Eternal: "Just a Step from Heaven"

13 April 1994

"We've probably lost them to America but Eternal are a jewel well worth keeping."

— Mark Frith

A look at the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of April 13, 1994 gives an indication of how British artists were doing on the other side of the Atlantic. Starting down at the bottom, there's either I to I or 1 to 1 with "The Right Thing" which was taken from the Richard Curtis rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral. I have seen this movie many, many times over the years and I have no memory of this song. Perhaps it's "featured" in the closing credits as the names of various "key grips" are mentioned but I'd have to check on that. Also, I'm not completely sure this I to I group is even British though I'm inclined to include them anyway.

Moving up into the seventies we find James with "Laid". I thought it had been a hit earlier in the year and, given the amount of radio play it got at the time, I would've figured it did better than its modest sixty-one peak. Then, there's the Brand New Heavies who I'm a bit surprised to encounter on here. "Dream on, Dreamer" is a terrific song but it seems rather out of step with all that post-grunge, frat boy indie rock and formulaic R&B which dominated the US at the time. Rod Stewart is one step up on ver Heavies with a single and don't recall and have no interest in investigating. For spite.

Heading up the Top 60 is Morrissey with "The More You Ignore Me the Closer I Get" which surprised many by doing as well as it did. Juliet Roberts is a few spots higher than Moz, then there's Gabrielle's "Dreams", Rod the Bod and Sting in their horrible team up with Bryan Adams from some stupid movie and Phil Collins making a final push for relevancy before we get to the highest placing hit by a UK act. And look who it is: Eternal with "Stay" at number thirty-three. Yes, Mark Frith appears to be correct, the Americans were about to steal them away.

I think that makes ten UK singles on the Hot 100 that week. A tenth of the chart but nothing in the Top 30. The bulk of these are songs few in North America remember and some they probably weren't even aware of at the time. I personally have no memory of Eternal being on the charts in North America but I do recall the quartet appearing on MuchMusic, the Canadian equivalent to MTV. Easther, Kéllé, Louise and Vernie looked delighted to be living their lives as they answered the VJs questions. What I wasn't to know was that this interview was probably the only one they gave during their promotional trip across the Atlantic that didn't leave a sour taste in their mouths.

While the picture painted by longtime Hits writer Alex Kadis is of the foursome enjoying themselves on their first promotional tour of the US, the group would later admit that the Americans didn't quite know what to make of them. Being a multi-racial vocal group, it was said that black radio stations tended to focus on their questions on Easther, Kéllé and Vernie while the white pop stations would zero in on Louise. Hard to imagine this happening to Hootie & The Blowfish around the same time. This schism isn't discussed by Kadis and indeed it seems like music industry types described in the piece treated them respectfully and didn't even seem surprised by their unusual black-white dynamic. But this sunny account contrasts with that of Q's Robert Yates which has less of the faint whiff of PR spin to it.

Mark Frith had already made an Eternal record his Best New Single at the start of 1994 and he's even more impressed with "Just a Step from Heaven". Admitting it is more of a grower than their previous hits, he nevertheless feels it has "the best of both" in one cracking song. I can't agree. It's a perfectly fine third single from their Always and Forever album but it doesn't come close to "Stay" or "Save Our Love" — and this isn't a knock against it. There's plenty to dig in this one but the effortless pop hooks just aren't present to the same extent. The first two hits had videos but didn't even need them; in the case of "Just a Step..." it's the promo that is the biggest take away.

With the outlook on their promotional jaunt being mostly positive, it must have seemed like the British were indeed about to "los[e] them to America". Yet, the encouraging chart performance of "Stay" wouldn't be repeated even by the equally wonderful "Save Our Love". The video for "Just a Step from Heaven" had the glitzy US production values but it did little to aid their cause Stateside. No doubt appearing on MTV and Arsenio Hall and Entertainment Tonight and at the Soul Train Awards did the them a world of good but they were as good as forgotten by the time they got back to Britain. 

