Scritti Politti: "Faithless"

29 April 1982

"Words like "righteous, testify and faith" do not a soul record make but this is studded with more soul than 78% of the trans-Atlantic garbage on offer this week."

— Martin Fry

It didn't occur to me the first time 'round but it is shocking just how piss poor the bulk of the singles on offer this fortnight are. This outstanding Single of the Fortnight aside, there's aren't many winners present. And don't go away assuming that some of them are brilliant records that the public ignorantly passed on; the bulk of this sorry bunch is dreary faux-soul or tired post-punk. It's almost as if not everyone was meant to create sturdy pop.

Two that succeeded in doing so were ABC's Martin Fry and Scritti Politti's Green Gartside. As I already mentioned the last time "Faithless" came up, the two had their similarities in coming out of punk before eventually evolving into purveyors of slick eighties' sophisti-pop. It's a transition that isn't easily squared unless the petty critic takes the simplistic path of charging that they both "sold out".

If you happened to caught an early Scritti Politti gig in Camden or heard one of their D.I.Y. efforts like "Skank Bloc Bologna" on John Peel's Radio 1 show, then went several years without encountering them before coming across mid-eighties' hits like "Wood Beez" or "The Word Girl" then it be understandable to conclude that they had indeed "sold out". If, however, you'd been paying close attention to their progress then there's no excuse. Those scratchy indie records had always been leaden with literary and political references but it took longer for the music to catch up. The excellent compilation Early displays a gradual shift from skeletal post-punk towards the soul music that Green had grown up on.

The other thing is that the minimalism was still present even as the presentation and sound had shifted. Like "The "Sweetest Girl"" before it, "Faithless" is soulful and lush but so too is it as bare as anything he released half-a-decade earlier. The Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan would express surprise that the D.I.Y. punk ethos hadn't been identified in his group's work since chords were kept to a minimum, their playing was deceptively simplistic and they had little beyond a Linn drum machine in terms of backing. On "Faithless" there is a little more going on than on, say, "Tinseltown in the Rain" but when a vocodor and a trio of backing vocalists in place of a gospel choir are what you're relying upon for backing then 

Moving away from post-punk but not quite ready to embrace pop the way they would on 1985's Cupid & Psyche '85, this period of Scritti Politti's erratic lifespan has been somewhat forgotten. Their smattering of hits was still a ways off and Green would eventually return to the guitars following several largely successful experiments with hip hop which concluded at the end of the nineties. What is one to do, then, with a part of the group that few identify with?

Album Songs to Remember (as well as its companion singles "The "Sweetest Girl"", "Faithless" and the double A-side "Asylums in Jerusalem"/"Jacques Derrida" which were all decked out in gorgeous sleeves making them all look like luxury goods purchased Hong Kong airport's duty free lounge) deserves much better. Rather than being too much of a compromise between what came before and what was to come, it is the most fully realised account of Green's immense musical talents. His deconstructionist pop peaked during this time, with future attempts being much more loving and heartfelt and not in the spirit of his literary interests.

To the extent that Scritti Politti did sell out, the best they were capable of was a Top 20 album and three singles which all stalled outside the Fun 40 — hardly a case of Green selling his soul for pop stardom. More to the point, his creativity wasn't dulled in pursuit of the mainstream; it is only in a

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Shakin' Stevens: "Shirley"

With such a pitiful pile of singles to deal with, is it any wonder Fry overdoes the praise a little for the latest from Shakin' Stevens? Shakey "sounds like he enjoys making records and that sets him apart from 95% of the other acts on display today". Too right but does his obvious enjoyment translate into a top record? It's good fun like many of his nibs' big hits but there's not a whole lot to it. Clocking in at just over two minutes, it nevertheless feels a bit too long. That said, he hammers the point home much more annoyingly on 

The KLF: "America: What Time Is Love?"

5 February 1992

"Get stuffed, Grandad — The KLF, The Voice Of God!"

— Sylvia Patterson

When your pop group philosophy is based on (a) getting maximum value out of minimal talent and (b) constantly retooling of the same half-dozen songs, you're probably not going to have a lengthy run in the charts. While this would no doubt disappoint many, those who lean towards "bird-watching and the countryside" might have found an upside in it.

On the surface, The KLF seemed like ideal pop stars. While their music was rooted in the clubs and the raves of the era, their innate pop sensibilities lent themselves to a world of Smash Hits and Top of the Pops. They even created this fictional universe of themselves being the Justified Ancients of a country called Mu Mu whose capital city was this place called Transcentral. It was like Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars only they didn't have to create a concept album around it: they were the concept. Though they were both in their mid-thirties at the time, they seemed to immature with age, fawning upon the Pet Shop Boys, writing songs that name checked Kylie and Jason and getting into a minor pop star squabble with EMF, accusing the Forest of Dean indie rap rockers of stealing the 'F' in their name.

