Erasure: "Chorus"

12 June 1991

"More power to your perv-tights, "missus"!! (P.S. And it made the household cat jump out of the first floor window, nearly, and you can't say fairer than that.)"

— Sylvia Patterson

Gracing the cover of this fortnight's issue of Smash Hits is The Twins, an Australian sister act of Gayle and Gillian Blakeney. The not-entirely-ugly pair had been on the popular soap Neighbours which led to them getting signed up for a music career in the UK. While the likes of Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan (see below), Stefan Dennis and Craig MacLachlan had all enjoyed some degree of chart success, Gayle and Gillian flopped. They flopped hard in fact. In a steady decline for nearly a year-and-a-half, the songwriting/production team of Stock Aitken Waterman had been hemorraging acts and Kylie was really their last vestige. Figuring they needed to roll the dice, SAW handed the single "All Mixed Up" to The Twins. Unfortunately, the combination an uninspired composition, a Euro-pop sound the once-powerful trio struggled with and some ghastly singing torpedoed its chances.

With The Twins getting an undeserved Hits cover, Erasure were once again denied the chance to finally grace the front of the magazine themselves. In the five years since "Sometimes" broke them in the UK, the likes of Nick Kamen, Nick Berry, Pepsi & Shirlie, Philip Schofield (three times!), Sinitta, Halo James, Candy Flip (twice) and Gazza all graced the front of the top pop mag. Between them, these seven acts had nineteen Top 40 hits; Erasure had have thirty-five. (The duo would remain a top pop act for the next three years but coming changes at ver Hits meant that Christian Slater and the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210 would become preferred cover stars at the expense of actual pop groups)

I've written before that Erasure were the last major synth-pop group but this depends on how one would go about defining the term 'major'. They had seventeen Top Ten hits and five of their albums went to number one in the UK so they were hardly a minor act. Yet, they had trouble avoiding the 'also-ran' tag. Pet Shop Boys, their closest competitors, were bigger around the world and they seemed to matter to people more. Label mates Depeche Mode weren't hit makers on nearly the same level but they, too, outstripped them internationally and they had indie cred. So did New Order, whose legacy was already immense. All three synth acts had also been seminal at some point, as were The Human League, OMD and Soft Cell. But Erasure? They just never seemed as important as their synth-pop brethren.

There was also the problem of consistency — specifically, their lack of it. Though mostly a singles band (it's still hard to believe they had so many chart topping albums considering what a mixed bag their LP's are), their 45's didn't always hit the mark. On 1989's very patchy Wild!, for example, there's one absolute belter ("Blue Savannah"), another one that's quite good ("Drama") and two more that just go through the motions ("You Surround Me", "Star"). '88's mighty The Innocents produced two bangers ("Ship of Fools", "A Little Respect") and another that was just all right ("Chains of Love").

Returning swiftly in '91, Andy Bell and Vince Clarke were back (BACK!!) with some of their strongest material to date. The four singles were all top notch and the Chorus album would prove to be one of their better long players. (Ver Hits' Johnny Dee was less impressed, arguing that much of it sounded like "frightening techno muzak they play in McDonald's to make you eat your cheeseburgers quicker") Overall, it's probably a notch below both The Innocents and their self-titled 1996 release (ie the first one in ages not to got to number one) but it's still a quietly brilliant work. But even Erasure's best albums weren't especially essential affairs: you could always enjoy the hits if you couldn't be bothered with the LP.