The real legacy of their trip to America was that it proved to be the first step towards Louise's departure just a year later. In turn, this would lead to the now trio Eternal becoming a boring and predictable R&B act while Louise proved to be out of her depth as a pop diva. They all did pretty well for themselves but there was always the feeling that they had been better off as a foursome. The group's manager Denis Ingoldsby predicted four potentially great solo careers for his charges ("You see, we've already got our Madonna in Louise," the pop svengali told Q. "Vernie can be Anita Baker, Kéllé can be Janet Jackson, Easther can be Whitney.") but the emphasis — especially at what was still a very early stage — should have been on continuing to focus on what made Eternal special. Even a rum old thing like "Just a Step from Heaven" was quite brilliant in the context of the '94 pop charts. They had plenty to work with whether America cared to know or not.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Crash Test Dummies: "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm"

Conventional wisdom states that everyone loved the global breakthrough smash for Crash Test Dummies up until the point that they suddenly didn't. Reviews were positive and it was played to death on radio stations all over the place. Then, it began appearing on Worst Songs Ever and Most Annoying Hits lists. (The Dummies would even pop up on Worst Bands of All-Time surveys which had clearly been put together by people who never bothered listening to anything else they ever recorded) Yet, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" had its detractors even from its earliest days. Frith is none too impressed by it ("being a Grandad is all about this" reckons the same bloke who one gave his seal of approval to old farts in waiting River City People) and it proved to be only a modest hit in their native Canada where their countrymen had far more time for fellow God Shuffled His Feet singles "Swimming in Your Ocean" and the masterful "Afternoons and Coffeespoons". As far as it stood with me, I found it to be a lesser "Superman's Song", the group's Canadian Top 5 hit from the summer of 1991. They proved they could make novelty songs sound poignant but they weren't up to repeating the trick.

C.O.D.: "In the Bottle"

12 May 1983

"The week's most modern dance sound."

— Neil Tennant

As has been discussed on here before, Neil Tennant was busy getting his musical aspirations in order while also toiling away the Hits. (I was going to say he was doing so in his space time but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the two tasks crossed over quite a bit) Pop dominance wasn't the forefront of his mind as this early stage, however; what he and partner Chris Lowe envisioned was to cut a single in the States that would only be available on import in the shops in Britain. With the balance of power in the hands of the big record labels at the expense of the indies and the spread of HMV, Tower Records and the Virgin Megastores in the nineties, imported music became easier to get but it still retained a certain cachet, if only to get a shrink-wrapped compact disc with an IMPORT sticker emblazoned on it. Nevertheless, it's not quite the same as poking around in a dusty old shop and coming across a record that somehow worked its way over the Atlantic or ordering the latest 12" dance sensation from an obscure enthusiast label (or so I hear, having never done so myself).

Sigh, another Tennant review, another piece all about the Pet Shop Boys. Readers of this blog will doubtless be wondering if I have nothing else of note to say about eighties' dance music and they're not wrong. If anything, this project has only upped my appreciation of ver Pet Shops as a pair who managed to cram the best bits of disco, hip-hop and synth-pop into their sound while deftly avoiding the pitfalls of their some of their forefathers. In short, what got them out of the specialty import shops and into every Our Price, Boots, WH Smith's and Woolworth's. In terms of song structure, no one influenced them more than Bobby O; as far as sampled sound effects go, we may look no further than C.O.D. Indeed, the first fifty-or-so seconds of "In the Bottle" practically sound like an awkward instrumental megamix of songs from the first Pet Shops album Please as well as some of its accompanying B-sides.

Where they don't work so well is on "In the Bottle" itself. A cover of the Gil Scott-Heron number from his Winter in America album about rampant alcoholism in the black community, it trades in the lush R & B groove and soaring flute of the original in favour of some hard-edge breakbeats (as was the style of the time). Scott-Heron's relaxed, effortless vocal, too, is dropped with preference on an angry rap. Choices made: nuance loses out but I can definitely see opting for a bitter take on the themes contained in this song. 

