— Johnny Dee
As Brian Eno said, "only 10,000 people bought the first Velvet Underground album but everyone who did formed a band".
As Brian Eno also (probably) said, "only 10,000 people bought the first Flying Burrito Brothers album but everyone who did formed a country-rock band and purchased Nudie suits".
As Brian Eno also also (very probably said), "only 10,000 people bought the first Blue Nile album but everyone who did formed a sophisti-pop band and invested in Linn drum machines".
Oh, to be an unsuccessful but highly influential band. That's the life, man.
Being influential really is the dream. Especially if you love your pop and rock that stays true and doesn't sell out. And it gives critics and fans something to talk about when there's not much else to say about its quality. Sod it if this album is a pain in the ass to listen to — *cough* Unknown Pleasures *cough* — just look how many groups I don't listen to that happened to be influenced by it!
Of course, being influential and successful aren't mutually exclusive. One only need look at The Beatles, even if it sometimes seems like they only impacted tired old three-chord power pop and not, like, the whole of popular music. Louis Armstrong was widely popular and deeply influential. So, too, was Duke Ellington. And also Hank Williams. And Elvis Presley. And Chuck Berry. And Bob Dylan. And so on and so forth. Honestly, every recording artist who reaches a certain level of popularity will have an impact on youngsters with dreams of careers in music. When groups like The Cure or Nine Inch Nails get elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame they're credited with their influence — but is this really any different from, say, Whitney Houston or James Taylor? (Though I will grant that the Dave Clark Five probably weren't very influential)
Tom Breihan's piece about P.M. Dawn's "Set Adrift on a Memory Bliss" on Stereogum goes heavy into its influence. And, sure, a unique hip hop single that managed to reach number one in the US was bound to have had an impact on the future of rap, even if it did little in the short term (though this is something I will soon dispel). But why lean into it so much? Could it be there's not much else to say about it? No, there isn't. Breihan likes it enough to give it a score of eight out of ten though you'd be hard pressed to be able to tell why. But, hey, it was influential, am I right?
So, let's get into the impact. It's fascinating to consider that brothers Attrell and Jarrett Cordes had pieced together a number that fused many of pre-grunge trends of 1991. They had seemingly inherited the mantle of those flower power rap acts from a year earlier like Dream Warriors, The Jungle Brothers and Monie Love (even though they didn't appear to associate with these types). They were carrying on where German act Enigma had left off with the then astonishing "Sadeness Part 1" with samples from disparate sources providing them with a cool new age music. They were even early to hop on board of the eighties nostalgia train with the song's heavy reliance on Spandau Ballet's 1983 hit single "True". This may be the immediate legacy of "Set Adrift on a Memory Bliss" as from here on there came a steady stream of "Something Good" by Utah Saints (which borrowed from Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting"), "Save It for the Mourning After" by Shut Up and Dance and "I'll Be Missing You" by Puff Daddy over the course of the decade. There's your influence right there — one that isn't nearly as long term as Breihan thinks.
With my long-standing love of the eighties and allegiance to hippie hop, I should've loved P.M. Dawn but I just never connected with them. "Set Adrift" seemed neat and clever the first time I heard it but I could never get anywhere beyond admiring it. Prince Be's raps were really strong but his vocals came worryingly close to that sad nineties brand of R&B that would take over before long — and this is something they would lean more heavily on moving forward. I'd like to think that it's just the sort of chill out music for evenings in with a bottle of wine but it gets jarring to be a serious rival to Chet Baker or an ECM album. It's busier than you remember it being. Nowhere near as laid back as Johnny Dee reckons and I wasn't melting to it then and it has yet to melt me since. Nothing against it, mind you: it seemed utterly original at the time and was far from the worst thing on the charts. But it washed over listeners and has become strangely forgettable in the decades since.
Still, as Brian Eno also also also (very plausibly) said, "over a million people bought the first P.M. Dawn single and some of them formed hip hop combos and began scouring eighties' compilation albums for bits to sample". Suck it, Joy Division.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Flowered Up: "It's On"
There apparently was a time when Camden wasn't overrun with hip indie bands and tourists trying their best to find some charm in a frankly lifeless part of London. Somehow both dated and ahead of their time, Flowered Up tried to be an authentic baggy act from the nation's capital but the charms of Madchester had clearly begun to wear on the public after the (yet another) second summer of love. In a way, they were P.M. Dawn to De La Soul's Stone Roses, only much less successful. Dee suggests it's a bit of a grower and that's probably the case but ver kids weren't given the chance to let it grow on them. Britpop wouldn't come along for another three years but they seemed to be one of the acts that bridged the gap between eras. Buyers may have been ready for them by then but for the fact that Flowered Up clearly hadn't chosen a side: if they weren't quite Blur meets Oasis then they were Menswear meets Cast. North and south don't mix, lads but thanks for giving it a try.
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