First up was the title track and it's as great as anything they've ever done. The song's first half is seemingly as repetitive as "Stop!" until the bridge kicks in ("Holy Moses, our hearts are screaming...") which then gives way to another bridge ("The sunlight rising over the horizon..."). If the standard verse-chorus was thrilling enough (and it is), its these sections that put it over the top. And then there's Clarke putting away his acoustic guitar. I don't know, sometimes that strumming can be just the thing an Erasure song needs it's not what we were there for. "Chorus" opens some computerized notes and electronics are what the listener is treated to throughout — and it paid off. At last they had a single that was as good as "Don't You Want Me", "Tainted Love" and "West End Girls". (Sadly they were unable to repeat the chart topping success of those singles; the public, as ever, was much more willing to take a punt on drippy love songs)

Sylvia Patterson suggests that "Chorus" might have something to do with the environment. Its chorus does go on about covering up the sun, birds flying away and the fish going "to sleep" so she may be on to something but who's to say? Bell has always liked spouting indecipherable philosophical lyrics; the more difficult to pull apart the better, in fact. It could be all about their ecological concerns or about some of Bell's patented overwrought heartbreak or it could be just yet more or his nonsense set to a blistering techno-pop tune. Whether meaningful or meaningless, Bell had the voice to pull it off

Erasure always seemed like a group that everyone 'quite liked' but was nobody's favourite. While they may not have inspired the devotion that fans had for Depeche Mode, New Order and Pet Shop Boys, they managed to avoid the backlash that the others occasionally faced or were visible enough that they weren't easily forgotten about. They somehow toed the line between prominence and obscurity into over a decade of hit singles and best selling albums. They weren't as big or as important or as seminal as their contemporaries but they continued to be Erasure, a band who were sometimes great, typically reliable and seldom boring. What more could they have done?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Jason Donovan: "Any Dream Will Do"

Some broke away from the Stock Aitken Waterman hit factory in order to assert their creative independence; Jason Donovan wasn't one of them. No one leaves one restrictive media empire for an even bigger restrictive media empire thinking that their artistic vision had any kind of hope. Then again, Jase never gave anyone the impression he had an artistic vision to begin with. You would at least expect the jump from SAW to Andrew Lloyd Weber's inner circle would've resulted in better "sounding" records but "Any Dream Will Do" is as cheap as they come. As Patterson says, it's distressingly superior to the detritus Pete Waterman had been flinging his way (possibly his best single since "When You Come Back to Me") but this wasn't saying much. Though it would spent a fortnight at number one, it would quickly become overshadowed by the single which would usurp it. It's one you might know.

Lenny Kravitz: "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over"

29 May 1991

"He's sort of stolen lots of bits and pieces from other people and put them together to create his own sound."

— Dannii Minogue

One of the less commonly known Hits-isms is to be "in reception". I do not have the time or patience to see if it ever got printed in the top pop mag but it was a used by Hits staff as shorthand for desperate pop types who weren't going to wait for the press to call them, they were going to call upon them instead. Miranda Sawyer explained that being "in reception" meant that whoever was waiting there wasn't worth bothering with. It was the preferred location of the likes of Sinitta and Dannii Minogue. (Hits staff became so cynical about someone being "in reception" that one day they neglected to notice that Morrissey was paying them a visit!)

Pop stardom seemingly came easy to Kylie but her younger sister had to work for it. Not, mind you, by crafting a series of nifty records or working on her vocals but by being as shameless a pop shill as one can imagine. She was "in reception" enough to get her face on the cover of three separate issues of ver Hits in 1991 alone. With Hits staff having better things to be getting on with, she even got drafted in to sift through the singles — and, by the standard of your average pop star "in reception", she doesn't mess it up.

She's dealing with an odd assortment of "new" releases, some of which aren't new at all. The use of oldie "Should I Stay or Should I Go" in a Levi's advert took it to number one which resulted in a newfound interest in The Clash; "London Calling", title track from their classic 1979 double album, was their third (and final) re-release of the year. Oliver Stone's biopic The Doors starring Val Kilmer ("more Van than Jim", as Q Magazine drolly observed) was on its way and their American chart topper from way back in 1967 was put out to promote it, giving them a belated hit with a song that somehow didn't catch on the UK the first time round. Finally, a supposed remix of Madonna's "Holiday" was given a second life, which was a tacit acknowledgement that Madge wasn't what she once was.