It's in the production of lead C.O.D.'er Paul A. Rodriguez and boffin Man Parrish where it really comes apart. Aside from having a song about the ill-effects of boozing being lost on your average clubber and/or breakdancer, there's a pointlessness of putting together a song with such an important message only for much of it to be drowned out by this all-you-can-eat buffet of effects. It's as if Rodriguez and Parrish knew all about crafting music to be danced to but hadn't the faintest idea about making pop records for the simple pleasure of listening. 

Cue Tennant and Lowe. While the pair had no more charisma than the likes of Bobby O or John "Jellybean" Benitez (and less so than dance groups like Shalamar, The S.O.S. Band and, yes, even C.O.D.), they weren't as married to the dancefloor as many of the artists who were helping to pave the way for them. As a lonely boy — with no strength, with no joy — Tennant understood the angst-ridden impulse to consume music in solitude. One should be able dance to great pop but one shouldn't be obligated to do so. Only a select number of individuals in the early eighties seemed aware of this state. The struggling songwriting/production team of Stock Aitken Waterman proved up for the challenge and so did a young singer from Michigan who went by the mononym of Madonna. These three would prove to be the future of dance pop and we were all the better for it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

XTC: "Great Fire"

When it comes to great songs that somehow missed the charts, there isn't a greater pop injustice than that of "Great Fire". Phil Sutcliffe in Q once described it as "Strawberry Fields Forever meeting Penny Lane halfway" and he's correct. Tennant claims it's the first XTC single "in a long while" but a year or so isn't that long a hiatus, is it? Coming off the uneven and overrated English Settlement album, transitional release Mummer looks ahead to the Industrial Revolution pop-rock of The Big Express, the pastoral beauty of masterpiece Skylarking and even to the acid rock pomp of alter-ego The Dukes of Stratosphear, which is where "Great Fire" fits in. It even acts as something of a look back on Andy Partridge's roots as a Beatles and Beach Boys-obsessed youth. (Bassist Colin Moulding's contributions are a similar rewind albeit more in the direction of his love of progressive rock) Not on his high horse for once, Partridge takes to the subject of arson and uses it to delve into love and his neurotic imagination. Tennant is impressed and I suspect he actually prefers listening to it over "In the Bottle". (He's similarly taken with Wham!'s "Bad Boys" as well as a few others this fortnight: the pop will out) Either that or I'm projecting my own immense adoration of this extraordinary tune on to a songwriter I admire just as much. It's probably the latter if I'm being honest.

(Click here to see my original review)

Prince: "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"

30 March 1994

"Squiggle — you're a genius."

— Mark Sutherland

That's right, Squiggle. Not The Artist Formerly Known as Prince or The Artist or TAFKAP but Squiggle. Sure, I suppose the staff at ver Hits could've knocked their heads together until they came up with something a little wittier but there's something to be said for the first thought being the one to go with. Squiggle: it really takes the air out of the tires of a singer with an overinflated sense of self-importance.

It was almost easy to forget that old Squigs was as prolific a recording artist as ever what with his name change and all. In '92 Prince was still a major pop star with the Diamonds & Pearls album and its accompanying singles (an oddity here was that its lower charting hits — the title track, "Money Don't Matter 2 Night", "Thunder" — were all vastly superior to Top 10 smashes "Gett Off" and "Cream"); a year later and all anyone seemed to discuss in relation to him was his new, unpronounceable name. Though the stunt earned him plenty of publicity, Squiggly Wiggly no longer seemed especially relevant when it came to his music.

But Rip, Squig + Panic had plenty left in him. While it's true that his eighties' peak couldn't be touched, it's a credit to the man that he never fell off to any noticeable degree. As thoroughly unnecessary as Batman and Graffiti Bridge undoubtedly are, they don't come close to the nadir David Bowie had been going through at the same time which stretched from Never Let Me Down to Tin Machine II. That said, this consistency paired with how he just kept pumping out the material meant that he could be taken for granted. While Q Magazine made it their mission from about 1993 on to help bring Bowie back into relevance, there was little need to do so for the Purple Perv.

