The Soup Dragons: "Mother Universe"

3 October 1990

"The Dragons seem to have settled comfortably into being a "floppy" band after their weedy indie beginnings."

— Sian Pattenden

One of the things that makes 1989-90 so musically fascinating is that it was a time in which previously unsuccessful groups suddenly made it big. The Farm, Happy Mondays, James, Primal Scream, The Stone Roses and, yes, The Soup Dragons had all been languishing in the indie scene until seemingly out of nowhere they all began scoring hit singles. The cause? Changing styles and tastes no doubt played a part but it shouldn't go unnoticed that they all began putting out better records at this time.

It was the Roses and Mondays who ended up carving out the bulk of the sales and acclaim and they remain baggy's best remembered groups. The latter were perhaps the first indie guitar group since The Smiths to really excite young people while the former was being fronted by the most charismatic yet peculiar pop star since Ian Dury. The latter headlined Spike Island while the former earned album-of-the-year honours from both the Melody Maker and the NME. They were a veritable Beatles-Stones, Slade-T-Rex and Blur-Oasis. Everyone seemed to have a favourite baggy group but it was always between those two; it was whoever you happened to have in third place that could vary from person to person.

Rounding out the Madchester Top 3 in my esteem was Motherwell's The Soup Dragons. True, their output is thin. As I say above, their work in the mid-to-late eighties is feeble, something that Sian Pattenden agrees with. Listening to some of their early singles, it's like they were trying to emulate The Jesus & Mary Chain but had no idea how to go about doing so. (Modern art buffs will tell you that while Jackson Pollock's drip technique was made to look random and, thus, easy to replicate, it was in fact deliberate and studied and this goes some way to explaining why thousands of young artists have failed to come close to his brilliance; I think there's a parallel there with J&MC and their many imitators). They also fell apart rather rapidly — and on the heels of a bit of a North American breakthrough with 1992's "Divine Thing".

But in between they were every bit as good as either ver Mondays or ver Roses, two bands who also might as well have packed it in when ver Dragons did so. Initially a flop that managed to do worse than lame attempts like "Soft as Your Face" and "The Majestic Head", the original version of "Mother Universe" is nevertheless their first record that anyone would ever choose to listen to. It has quite a good tune, the band is tight and there's no way you won't be singing along before its three minutes are up. Longtime fans (to the extent that they had any) may have been upset by this change in direction but it's pointless to scream "SELL Out!" when you only reach number ninety-four.

Taking a page out of the Mondays' book, they went and recorded a cover version for their next go at the charts. "He's Gonna Step on You Again" had been a hit twenty years' earlier but no one seemed to remember it in '90 and the Dragons replicated it by covering an early Rolling Stones song that somehow flew under the radar for a quarter century. Given what this Scots indie-dance act would do with it, you'd think that Jagger and that lot would've punched out a rip roaring take of "I'm Free" but, sadly, it sounds reflective when it didn't need to be. For a band that often put everything into their music

In some ways, this Soup Dragons' cover is like imaging what the Stones' original should have been like. Sean Dickson belts out a vocal that Mick would've been proud of, it has a lot more musical bounce and the use of a choir is something that the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band would come to use later in the sixties on cuts such as "Salt of the Earth" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want". Maybe I'm making the obvious connection with Jagger's guest spot on Peter Tosh's "(You Gotta Walk) Don't Look Back" but it's easy to picture them bringing in a toaster not unlike Junior Reid joining ver Soups on "I'm Free".

"I'm Free" gave The Soup Dragons a Top Five smash which was only topped or matched by fellow baggy groups Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses. In an attempt to follow it they went back to what should have worked before. Pattenden says it's "completely re-recorded" though Wikipedia describes it as having been "reworked". Dickson's vocal sounds a bit different while the musical additions are so vast that they could very well be covering up the exact same rhythm track underneath. In any case, the results do the trick: what they did to a lackluster Stones song, they had now done to one of their own numbers.

On the other hand, this rave-friendly "Mother Universe" is a bit like "I'm Free"-lite. The gospel choir isn't as much like a Baptist church in the deep south and in place of Reid's toasting there's that very common sample that has always sounded — to these ears, at least — like "bring in my Buddha culture y'all". It's still catchy and you'll no doubt still be singing along just as with the original but it doesn't quite manage to capture that ecstatic pop thrill that they got out of their biggest hit. I would agree with Pattenden that it's "more exciting" than the original but it's still worth pointing out that they seemed to have an easier time covering the Stones than they did when they tried covering themselves.