Still, Madonna wasn't the only one delivering subpar work at the time. Pet Shop Boys' "Jealousy" is a great song and an outstanding closer to their masterpiece Behaviour but there was no need for it to be a single in the spring of '91. The once great Deacon Blue had fully embraced middle-of-the-road tedium with, again, a single no one asked for. Gloria Estefan had given up on entertaining people in favour of depressingly trying to inspire them. And who else? Feargal Sharkey? Pass. Kim Appleby? Nah. Living Color? Uh, no. Dannii's old chum and future "charismatic" Christian leader Mark Stevens? No, I don't think we'll be doing that, Let's just jump ahead to the only rock star of the age who still made kids want to be rock stars, even those who were already having hits of their own.

Young and impressionable pop types tend to look up to their betters. Late-eighties' pop was full of artists who worshiped Prince; it mattered little that they couldn't demonstrate an iota of the purple one's creativity or even copy his sound all that well, the important thing was that they had good taste. With post-Batman Prince not being much in the way off "cop", there was room for another pop-rock god for pin up stars of the era to hold in high esteem. A few years' earlier it might have been Guns N' Roses or Terence Trent D'Arby but in 1991 there was really only one act who could reliably fill the void: Lenny Kravitz.

Lisa Bonet's soon-to-be ex has already appeared in this space, from an issue of Smash Hits less than two months' before this one. Then, he was given a "prized" Single of the Fortnight by up and coming star Chesney Hawkes, a youngster of about the same age as Dannii Minogue. While the Aussie singer gushes about equally about the record and his nibs, Hawkes is far keener to wax about Kravitz himself ("What a dude. What a cat"). The two clearly idolize Lenny. They both were pursuing conventional pop careers but there's the sense that they yearned to be earning it the way he seemed to be.

Hawkes had apparently been chuffed about previous single "Always on the Run" but it didn't catch on enough to reach the Top 40. There were no similar difficulties this time as "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" came just shy of the Top 10. Minogue reckons it's "pretty mellow" for him but she likes it all the same and, indeed, so did quite a few other people. As I said a few weeks earlier, he would've done better reversing the order of release of these two singles. "Always..." did little to pave the way for "...Over..." and it probably stood a better chance of riding the coattails of it into a respectable Top 30 placing of its own had it come out second.

The one thing "Always..." has going for it is that it hides its influences a bit better. On ",,,Over...", however, it's easy to agree with Minogue's observation above. Doing his best Marvin Gaye and with an elegant string section on hand, he's paying tribute to Philly soul. Yet, the Beatle-esque melody and use of a sitar confirm that he's borrowing as liberally as she suggests. This also hints that not only was it important for pop stars to have good taste in music but for their heroes to be similar. Liking Prince meant you had good taste but liking Kravitz meant he had good taste.

"It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" sure seemed to be a brilliant record when it came out in the spring of 1991. Not so much now, mind you. There's nothing particularly wrong with it but it certainly doesn't seem as spellbinding as it once was thirty years ago. I don't think it has aged poorly per se, only that knowledge of older pop is far more commonplace nowadays. In spite of Dannii Minogue claiming that it was a mish mash of styles, it seemed to younger listeners that there had never been anything like it. And in a way, that's correct. Such studied, deliberate pop had never been seen before people like Kravitz emerged (at approximately the same time, a quintet in Manchester was ironing out their own sound plundered from vast record collections; they'll doubtless be cropping up in this space before long). It seemed like the coolest music around until I discovered Roxy Music, Curtis Mayfield, Chic, Burning Spear, Laura Nyro, Sly & The Family Stone, Joe Henderson and Emmylou Harris and others who valued true originality. At that point, who needs Lenny Kravitz? 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Pixies: "Planet of Sound"