This is the fourth and possibly last Single of the Fortnight/Best New Single for Squiggy McSquigface. While both "1999" and "Sign O' the Times" represent his creative zenith, "Anotherloverholeinyohead" is a welcome reminder that he couldn't quite manage to strike gold at will. "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", however, seems to fall somewhere in between. Not especially showy though still infused with more than enough of his swagger, it's plenty likable even if it struggles to grab the listener's attention. Squiggy Smalls is probably the last person you'd imagine having a song that you can put on and scarcely notice but that's what happens here. And it's not even a disadvantage. While you may not come away from it with an earworm, his sometimes grating voice sounds better than it usually does and his highfalutin tendencies are kept in similar check. As Mark Sutherland says, some of the song's ropier lyrics were in danger of being used to "chat up" disinterested girls

Yet, it "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" must have caught the attention of enough of the British public since it ended up becoming Squigonometry's sole UK number one hit. As Alexis Petridis notes, it's surprising he never managed it until the spring of 1994. On the other hand, did he really come that close prior this point? The magnificent double A-side of "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" from 1985 was unjustly denied the top spot by some load of shite from Foreigner but the only other time he was within inches of the summit was with "Batdance" which didn't have a hope in hell against Soul II Soul's immovable "Back to Life". As such, many regard this triumph as a lifetime achievement number one. I have to say though that I appreciate the fact that this one succeeded where so many others failed. Those of us who could give or take Can You Squig It's work were down for this one. Plus, the raunchy material no longer seemed to matter; what the Squigmeister did best in the nineties was craft smooth, effortless soul. What more did we need?

The practice of using Squig Newton's so-called 'love symbol' was quietly phased out come the millennium as her reverted to Prince. (Though it may not have seemed like it at the time, it was inevitable that he would eventually drop the squiggle; perhaps this explains why the great man turned down maverick Canadian musician/producer Bob Wiseman's million dollar offer to buy the name 'Prince' from him) By this point everyone had given up anyway so it hardly mattered. Squiggle never caught on outside the Smash Hits offices — and probably only performed modestly inside them — so it was collectively decided to deadname the old scamp. While he was never quite as successful as he had once been, his influence only seemed to grow, especially after his famous solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in tribute to George Harrison. The Squiggle years became this curious blip, one that deserves reappraising. Squigboy did his thing in a more understated manner. This may not have been the Prince we wanted but it was certainly the Squiggle we deserved.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul: "Fallin'"

What the faded-rock-legend-duets-with-imperial-period-pop-phenom dynamic was to the late eighties, the groups-of-wildly-different-styles-team-up was to the mid nineties. Sutherland doesn't anticipate much but surely he's a pop critic and thus incapable of identifying any weaknesses in either of these lauded and "deeply influential" bands. The Fannies don't seem to contribute much and it frankly doesn't help that a Tom Petty sample is the most stand out part of the backing. Honestly, the entire thing sounds sampled, begging the question of why they didn't at least choose to plunder a stronger TFC record. Luckily, De La Soul are present to pick up the slack and thus transforming a wholly forgettable work into a merely passable one. It's a pity the DLS zaniness didn't rub off on the Fannies since the Scots power poppers really could've used a bit of pizzazz. On the other hand, at least Trugoy, Posdnuos and Maseo didn't become a bunch of dullards thanks to hanging out with Norman, Ray, Gerry and the "Monkey Without Portfolio" so there is that.

K7 & The Swing Kids: "Hi De Ho"

16 March 1994

"If you're not into K7 then get with it grandma/grandpa! (delete as applicable)."

