ABC: "Tears Are Not Enough"

29 October 1981

"Passionate, intelligent and proud, with a defiant dance rating, ABC inspire optimism for the future of Brit-Funk."

— Dave Rimmer

It has been more than two and a half years since I first began blogging from two separate points of Smash Hits time. Back when I started this blog in the spring of 2018, I kicked things off with "Skin Deep" by The Passions which was about the point in which the term 'Single of the Fortnight' began to be used on a regular basis. I then went from there. It was only later that I decided to go back almost to the beginning, to the early part of 1979 which allowed me to fill in the blanks. Not every I wrote about had been specifically named 'SOTF' or 'best new single' or 'single of the week [sic.]' but I made a few educated guess along with the odd wild stab in the dark in order to piece the whole thing together.

Since that point I've been blogging three times every two weeks. As I approach each fortnightly period, I try to spot links between the trio of acts up on deck. So far there haven't been many — and even then they've been tenuous at best. It was just about two years ago in which I blogged about Duran Duran's "Skin Trade" (phenomenal song), The Cure's "Jumping Someone Else's Train" (good but they would go on to do much better), and — keep note of this one for later — Boy George's "Everything I Own" (pitiful though I tried to be as generous as possible). All were or remain major acts in British pop and I figured that was enough of a connection. Similarly, there was this past August in which I covered George Michael's "Praying for Time" (fantastic), The Human League's "Love Action" (even better) and INXS' "Suicide Blonde" (not their best but still strong). Again, a formidable threesome of giant chart acts but with little otherwise in common.

It is only now that I'm able to find a real link between artists. Back (BACK!) is George Michael from the last time I blogged, this time it's ABC's turn and next time we'll be looking at (also back (BACK!)) Boy George. They've all been written about a number of times in on this blog and, more importantly, they were all at the forefront of Britain's New Pop (aka the Second British Invasion) movement of the early eighties. What separates them is how well each of them navigated their way out of it.

Given that I'm looking at both the Georges (christian and surname respectively) in '91 and ABC a full decade earlier, I'm approaching them all at different points of their careers. The former leader of Wham! was at the end of his imperial period while the erstwhile Culture Club vocalist was vying for yet another comeback. ABC, however, were just getting started, the "latest in a long line of incredibly hip Sheffield bands" but one that no one could've predicted would go on to rule British pop for a short time — even if Dave Rimmer did correctly identify them as saviours of UK blue-eyed funk.

ABC are not typically thought of as a DIY group. After-all, they put a premium on production, they used horns and strings and Martin Fry owed a songwriting debt to the likes of George Gershwin and Cole Porter. These are not the kinds of people who get lumped alongside bands with guitars and surly, deadpan vocalists and a modest sense of melody. And, yet, they were as DIY as anyone. They were on a tiny indie label based in their hometown (one they stuck with for an unusual length of time, even if they also had the backing of a major at the same time) and they had yet to hook up with Trevor Horn.

I previously blogged that "Tears Are Not Enough" owed a great deal to Chic, a band who influenced as many British groups as Joy Division or The Sex Pistols, if not more so. Leaders Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers may have been jazz-trained studio cats but their addictive grooves were copied by guitar-bass duos up and down the country. (In Manchester, teenagers and future Smiths' Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke were aspiring to their some Chic-ism of their own) Fry admitted to Rimmer in the following issue of ver Hits that they were using the Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' classic "Tears of a Clown" as a model ("you've got to aim high") and this is exactly the type of song that appealed to the soul/funk crowd at the time: first class songwriting, musical precision, hooks aplenty and all of it is deceptively simple. Some DIY groups aspired to more than others. (By the way, did Fry have "When Smokey Sings" in mind at this early stage?)

"Tears Are Not Enough" (not to be confused with the song of the same name by the Canadian Band Aid/USA for Africa) would later be spruced up for ABC's remarkable debut album The Lexicon of Love. It is one of the LP's many highlights but its bitter, cynical message gets lost among the lush production and so much misidentified romanticism (Lexicon's ten tracks are all much darker than they initially appear but lumped together they somehow become a sweet selection from a box of Christmas chocolates). As a first single from the band once known as Vice Versa (as an aside, those people who insist on saying 'vica versa' are just the worst), it is more obviously sour. The funk beats and horns are a bit more in the background as Fry's irritable voice dominates. This makes for a welcome reminder of how he may have desired to sound like Smokey Robinson but he sure didn't sing like him. For sure he was capable smoother singing but he could rage well before his brave creative left turn/disaster Beauty Stab.