A "crock of shit" according to the lovely yet potty-mouthed Danielle — and honestly she's not wrong. Pixies have always been one of those indie acts that indie kids adore in spite of some glaring holes in their catalog. Peaking with the great Doolittle in 1989, they were still strong on the following year's Bossanova but the continuing lack of respect for bassist Kim Deal's contributions to the band left them increasingly at the mercy of leader Frank Black's madness. Trompe le Monde was by far their weakest album to date; "Planet of Sound" was representative of their gradual decline as they embraced noise over pop hooks and melody. The imminent arrival on the world stage of a certain Seattle three piece should have made the Boston scene irrelevant but love for Pixies in particular would never fade away. While there are reasons to hold them close to the bosom, there are an equal number of reasons you needn't bother with all but their best stuff. To wit.

R.E.M.: "Shiny Happy People"

15 May 1991

"Summer's here and everything's groovy."

— Mark Frith

It is a song that everyone allegedly hates. Michael Stipe supposedly can't stand it and neither can his bandmates, to the extent that they chose to leave it off of their In Time greatest hits album. Hardcore R.E.M. enthusiasts deplore it. Many of those who were involved in indie rock at the time didn't care for it. Critics who aren't Mark Frith say it's a blot on an otherwise classic album and, indeed, a rare botch in one of the more sturdy and admirable discographies in all of popular music.

I always feel that R.E.M. ended the eighties in a bit of a slump. After putting out four straight top quality albums, they began to slip, first with 1987's Document and then with Green, released the following year. The two are sometimes lumped together due to both having socially conscious material but their faults are in opposition to one another. Document has three brilliant singles — "The One I Love", "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" and "Finest Worksong" — but many of its deep cuts let it down; Green, in contrast, has some wonderful album tracks but its singles — "Stand", "Orange Crush", "Pop Song '89" — are uncharacteristically weak. Nevertheless, their trajectory was still looking up as their records were selling better. After a decade on the fringes, word of mouth had finally begun to spread.

1991's Out of Time sees them begin to reclaim their lofty status as one of the finest groups in the world. Melancholy but catchy first single "Losing My Religion" was everywhere for a while; in terms of airplay it certainly seemed like a number one smash. A Top 10 hit in several countries, it got no higher than number nineteen in Britain. This may seem like a modest peak for such a popular song but there's a little more to it. The single remained in the Top 20's penultimate spot for three weeks and then took its sweet old time to tumble out of the charts. Meanwhile, Out of Time proved to be the chief beneficiary: it entered the album charts at number one and remained in the Top 10 for twenty-one straight weeks. Not bad for a group who had previously been bit players in the UK.

Out of Time should have produced hit single after hit single but in effect it resulted in only two hits anyone remembers. ("Near Wild Heaven" and "Radio Song" both made only brief appearances on the charts but, significantly, their third substantial hit of '91 was a reissue of "The One I Love", a single that ranks right up there with "Losing My Religion") Instead, there was just one more record to consolidate their position and it just so happened to be the most commercial tune they would ever craft.

Frith loves "Shiny Happy People" (I'm going to assume that he didn't grow sick of it within a couple weeks of this issue of Smash Hits hitting the shops and that it remains a firm favourite to this day), I quite like it but, as I say above, it has many detractors, including R.E.M.'s own lead singer. Over the years, however, Michael Stipe has softened his stance on it.. He has stated that it's one of R.E.M.'s "fruitloop songs" along with "Stand", "Pop Song '89" and "Get Up". What makes it superior to any of those efforts is that it isn't so damn repetitive and that it makes no bones about it being a piece of pure pop. There's no indie rock bullshit here.

This is where the naysayers miss the point. As an alternative rock group, R.E.M. weren't supposed to have a pop song in them. Those fellow "fruitloop" tracks off of Green benefited from having more musical muscle behind them (at least in the case of "Get Up") and "Pop Song '89" had that naughty video with topless girls but there was no hiding what was behind "Shiny Happy People". I didn't care much about college rock and it didn't irritate me. I even liked it a bit. Not as good as "Losing My Religion" but plenty good enough to have on and not switch off. Pop you don't especially need but pop you're rather glad to have.