The Soup Dragons would go on to release a pair of strong albums. 1990's Lovegod sold well and remains one of the better Madchester LP's. Two years later they put out Hotwired which failed to replicate the success of its predecessor. The dumper beckoned but for "Divine Thing" being a Top 30 hit in the US. This was a feat that their contemporaries wouldn't come close to matching (no, EMF and Jesus Jones don't count in spite of what I thought about baggy back then). American college radio had a thing in those days for witty and playful guitar rock and the Dragons briefly found a niche.

In time it would become cool to say "when it comes to Blur vs. Oasis, I'd choose Pulp" (BTW, this is no longer a hot take). I suppose if it was down to a pair of successful but creatively stagnant groups I might also go for a third option even if I don't personally agree with it in this case. But going back to the Big 2 of Madchester, when it comes to Happy Mondays vs. The Stone Roses, I'd (maybe) choose The Soup Dragons. I really have to be in the mood for the latter and I've long since outgrown my interest in the former. A flash in the pan though they certainly were, the Dragons had four or five quality singles and a pair of fine albums — and with "I'm Free" and "Mother Universe" they proved that no one did communal acid dance gospel like them. Even for those of us who preferred listening to them in their bedrooms.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Beautiful South: "A Little Time"

"...and would be quite pleasant and dribbly if it didn't feature that awful woman who sung on "You Keep It All In" doing her best Shirley Temple impression once again", argues Pattenden. Ouch. Briana Corrigan wasn't for everybody. I personally think The Beautiful South were never the same after she left but I'm sure there are others who reckon that was precisely when they became any good. No accounting for taste and all that lark. With a killer video and that rarest of things in a duet (the narrative resolves by the end of the song!), "A Little Time" is no deep fan's favourite South track (it's certainly no "From Under the Covers", "I Think the Answer's Yes" or "I'm Your no.1 Fan") but it's one that great deal of people are fond of. A good way in to all things Beautiful South. Pattenden things there's something amiss with them but I think they were only getting started. That is until Corrigan left which was only a couple years away. Worse luck.

Pet Shop Boys: "So Hard"

19 September 1990

"Bloody hell! If he think's smoking's fatal, he should try walking through the streets of Moss Side in Manchester at midnight haha!"

— MC Tunes

It was clear looking at the cover of their latest single — and, indeed, all the more so a month later when the Behaviour album came out. It was clear with their glum, passive presence in the single's accompanying video. It was clear in interviews they were giving at the time, including one with Richard Lowe in this same issue of Smash Hits. It was clear by the way Neil Tennant had rid himself of his perm. Clearly the Pet Shop Boys were getting old.

This will no doubt sound strange given that the combined age of Tennant and Chris Lowe in 1990 was sixty-seven, a number now exceeded by the singer alone nearly a third-of-a-century later. But the Pet Shops had been chart regulars since 1985 and things were changing. "Five years in pop music is a long time," observes Tennant.

With the singer's background as a writer and editor at ver Hits, the Pet Shop Boys were naturally the darlings of this top pop mag. "So Hard" is their fifth Single of the Fortnight (sixth if you include Dusty Springfield's "Nothing Has Been Proved", a Tennant/Lowe composition that they also produced) and they may well have had a couple more if not for critics be reluctant to be seen giving them a nepotistic rub in their first year. But a backlash of sorts was brewing. The group's sniffy profile covering their tour of Asia in Smash Hits back in the summer of '89 prompted one Alison Taylor to write in to the letters page to complain about their "obnoxious" attitude, ending her lengthy tirade with the prediction that "the dumper beckons". (This, in turn, led to another disgruntled fan to write in complaining about her complaint and a memorable moment in Chris Heath's wonderful book Pet Shop Boys, Literally in which they're aghast read about young Alison's disgust towards them). At about the same time, Harriet Dell admitted to not thinking much of their latest single "It's Alright".

Tennant and Lowe returned at a time when the pop world no longer had much use for them (Richard Lowe asks them in this issue if they're worried that people might be "getting bored" of the duo). For their part, they appeared not to have as much use for the pop world. Although it's unlikely it was ever discussed, Behaviour is their first album to date in which they could've pulled the old Beatles/Floyd/Zeppelin trick of not having any singles released from it. It's a moody, mature, autumnal disc that for some took a bit of getting used to (not for me but a lot of other people have confirmed this). The only obvious single happened to be "So Hard".

"You can just hear a number one as soon as you hear it, can't you?" asks Brit rapper MC Tunes at the start of his review. In a way he's right. I, too, was convinced this was an enormous, Earth-shattering song because that's how ecstatic it made me feel. Alas, it failed to reach the heights predicted by myself and Tunes. It got plenty of airplay and the video got shown a lot but it didn't seem to be attracting any new fans. The loyalists snapped up the single and album but no one else could be bothered. It wasn't even cool to like them anymore.