ABC were off to a strong start. "Tears Are Not Enough" gave them a Top 20 hit and they would soon be back (BACK!) with three more excellent singles that took them within inches of a number one. The Lexicon of Love would go on to be 1982's album of the year and it still finishes well in greatest albums of all time lists to this day. But the long term future wouldn't belong to them. George Michael would enjoy a lengthy period of massive success, first in Wham! and then later in his solo career. Boy George would be just about as big in Culture Club though his musical pursuits on his own would be more up and down. Nevertheless, he remained a tabloid favourite and his comebacks at least did well before inevitably petering out. ABC started the nineties off with a greatest hits album and a horrifically bad remix but they were non-factors for the rest of the decade. They would eventually be back (BACK!) but not until they had reverted to the group everyone always wanted them to be. 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Scritti Politti: "The "Sweetest Girl""

They don't get much more "incredibly hip" than Scritti Politti, even if they hailed from Glasgow or Wales or New York or someplace other than Sheffield. (Sheffielder Martin Fry — from (huh!) ABC — would go on to give his stamp of approval to Scrit single "Faithless", just as compatriot Martyn Ware would do for Prefab Sprout; Sheffield approved!) If ABC were able to deftly hide their darker elements, then Green Gartside was right there with them. I like this period of their's in which the DIY of their old sound remained as they began adding elements from soul and dance music. Pop kids would've surely taken to "The "Sweetest Girl"" (those double quotation marks are giving me some pain) had it been done in the style of future hits "Wood Beez" and "The Word Girl" but that's the journey of pop. Not quite as strong as ABC this fortnight but, as Rimmer suggests, they weren't all that far off. Not quite the future of New Pop but aren't you glad we live in a world in which Scritti Politti have occasionally graced us with records? Or is it just me?

(Click here to see my original review)

George Michael: "Heal the Pain"

6 February 1991

"She better watch out for that stubble though, it could be a mite prickly."

— Mark Frith

Panayiotou v. Sony Music was a legal dispute that would become, in retrospect, the beginning of the end for George Michael as a pop star. Sales of his second album Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1 had been disappointing after the blockbuster success of solo debut Faith and the singer argued that his record label hadn't promoted it well enough. Where mogul David Geffen had once taken Neil Young to court for putting out "uncharacteristic" music, now a major pop star was suing his record label for not having his back. Strange days indeed.

Even if Sony/CBS/Columbia/Epic (or whatever they were calling themselves at the time) had been negligent it wasn't as if George himself was doing the promo rounds himself. Having been everywhere for much of 1987 and '88 (as well as being prominent over the previous four years as a member of Wham!), he decided to take a step back. He famously refused to appear in the videos for Listen's singles, he shied away from interviews and seemed content to let the music he was putting out speak for itself — hence the album's title. If the public had become tired of him during the eighties, he was doing everything he could to make sure that overexposure wasn't going to be a problem in the nineties.

Listen Without Prejudice did sell as well as its predecessor but creatively it was streets ahead of Faith. Loaded with hits, his debut lacked consistency and it had been padded out with a bit of filler. The album sold like mad around the world with it also producing six hit singles of varying quality ("Monkey", the weakest track on the album, somehow managed to get to number one in the US but it wasn't even deemed good enough to make the cut for his 1998 double disc greatest hits collection). He had entered Michael Jackson-Madonna-Prince levels of fame and then chose to walk away from it. His work in 1990 is a reflection of this. Normally, pop stars who go all serious end up losing something along the way; George Michael wasn't like normal pop stars.

"Praying for Time" just had to be a hit single. Follow-ups "Freedom '90" and "Waiting for the Day" each did their part in the promotional game. But once those three records were out of the way there wasn't much else on Listen Without Prejudice worth bothering with, at least in terms of chart potential. In truth, there didn't need to be any singles released off of it, a practice I suspect he would have been open to. For their part, British fans seemed happier just buying the album: debuting at number one the previous September, it wandered around the charts for several months, enjoying a bit of a revival at about the same time that "Heal the Pain" wasn't exactly killing it on the Top 40. Singles were becoming a tool to sell more albums.

I hope that many people bought Listen upon hearing "Heal the Pain". While not suggesting anything like a hit, it probably represented the LP better than the two previous (faster-paced) records that preceded it. Like this one? There are plenty more deep cuts just like it. While chart placings like 23, 28, 31 and 45 (the brilliant "Cowboys and Angels" had even less business being issued as a single) are underwhelming for someone who used to put out a string a of guaranteed Top 10 smashes, George Michael had become an albums artist — it's just too bad he didn't put out all that many albums from this point on.

Reviewer Mark Frith seems to be on the defensive as he praises "Heal the Pain". There was the feeling at the time that Michael had become pretentious. Robert Smith spent the bulk of his review of "Waiting for the Day" the previous October trashing him as "offensive" and a "charlatan" (which only makes me wish that he had recorded with Tim Burgess). Frith foresees listeners concluding that he had become the "most boring person in the universe" but that could just as easily have been the case with Faith singles "One More Try" and "Kissing a Fool".

In light of the next (and, sadly, last) quarter century of George Michael's life, "Heal the Pain" takes on a whole new dimension. Rather than pledging to be the one to make it all right, it's inevitable that one hears it as he being the one whose pain is in need of healing. A simple cut-and-paste job of the lyrics lends a whole new poignancy to the song's message: "you tell me you're cold on the inside", "he must have really hurt you" and "who needs a lover that can't be a friend" become heartbreaking when you become aware of Michael's own inner turmoil. Had he actually been communicating to the "woman of his dreams" (are you sure about that, Mark?) then he certainly would have been laying it on thick; but as a message to himself, it only feels like more of a cry for help. Great a song though it certainly is, it isn't the easiest listen in the world.