Relying on samples so heavily that they barely had to play any instruments, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty showed how punk values could be transferred over into the nineties — but then again, so did plenty of others. It was irrelevant that DJ's couldn't play the guitar or keyboards: they had their turntables to "play". But what set The KLF apart was the fact that they had no more training on a deck than on "proper" instruments. This meant that their love of pure pop as well as a myriad of other genres could augment their sound more easily. It also ensured that they never got clever with their mixing. Updates of older JAMMs tracks managed to be improved upon whereas other house music boffins tended to get it right on their first try. Remixing may have been the bread and butter of DJ's yet few of them ever managed to get it right.

"America: What Time Is Love?" was yet another re-working of a chill out track that had evolved into a stadium house number and had now become a rock anthem. North America had mostly ignored the UK Top 5 hit "What Time Is Love?" when it first emerged in late 1990 and the title suggests that they were intent on belatedly breaking it into the US market. The video (a considerable departure from the group's previous promos) even hints at them leaving Britain in order to conquer America. Perhaps coincidentally, this was also the time in which "cracking" the States had become an increasingly daunting task for bands from the UK.

It was only after "Justified and Ancient" came close to giving them a third UK number one that "America: What Time Is Love?" came out in Britain. Americans had been immune but Drummond and Cauty's countrymen once again fell at their feet, with this new version actually outperforming the original's chart peak of number five. This is partly due to the mini-imperial period they had been enjoying but one should never underestimate the power of the US to get the British all giddy. They may have altered the song in order to sway the Americans but this only managed to reaffirm just how beloved they were in their homeland.

And, yet, it was all coming to a close. "America: What Time Is Love?" proved to be their swansong. Sampling Motörhead's iconic "Ace of Spades" and having former Deep Purple/Black Sabbath vocalist Glenn Hughes screaming all over it put them in harder, thrashier territory (additions which happen to give it the edge over the more standard house version from a year and a half earlier), something that they clearly used to the extreme when they performed an almost unrecognizable rendition of "3 a.m. Eternal" at that year's BRIT awards alongside Ipswich hardcore metal band Extreme Noise Terror just a week after this issue of ver Hits hit the shops. They closed out the show by announcing their retirement from showbusiness. Not long after this fiasco, they had their entire back catalog deleted.

There we have The KLF. They would have preferred to have gone bird-watching but their reluctance to embrace the spotlight only made them more intriguing. When they did try to pursue publicity it was in aid of firing machine guns loaded with blanks at those same BRIT awards or infamously setting a million pounds on fire. They crafted brilliant pop records with unusual methods and then fled while still on top. They boasted of the fact that they could have hits with cover versions of their own work. They don't make bands like this anymore. Hell, they didn't make 'em like this back then either.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Massive Attack: The Hymn of the Big Wheel (aka the imaginatively titled Massive Attack E.P.)

Last week I argued that Primal Scream's Dixie-Narco E.P. was a more than adequate replacement for the group's not-especially-thrilling album Screamadelica. Massive Attack also released a big LP in '91 and they too decided to start the new year off with an extended play — but in this instance it is a poor facsimile of debut Blue Lines. The KLF were good at remixing and retooling older numbers like "What Time Is Love?" but this is something most who worked within house music struggled to match. The Paul Oakenfold remix of "Be Thankful" is rather good but the other two tracks from Blue Lines are pointless. New offering "Home of the Whale" is as dreadful as Sylvia Patterson reckons, so it's obviously not just remixes that they could get wrong. Not a great sampler for what made Massive Attack special but a useful reminder that they were a lot more hit-and-miss than many would care to admit.

Primal Scream: Dixie-Narco

22 January 1992

"The trendiest band in the world — so cool they even turned down an invitation to play at Prince's club in Minneapolis."

— Johnny Dee

And Smash Hits officially joins the nineties.

Over the previous thirteen-and-a-bit years, Smash Hits refused to remain the same. The pages had once been black-and-white before editors such as David Hepworth and Mark Ellen began garish colours, the first step on the road to full on glossy pop mag. Changes tended towards subtlety, unless you count the handful of times the font bearing the words SMASH HITS was altered.

This time, the only thing that remained the same was the font, that iconic Grecian lettering remaining a fixture until yet another retooling eight years later. Bitz, a longstanding feature at the beginning of every issue, was replaced by Start, which was similar to its predecessor but with less emphasis on humour and a mandate to cover the world of entertainment in general. This is one of the most noticeable qualities of the all-new Hits: music having to share the spotlight with films and TV — and in some instances, taking a clear backseat to them. Hot from America, another new edition, includes a brief anecdote about pop starlet Paula Abdul and four notes about Hollywood. Not only were actors beginning to appear on the cover more frequently but they were even beginning to push aside groups and singers in the pages of this once top pop mag.