Despite the comments above, Tunes has his quibbles with "So Hard". It would've made a "better instrumental", Tennant's voice not being suited for such a potential dancefloor hit, or so the speed demon rapper would have you believe. Perhaps he was able to enjoy the David Morales Red Zone remix — which barely resembles the original — or the one pretentiously credited to 'The KLF vs. Pet Shop Boys' which are both low on the vocals. He also seems to think they're becoming old hat by this point ("...when I hear the name Pet Shop Boys, it suggests to me middle-aged people listening to their CDs in their nice homes...") even if this fact doesn't stop him from making it his Single of the Fortnight.

While Lowe has admitted that he's not crazy about it ("a blot on [the] album"), Tennant likes his lyrics which suggests a return to the more personal, lived-in material of songs like "Later Tonight" and "Why Don't We Live Together" on their debut album Please. Even setting aside the double entendre in the title, there's a lot to work with in the words. Tennant is sounding sad on this one (as he does on much of Behaviour) and his words are the retelling of a story about a pair of friends of his who couldn't stop cheating on each other. And yet, it's a funny song in a peculiar way. This mistrusting pair go to absurd lengths to hide their dalliances from each other, as if they're trying to outdo each other. Depending on one's mood, it is either a tragedy or a farce.

Tunes has a laugh at the line about giving up smoking near the end and he's right to do so. It's another funny line and one that has recently led me think up a fan theory that I will share right now. The narrator of "So Hard" is cheating but his partner isn't. Sure, they both gave up smoking but why wouldn't you assume that one of them had lapsed back into nicotine use rather than discovering matches (why don't they use a lighter?) and concluding that they belong to this person that they're allegedly shagging on the side? The song's protagonist is feeling guilty about cheating and has come up with some anecdotal evidence to "prove" that his lover is similarly up to no good in order to clear his conscience. Do we know for sure that this bad behaviour is running in both directions? Nope. Does our hero know for sure? Again, not at all.

It sounded to me at first like another hi-NRG "It's a Sin" type number and that was more than good enough for someone starved of Pet Shop Boys' material in 1990. I had no idea about them going to Munich to work with Harold Faltermayer so they could use old school analogue synths and sequencers — for the love of god, I didn't even know Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" back then. The idea that a synth-pop group would be making a most unlikely rootsy return was not on my radar in the least. It was simply an incredible song from my favourite group, one who had several more on offer making up their masterpiece Behaviour. My teenage angst would find a deeper connection with the likes of "Being Boring", "This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave", "Only the Wind" and "My October Symphony". That said, "So Hard" remains one of their key singles in my mind. It's one that affirms that they still have it while subtly suggesting that things aren't quite the same as they had been during their imperial period of the late-eighties. Five years is indeed a long time in pop; good thing the Pet Shop Boys were still around because I needed them more than ever.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

AC/DC: "Tunderstruck"

Back in 1990 you weren't supposed to like both Pet Shop Boys and AC/DC. You were supposed to conform and take a side. I wasn't having it. I still really liked a lot of rock (though it wouldn't be long before I began to give it up). I could already tell how stupid all the rock 'n' roll posing was and Jesus I hated those bloody metal videos in which they faked performing a concert. Nevertheless, that guitar intro is brilliant, the chanting could go on for hours and the throat-ripping vocals of that guy who isn't Bon Scott is a thing to behold. (Is it just me or is it strange that the singer who was only with them for only a short time is better known than the chap who screamed his way through all those head banging hits of their's over several decades?) Hard rock and metal have a lot to answer for but not when it comes to "Thunderstruck".

The Birthday Party: "Release the Bats" / Jon & Vangelis: "State of Independence"

20 August 1981

"This band is not shy."

"Not normally the kind of thing I would listen to, this was the surprise of the pile."

— Charlie Gillett

Well, time hasn't done anything to endear me to either of these records. I approached this (re)entry thinking that at least one of "Release the Bats" or "State of Independence" would throw me, making me wonder why I was so swift to dismiss one or both of them just over four years ago. Alas, I'm as unmoved as ever — even vaguely resentful of having to evaluate them once again — and I'm not even sure I can understand why Charlie Gillett chose them anymore.

People love their Nick Cave, or so I've been told. I've never known any devoted Cave fans but I imagine they're the sort of people who think The Boatman's Call is in fact one of his weaker albums and not at all representative of his musical talent. Nevertheless, I think most people will agree that he was at his best alongside The Bad Seeds. The Birthday Party, his first group of note, were certainly distinctive but Cave wasn't able to put the care into his songwriting during these early years as he would be towards the end of the eighties.