Michael would lose his suit against Sony and the case did him no favours in the public eye as well. Describing his situation as "professional slavery" didn't get him much sympathy from those of us without multi-million dollar recording contracts. The man had already been a bit of a recluse but now he wasn't even putting out new music. He may have been unsatisfied with how Listen Without Prejudice had been handled but it was probably the only time that he managed to strike a balance between fulfilling his duties as a pop god while not allowing his status to overtake him. I just hope he managed to heal some of his pain as the years slipped by.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Railway Children: "Every Beat of the Heart"

Previously reviewed in ver Hits just shy of a year earlier (and already covered in this space back in May; what can I say, I'm a huge sucker for this one). In the interim, "Every Beat of the Heart" only just managed to crawl into the Top 75 but then somehow found its way at the top of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks (now Alternative Airplay) chart in the US while subsequent singles from album Native Place stiffed back home. But it had been granted a second chance here in the early part of '91 and it wasn't going to piss the opportunity away this time. Top 30! Top 25 even! (The Top 25 is a thing, right? Right?) A well-deserved hit at last! And it's still glorious. Once again, it got jobbed out of the Single of the Fortnight but I'll take any opportunity to just to remind myself that those horrible teenage years of mine had their moments.

Roxette: "Joyride" / 808 State: "In Yer Face"

23 January 1991

"The beginning sounds like ABBA and I thought ABBA were really good."

— Iain Baker

"It's good that there's no wailing soul singer over the top as well."

— Mike Edwards

Roxette as reviewed by Jesus Jones

Hard as it is for me to admit, there was once I time when I didn't despise Jesus Jones and Roxette. I didn't love either of them but they weren't horrible and their songs didn't make me wretch. Until both of 'em did.

Jesus Jones had been a struggling indie outfit on the struggling indie label Food, a company that would soon make a fortune from cockney four-piece Blur. Run by former Teardrop Explodes keyboardist David Balfe, it had a lineup of respectable acts from various parts of Britain playing a wide variety of styles. Diesel Park West were a sixties garage rock/jangle pop revival act from somewhere up north. Crazyhead hailed from the Midlands and they were punks. Jesus Jones came from the south and they were part of the new wave of indie dance-rock acts.

"Info Freako" was the debut release from ver Jones. Fresh and thrilling then, it remains quite wonderful to this day. "It'll definitely frighten your grandmother," concludes an admiring Richard Lowe. It just missed the Top 40 but things were looking up for them. Then, the nineties arrived and they lost their spark. Grannies were by now more likely to be singing along than hiding behind the chesterfield. "Real Real Real" was a passable let down of a breakthrough hit but "Right Here Right Now" was an abominable creation. (The easy conclusion to draw from this change is that they sold out but it's just as likely that their initially scary look and sound was a pose and that they had been over-serious and charisma-free all along)

Roxette were formed in Sweden and their popularity may have remained strictly domestic until Minnesota exchange student Dean Cushman brought their second album Look Sharp! home and started spreading the word. It didn't matter that, in the words of critic Måns Ivarsson, their once "subtle Swedish lyrics [had] become desolate English nonsense", Roxette had become superstars in the US. "The Look" was huge and it was soon followed by "Dressed for Success", "Listen to Your Heart" and "It Must Have Been Love". If Americans felt bad about giving ABBA short shrift, then they certainly made up for it by falling at the feet of their less talented countrymen.

Where Roxette didn't quite take was in the UK. "The Look" made the Top 10 but subsequent singles flopped. It was only after "It Must Have Been Love" was featured in Pretty Woman that they had a second wind on the charts in Britain. Jesus Jones weren't exactly killing it in Britain either. Much like the Swedes, they found much more success across the Atlantic. Honestly, the US deserved Jesus bloody Jones. No one does earnest pop-rock like the Americans so it's no wonder this group from Wiltshire found a home over there. "Real, Real, Real" deals with challenging the motives of facile pop acts and this mentality plays into Americans obsessed with "rock 'n' roll authenticity" and "keeping it real" and all that nonsense. "Right Here Right Now" is about manifest destiny and buying into that 'end of history' crap that resulted from the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Even on their worst day, U2 and Simple Minds were never this po faced.

Roxette are lucky that I've got Jesus Jones occupying most of my derision in this entry. By comparison, "Joyride" isn't quite so bad. Limp and lifeless when it's meant to be, well, a joy ride, nowhere close to as fun to listen to than Marie Fredricksson and Per Gessle no doubt had recording it and a prime example of "desolate English nonsense" in their songs but not utterly loathsome. I'd much rather be indifferent to a poor pop song than get into a strop over one. (Plus, it helps that Gessle and the late Fredricksson are/were friendly, down-to-earth people; Mike, Iain and presumably the rest of the Jones are just a bunch of prats) As I previously mentioned, the pair have enjoyed something of a critical re-evaluation in recent yeas (particularly since the sad passing of Fredricksson. I approached this record (the only one of their's I sort of liked when it first came out) with this in mind and hoped it would be a fun singalong rocker. And indeed it is for some but I'm not feeling it. Being better than Jesus Jones simply won't do.

But! There's another record that Mike Edwards has put forth in favour of "Joyride"! ("It does nothing for me at all" is his accurate verdict of Roxette's new single) It comes as welcome relief to be looking at 808 State if only to wash away the foul stench of the other Single of the Fortnight and the band reviewing them. It's bound to be great next to the rest of this detritus, right?