But just who are these Shiny Happy People anyway? I remember hearing that it was meant to be a touching tribute to mentally challenged people who we may pity but who often go about their lives seemingly happier to be alive than the rest of us. Stipe has said that it was originally a propaganda slogan used to calm the masses down in post-Tiananmen Square China, a claim that I don't recall being made at the time. To Frith, however, they're simply "those types you'll see wandering around the streets this summer being friendly, giving big hugs left, right and centre and being generally amiable". This is the most probable interpretation. The lyrics are straightforward and minimal. If Stipe is feeling down then it's best he see some smiling faces to cheer him up — though it doesn't always work that way.

Released in May of 1991, it came out a little too early to really qualify as a summer hit. No doubt Britain was experiencing yet another scorching spring that got headmasters to decree the dispensing of blazers and jumpers from school uniforms and those maddening hose-pipe bans but I was back in western Canada which was entering a pattern of cool summers with afternoon showers at ten in the morning. A lot of the those nineties' summers were miserable so we needed shiny happy pop more than ever to help get us through them. Is it any wonder I was dying for some old school jangle pop, especially since I was fourteen and in serious need of curing some of my angst.

In the end even if you don't care for it, "Shiny Happy People" has its place. Hardcore fans of their's from the eighties hated it, likely viewing it as proof that popularity and being signed to a major record label had sucked the life out of them. And the band may well have agreed. Notably, R.E.M. didn't tour their first blockbuster album, promotion of follow-up singles was minimal and they promptly went back to various favourite studios around the US to record 1992's Automatic for the People. Not only had they returned with one of their finest albums but the material was much more serious. (The only two numbers that dealt in lighter matters — singles "Man on the Moon" and "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" — did so with absurdity rather than cheeriness). Rather than doing a sprightly line dance, their videos were edgy and filmed in black and white. The album was even tipped to be a return to more plugged-in rock in the vein of Document, though this is something they would eventually decide to put off until 1994's Monster. They had indie cred to be worried about, even as they were set to once again become the greatest group in the world.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Massive Attack: "Safe from Harm"

Like Out of Time, Massive Attack's Blue Lines was a popular and influential album that failed to launch a half dozen or so memorable singles. There's a reason "Unfinished Sympathy" is the only song anyone remembers off of it. As Frith states, there's really no need for "Safe from Harm" to have been released in 45" form (unless it encouraged a few more people to go out and purchase a copy of the album, that is). In fact, it could have enjoyed the reputation as an outstanding deep cut — not unlike "Country Feedback" and "Texarkana" on Out of Time — but I guess being a quite-like-the-last-one-only-not-as-good hasn't really harmed its reputation. Massive Attack have had some glorious moments but they've also been ordinary and even awful at times. I'll go right out and admit it: "Safe from Harm" is no "Shiny Happy People".

Altered Images: "I Could Be Happy"

10 December 1981

"This will equal, if not better, the success of "Happy Birthday". No problem Jimmy."

— Ian Birch

In an episode of Word in Your Ear, co-host Mark Ellen theorized about the early days of Smash Hits and how it attracted bands who had been around but went about making changes to adapt to the landscape of a bright new pop magazine (although it probably had at least as much to do with the rise of the music video at about the same time). These groups included Dexys Midnight Runners, The Human League and Madness. There were also those, Ellen continued, who seemed birthed with ver Hits in mind. Significantly, one of these acts came with a name that would sum up changes that were afoot: Altered Images.

In a pop world free of glossy mags, colourful promos and high fashion, it's difficult to imagine what Altered Images' image would have been like. Post-punk bands weren't supposed to be fronted by charming pixies like Clare Grogan; the few women who did emerge tried their best to look tough, menacing and/or scary, like Chrissie Hynde, Siouxsie Sioux and Patti Smith. Others like Kate Bush and Lene Lovich were very clearly artists. But a cute, girl-next-door? They weren't in high demand in the late-seventies.