Many have stated that "Release the Bats" was seminal in the burgeoning goth rock movement. Cave has disputed this but he ought to take that up with youngsters in black who heard it and were inspired. It has been suggested that the song was meant to be a joke but The Birthday Party's "frightening intensity" ensures that the gag is lost on all but the most studious of observers.

Contrary to what punk advocates will have you believe, progressive rock didn't simply shrivel up and die in 1977. Well, it didn't die. During the considerable layover between the end of ELP and Gabriel-era Genesis and the rise of second generation acts like Kajagoogoo, Nik Kershaw and Tears for Fears, holdovers such as Yes went commercial. Prog hadn't been challenging for listeners since the heyday of King Crimson but now it had become especially tame and toothless. Supergroups Asia and Jon & Vangelis were about to inflict far more damage upon prog than the Sex Pistols ever could have.

Jon Anderson had departed Yes and and the late Vangelis had long since bid farewell to Greek act Aphrodite's Child when they formed their partnership. With the latter getting deeper into film scores — his biggest success of 1981 was the soundtrack to Chariots of Fire and would soon work on the music for the overrated Blade Runner — this duo may have been an attempt to keep at least one foot in the pop world. Success for the group was sporadic and it would be a while before they began to reap some financial reward for composing "State of Independence". This windfall came mainfully from Donna Summer's solid cover version. It's much stronger than the original and indicates that Jon & Vangelis had a sturdy composition on their hands, even if they couldn't make much of it on their own.

As if to avoid having to write a proper review, I took up the bulk of my time in this co-Single of the Fortnight's post categorizing some of the other records reviewed by Gillett with oh so clever titles. This time I thought I'd provide classifications for The Birthday Party and Jon & Vangelis. Let's see how I do this time.

People Who Aren't Currently Relevant but Will Be Praised Someday for Their "Influence"

The Birthday Party: "Release the Bats"

As Brian Eno once said, only 10,000 people bought the first Birthday Party album but everyone who did formed a band and bought cowboy hats in an attempt to make goth seem more rustic or something.

People Who Aren't Yet Aware That They're Irrelevant

Jon & Vangelis: "State of Independence"

As Brian Eno once said, over 1,000,000 people bought the J&V album The Friends of Mr Cairo but not one of them formed a band because of it (and it did nothing for the goth cowboy hat industry either). No one seemed to think so at the time but wasn't Kate Bush far more progressive than these two? Vangelis had much more of a future with ambient, impressionist film soundtracks. As for Anderson, I'm sure he had enough money stashed away to open up a pub.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Cliff Richard: "Wired for Sound"

(aka People Who Will Have a Hit (Even If They Don't Deserve To), aka People Trying a Little Too Hard to Keep Their Career Renaissance Going)

Cliff's late-seventies revival of "Miss You Nights", "Devil Woman", "Carrie" and "We Don't Talk Anymore" (a better period than his early-sixties heyday, if you ask this humble blogger) entered the eighties with the popular and well-remembered "Wired for Sound". I'm in agreement with Gillett that the song doesn't deserve Cliff and that it's "clever rather than engaging". The fact that he was soon to dry up almost permanently — even though "Saviour's Day" being a great song is a hill I will die on — probably helped fans have fond memories of this good-but-not-great number. Nevertheless, it would have been my SOTF runner-up, trailing only the brilliant "Mother's Hour" by Ludus. (As Brian Eno once said, only only person bought the first Ludus album but everyone who did formed a band called The Smiths and flirted with racism)

(Click here to see the original post)

River City People: "(What's Wrong with) Dreaming?"

5 September 1990

"River City People's dodgy hippie period lasted just one record and they're now going to set about the task of being a great pop group."

— Mark Frith

Nashville. Music City. Home of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Grand Ole Opry and Hee Haw. Home as well to thousands of singer-songwriters, though you'd be hard pressed to find many who were actually born there as well. It is said to be the fastest growing city in the United States and no doubt the bulk of them are gainfully employed in the music business — or they really hope to be.

British music types tend to relocate to either New York or Los Angeles, with a handful migrating back-and-forth between the two. Nashville hasn't taken in a lot of stars from the other side of the Atlantic, Peter Frampton and Robyn Hitchcock being among the notable exceptions, but one who must have seemed destined to wind up there was Siobhan Maher, singer of Liverpool's River City People.

It's worth mentioning where they came from originally because you'd never know it looking at them. Maher is striking with her ocean blue eyes and long, wavy hair but she looks more like a "granola" who hangs out in hip Greenwich Village coffee houses or an associate professor of anthropology at a liberal Colorado university than a Scouse popstrel. Guitarist Tim Speed and bassist Dave Snell both have a distinctly American look to them too, in their case as members of a Boston-area group who I've never heard but who are said to be "deeply influential". Only drummer Paul Speed (Tim's brother) looks like he could handle himself among a pack of football hooligans.