808 State seemed to be a house group who got lumped in with the Madchester indie rock bands. Being from the same hometown as The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and rising to prominence at about the same time, it was natural that music hacks would have made the connection that they otherwise wouldn't have made note of. (And, really, it was 808 State who were following the much more logical path of acid house) But where others tried playing rave music on guitars, the quartet/quintet of Graham Massey, Gerald Simpson, Martin Price, Darren Partington and Andy Barker remained behind their synths and mixing desks.

After having a Top 10 hit with the still brilliant "Pacific" (aka "Pacific State") they got involved with MC Tunes and scored another smash with the memorable "The Only Rhyme That Bites" (pretentiously credited to 'MC Tunes vs. 808 State'). They were quietly becoming one of the finest acts in Britain (it would have been difficult to predict who would've had the more promising career between them and Orbital) and entered the new year with a banger to take them over the top.

"In Yer Face" only kind of managed to succeed. It was yet another hit but, again, they couldn't quite get into the upper reaches of the hit parade. Getting to number nine was only a modest improvement on previous hits "Pacific", "The Only Rhyme That Bites" and the double A-side "Cubik"/"Olympic", all of which stalled one spot below. On the other hand, there were some class singles placed above it during its two week peak: the presence of Nomad's "Devotion", The KLF's "3 AM Eternal", Oleta Adams' "Get Here", Praise's "Only You", Kylie's "What Do I Have to Do" and The Source featuring Candy Staton's "You've Got the Love" meant there was no shame in "In Yer Face" only getting as high as it got.

No, there's no shame in being not quite good enough. The above singles are all superior to 808 State's biggest hit (The Simpsons, see below, and 2 in a Room also finished above them so it wasn't all banger upon banger) and deserved to place higher. "In Yer Face" is unique and futuristic but it fails to go anywhere. Great pop instrumentals are able to tell a story. The Tornados' extraordinary "Telstar" is a document of space age aspirations and a world of analog and digital working in unison. The sound effects might sound dated and yet it still sounds of the future — or a future as it was imagined. The first several seconds of "In Yer Face" are startling but that is its only real selling point. Nothing emerges, there's no development, a story isn't told.

Yet, it's the best of a very poor bunch this fortnight. Having been spoiled by some prominent groups and solo artists in the singles a fortnight earlier, it is quite the comedown having to deal with an especially lousy offering this time. "In Yer Face" no longer does anything for me but it was an amazing sound experience when I was a spotty fourteen-year-old with mood swings. Perhaps I am down on it now because I no longer feel the urge to listen to nightmarish techno-pop. The record itself hasn't aged at all but I sure as hell have.

  

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Simpsons: "Do the Bartman"

Long before I despised The Simpsons for being so painfully unfunny, I was once a big fan. Prior to that, however, I was initially unimpressed. It was similarly free of humour back in its first season and only dumb asses at school liked it at that early stage. Season two began to turn things around ("Three Men and a Comic" is probably their first great episode) but this wasn't reflected in the music that inevitably found its way into the public consciousness during that early rush of Simpson-mania. As Tom Ewing notes, it comes from a time when the show was never more visible yet it was far from the omnipresence it would eventually become. (He mentions that it was more something people heard about because it was only available on Sky, which wasn't nearly as big as it would soon become; the show as more of a brand carries on to this day in many countries where Simpsons merch still does the rounds even if hardly anyone watches the show). While it would become a number one hit, the results are dismal. A good thing they would eventually bring the world the likes of "Monorail Song", "See My Vest" and "Kamp Krusty" when the creators of The Simpsons decided to focus on making a great TV show while stepping away from the cheesy marketing. Funny how that works.

The Jam: "Absolute Beginners"

15 October 1981

"And if Paul Weller's lyrics won't see him installed as poet laureate in the next fortnight, they should at least help him grace the charts till his current supply of pocket money runs out."

— Fred Dellar

Poet laureate, Fred? Really? I mean, I love me some Weller — The Jam's Greatest Hits was one of the key albums in my musical explorations, I adore The Style Council and I even have plenty of time of much of his solo career — but he's hardly the first pop scribe I'd consider for the position. While there are poets who have used nonsense in order to craft their verse, at least it's possible to make out the nonsense; it is not so easy with Weller. His delivery is so fast, his enunciation so muddied that it is near impossible to make out what he is saying.

No one in pop has as many mondegreens as Paul Weller. "With my Cherry Coke, walls come tumbling down..." is a personal favourite of mine but there are dozens of them spread out over his lengthy career. Yet, "Absolute Beginners" isn't flush with them since it's damn near impossible to make out anything he's singing about at all!

1980 had been The Jam's year. They had two number one singles and released the critically acclaimed album Sound Affects but by far the clearest sign that their popularity had gone through the roof was the success of "That's Entertainment", a deep cut that they refused to issue as a single in the UK. Copies of the West German release were made available in Britain and sales were strong enough for it to nearly crack the Top 20. (It doesn't appear to have done anything in Germany at all: it must have sold more on import than domestically) That's an imperial period for you.