The glossier, more nineties look to the magazine didn't deter Hits critics from putting forth some edgier acts for the Single of the Fortnight Best New Single. In fact, 1992 is packed with bangers with connections to subgenres such as grebo, Madchester, shoegaze, grunge, punk, jangle pop and the still unknown and unnamed Brtipop. Indie rock's past, present and future are all represented. Appropriate, then, that a band that encompassed all three would kick things off.

Glasgow's Primal Scream rose to prominence in 1990 with the Top 20 single "Loaded". It had initially appeared on their self-titled second album under the name "I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have". Then, DJ/producer Andrew Weatherall got his hands on it and transformed it into an intense chill out groove that barely resembles its source material. Primal Scream got a hit single out of it but it was Weatherall who did the heavy lifting. Wisely, they would double down on working with the boffins of house music in the prolonged sessions for third album Screamadelica; the exception was opening cut "Movin' on Up", produced by American Jimmy Miller.

Though he worked with a number of bands from the late-sixties up until his death in 1994, Miller will always be remembered for being behind the desk for Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St., the big four albums that are generally considered to be the creative peak of The Rolling Stones. While I prefer Aftermath and Between the Buttons to at least a couple of them, there's certainly no arguing with success. Though hugely popular, the Stones had been in the shadow of The Beatles for much of the sixties; it was only when Miller came on board that they began to show signs of becoming the institution they've remained ever since.

Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie was undoubtedly looking to re-create the Stones' grubby rock mixed with gospel and R&B when Miller was drafted in. What he and his bandmates failed to consider was the tune they had for him to produce was more in line with The Monkees than The Rolling Stones. And I say this as no hater of the prefab four. If ver Scream had done something that brought to mind "Pleasant Valley Sunday" or "Daydream Believer" or "Randy Scouse Git" then it would have been one thing; but for "Movin' on Up" to sound like the lightweight "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You" is stretching credibility.

To be fair, cred hasn't always been a benchmark of Primal Scream. I they strive for it in terms of image and influences but their actual music generally misses out. When they don't care (later albums Vanishing Point and XTRMNTR rank as their finest works due to doing their own thing and playing around with a wide variety of genres), they're much better off. But in the early nineties they were all about pretending to be on the cutting edge when in reality they were living off the fruits of their producers, with few original contributions of their own. That they were desperately trying to ape the Stones while sounding more like The Monkees is all you need to know

Screamadelica was released in the autumn of 1991 and would go on to win the first ever Mercury Prize. To this day, it remains a favourite of fans but to the neutrals out there it's over-long, tedious and it appears to demand the listener be as high as balls as the members of Primal Scream were. A whole bunch of singles had already come out and so to give ver kids extra incentive, they threw "Movin' on Up" on to an EP. As I say, I never cared much for Screamadelica but I'm okay with this little four track. It's as if they had plucked the high spots from the album onto a modest sampler while ditching most of the self-indulgent acid rock.

Johnny Dee seems to be most interested in "Movin' on Up" but it is the remainder of Dixie-Narco that has grabbed my attention. Described as "melt city" by his nibs, "Stone My Soul", "Carry Me Home" (a Dennis Wilson composition that had been left off The Beach Boys' brilliant Holland album; it is very much to the credit of Gillespie and his fellow Primes that they chose to record such an obscure number; it isn't difficult to imagine the wayward drummer being a role model for the members of Primal Scream) and the still unreleased title track to their most recent album are all strung out anthems. They were always suckers for extended tracks (often to their detriment) but "Screamadelica" is more like a suite of half-a-dozen unfinished songs presented in a ten minute package. The rave ups from the night before had morphed into chill out tunes for the morning after.

Never the most talented group, Primal Scream managed to carve out a respectable career in spite of an overrated breakthrough album and its poor follow-up. They had been so concerned with their twin passions of jumping on the acid house/rave bandwagon and being a Generation X equivalent of The Rolling Stones that they let their abilities wallow. Luckily, Dixie-Narco started them off on their own path. The past they could only regurgitate and the present proved they were in over their heads; assuming their egos didn't clash and the drugs didn't consume them, they still had the future, a point in time they would eventually figure out how to navigate.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

James: "Born of Frustration"

Like Primal Scream, James had been a long standing indie band of little renown until they got lumped into Madchester. Unlike the Scots, however, the Mancunian septet could rely on their own devices in order to craft some stellar pop which transcended the fads and trends. (Though it must be said they never made an album as strong as Vanishing Point) While the likes of "Come Home", "Sit Down" and "Laid" commanded more attention, "Born of Frustration" is the quintessential James single with Tim Booth's mesmerizing yodels, chords that feel like they've been heaven sent and secret weapon Andy Diagram with some dreamy trumpet parts. Melancholy indie is normally meant to bring the listener down but James were always masters of using sorrow to give their fans an emotional boost. No one in the nineties churned out quality singles as reliably as James — and James never delivered as strong a single as "Born of Frustration". Would've been an easy Single of the Fortnight Best New Single for me.