More importantly, River City People sound like they have Americana in their blood. If they'd been from Scotland instead of Merseyside this wouldn't be quite so surprising. Obviously sounding American is as old as British pop itself but to do so while ridding oneself of anything remotely old world is another matter indeed. They looked American and sounded American to the core so was it any wonder at least one of them ended up settling in perhaps the most American of cities?

"(What's Wrong with) Dreaming?" — more like "(What's Wrong with Those) Parentheses?", am I right? — is a rare country-ish number on this blog. Previously, we've come across Rachel Sweet ("I Go to Pieces"), Lone Justice ("Ways to Be Wicked") and The Long Ryders ("Looking for Lewis and Clark"). Not a bad selection, the latter two being particularly good. All three, however, represent Americans trying to buck the system of mainstream country music; this is a bunch of Brits going out of their way to embrace it. I know which side I'd take on that one.

Mark Frith (yet another relative newcomer to ver Hits) looks at River City People as a potentially "great pop group" and doesn't detect any trace of outlaw music in "Dreaming". This may be down to the way UK guitar rock had become much more of a downhome concern, what with acts like Deacon Blue, Del Amitri, Fairground Attraction and Texas all having had success over the previous two years. And Frith is probably more correct than he knows: Garth Brooks was on the ascent in the US in 1990 spelling a boom period of mainstream urban country music that owed at least as much to Andy Williams as it did to Hank Williams. As some within British rock embraced country, American country embraced the pop crossover.

I'm not overly crazy about "Dreaming?" but I will say that it's a marked improvement on their dreadful cover of The Mamas & The Papas' sixties classic "California Dreamin'" which somehow gave them a Top 20 hit earlier that summer. (Yes, someone had the bright idea of releasing a song about how all the "leaves are brown and the sky is grey" and how they went out for a walk on a "winter's day" in June) This is the brief "dodgy" hippie period that Frith is referring to in his review. I was going to write about how they did The Byrds-style 'acid-rock hippie to country purist' transition in record time but for the fact that "Dreaming?" had initially been recorded and released well before their pointless version of "California Dreamin'" so they probably always had country in their blood all along. Hippies? These people??

There's no denying that Maher has a splendid voice that would no doubt come in handy when she finally relocated to Music City. It was an environment that probably suited her better anyway. It would have allowed her to dive right in to country music while still letting her pursue that pop stuff that Frith is concerned about. As for this, I'll take a pass (as did most people considering it only got to number forty). I, too, love pop that makes me feel good about the world, I just don't get any trace of that feeling here. There are songwriters all over the world who better capture it; I daresay there are even quite a few of them in Nashville.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Charlatans: "Then"

Groups like The Charlatans didn't seem overly promising back in Madchester's heyday. The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays looked to be two of the biggest bands on Earth but they both rapidly fell apart leaving the also-rans especially vulnerable. You'd never know that Tim Burgess and his band of guys whose last names may or may not have been Collins would have been the one baggy act with a future, particularly since "Then" is such a rum follow-up to their memorable breakthrough hit "The Only One I Know". Then again, they were always a frustratingly inconsistent group, always counted upon to follow a total banger with something plodding and filled with Burgess' incomprehensible lyrics. Good they were getting into the swing of having an all-over-the-place discography at such an early stage though.

INXS: "Suicide Blonde"

22 August 1990

"Terribly saucy stuff, so let's just hope Kyles doesn't find out, eh?

— Marc Andrews

INXS last appeared in this space just over three years ago when I was covering the 1983 crop of Singles of the Fortnight, back when there was still no indication that they were going to become one of the world's biggest rock bands. Yet their prospects were looking up in North America while in Europe they were still a long way's a way from being accepted. It seemed to take the bulk of the decade for them to become superstars but their lead vocalist certainly made the most of it when his time finally came.

Moving ahead to 1990, Michael Hutchence, the Ferris brothers, Garry 'Gary' Beers and Kirk Pengilly had reached a creative and commercial peak with the Kick album and they were now left with the problem of how to follow it. They weren't the most experimental group to begin with and Hutchence's work on the Max Q project in 1989 may have undercut the need for him and his mates to move on in their day job. By the early part of '91 people at my school began making fun of INXS because their songs all sounded the same but in a pop universe in which George Michael was becoming ever more serious, Madonna was becoming pervy and dance music was changing by the minute, for once there was something reassuring about always sounding the same.