Yet, there wasn't much of an attempt to capitalize on their popularity. 1981 was a relatively quiet year with just two non-album singles following "That's Entertainment". Any new product would have been in demand but the chart performances for both "Funeral Pyre" and "Absolute Beginners" must have been a bit disappointing. While both peaked at a solid but unspectacular number four, they followed the path of the single that was only being snapped up by loyalists: they entered high, lingered for a couple weeks in the Top 10 and then promptly fell off.

The last time I blogged about this one I felt the need to point out (repeatedly) that Fred Deller failed to notice The Jam's change of direction but I now recognise that there's no way he would have detected much of a shift with just one new single to go on. Weller had been upfront about his debt to the sixties from the moment The Jam emerged back in 1977 (something that immediately set them apart from the punks, who were all doing a feeble job pretending that the swinging decade didn't matter) so using a section was no different than covering The Kinks or stealing basslines from The Beatles. Speaking of the Fab Four, the in unison horns give way near the end to a "Penny Lane"-esque trumpet solo. As was the case with the bulk of their post-"Going Underground" work, this tune is awash in the sixties.

Brit-funk and new wave-influenced soul were on the rise in the UK in the early eighties. Spandau Ballet were coming along, ABC were about to drop but this first shot of black music to emerge from Weller was not coming from the same place as these bands. The dual force of Joy Division and Chic presented whole careers for several British groups but Weller was far too much of a mod with Motown and northern soul records to have much in common with them. (He would eventually find the connection with the proto-baggy "Precious" which was an effective tails to its co-double A-side "Town Called Malice", a song that did for "You Can't Hurry Love" what the 1980 single "Start!" did for "Taxman") Contemporary influence was all well and good but it would never outstrip 

The song's Wikipedia page mentions that record label Polydor would have preferred to have "Tales from the Riverbank" as the A-side with "Absolute Beginners" demoted to the flip. Notably, there's a [citation needed] mark accompanying it and it's easy to see why. While it isn't quite one of their prime singles, there's no question that it had the far greater commercial potential of the two. Weller's B-sides seemed to exist in a world divorced from his current interests and obsessions and "Tales from the Riverbank" is one such example. The title might seem like a bouncy number by his protegees Ocean Colour Scene but it's abrasive, the product of The Jam continuing to follow their post-punk path from Sound Affects and "Funeral Pyre". It isn't exactly hook-filled either. Nope, I call bullshit on this claim.

It would be a slow year for The Jam — though they did tour a fair amount, even if their North American venues weren't exactly Shea Stadium (not that there's anything wrong with playing the Ottawa Technical High School Auditorium) — but a crucial one as they entered their final stage. While Dexys Midnight Runners had been soul revivalists, The Jam were dealing with yet another part of the past to put forth a case for their future. I just wish I didn't have to check the lyric sheets every time I give them a listen.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Associates: "Message Oblique Speech"

Oh, so Weller should be named poet laureate forthwith but The Associates "spin out seemingly nonsensical lyrics"? At least we're able to make out Billy Mckenzie's nonsense. Yet, Dellar isn't wrong. David Bowie was known for 'cut and paste' lyrics but Mckenzie seemed to take the practice a step further by doing so with multiple songs all at once. The production is rough, the music raw but the Mckenzie-Rankine partnership was already flourishing. They were mere months away from the pop charts but "Message Oblique Speech" and "Party Fears Two" might as well be separated by regime changes, world wars and the shift from silent films to digital. Talented folk operating on a shoestring: just think what they could accomplish with a pile of record company money?

(Click here to see my original review)

EMF: "I Believe"

9 January 1991

"Forest of Dean's biggest — nay, only — pop personages follow up "Unbelievable" with another just-back-from-the-rave-up classic."

— Caroline Sullivan

As a fourteen-year-old I thought that EMF were clever. Dead clever. They had first become popular with "Unbelievable" and then they eventually followed it with "Lies". Finally, they completed the trilogy with "I Believe". See what I mean? They had shown skepticism, had determined that everyone else was full of shit and then professed that in the end there were truths that they believed in. They couldn't have planned the release of their first three singles better. Clever, clever, clever. (And even cleverer four years later when they did a cover of The Monkees' "I'm a Believer" along with Vic Reeves, who we'll be encountering in this space before long, and Bob Mortimer, who we won't)

Only later did I discover that this was not the order in which they came out. "Unbelievable" — seemingly the only song of their's anyone remembers anymore — did indeed arrive first but it was "I Believe" that followed it into the UK Top 10. Then "Children", a track I had only known as a deep cut until very recently, gave them their third hit single. It was only then that "Lies" came out as the diminishing returns began to take their toll. In North America we got "Lies" right after "Unbelievable" which led me to believe it had been that way back in Britain.