— Pete Stanton

The St. Louis Blues are a club in the National Hockey League. They are best known to me as the organization that seemed to always get fleeced in trades with my favourite team the Calgary Flames but they also always used to be perennial dark horses, the sort of club that you would predict to do well in the playoffs because you were sick of it always being Colorado or Detroit or "Jersey", the hockey team which is evidently based in the tax haven Channel Island.

Another thing I know about this hockey team from Missouri is that a number of years ago they were struggling with choosing a new theme song for when the players skate onto the ice or score a goal or win a game or whenever a streaker runs across the ice. Yes, that's right: a club named after a classic blues number by W.C. Handy and recorded by the likes of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong (among others) needed a new theme song. You just can't make this stuff up.

This is where Cab Calloway is especially missed. He would have thought nothing of recording a fresh and contemporary version of "St. Louis Blues" for the mid-western hockey team just as he had with his signature "Minnie the Moocher" for a disco audience at the end of the seventies. Just as, in his frail state in the last months of his life, he made a cameo in the video for "Hi De Ho", the latest single from hip hop combo K7 & The Swing Kids.

Already having scored a Top 5 hit with "Come Baby Come" which was catchy and loads of fun, K7 seemed like the sort of hip hop act that would be one and done — and they just about were. The only thing that prevented them from being forever remembered as one-hit wonders (aside from the fact that it's a category that is only ever reserved for groups on the American Hot 100; anyone who only managed that solitary smash in another country need not apply) was the British being such unabashed suckers for the novelty song. Plus, there must have been a curious nostalgia for olde school jazz beats at the time: "Hi De Ho" was released hot on the heels of "Doop" and several months' before Scatman John's uber-annoying hits "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" and "Scatman's World".

Yet, it would be wrong to accuse K7 of bandwagon jumping. He had already put out album Swing Batta Swing, which included "Hi De Ho", in the latter part of 1993, so he couldn't have been aware of those Dutch DJ's who looked to revive the charleston in techno form. (The real inspiration may have been Guru's Jazzamatazz Volume 1, though it was a much more classicist work right down to the sleeve aping those "iconic" Blue Note covers) More to the point, there's nothing remotely gimmicky about this single. It's as if scat had been a predecessor of rap or something. Oh wait! That's exactly what it was!

This was a point which eluded the Cosby kids whenever Cliff Huxtable would admonish Denise, Theo, Vanessa and Rudy for their penchant for hip hop over jazz. What they should have told them (aside from insisting that he refrain from drugging and sleeping with so many women) was that the scatting that he no doubt loved was not unlike like the verse from the streets that they enjoyed. It may not have been quite as improvised — at least not by the nineties; early rap was built on MC's being able to cut impromptu vocal poetry — but then again, scatting itself had become a neutered art form with recording technology. Do you really think Dizzy Gillespie's jibber-jabber varied much from night to night?

Just a week on from listing off the various rap numbers that have come up on this blog and we've already got another (it's almost as if hip hop was becoming more popular or something). I'm in no hurry to provide an update but I will say that "Hi De Ho" takes a deserving spot alongside the likes of Run-DMC, Dream Warriors and Arrested Development — and it's streets ahead of the do gooder nonsense from Credit to the Nation. I'm not sure I'm quite as taken by it as Pete Stanton but he's not wrong. Spirited, oodles of panache and just the sort of thing that might have encouraged a few kids out there to dig out their dad's copy of Dave Brubeck's Time Out or their grandpa's Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall? My dad and grandpa didn't have those records, mind you, but I wasn't really into K7 either. More fool me.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bruce Springsteen: "Streets of Philadelphia"

This powerful film was beginning to draw to an end when I realised that virtually everyone else I was with was in tears. Sniffs and sobs surrounded me. Is there something wrong with me that I'm not so similarly overcome by emotion? What a heartless beast! And then the thing ended with that great song "Philadelphia" by that old greybeard singer...whatsisname...Neil Young. Oh wait, I was meant to be writing about the supposedly superior track that opened that unforgettable Tom Hanks film! Yeah, it's all right but I could never understand why it got all the love when Winnipeg's favourite son had a much more moving and heart-stopping piece in the same bloody movie! Who could possibly take the one about being battered and broken over the one about love and healing and those last moments of life. Maybe I'm not quite as heartless as all my friends thought.