Since appearing on the cover of Smash Hits a year earlier, Hutchence had begun dating Kylie Minogue, the same Australian pop star and pinup that the rock 'n' roll heart throb had been drooling over in the middle of his interview with Lola Borg. Their relationship is credited (or blamed) for bringing about her transformation from girl-next-door to sexKylie but Minogue took the first step in that direction when she appeared topless in the Aussie film The Delinquents. Though naturally fair haired, she nevertheless sported a wig in the movie which she would describe to her new paramour as "suicide blonde". Yes, it seems she was indeed connected to the song, Marc.

"Suicide Blonde" not only involves "Kyles" but it represents the transformation that occured in Hutchence's private life at the same time. While INXS' notoriety was already beginning to decline a bit — particularly in the US — his status as a tabloid star was on the rise. Eighties Hutch was much more mysterious: I picture him dating chic young women in Hong Kong who wouldn't have been very well known outside of Kowloon; others may imagine him gallivanting with some lovely Aussie girls. In truth, he was already seeing some celebrity starlets but these dalliances were still kept hidden from the press. By the nineties he was seen with a series of attractive women in various corners of the globe. Matters were harmless while he was seeing Minogue but he began to take a dark turn during his subsequent relationship with supermodel Helena Christensen. Meanwhile his group increasingly became a sideline to his glamourous but troubled life.

There's also a new found sense of lust in his work from this point forward. The tragi-romantic poet that he aspired to be crops up here and there in INXS' eighties' material but less emphasis was placed on it in the following decade. Future singles like "Taste It" and "The Gift" enhance the aggressive sex drive of "Suicide Blonde". Yet while carnal desires dulled Marvin Gaye's output, this new fervor worked, giving his songwriting an extra edge. It certainly helped that Hutchence was in a good space creatively in 1990. As I have stated before, Max Q opened him up. He became a stronger vocalist and he proved adept at other styles. While INXS were always a tight unit, the musicians had been slow to adapt to the singer's new approach. 1990's X album has some terrific singles but it is frequently bogged down by uncertainty and inconsistency. The band really started to respond with the excellent Welcome to Wherever You Are and the underrated Full Moon, Dirty Hearts albums. If his sex drive was harming his personal life, it didn't affect his day job. 

In this way, "Suicide Blonde" captures INXS still sounding like the INXS of old with a few subtle changes, which is precisely why Marc Andrews is so taken with it. Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica solos are on the surface the kind of thing a tired old act running low on ideas might resort to but for the fact that they're sampled and edited to sound like DJ turntable scratching as played on a mouth organ. Always confident on the mic, Hutchence gives one of the finest performances of his career while his bandmates give it all the authority and power it deserves.

Just seven years separates INXS' first Smash Hits Single of the Fortnight from their second (and, presumably, last). Jump forward another seven years and Michael Hutchence was nearing the end of his life. The group released Elegantly Wasted (their final album with their original lineup) and then went on a world tour. At what would turn out to be his last live performance, Hutchence sang "Suicide Blonde" as the group's last encore of the night. The song would soon become a bittersweet reminder of his death but it now stands as one of many top singles from a gifted but complex artist who provided us Generation Xers with many happy memories. He is still very much missed.

Finally, this is the first go at evaluating the singles from fellow Australian Marc Andrews. He had graduated from the top pop mag's Antipodean edition to the big time. He is also one of several new arrivals to ver Hits who would gradually replace the old guard that I had been familiar with. Nineties Smash Hits would become a very different beast from what youngsters such as myself had been used to but at least they always had some of the best music writers in the business.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Steve Miller Band: "The Joker"

"Crosstown Traffic" was featured in a Wrangler jeans commercial and it flopped on re-release; "The Joker" was used by Levi's and it went to number one. That's justice for you. British chart nerds aren't fond of this one because it supposedly denied Deee-Lite the rightful chart topped they supposedly deserved which makes me glad that I never had a stake in choosing between a pair of charming and goofy singles. Great as "Groove Is in the Heart" is, I can't say it's better than "The Joker". Much more country than I remember it being, it unexpectedly fades as Steve Miller is in the middle of repeating earlier verses but that's just about its only blot. A great song to singalong with just as "Groove Is in the Heart" will get you on the dancefloor. They're both winners and should have shared the top spot.

The Human League: "Love Action (I Believe in Love)"

6 August 1981

"Soul music made in Sheffield."

— David Hepworth

They spent a long time try to have a hit. Then they had one. Now it was only a matter of having several hundred more.