Kim Wilde: "View from a Bridge"

15 April 1982

"Have you ever noticed how clever the Wilde intros are?"

— Ian Birch

"There's this word 'Art'," Kim Wilde explained to Mark Ellen at the end of 1981. "There seems to be this tremendous disrespect for Pop Stars, but if people put this 'Art' sticker on you, then they don't feel so guilty about liking you."

As one of the rising stars of '81, Kim Wilde had to deal with a pair of labels that chafed. One was that she was just another chart topping bimbo (something she would later embrace and satirize on future Single of the Fortnight "Love Blonde"), the other was the contention that she was in fact a serious artiste. As you may have noticed, one of these descriptions isn't as damning as the other. No matter, Kim wasn't having any of it. Except for the fact that she was entering her most artsy period.

Ellen's interview with Wilde took place at about the time she was promoting "Cambodia", her fourth single of the year and first not to be tied to her self-title debut album. It also happened to have a much darker edge to it than the new wave power pop that had made her successful. Though critically acclaimed (not, mind you, by Smash Hits, who didn't even review it — and this was from a time when there would typically be two dozen new releases on the singles page), it failed to return her to the Top 5 heights of both "Kids in America" and "Chequered Love". Nevertheless, number twelve is fair enough and interest in it was enough to allow it to linger around the Top 20 for six weeks.

"Cambodia" signaled that changes were coming. Father Marty Wilde was still writing the lyrics and he evidently chose to go into deeper subject matter than trivial affairs like boys and tinnitus. Quite whether "Cambodia" happens to be about "someone who loses her lover in sad circumstances" (Kim's explanation) or PTSD caused by the early-seventies' Cambodian incursion (my interpretation; who's to say who's correct even though it's Kim), it was heavy. Not keen to lighten things up for the follow-up, Marty went with thoughts of suicide.

That's right, thoughts of suicide. The song concludes with Kim's character's fate left undecided. Sure, she admits to hearing a voice that said "jump" and she "just let go" but then admits that she's unsure if this is "fact or fantasy". Actually, I wonder if it's all meant to be a dream: she's watching from the bridge as a heartbroken girl plunges into the Thames or the Severn or the Tyne only to discover that the jumper is in fact her ("I see it's me").

Luckily, the grim lyrics contrast with a more upbeat, synth-driven tune composed by brother Ricki which gives it much more of a pop feel than its predecessor (and, indeed, the single that followed it). Though her chart fortunes were trending downward, this probably helped it give her a fifth Top 20 hit on the bounce. It would be difficult not to conclude that the narrative is bleak but the bounciness of the tune may have fooled a few youngsters out there.

Marty the lyricist spun perhaps his finest verses, Ricki the musician/producer put together a gorgeous arrangement with, as Ian Birch rightly notes, a stirring intro and, not to allow her father and brother to hog the credit, Kim the vocalist dials back on her patented vacant style of singing in order to put in a much more emotive performance. Quite whether the Wilde trio caught this audio synergy due to their familial ties is not for me to judge but there's no question all three had peaked in their respective tasks all at once. Kim Wilde may have been perfectly happy being a pop star but singles like "View from a Bridge" are art pop documents able to stand proudly alongside the best creations of many more serious artistes.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts: "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"

Another one of those 'Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers' even though I did know that but thanks all the same. Strangely, it never comes up on lists of 'Popular Songs That Actually Suck'. I guess that's because of all that cool rockin' out with leather jackets and guitar parts that anyone could play and all that shouting. Good stuff unless you're one of those miserable spoil sports like myself who wants something more from their pop music. The video opens with a rip roaring selection from the far superior Joan Jett number "Bad Reputation" which really ought to have undermined "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" in the eyes of more people than just your's truly. Birch reckons it's nothing but a "lumbering elk" and "Suzi Quatro on a slow turntable". Dismal — but by all means keep shouting along if you're into this sort of shit.

(Click here to see my original review)

Kylie Minogue: "Give Me Just a Little More Time"

8 January 1992

"Kylie has a big problem: living up to Better The Devil You Know, one of the greatest singles in the history of the cosmiverse. Solution: This."

— Sian Pattenden

A flip through this issue of from the start of 1992 and it's very much the Smash Hits of old. Longstanding segment Bitz kicks things off with features on a bunch of people I'm unfamiliar with (bands Airhead and Senseless Things as well as comedy duo Trevor & Simon, who apparently were a bit of a thing even when I resided in the UK) and a deeply uninteresting bit about Madonna's feelings about other pop stars. The venerable Black Type is busy chirping away at the letter writers while good old Gordon Bennett! is answering queries from the pop kids. And then there's Kylie Minogue nabbing her fourth Single of the Fortnight, putting her in a tie with the likes of The Cure, Billy Idol (for the love of God, how did he get so many?!?) and, yes, Madonna for third place behind only Pet Shop Boys and George Michael.