Fun Boy Three: "Our Lips Are Sealed"

28 April 1983

"Romantic? Just pass me that hanky."

— Deborah Steels

It's the middle of 1981 and a single has been released by an LA all-female quintet. It's immensely catchy with a chorus you find yourself singing along with almost from the off. The sunshine power pop helps propel a defiant song about not giving a crap what other people think and the singer's cheeriness makes it easy to buy what they're selling. It's a bit slow to take off but it eventually becomes an enormous hit in several countries — except for in England where the public are far too cynical for such stuff.

Jump ahead nearly two years and a single has been released by an all-male vocal trio with backing from mostly female musicians. It's catchy in an ominous way that sticks to the listener long after it's been played. The rumbling low key funk mixed with deep-voiced backing vocalists and a stark cello helps propel an uneasy song about wanting not to give a crap what other people think and the singer's brittle monotone makes it easy to buy what they're selling. It's a big hit in England but it doesn't do much elsewhere — it's presumably way too depressing for those bloody foreigners.

A co-write by Fun Boy Terry Hall and Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's, "Our Lips Are Sealed" is reputedly an account of their hook-up while on tour together in 1980 (when Hall and bandmates Lyndval Golding and Neville Staple were still members of The Specials). Since they both had a hand in it, it seems wrong to suggest that the FB3 version is a cover of the original. Rather, it acts as a response to it.

While both have their merits, I can't see how anyone would possibly opt for the Go-Go's version. Where Hall's vocal offers up heartbreak, Belinda Carlisle's reading is so blandly cheerful that it lends little to the song. It's a shame that Wiedlin didn't have the opportunity to take the lead as her brief solo in the bridge (the 'hush my darling' part that won Deborah Steels' heart) is arguably the best part of their recording. It also suggests what she might have done with it. Syrupy but with a coy wink, I get the feeling that Wiedlin could have offered up an interpretation that is kind and reassuring with a sly 'but don't you dare piss me off or I'm spilling the beans, buddy' air. (A demo of Hall and Wiedlin singing it together would be ideal but since they collaborated on it via correspondence I don't expect to ever come across such a thing) Still, The Go-Go's version is hard to dislike and does a nice job of flipping off nosy busyboddies.

Hall's vocals are superb but so, too, is the performance from the entire expanded edition of the Fun Boy Three, suddenly a misnomer for two reasons — and that's assuming that the 'Fun' in their name was meant to be ironic. Golding and Staple have less to do vocally than usual but their guitar and percussion parts are both excellent. The eight-or-nine-piece "Three" come together to play an understated groove that's not unlike the work of Talking Heads at around the same time. (I thought this was an incisive observation until I remembered that chief Head David Byrne produced it) As Steels says, this is absolutely divine and the best they'd ever do. (But then they were pretty much done by this point. Hall seemed to have a knack for dropping out of groups right at their peak. During the turbulent summer of 1981, he was riding high as lead vocalist of The Specials, who'd enjoyed a two year run of seven top ten singles on the bounce — and each one is still absolutely brilliant. "Ghost Town" was their second chart topper and immediately captured the zeitgeist of the miserable Thatcher years — and, yet, the definitive Specials line-up didn't survive to see out the single's chart run. Golding, Hall and Staple promptly banded together as Fun Boy Three, a more modestly successful combo but one that still had seven top twenty entries before winding things down later on in 1983. I'll have to see if Hall's third group, The Colourfield, managed a similar career trajectory)