"Lies" had been a key track on EMF's debut album Schubert Dip. While others, particularly my fellow North Americans, had only got the CD for "Unbelievable", I was pretty heavily into the whole thing for a short period. (I got it from my sister for Christmas; by February I had lost interest in it in favour of The Wonder Stuff's Never Loved Elvis even though I hadn't given up completely on "Epsom Mad Funkers") I had heard that early copies had been deleted due to the use of Mark David Chapman quoting from the opening lines of John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" ("People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing. They give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin...") which Yoko Ono had objected to. It was, therefore, much to my surprise that the forbidden sample was included on my disc as a lead in to "Lies". The song was already unsettling enough but to have it open with the ghostly, southern drawl of Lennon's assassin made it even more disturbing. Yet it was gripping for me at the time. Its piano part is house-influenced (in fact, it's probably nicked from a rave tune) but for it to appear on a deeply disturbing indie record was something I had never experienced before. ("Fun" fact (those inverted commas are doing some awfully heavy lifting): "Lies" would soon lead me towards reading J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and, eventually, Albert Goldman's The Lives of John Lennon, both due to curiosity surrounding Lennon's killer and his obsessions)

But I only stayed for "Lies"; I came for "Unbelievable". While fellow Canadian youths undoubtedly heard it as a white boy reaction to hip hop, for me it was the next logical step in Madchester. EMF weren't directly associated with baggy groups like The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays but from my vantage point across the Atlantic they seemed like much the same thing: dance music with guitars — or, better yet, guitar rock with a DJ along for the ride. Everyone I liked was into "Unbelievable" and everyone I hated loved it too. We may have loved it for different reasons but at least there was a detente.

So, their first single hooked me and the second made me such a committed fan that I would eventually purchase EMF's second album Stigma (it's all right or at least it was all the way back in early '93 when I last gave it a listen). But "I Believe" slipped through the cracks somewhat. "Lies" had piggybacked off of the success of "Unbelievable" but the momentum wasn't strong enough to eek out a third hit in Canada and the US. But even as a young fan, it was a song that failed to make much of an impression as I got into the album. For one thing, expressing that they were not nihilists didn't do them any favours in my book as an angsty teen. More importantly, it was too much of a poor cousin to "Unbelievable". Obviously inferior but not even distinctive enough to lend them credibility. It was as if they knew they couldn't possibly ever follow their breakthrough hit and decided to phone in some shit that was kind of like it but nowhere close to as addictive or appealing.

Finally, it should be mentioned that this is the first singles review from 1991. Veteran pop critic Caroline Sullivan made her debut "doing" the singles in ver Hits and she proves to be right at home alongside your Chris Heaths, William Shaws and Sylvia Pattersons. (It only begs the question why she was bothered being at the Melody Maker for so as long as she did) Making her maiden voyage easier is the loaded selection of singles she had to deal with. Eschewing the notion that January is a dead month for new releases, some big names are on board here. Very few have their best material on offer but that's beside the point. 

Some were longtime chart favourites while others were emerging but the majority in either case were just about done. Rick Astley was back (and soon to be gone again), Gloria Estefan had returned from a horrible bus crash injury to a pop scene that had used her convalescence to move on from her, Bananarama had left the Stock Aitken Waterman stable but managed to sound tied to them more than ever before. The Go-Go's had returned with faculties intact and raging but hardly anyone remembered them anymore. Brother Beyond had just enjoyed an American breakthrough but the decision to go in the direction of a boy band doing new jack swing wasn't going to help them in the long run.

And yet, the new blood didn't have it any better. Vanilla Ice's novelty had mercifully vanished. Lindy Layton had milked her success from singing on Beats International's "Dub Be Good to Me" a year earlier but the udders were now dry. Oleta Adams' "Get Here" remains magnificent (it would've been my co-Single of the Fortnight along with the number below) but she was even more unable to follow her smash than EMF were with their's. Ultra cool acts A Tribe Called Quest ("Seriously, isn't rap getting a bit boring?") and Pop Will Eat Itself ("Pretty good, really": I beg to differ) had breakthrough hits with their offerings but how far were either of them going to go? As for Maureen, who? (Fun fact which is a good deal more fun than the supposed fun fact above: every act reviewed this fortnight by Sullivan had at least one Top 40 hit in Britain at some point which must be a first)

And back to EMF (I know I said "finally" about three paragraphs ago but bear with me). The Madchester urchins were all pushing thirty so it must have been nice to see some young groups take up the mantle. There's always room for some thrilling, youthful pop and EMF were the right sort of act to provide it in '91. It couldn't hope to last but at least they weren't as insufferable as fellow English alt-dance-rockers Jesus Jones, another younger group but one that seemed ready and willing to enter a premature middle age. I'm very happy to report that we still haven't had to deal with them in this space.

Yeah, about that...

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Queen: "Innuendo"

Whenever I think that Queen are massively overrated a song of their's comes along to remind me that they did have their moments. Operatic hard rock was their specialty which ensures that "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Somebody to Love", "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "Innuendo" are probably the best songs they ever did and I can give or take the rest. (All right fine, "You're My Best Friend" is a banger as well but that's it!) '91 looked to be yet another good year for Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and the other two: "Innuendo" gave them a number one smash and the album of the same name repeated the feat the following month. By the end of the year, however, Mercury's death would overshadow everything else, quickly rendering this single a forgotten gem. One that is definitely worth revisiting from what is still an overrated band.

Jimmy Somerville with Bronski Beat: "Smalltown Boy (1991 Remix)"

12 December 1990

"Most hits of old don't usually benefit from the twitchy hands of a second (or umpteenth, in some cases) going over. Sometimes, as in this case, a tune does triumph over a fairly pointless remix."