But not everything remained the same. Kylie's sexier look had been a thing for close to two years though she was now getting even raunchier. The backlash that had been building against her had begun to expand with previous SOTF "Word Is Out" having paid the price. (Of course, you can always bet on a pop star going downhill when they begin to go R&B) Ver hits had also recently been taking a page out of the increasingly irrelevant Number One mag with a celeb gossip section near the back of every issue. More and more, the mandate appeared to be a focus on the famous rather than pop stars in particular. 

Finally, this issue closes with two pages devoted to promoting next fortnight's edition of the all-new Smash Hits. Gasp at the POSTER WITH EVERY ISSUE! (Surely the Hits had long been a cradle for youths looking to decorate their walls so this wasn't anything new) Dance about at the prospect of EVEN MORE STAR-PACKED PAGES! (Sixty-four pages to be precise; note that they did not mention the accompanying price increase) Get your rocks off to the prospect of a SONGBOOK WITH EVERY ISSUE! (Was spreading the lyrics throughout really such a burden for ver kids?) And who would be appearing on the cover of this reboot? One Kylie Minogue.

"Give Me Just a Little More Time" was certainly her best single in ages. Possibly well before the overrated "Better the Devil You Know". Credit to her for giving a commendable vocal and to Stock Waterman (I will never get used to the absence of Aitken) for producing a quality single but the real MVP is the song itself. Though not strictly speaking a Motown number, it was nevertheless composed by the famed Holland-Dozier-Holland team (though under their 'Dunbar & Wayne' pseudonym). A huge hit for trio Chairmen of the Board, it was something of a throwback to the glory days of The Four Tops and The Temptations. You might think that a cover version of a classic from the early seventies written and performed by African Americans would have been the perfect choice for Kylie's mature R&B sound but for the fact that it's as pop as it comes.

Even at their best SAW would have struggled to write something as effortlessly brilliant as "Give Me Just a Little More Time" but by the beginning of '92 it was unlike anything else they had in their increasingly bare cupboard of potential hits. No wonder Sian Pattenden hails it as sounding "funkesque and boppy in a Kylie-That-We-Know-And-Love way". A return to form and, better yet, superior to most of her discography because the material she had to work with was better than ever.

Kylie and SW really don't do much with what they have — but that is probably for the best. When people protest that covers ought to be better than the originals (or at the very least somehow different from them) they are overlooking the fact that this is an extremely tall order. Take the example on this blog when I wrote about both the outstanding "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" by The Valentine Brothers and its passable remake by Simply Red. Sure, Mick Hucknall could have revamped the arrangement but what purpose would that have served? And good on Kylie for refraining from aping lead singer Harrison Kennedy's impassioned vocals, though she does mimic those fantastic "bbbrrrr's" in the chorus, the "best bit" according to Pattenden.

A sign of Kylie's influence as a pop culture icon was that she was chosen to relaunch Smash Hits in the second half of January 1992. Prominently featured in this final issue of "classic" Hits with this SOTF, a softball interview with Marc Andrews, a bit of harsh criticism in the Letters page from one Stephen Toole of the Madonna Defense League (Kylie was copying Madge a little too much it would seem) and the lyrics to "Give Me Just a Little More Time", she was left off the cover in favour of former paramour and outgoing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat star Jason Donovan along with incoming "Joey" Philip Schofield. Yet, a fortnight later she was on the front of the new look Hits, ostensibly to shill a five-page spread inside called 'Who's Hot for Who?' about the stars and those they fancy. Kylie is the choice of noted Minoguist James Dean Bradfield which she in turn opts for Lenny Kravitz, who sister Dannii also had her eyes on (when you've been married to Lisa Bonet and you've begun dating Vanessa Paradis, I think it's okay to pass on a Minogue). Elsewhere, the new Hit Songwords pullout includes the lyrics to — huh? — "Give Me Just a Little More Time", in a rare bit of lazy double dipping by the editors. In truth, Kylie was on the cover just to be Kylie which was always reason enough.

And so, we reach the end of peak Smash Hits. Its circulation was already in decline from its late-eighties' peak but it was still the magazine of old. Now it was entering the back half of its lifespan in a pop scene that increasingly had little use for it. Rather than burn out, it would gradually fade away. Once an essential part of British life, now that thing that people used to like. But let's see if there was still some life in the old girl...