In preparing to write this piece, I found myself listening to the Fun Boy Three and The Go-Go's back to back. (I also tried out the scarcely recognizable Urdu version that ver 3 ended up using as a B-side but the once was enough) The former's heavy, sorrowful treatment was nicely contrasted with the sunshine power pop of the latter. Hall's sorrow is replied with a terse 'quit moping, you silly sod!', while Carlisle's jubilant defiance is then met with a stern rebuke of 'don't you dare trivialize what we had' — and so on in an argument that no one quite comes out ahead in. While the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Richard and Linda Thompson cut whole albums of lost love anguish, Terry Hall and Jane Wiedlin managed to cram all sorts of therapy and dirty laundry into one smashing song.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

David Grant: "Stop and Go"

So, I just found out what a 'church plant' is. If, like me, you assumed it was either a ficus inside a place of worship or a spy who plants themselves among the religious for, er, reasons then you'd be as wrong as I was. No, a church plant is when someone establishes an independent (or semi-independent) church congregation in their homes with the intent to expand it in the future. David Grant is a church plant or has a church plant or runs a church plant. He also had hits with Lynx (already covered in this blog) and on his own. I'd opt for the material with his old band over songs like "Stop and Go"; Steels seems to like the fact that he was trying to replicate Michael Jackson's winning formula but to me it's just about the worst way an eighties' artist could choose to go. One MJ was more than enough. In fact, MJ's from the world of basketball and fronting The Rolling Stones is all I need. Anyway, best of luck with that church plant thing, Dave.

(Click here to see my original review)

Credit to the Nation: "Teenage Sensation"

2 March 1994

"The nearest approximation thus far to the whistly weather-report thing that's on before Richard and Judy — at last!!

— Sylvia Patterson

My mum, lonely and bored stiff stuck at home while the rest of us were at school, once wrote to Richard and Judy. They — or someone on their behalf at any rate — wrote back. She also may have been acknowledged on their popular This Morning program when they spoke to someone in charge of tours of the Coronation St set who mentioned that they had recently had visitors from Canada (and guess who just so happened to have taken a walk through Weatherfield at that same time?).

I relate the above because (a) Sylvia Patterson seemed to have had Richard and Judy on the brain in this her twelfth bash at the Smash Hits singles and (b) I don't have any other idea how to commence this review of a single which inspires nothing more than profound indifference in me. Bloody hell, now I'm just going to have to pad out this piece a little more. Let me see if I can think of some more Richard and Judy anecdotes...

The Incredible T*H* Scratchers starring Freddy Love: "Hip-Hop-Bommi-Bop"

Kurtis Blow: "I'm Chillin'"

Run-DMC: "Mary, Mary"

De La Soul: "Say No Go"

Redhead Kingpin & The FBI: "Do the Right Thing"

Redhead Kingpin & The FBI: "Superbad, Superslick"

Salt 'N' Pepa: "Expression"

The Jungle Brothers: "What U Waitin' 4"

Monie Love: "Monie in the Middle"

MC Tunes: "Primary Rhyming"

Dream Warriors: "Ludi"

PM Dawn: "Set Adrift on a Memory Bliss"

Cookie Crew: "Love Will Bring Us Back Together"

Hammer: "Addams' Groove"

Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch: "Music for the People"

Kris Kross: "Jump"

PM Dawn: "I'd Die Without You"

Arrested Development: "Mr. Wendal"

Monie Love: "Born 2 B.R.E.E.D."

Apache Indian: "Boom-Shack-a-Lack"

Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince: "Boom! Shake the Room"

Credit to the Nation: "Teenage Sensation"

This is a list of every Smash Hits Single of the Fortnight/Best New Single that qualifies as hip hop from 1979 up until the early part of 1994. There are obvious shades of grey present. For example, I don't think I can quite justify why PM Dawn is present while I chose to leave Neneh Cherry off. Plus, I disqualified Tom Tom Club's "Wordy Wrappinghood" due to, well, being a novelty song produced by members of clever clogs Talking Heads. Then there were the pop songs with guest raps mostly involving Scritti Politti alongside Roger Troutman and Shabba Ranks. Toeing the line, sure, but not full on hip hop.