— Marc Andrews

1990 draws to a close with a barely remembered remix of a classic eighties' pop song. A bit of an anticlimactic way to finish off a year? Possibly but it is all too appropriate as well. It is the tenth Single of the Fortnight to be either a reissue, a remix/re-recording or a cover version — and that's not including Salt-n-Pepa's "Expression", which would go on to be remixed in order to give it further chart life, and FAB featuring Aqua Marina's "Stingray Megamix", which was crafted in the spirit of DJs tinkering with samples and the like. Looking to recall the fresh sounds of the early nineties? Don't go flipping through the singles reviews in Smash Hits from this time.

But things weren't any better on the charts. Of the seventeen UK number ones that year, four were covers, four more were reissues and one relied heavily upon the bassline of a familiar chart topper from nearly ten years' earlier. Yes, there were cutting edge artists out there but clearly the public weren't all that keen: they had loads of old stuff to be buying — and boy did the record companies who were gearing up for the 1990 Christmas rush know it. In addition to this 1991 remix of "Smalltown Boy", Marc Andrews has plenty of other shenanigans to deal with. Megamixes from Black Box and the cast of the 1978 movie Grease were just crying out to be reviewed as well as the pointless Robert Palmer medley of Marvin Gaye hits "What's Going On" and "I Want You". Somehow or other, two of these records did well (the one by Black Box didn't) so there was an appetite for such stuff.

Not that all that many purchased this one, even though so many did the first time round. "Smalltown Boy" had first emerged in June of 1984 and it must have seemed like a sure-fire number one smash. Unfortunately, its rightful place was denied by Frankie Goes to Hollywood's unstoppable "Two Tribes". (It was even kept from the runner up spot by Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" which was clinging on) The charts were loaded with quality at this time and so for Bronski Beat to get into the Top 3 with their debut single was no small accomplishment. Jimmy Somerville's falsetto was so affecting that it gave them a big hit all over the world, except for in the US where hints of it being a gay rights anthem likely turned off radio station programmers. 

Somerville's career took off even after he left Bronski Beat. He quickly teamed up with Richard Coles to form The Communards, another highly successful synth-pop group. While they would go on to have a number on with "Don't Leave Me This Way", they were never able to top "Smalltown Boy". I've written before that The Communards were more in their element when they were doing cover versions than when they tried to go political but Somerville more than made up for it with "Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)". Although only a Top 30 hit in early 1990, it proved to be his finest gay rights anthem since "Smalltown Boy".

He was only in Bronski Beat and The Communards for short spells and had just one solo album under his belt but the decision was nevertheless made to put out a compilation. While I'm less keen on the likes of Bryan Ferry (he's guilty of trying to make his solo career appear to be on an equal footing with that of Roxy Music) and Sting (just sad) doing so, this is an instance in which I can understand putting out a greatest hits that mixes material from both group and solo artist. It's also a fine collection, ruined only slightly by a lousy cover of The Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody". Bronkski, Communards and Somerville albums are hit and miss affairs but they all had their moments on 45.

Not on The Singles Collection 1984/1990 is this remix of "Smalltown Boy", yet it was still released as a single to promote it. Andrews is so pleased that (a) an old favourite is back (BACK!!) and (b) it has only been remixed and not canabalized into a ghastly megamix he doesn't even bother mentioning the altered credits. If 'Jimmy Somerville with Bronski Beat' seems akin to issuing "Yesterday" by 'Paul McCartney with The Beatles', ver Hits only makes it that much more grievous by marking it down as a straight up Somerville solo outing. While relegating Bronski to a guest star role is unfortunate, the pop kids of the early nineties were more likely to flock to a product with Jimmy's name on it than an outfit that had become a bit of a relic.

Speaking of which, fellow eighties' pop veterans ABC had issued their first compilation album earlier that year. Titled Absolutely, it brought together their dozen Top 40 hits along with a few remixes. One of them was "The Look of Love". A highlight of their still remarkable Lexicon of Love album, it had been re-jigged into a depressing and tuneless mess. The group did not sanction its remixing and were said to be against its inclusion on Absolutely but record label priorities won out. The single failed to chart mostly because it sucks something awful.

It was perhaps with this disaster in mind that ace synth-pop producer Stephen Hague was commissioned to give a tasteful update to "Smalltown Boy" for the Somerville comp. The drum machines are sharper and Hague has transformed it into more of a floor-filler but the essence of the song remains. Unless you play it and the original back-to-back you probably wouldn't even notice the difference. The worst I can say for it is that it sounds like "Smalltown Boy" had it been recorded in 1990, rather than in '84. And this is the how the best remixes succeed: they may have been touched up by a producer and/or DJ but they retain what made them great all along and even manage to sound like the group or artist behind them could have recorded them in their remixed form.