Yet, Grogan couldn't have been a more fitting front woman for Altered Images. The four blokes who accompanied her could easily have been members of moody fellow Scots Orange Juice but they followed their lead singer by daring to smile in photos and look like they were perfectly happy to be riding the giddy carousel of pop right along with her. In a music business increasingly concerned with appearing to be serious, the Ims were having none of it.

Giving that serious pop made by serious people would be the norm for the next few years, it would have been difficult to trace the legacy of Altered Images. It was not until quirky Scottish indie pop became a cottage industry beginning in the late-nineties that their influence began to be felt. Where would Belle & Sebastian have been without them? And, yet, I wasn't overly fond of "I Could Be Happy" four-and-a-half years ago when I last blogged about it.

As I mentioned previously, it didn't help that Ian Birch oversold it. The bassline is barely noticeable so I don't know where he gets the idea that it sizzles. Martin Rushent clearly produced it well enough but there's no evidence that he and the band had any real "chemistry". And for the love of god, who's this "Jimmy" fellow mentioned above? Guitarist Jim McKinven? Another music industry type? A mate of Birch? The royal Jimmy?

With the passing of the years, however, I feel more well-disposed to the Ims. Sure, the lyrics are as naff as ever but Grogan's singing is zesty enough that it really doesn't matter. The guitars hardly surge, the bass may or may not sizzle but the overall performance of the group is bouncy, full of pop energy and just new wavy enough that it doesn't smack of a period piece.

It's been a while since I saw the acclaimed film Juno and declared that "quirky must die" but my derision for this particular style has not dulled. And while Altered Images certainly helped bring it about, their best work manages to transcend being 'intelligently throwaway'. They were ahead of their time enough that it doesn't blight their legacy. They'll never be my first choice of music to listen to while washing dishes, going hiking, grading exams and just being a good-for-nothing lump but there's no real reason to oppose what they were all about either. A fine record from the first band who seemed tailor-made for Smash Hits.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Rolling Stones: "Waiting on a Friend"

Poignancy never came easy to Mick and Keef, though it wasn't something they aimed for very often. But "Waiting on a Friend" is perhaps their most poignant number since "I Am Waiting" from their 1966 masterpiece Aftermath. Following the success of the overrated "Start Me Up", this laid back number dating back to 1972 didn't get the airplay of its predecessor and couldn't hope to repeat its success. Nonetheless, "Waiting on a Friend" is a much better song. It's release at the end of 1981 makes it timely as well since this was when tensions in the band were at an all time high — a situation that would remain for the bulk of the decade. The eighties wouldn't be one of their best periods but at least they had a few wonderful little numbers tucked away to see them through their near-breakup. Plus, the video gives an idea of what the Stones would've been like had they done a guest spot on Sesame Street. Wonderful.

(Click here to see my original review)

Banderas: "She Sells"

1 May 1991

"Verily, a song amongst songs."

— Caroline Sullivan

Though very much a product of the eighties, synth-pop at the beginning of the nineties did not appear to be slowing down, especially when it came to the big names of the genre. Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys both released their finest albums that year (Violator and Behaviour respectively), New Order recorded their sole UK number one single and Erasure were still riding the wave of hit singles from their Wild! album issued late in 1989. Sure, The Human League were faltering with the patchy Romantic? but it had been a while since they'd been at their best anyway.