Needless to say, The Human League are remembered for "Don't You Want Me". It was a song they didn't think much of and objected to record label Virgin issuing it as a single at the end of 1981. Three hits from their Dare album was sufficient (if only they knew what Michael Jackson was about to do a year later as he went about reinventing the concept of scraping the bottom of the barrel). Such a mediocre work had no business coming out as a 7" in its own right — one that was bound to undermine all that they had accomplished during their extraordinary first big year.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Everyone beyond the six members of ver League loved "Don't You Want Me". It became the highest selling single in the UK that year and it did similarly healthy business in Europe and, a few months' later, in North America. As I already said above, it is their legacy. Eighties retro nights wouldn't exist without it. Going from 'ironic love of the eighties' to 'genuine love of the eighties' begins here.

And yet, none of this would have happened had everything worked out as it did. 1980 ended with the first iteration of The Human League in a shambles. Founding members and "serious" musicians Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware departed and the prospects of the depleted duo of singer Philip Oakey (recruited because he was a well-known Sheffield scenester, even though he had next to no musical experience) and 'director of visuals' Adrian Wright (there's a reason not many film makers join bands) were understandably low. Under these conditions, the League's unlucky Top 40-less streak didn't seem to have much of a chance of ending. If they were going to somehow score a fluke hit it would've been bound to be with a mainstream pop sellout.

But that didn't happen either. As I have previously written in this space, comeback single "The Sound of the Crowd" was a work that could've been recorded by their earlier lineup. The Top 20 placing was impressive enough but Oakey and Wright managed to pull it off with a brilliant single that didn't bow to pop trends. And as if out to prove that they didn't just have luck on their side, they promptly went to work on arguably their finest single.

It may not be as well-remembered now but "Love Action" is an absolute delight from start to finish. And everyone knew it at the time. David Hepworth praises its "splendidly loping chorus and staccato synth fill" as well as Oakey's "distinctive baritone". (Sterling stuff indeed, Heps) Meanwhile, Record Mirror's Sunie named its 12" mashup of it and b-side "Hard Times" as that week's Megahit, describing the ten minute reworking as "tasteful, tuneful, witty and danceable, and you can't ask for much more than that from a single". The NME even named it the year's fifth best single.

The great tune and Oakey's outstanding performance could easily be enough but there are plenty of nods to their avant-garde past. The synths are as experimental as ever with new recruit Jo Callis using his guitar to create an electronic sound that is unique and extraordinary. Oakey tries his hand at something close to a rap ("I believe, I believe...") that I cannot manage to keep up with as I try to sing along. He even makes very subtle references to both Iggy Pop (the unforgettable "But this is Phil talking" line is nicked from the former Stooge) and, cryptically, Lou Reed (I'll take his word for it that the 'old man' from "I believe what the old man said..." is meant to be the godfather of punk). You don't do all this in a throwaway pop song.