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Shakespears Sister: "Stay"

A number one smash for the better part of two months and fondly remembered to this day, Pattenden is nevertheless able only to enthuse over Marcella Detroit's impressive vocal. Otherwise, it "chooses to plod along in its own little cubicle of dullness". We can't like everything, reckons this humble blogger who happens to think that David Bowie's Hunky Dory isn't half as brilliant as everyone else says it is. As for "Stay", I can kind of understand why someone would have reservations even if I think it's ace. There's really not much of a song to it, for one thing; also, it really needs its video to make it a true goth-pop knock out. Plus, for a single which screams sizzling epic, it's surprising that the whole thing is wrapped up in well under four minutes. Yet, there's so much going on: a bit goth, a bit indie, a bit of power balladry, a touch of over-the-top Meat Loaf/Bonnie Tyler ludicrousness, the type of thing which is entirely derivative yet tricks the listener into believing that it is utterly original. Strong enough that it withstood eight weeks at the top without many people growing sick of it. Shakespears Sister even got the jump on all those many other groups with songs called "Stay". Why didn't they all just go away?

Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch: "Music for the People" / Marc Almond: "My Hand Over My Heart"

25 December 1991

"Finally — music that matches his admirable chest posturing."

— Miranda Sawyer

Hark! Marks Shooting Sparks! What a Lark! You might say she's a bit of a "mark" for the lads named "Marc". Did Hits colleagues Frith and Andrews put "our" "Bunny" up to this?

Pet Shop Boys and Billy Bragg aside, Miranda "Bunny" Sawyer has chosen some very questionable Singles of the Fortnight during her four year "stint" at the top pop mag. She went with a forgettable slice of Euro-pop over The Stone Roses' "Fools' Gold", passed on underrated bangers like The Chimes' cover of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and Billy Joel's "The Downeaster Alexa" in favour of the bland dancefloor twosome of Touch of Soul and Beats International (not even their good song!) and brushed aside Blur's "There's No Other Way" in order to prop up the questionable talents of Vic Reeves. Even the Pet Shops ended up being dismissed by her when she took their masterpiece "Being Boring" to task while going with a lame MC Tunes collaboration with some sprogs and a Madonna greatest hits promoting new track that was better as a concept than as an actual song. (And then there's her indecisiveness. This is the third time she anointed co-SOTF, something her cohorts at ver Hits generally avoided doing)

So, let's get this over with. New Kids on the Block had been one of those music phenomenons that seemed depressingly long term. They had been so prevalent within the culture that it felt like they would never go away. Then, 1991 came along and they were gone — and suddenly it was as if they would never return (which, in effect, they never really did). Their fans had moved on and everyone else hated them, something that's difficult to come back from. 

Nevertheless, the New Kids name was enough for the younger brother of one of its key members to emerge just as the quintet was busy falling off the map. If there was one New Kid who received the lion's share of the hate it was Donnie Whalberg. While Jordan, Jon and Joey were pop pretty boys enjoying their spell of fame and Danny made do with being the "other one", Donnie was the one who commanded attention. He appeared unhappy with his situation and seemed to be the one who craved credibility. To the others, the New Kids were just a boy band; to him, they were hip hop-savy street toughs. It mattered little that this gambit made them look even wussier.

Just what we needed was a second Whalberg to come along. Making matters worse was that he had the spotlight to himself. Without the preening Jordan, there was no one around Mark Whalberg to counteract the phony tough guy persona. What he had was this seemingly nameless Funky Bunch to make him look even more menacing, something they just about managed. Mark's other major accomplishment happened to be making me wish for the return of older brother Donnie.

Yes, this is major movie star Mark Whalberg we're talking about, a man who has got a lot of mileage out of starring in Boogie Nights (which he has more recently disavowed). But prior to that, he was a rap "talent", one who wasn't going to lower himself into "singing" or any of that sell out pop nonsense. Except that debut single "Good Vibrations" was as pop as it comes and its only really notable features are the big-voice of backing singer Loleatta Holloway and Marky's six-pack in the accompanying video. As if addressing this decent into commercialism, he returned with the street ode "Wildside", an update of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side". Honestly, I found "Good Vibrations" to be the more convincing of the two.

