "The Farmer's Daughter". Brian was already a formidable talent in pop but his compositions were rushed and his bandmates weren't capable enough musicians to do his work justice.

Fleetwood Mac's version indicates what might have been, had Brian been able to record it his way and/or had Carl Wilson been allowed to give it a much more of the delicate vocal treatment it deserved. McVie and Nicks purr their way through a gorgeous recording, with just some simple guitar chords to guide them along the way. It's a little more restrained than much of what's on Tusk, as if ver Mac weren't quite sure what they were doing with it, but that's probably advantageous. It wouldn't have fit on the album and it was likely never in consideration but it's surprising that they couldn't have placed it on a B-side. Instead, they threw it on their first live LP, a curio of what you may have missed had you not gone to see them. Turns out, you would've missed it even if you had been there.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Joe Dolce's Music Theatre: "Shaddap You Face"

And while we're on the subject of fake live recordings, Joe Dolce made a career out of this unfunny cringe-fest loaded with cod-Italian and lazy stereotypes — and with an "audience" joining in at the end! Mike Stand hates it, Tom Ewing hates it, this humble blogger hates it but who can argue with those millions of listeners who were charmed enough by that they helped make this vile record a global smash all over the world in the early part of 1981. Mercifully, it doesn't get played much anymore which no doubt prompts certain reactionary types to cry that it's yet another sign of how depressingly woke we've all become. I say that the song's offensive and terrible and deserves to be forgotten. Who's to say who's correct?

"Batman: Original Theme"

26 July 1989

"I didn't realise that it was written by Neal Hefti who used to work for Frank Sinatra — and we're all big Frank Sinatra fans, as you know."

— Gary Clark

"The lyrical content is great too. Straight to the point. Batmaaan...Batmaaaan!!"

— Kit Clark

"I've heard that the Joker has cigars that blow people's heads off. Sound good to me!"

— Ged Grimes

And the streak is over. After thirteen issues of Smash Hits and fourteen Top 40 hits, at last we have a flop. The last time a chart non entity had been named Single of the Fortnight was way back in January of 1989 when Tom Doyle handed the crown to Squeezebrain & The Machine featuring J.J. Jones for "Lovegroove". In the six intervening months we had gigantic worldwide smashes ("Like a Prayer", "Back to Life"), hits for artists on the rise ("Manchild", "Say No Go"), chart returns for faded stars of the past ("Nothing Has Been Proved", "I'm Every Woman") and at least one gem that hardly anyone remembers anymore ("You on My Mind"). But they all dented the Top 40. This one? Not so much.

Mainstream popular culture in the summer of 1989 was all abuzz over Tim Burton's Batman. Beetlejuice had been released a year earlier and proved to be a hit. For the director's next project to be the Dark Knight, the hype was tremendous, even in this pre-internet age. Displaying a trait which would eventually become tiresome, Burton returned to the well by casting Beetlejuice star Michael Keaton in the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman but the other big stars (Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger) were not rehires. Prince had even signed on to put together the soundtrack. This Batman movie was going to be a big deal.

The British, however, were just going to have to wait. Hollywood blockbusters would typically be delayed prior to being shown outside of North America and in this instance, Batman wouldn't come out until closer to the end of the year. Thus, they had to make due with the music and Prince's "Batdance" single swiftly rocketed up the charts and only came up short of becoming his first UK number one because of the immovable Soul II Soul. The soundtrack also did well, giving the Purple Perv his second chart topping album. If the British weren't one hundred percent sold on Batman, at least Prince could be relied upon to shift some "units".

Strategic reissues are nothing new in the music business, especially when rival record labels are concerned. I knew less about the record industry when I was twelve than I do now in my forties (and I still don't know much about it) but a re-release of the original "Batman" from the sixties' TV series at this time didn't surprise me at all. I had spent a year in England following the charts and there had been a drippy and pathetic power ballad that got to number one simply because of a Coke commercial. Shortly after arriving the previous August there had been two different versions of "He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother)" vying for chart supremacy at the same time. (I didn't care all that much for the better-known recording by The Hollies but it is vastly superior to the deplorable "reading" by erstwhile Righteous Brother Bill Medley from the soundtrack of Rambo III) That autumn, Tom Jones teamed up with synth experimentalists the Art of Noise for a cover of Prince's "Kiss"; the much better original by his nibs would be promptly back in the shops even though no one bothered with it at that point.

Giving their thumbs way up to the Neal Hefti composed, Nelson Riddle conducted "Batman" are the Scottish threesome Danny Wilson. A zany trio, they crafted meticulous records but never acted as if they were above the pop "game". Indeed, they could easily have acted all high and mighty about their choice for Single of the Fortnight while rubbishing the state of current music. In fact, they don't have a lot positive things to say about most the other pop fare but they keep their negativity to the music and to poking fun at their contemporaries, as one should. Neneh Cherry's admittedly rather twee "Kisses on the Wind" reminds them of the jingle for Skittles, The Lilac Time are compared to a flat bottle of energy drink Lucozade, they consider putting the Then Jericho sleeve on the turntable in place of the actual record ("I bet it would sound a lot better!"), Big Fun are dismissed as being not unlike poor chocolate biscuits and the latest from Simple Minds sounds "like a Billy Idol record that somebody had spilt their tea on" (irrefutably true). Slagging off modern pop has never been such fun!

Still, it wouldn't have killed them to have a pop at "Batman" for good measure. With Hefti and Riddle in charge it was always going to be a sturdy enough theme tune, one that a good chunk of the populace would still be familiar with to this day. While the chorus is kept afloat by a rudimentary surf rock beat, it is the funky jazz solos in the bridge that really brings it to life. The cries of "BATMAN!" may well be iconic but they sure are lacking any kind of passion. The overly emotive Neal Hefti Singers would've been a welcome improvement on these staid lasses. Otherwise, there's not much to quibble about though I'll still take The Marketts and their outrageous cover version over this.

Finally, it's worth noting that this would be my final issue of Smash Hits. When it hit the shops in the last week of July, I was on a coach tour in Italy with my family along with an assortment of British and American tourists. By the time the following edition had been published, I was back in Canada. In the meantime, we would return to Britain for a few days before our departure on August 4. One of my final activities in the UK was a day trip to London with my dad and sister. My mum chose to stay home and get things packed. In her haste she grabbed the stack of Smash Hits and Number Ones on the floor next to my bed and threw them out (as well as the oversized farewell card that everyone in my class had signed for me on my last day of school which, naturally, I had intended to keep). This issue was one of the few that survived the purge. The singles review by Danny Wilson was something I would re-read over the next few years as I began to contemplate a way in to this pop world, a place I am still nowhere close to penetrating.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Shakespears Sister: "You're History"

Bananarama had Keren, the good looking one, Sarah, the confident one, and Siobhan, the talented one. (She would be replaced by Jacquie, the other one) That was the narrative at least. Shakespears Sister began as a solo project for Siobhan Fahey following her departure from the 'Narns but it gradually became a group with helium-voiced Marcella Detroit joining in. Gary from Danny Wilson reckons it sounds too much like Eurythmics while Ged wonders if Fahey's hubby Dave Stewart worked on it in secret. Proof that going all dark and edgy can't save a poor record, even if the good looking one, the confident one and the other one were proving to be no better off with their awful reworking of the once great "Cruel Summer".