Thus, The Human League were stronger than ever. "Love Action" became their first of several Top 10 hits in the UK. Joanne Catherall and Susan Sulley contributed but the whole was much more than the sum of its parts. The sly experiments carried over to follow-up single "Open Your Heart" which was another big hit. It was only with the unloved, unwanted "Don't You Want Me" that they capitulated to pure pop — and look what that did for them. But it was all a culmination. Had their now-classic smash come out first, it might not have connected in the same way. They started off 1981 with a cult following, the critics gradually came on board and the pop kids were beginning to pay attention. It was only for everyone else to discover them.

~~~~~

Also Released This Fortnight

The Belle Stars: "Slick Trick"

A melange of Pigbag's "Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag", Blondie's "Rapture", Madness' "The Return of the Los Palamos 7" and the stuttering sound of Talking Heads in general, The Belle Stars' second single may be low on originality but they have energy to burn and it's clear they were a tight septet. "Slick Trick" is impressive but not quite likable enough for me to ever want to hear it again so Hepworth is right to keep it at arm's length. Their hardcore followers doubtless won't agree but they needed to shake the remnants of predecessor punk group The Bodysnatchers from their sound. Good thing they eventually would.

(Click here to see my original review)

George Michael: "Praying for Time"

8 August 1990

"...the type of record you sort of drown in."

— Chris "Toffer" Heath

It never seems to occur to artists, management and record executives that massive success is not likely to be repeated. Fleetwood Mac's brilliant Tusk album was initially considered to be a flop because its sales were a small fraction of its predecessor Rumours. There was talk in the late-eighties that Michael Jackson had been disappointed by Bad "only" selling a third of predecessor Thriller. Oasis worked in cahoots with label Creation and their publicity team in a ham-fisted attempt to get third album Be Here Now to be just as big as (What's the Story) Morning Glory? But given how George Michael attempted to follow-up his ginormous, multi-million seller, he either (a) knew it couldn't be done or (b) didn't care either way.

Michael had not been gone for long by the time he had returned following his monstrously big Faith album. His first solo LP had sold millions and millions of copies and six singles were released from it. While this resulted in the law of diminishing returns setting in for each subsequent record in Britain, nothing of the sort happened in the US (opening single "I Want Your Sex" would fail to top the Hot 100, a feat not repeated until final offering "Kissing a Fool" some fifteen months later). He toured Faith to death and lavish promos for all of its singles were shown regularly on MTV and other video channels and shows around the world. The man was everywhere — and if the public hadn't quite tired of him, he had certainly tired of fame.

Yet, he didn't want to vanish entirely. Instead of withdrawing completely, he kept the product coming while easing himself away from the spotlight. Famously, the singles from his latest album Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 were going to be released without accompanying videos (though this would quickly be altered when Michael bowed to record label pressure by allowing promos albeit without him being in them). The cover featured a crowd of people from the thirties or forties at a beach — I wonder if any of them had prejudices of one kind or another — in black and white. And there was that album title: as dour as anything either New Order or Sting had used for any of their LP's but with a hectoring quality unlike anything before it. One of the most famous faces in the world was no longer being seen and he was putting out an album with a stark title and cover art: at least the songs inside went well with the package. (The irony of Michael's attempt to steer clear of making music videos was it would free him up to become a more prolific artist. Legal battles with record label Columbia and personal troubles scuttled whatever momentum he may have gained from discarding pop superstardom and he wouldn't put out another new album until 1996's Older. It's hard to say if a trouble-free life in the early-nineties would have got him to record more but I suspect his muse was fussier than he let on)

"Praying for Time" was first up from Listen Without Prejudice and its release was met with some enthusiasm but it was nothing compared to the ludicrously hyped "Bad" by Michael Jackson or the controversial "Like a Prayer" by Madonna. No obnoxious twenty minute promo with a narrative no one cares about, no Catholic League-threatened boycott to overshadow it, jut a plaintive song that we were meant to listen to...without prejudice, though we also had the luxury of reading along to the ultra simplistic video of the song's text.

I have to say that I wasn't terribly impressed at first. While I would very quickly tire of songs like "Winds of Change" and "Right Here Right Now" celebrating the end of the cold war, this felt like too much of a depressing attempt to spoil the party. 1990 was a strange year in which there should have been a renewed sense of optimism in light of the Berlin Wall having been toppled and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison but recession, environmental issues and the oncoming first Gulf War made things seem even gloomier. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher was about self-destruct but George Michael was the party pooper who wanted to remind everyone that things weren't getting any better.

Over time, however, I have come to appreciate "Praying for Time" much more. A lot more in fact. The early part of the twentieth century has not exactly been a time flush with optimism so the song isn't able to play the spoiler so much as it simply soundtracks the current state of the world gradually coming undone. Back in the nineties it was easy to pick on professional athletes and pop stars for being the greedy that Michael takes shots at but now they're rightly seen as the low hanging fruit. Billionaires and autocrats control everything and they're not about to start sharing the world's resources now. 

Michael's melancholy side always resulted in his best records — "Careless Whisper" is remarkably mature for such a young songwriter, while "A Different Corner" is simply one of the most beautiful songs you're likely to hear; the slower, more considered numbers on Faith remain that album's best tracks — but this was something altogether different. It isn't especially musically complex but the arrangement and production are first rate; it would have been very easy for Michael to have decided to drown the recording in melodramatic strings but the lonely horns that appear from time to time are much more satisfying. As many, including reviewer Chris Heath, point out, there's no chorus but in a way it's almost all chorus — or, better yet, it's all build-up to a chorus that never comes.

"Praying for Time" continued the trend from the Faith album of his singles in the US vastly outperforming how they did back in Britain. Yet, he was at the end of his imperial period stateside while fans in his homeland would remain loyal. Several tracks off of Listen Without Prejudice would be released as singles but they all gave him his worst chart showings to date. Becoming a Howard Hughes of pop had come with a price. And yet, what did it matter in the end? Sales fell off but they probably were going to anyway and he was still one of the biggest pop stars on Earth. He still had fans that would remain in spite of lengthy periods of silence and some bad publicity. He may have rejected stardom but there were many who had no interest in rejecting him.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

World Party: "Way Down Now"

Ah power pop: traditional, simple and oh-so predictable. On the other hand, members of these groups tend to have top quality taste in music — it's just a shame they aren't able to make much of their own. Luckily, Karl Wallinger is one of the more talented power poppers out there. I'm not much of a fan of World Party but they don't make me roll my eyes so I'll give them that. "Way Down Now" is one of his finest compositions, thrilling and good fun and with hidden depths to the lyrics that you hardly notice because of all those power pop chords and riffs and stuff. Sure, it's traditional, simple and oh-so predictable but these are trivial matters to overlook when you're talking about a song as good as this.