Sawyer expresses distaste with Whalberg's earlier releases which makes her especially delighted by "Must for the People". It's better than "Wildside" but, again, I'm not sure I buy this attempt at turning rap into a modern day folk music. Perhaps it's simply the fact that he goes out and says it directly which is so distasteful. If he wished to make music for the proles then by all means do so but he doesn't have to state it so directly. But that's just me. The other thing working against this is that it doesn't stand out enough.

~~~~~

"Which title does the above title remind you of, readers?"

- Miranda Sawyer (again)

Like Simply Red and UB40, Marc Almond spent much of his career reliant upon cover versions. "Tainted Love" often comes up in those Buzzfeed 'Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers' lists (even though plenty of people knew this all along); other Soft Cell hits were composed by the singer along with Dave Ball but good luck trying to remember any of them beyond "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye". His next major hit was a team up with Bronski Beat on "I Feel Love", a well-intentioned, spirited rendition that nevertheless couldn't hope to come close to Donna Summer's sublime original. Almond wouldn't have another number one hit until his outstanding duet with Gene Pitney on the Bachrach-David clone "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart" in early 1989: yet another cover.

The release of Memorabilia: The Singles earlier in 1991 gave Marc Almond a second wind. "Tainted Love" returned to the charts and quickly became a cog of eighties' retro while the Willing Sinner was preparing new music of his own. His performance on "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart" proved he could hold his own with alongside a legend like Pitney and he went back into sixties mode as inspiration for the album Tenement Symphony. Though much of the material was co-written with former Soft Cell mate Bell, its finest tracks were (fancy that) its pair of covers. The first single released was a version of the Jacques Brel number "Jacky" which had also been a recorded by Scott Walker for the classic Scott 2. This showed that Almond was ahead of the game: the Scott Walker revival was still the better part of a decade away. Not a huge hit in the autumn of '91 but it did all right. The third single arrived the following spring. Once again, our hero had plundered un-fashionable material from the sixties. "The Days of Pearly Spencer" had previously been a flop in the UK when released by Irish singer David McWilliams but this memorable cover gave Almond a Top 5 smash.

But it is the record released in between "Jacky" and "Pearly Spencer" which is of concern to us here. I was initially underwhelmed but it has grown on me over the last several days. Nevertheless, work that sounds like rejects from ABC's The Lexicon of Love can only be of limited interest. Whatsmore, I suspect Sawyer herself knows this. Her review goes into much more detail about Kylie Minogue than Almond himself.

"My Hand Over My Heart" is of course reminiscent of Kylie's number one hit from '89 "Hand on Your Heart". Sawyer advises Hits viewers to play the 12" at 45 RPM in order to "hear the Kylie single she never made!" I will have to take her word for it. I did indeed give the extended mix a listen but having go at a faster pace on YouTube didn't do anything to make me think this had been a Stock Aitken Waterman classic hidden in plain sight. Somehow or other, the music played faster but Almond's voice remained steadfastly Marc Almond, somehow sounding more like himself the more I tried to speed it up. Perhaps playing the physical vinyl copy made for different results but this only convinces me further what a generational vocalist Almond has always been. Quite right too. It's a shame such a so-so song would be what gives him his sole appearance in this blog but I'm glad to have him here all the same.

As for Kylie and her much cherished pop sound of old, Miranda Sawyer and the Hits "viewers" wouldn't have to wait long. 1992 was about to begin with things being nice and familiar — though not for long.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Beautiful South: "Old Red Eyes Is Back"

I guess I sound a little grumpy above, huh? Well, call me resentful that I had to write about bloody Marky Mark instead of one of my favourite groups. I'm also a little ticked that they keep getting shafted by others. "Old Red Eyes Is Back" is a firm fan fave but it fell well short of Sawyer's predicted Top 5 spot, only getting to number twenty-three. I wonder if the grotesque sleeve turned people off? This is the start of Paul Heaton's series of songs about drunks, something that would eventually become a Beautiful South cliche. For the time being, however, "Old Red Eyes" was stirring, bittersweet and even funny in places. For my money just a notch below upper tier South. Their commercial fortunes seemed to be heading downhill but they were at a creative peak, though you wouldn't know it if you didn't bother buying the 0890 album, an LP whose deep cuts vastly out pace the singles. If only everyone appreciated them as much as me. (Note: The Beautiful South will eventually be appearing in this space but with a record I don't even like all that much. Look for me to be back in grumpy mode when we get to it) 

B.E.F. presents Sandie Shaw: "Anyone Who Had a Heart"

1 April 1982

"The old Cilla Black number is beautifully delivered by fellow '60s chanteuse Ms Shaw, who's been dragged out of retirement and given a pair of shoes especially for the occasion."

— Dave Rimmer

In an episode of Slate's Hit Parade podcast, host Chris Molanphy discussed the 'featuring' credit in pop music, something which has grown increasingly common in recent years. While as fascinating as ever, I was expecting him to go into more detail about other forms of artist credits. 'And'/'&' denotes a certain equality and even provides hope that their collaboration may be more than a one off. 'With' has an imbalance to it, with the headline act having a distinct prominence over the other. 'Featuring', by contrast, gives the guest the upper hand, putting the spotlight on a vocalist — or, in the case of the brilliant "Big Fun" by Inner City featuring Kevin Saunderson — a producer/mixer type who wouldn't normally be getting such credit.