"Smalltown Boy (1991 Remix)" only just hit the Top 40 for a couple weeks during the dead post-Yuletide period. It deserved better but at least it didn't spoil the original for everyone. And it would be followed by an equally nice remix of Soft Cell's eighties' classic "Tainted Love" which was done along much the same lines: a synth-pop producer at the helm (in this instance it was the great Julian Mendelsohn) to make sure that the life wasn't sucked out of it with just some subtle additions. It was even released to promote Marc Almond's compilation Memorabilia. A pity we won't be encountering it in this space as we dive into '91. Oh well.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Righteous Brothers: "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"

"If it's not a megamix or a remix, it's a re-release!" cries an exasperated Andrews. "Really, readers, just what are they playing at, eh?" "Unchained Melody" had been memorably featured in the Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore pic Ghost and it promptly became the biggest selling single of the year. So, why not give The Righteous Brothers' true masterpiece another try too? I'm not the biggest Phil Spector fan in the world but he sure hit it out of the park on "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling". While I'm more than satisfied by the remix of "Smaltown Boy", I'm glad they didn't bother updating this brilliant record. Why mess with a good thing — even if that's what everyone else was doing at the time.

The Police: "Invisible Sun"

1 October 1981

"These are the goods! After the most hypnotic intro of the week (Sting takes a leaf out of Bryan Ferry's book), the song develops the kind of creamy propulsion that might give psychedelia a good name."

— Ian Birch

Given that Sting would go on to compose "Every Breath You Take", "Russians" and "Shape of My Heart" and considering he rarely looks especially pleased with himself, you might assume that Gordon Sumner was always something of a grumpy old git. And, let's face it, that's probably what he always has been. Yet, there was a time when he knew how to play the pop game. While The Police were hardly the youngest act around, they took to promoting videos of themselves right from the beginning. They may have been the new wave act with the most baby boomer appeal but they weren't above appearing on the cover of Smash Hits.

But this wasn't to last. "Invisible Sun" commences their much more serious period. "I think it's your job to refine yourself out of existence," Sting told Mark Ellen in this fortnight's issue of ver Hits. Where the trio would normally prance about merrily in front of an airplane or lumber about awkwardly in the snow, in this instance they are barely visable. Black and white images of Belfast at its bleakest with just silhouettes, barely recognizable close-ups and snippets of their instruments being the only trace of The Police themselves. "[The video] is a rather crude way of saying 'forget about us, forget about three blonds, and just try and listen to the images that the song's about".

I as previously wrote, there is some debate as to which conflict inspired "Invisible Sun". The video obviously suggests Ulster which was something that British audiences could identify with. (The single didn't receive much attention outside of the British Isles; in most countries it was passed over in favour of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", which even Sting conceded was the more "obvious" hit) Drummer Stewart Copeland had been raised in Beirut and he considered it to be about the Lebanese capital. For my part, I live in the southwest corner of Korea and the first thing I think of is the nearby city of Gwangju and what its citizens went through in the spring of 1980. 

When the Korean military entered the city it was ostensibly to quash demonstrations by university students. Had hundreds of twentysomethings been the victims this would have been outrageous enough but there were children as young as five and people in the eighties who were among the dead. Government propaganda labelled protesters as North Korean sympathizers so is it any wonder troops felt that those they were going after were, in Sting's words, "not 'people' anymore, so we can kill them". This invisible sun should have brought hope to the citizens of Gwangju while renewing the humanity of those who entered the city and mowed people down with bullets. This is far too much to ask of a song but it is the fleeting sense of hope that is what matters.

The current day issue that "Invisible Sun" addresses is the Russian invasion of Ukraine but there is also the genocide of the Uyghurs in China and Iranian women protesting their country's repressive regime. Even the issue of trans rights applies as conservatives try to paint them as groomers. When music buffs talk about songs and albums being "timeless" I'm not sure "Invisible Sun" being relevant to stories in the news forty years on is what they have in mind. But this is probably the only truly accurate way that a record is able to age well. It is timeless because the message is needed regardless of time.

"Dammit, Sting, sing about something that matters for once!" This was something I wrote the last time I blogged about this song. He put his melodic talents to good use on a hit-and-miss selection of earlier Police singles ("Message in a Bottle" is great,"Don't Stand So Close to Me" is all right and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" is balls) but his lyrical skills were mostly wasted. "Invisible Sun" ended up being a breakthrough for him — and something he took with him into his hugely successful solo career. While other groups lose something by going serious, it was when they began touching upon issues that The Police began to come into their own. Women may have always swooned over Sting's brooding good looks but he didn't really become the Sting of rainforest conservation, Tantra and "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" until he stopped writing with his mind on the "man in the factory floor" and began the search for "something else".

In truth, however, Sting never really bettered "Invisible Sun". The song is simply too good that even someone of his abilities couldn't quite deliver a similar triumph. It has never seemed especially 'psychedelic' to these ears but maybe that's because it's so phenomenal that it avoids comparisons of all kinds. I used to think that I never knew that The Police had it in them but now I'm just grateful that they got it out for us to be touched by it as we live in a world in which its lyrics never fail to ring true.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Toyah: "Thunder in the Mountains"

Few have been redeemed in recent years as much as Toyah Willcox. It would be nice to say that her music has been given a long overdue reappraisal but that is not the case. It was those charming home movies that she and hubby Robert Fripp posted on Twitter during the last two years of Covid that did it. And good for them. Her music isn't really to my taste but "Thunder in the Mountains" is about as strong a record as she ever cut, her voice only somewhat histrionic, the music propulsive as it guides her along. If any Toyah single deserved to be a big hit, "Thunder in the Mountains" was it. I'll never be much of a fan of either Toyah or The Police but their attempts this fortnight are as close as I'll ever get.

(Click here to read the original review)