As 1990 turned into '91, there seemed to be an even greater thirst for angsty, doomed electro pop. Erasure handed in their best album yet (happily, it won't be long before I can go on about the magnificent Chorus in this space), OMD were back and as good as ever and supergroup Electronic were more of a going concern with their self-titled LP and single "Get the Message". Greatest hits albums by the Pet Shops and Soft Cell proved popular, as was the collection from synth-adjacent Eurythmics. Fueled by a mix of irony and genuine interest, eighties nostalgia was already setting in and nothing said 'eighties' more than synth-pop. (It really says it all that eighties nostalgia commenced almost as soon as the decade ended whereas nineties nostalgia took over twenty years to become a thing)

One worrying aspect, however, was that no one new seemed to be stepping up. Late-eighties acts such as Information Society, Kon Kan and When in Rome all had their moments but soon began to fade. It took former members of another synth-pop group to give some fleeting hope to the idea that it was a genre with a future.

Caroline Buckley and Sally Herbert had been in the backing band of The Communards, a synth duo in a world of synth duos. Jimmy Somerville and Richard Coles decided to go their separate ways in 1989 and this opening left Buckley and Herbert to form a pairing of their own. But where The Communards, Pet Shops, Sparks, Yazoo, Eurythmics, Blancmange and Erasure all had at least one male — if not two in most cases — Banderas was an all-female two-piece. (Had anyone been worried that this arrangement would affect the classic synth duo dynamic, keyboardist Herbert fitted in perfectly with the moody Chris Lowe-Vince Clarke other member type)

With an arresting image (Buckley in particular really pulls off having a shaved head) and unique status as all-female, Banderas looked like a promising part of synth's next generation. (Though, in truth, they were no younger than pop veterans Erasure) Though it deserved a bit better, debut single "This Is Your Life" gave them a Top 20 hit in the early part of '91 and they looked to follow its success with more of the same on "She Sells". Not that the latter was just a redo of the former: where their first record happened to be dreamy, soaring and beautifully sung by Buckley, the follow-up proved to be darker and more aggressive.

Sounding not unlike something Propaganda would have come up with back in '85 — either that or a more sinister take on Swing Out Sister's hit "Breakout" — "She Sells" ought to have been a decent-sized hit. Sadly, in spite of Caroline O'Sullivan's glowing write-up, it just came up short of the Top 40. Had they been around four years earlier, it's easy to imagine it getting to a respectable chart position like number twelve ("This Is Your Life" would've been a sure fire Top 10 smash in this reality) with a Top of the Pops performance to go with it as well as appearing on a Now That's What I Call Music compilation. But timing is everything in music: the two-pronged onslaught of trashy Euro-house and earnest indie rock meant that new comers to the world of synth-pop didn't have the staying power of the core acts. By 1993, all that remained were the big names — and even they (Depeche Mode, New Order, Pet Shop Boys) would never be as popular from that point on.

We may bemoan the lack of prolonged success for Banderas but it's likely that they coped well it. The two were very down-to-earth with neither craving fame and fortune ("...I was walking around Sainsbury's yesterday and thought that if anyone recognised me then I would have to hit them," Herbert admitted to Smash Hits). Hopefully there remains a loyal following of Banderas backers to preserve the legacy of an unfortunately overlooked act, one that ought to have been held in similarly high esteem as all those angsty and moody synth-pop groups that came before them.

~~~~~

Not Reviewed This Fortnight

The Wedding Present: "Dalliance"

Reduced to the Also Released This Fortnight sidebar down at the bottom of the page, Caroline O'Sullivan for whatever reason didn't review this outstanding single from Dave Gedge and his Wedding Present chums. She really ought to have especially considering how subpar most of the new releases are in this issue. Nevertheless, "Dalliance" is a first rate banger, the sort of song that feels like it has existed forever even if it could only have come from the mind of Gedge. Starting off quietly, it gradually builds into a racket. They say rock music ought to be played at maximum volume but rare are those tracks that seem to get louder even as you turn it down. Gedge can't really sing as such but his voice is a thing to behold. There's desperation, desire, heartbreak and I can even detect some humour and irony present. I always forget how brilliant The Wedding Present were but being reminded of it is always a welcome (re)discovery. Not for everyone though I can't imagine why.