Those are the most common pop collaboration credits but there are others. One of my favourite singles of the early nineties (though it really isn't anymore) was "In Yer Face" by 808 State who had previously enjoyed Top 10 success with "The Only Rhyme That Bites", credited to M.C. Tunes vs. 808 State. While there were elements to enjoy there — Tunes' shifting between lightning-fast raps and audible pauses to gasp for breath, State's lush, spy-thriller backdrop — I hated the contrived nature of the 'vs.' credit. The two parties weren't in competition with each other and even if there was a considerable amount of tension to merit such a combative description it doesn't mean a thing to me. (Happily, 'vs.' never took off to any great extent, its most prominent placing in "It's Like That" in which Run D.M.C. took on Jason Nivens; generally, it has been used to denote a remixer pretentiously taking over the record in question) Though not strictly speaking a credit per se, albums on the legendary jazz label Verve with titles such as Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson and Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster gave off a mythologising vibe that jazz musicians would show up unannounced at a studio and start playing with whomever happened to be there at the same time.

Finally, we come to the billing for the present offering, "Anyone Who Had a Heart" from B.E.F. presents Sandie Shaw. Here sophistication is the name of the game. Good taste brigadiers Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh — formerly of a pre-fame Human League and but by '82 they were heading the British Electric Foundation production team and in charge of Heaven 17 — have used their good graces to coax Ms Shaw back into the spotlight and here she is with a very special performance. The fact that they gave their album the title of Music of Quality and Distinction says all you need to know. 'Presents' is effectively the same as 'featuring' but with added style. It is a credit that you almost never come across in pop music.

"Anyone Who Had a Heart" was originally a hit in the mid-sixties for Dionne Warwick in North America and Cilla Black in the UK and Europe, an Anglo-American divide which was common at the time for Burt Bachrach and Hal David compositions. Shaw would have a Bachrach-David hit of her own with "Always Something There to Remind Me" (also recorded by Warwick) and here she makes up for never having had the chance to take her own crack at AWHAH. The fact that Warwick and Black were both in their early twenties at the time gives their readings a naivety and vulnerability; being by this point in her mid-thirties, Shaw's is tougher and more defiant, even if she toes ever so closely towards power ballad territory. Dave Rimmer expresses surprise that the Ware-Marsh "electrickery" is so sparse (it's hardly detectable at all, not unlike the guitar playing of Shadow ace Hank Marvin which Rimmer can't make out at all — and he'd not alone); perhaps they felt it best to stick with the basics of sixties pop. It shimmers, as all classic Bachrach and David deserves to.

In terms of production and musicianship, all three versions are a wash (as is Dusty Springfield's rendition); but as far as vocals go, it's Shaw by a mile over either Black or Warwick. Those two girls might think they've experienced heartbreak but it's nothing like a spurned woman in her mid-to-late thirties. Of course, Shaw's contemporaries who also tried their hand at "Anyone Who Had a Heart" did so with all the professionalism one would've come to expect but there isn't the lived experience which the once barefooted songstress treats it. Who's to say how much of Hal David's words applied to her but she gives off the impression that he had written it with her in mind all along.

And, yet, Dusty Springfield's version on her 1964 debut album A Girl Called Dusty is probably the best of the lot. Those smoky vocals give it a similar edge that Shaw's reading lends it. Plus, Dusty happened to be the finest singer of her generation: with all due respect to Cilla, Dionne and Sandie, they were all out of her league)

As a potential hit this went absolutely nowhere and the Sandie Shaw revival was still a couple years away. But as cross-generational collaborations go, B.E.F. proved to be ahead of the game. Eighties synth deconstructionists Art of Noise had yet to register and it's easy to imagine Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs using this template as the basis for Saint Etienne a decade later — not to mention all the incessant irony-laced modern pop which produced William Shatner, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones comebacks in cahoots with the glitterati of studio techno alchemy. A lot to answer for then.

Yet, Marsh and Ware seemed to thrive more in their role as producers of B.E.F. than in their supposed day job in Heaven 17. The pair doubtless had vast record collections and they seemed like the types who had encyclopedic knowledge of pop's history (another parallel between them and the Stanley-Wiggs duo). They also knew their way around a studio. B.E.F. recordings never sold to the extent that singles like "Temptation" and "Come Live with Me" did but there's no question which project has the sturdier discography. "Anyone Who Had a Heart" is but a sample for a labour of love which is well worth investigating.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bananarama & Fun Boy Three: "Really Saying Something"

They had been billed as 'Fun Boy Three with Bananarama' on "It Ain't What You Do" earlier in the year but the credits were reversed for the follow-up and to the much more democratic 'and', though ver Hits alters it to 'with'. They were right to change it since the 'Narns were already becoming the bigger group while the FB3 had less than a year to go. Apologies for including yet another Bananarama single in the Also Reviewed This Fortnight section but I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to go with anything else (and didn't wish to go with Roxy's masterful "More Than This" yet again). That's what happens when you've got both Dollar (the utterly wretched "Give Me Back My Heart") and Bucks Fizz ("My Camera Never Lies" is a mess and they were trying way too hard to be like ABBA but it's not bad really) to deal with, not to mention virtually everything else here.

(Click here to see my original review)