As I think I have no doubt mentioned in every single blog post on the genre, I am not a fan of rap. With that (once again) out of the way, allow me to acknowledge just how impressive the above list is — even if Redhead Kingpin being on here twice is at least one too many. Varied as well. It's a bit of a crime against suspense that my favourite remains "Hip-Hop-Bommi-Bop", one of the greatest finds I have made since I began this blog (checks notes) six years ago. Nevertheless, I'd defend the inclusion of roughly 75% of them.

One of the trends this list highlights is rap which the critics approve of. This being a blog all about best new singles, this is about the most obvious statement I could make but what I'm referring to is the through line that connects De La Soul, Redhead Kingpin, The Jungle Brothers, Monie Love, Arrested Development and, yes, Credit to the Nation. Groups with a "message" of one kind or another. Groups with something positive to say. Groups who may have enjoyed the approval of rock critics but who often weren't nearly as loved by the kids out there.

As if out to show just how much ver Hits approved of Credit to the Nation, they put out a feature in the following issue profiling the 'Five Hardest Rap Acts in the World'. The first four were and/or are superstars: Ice Cube, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Ice T (though I must confess that his hip hop career has become something of an afterthought to all those years of him playing Fin Tutuola on the telly) and Cypress Hill. This quartet, Mark Sutherland points out, were all massively popular but problematic. There's sexism in their lyrics as well as homophobia, drugs and violence. He doesn't bash them entirely but the bulk of his praise is saved for fifth entry MC Fusion, leader of Credit to the Nation, a group who he reckons "looks likely to be the first real UK rap star". (Are Derek B's ears burning?)

While I'm happy that MC Fusion (real name: Matty Hanson) is a good bloke who respects women and is against fascism and homophobia, much of Sutherland's write up feels like code for 'actually he's rather boring but I'd rather not say so'. With trusty old Sylvia Patterson in the reviewer's chair, there's less of a concern that she'll go with someone due to having good values and all that nonsense but it's still shrouded in 'I'm an adult and I'll straighten them kids out when it comes to rap they ought to be listening to' vibes.

Yet, despite the indie cred and the thumbs up from reviewers, "Teenage Sensation" only managed to peak in the twenties. Not a bad showing but not great either and it ended up being their only scrap of Top 40 action. Intelligent rap always appealed to the journalists but their enthusiasm wasn't echoed by the public. Thrilling and vaguely dangerous hip hop will always win out. You could watch your average weather man or woman with a green screen of Europe or North America behind them or you could be transfixed by This Morning's Fred Talbot as he jumped all over a map of the British Isles on Liverpool's Albert Docks — but you can't have both.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Blur: "Girls and Boys"

For a group who still have yet to nab a Single of the Fortnight Best New Single of their own, Blur sure seem to be coming up a lot in this space. I was going to blog about "Doop" but I couldn't be arsed and chose this candidate for song of the year instead. It's surprising to read contemporary reviews mentioning the roots of "Girls and Boys" in eighties' synth-pop, something that had never really occurred to me despite a Pet Shop Boys' remix that appeared as a bonus cut on their seminal Parklife album. What I always heard was the next step up from Madchester: roaring and relentless indie-dance to appeal just as much to football fans chanting in a terrace as it would to moody and spotty youths in their bedrooms. While it's easy to coat down Hits critics for making the "wrong" top single pick, I can't for the life of me imagine how anyone could give this brilliant record a spin and not be convinced it wipes the floor with Credit to the Nation. I'm not saying I'm right even though I am.

Suede: "Stay Together"

16 February 1994

"It's a rock ballad of epic proportions concerning itself with the wonders of love in the grim modern world of skyscrapers and motorway paths."

— Tom Doyle

It had only been a year since being made aware of them and it seemed like they were already coming undone. 'Suede Have Split' claimed one headline in either The Guardian or The Times (I can't recall which and can't locate any evidence online). Pop coverage in the Fleet St press was then minimal and not to be taken seriously but the NME reported much the same. The Smiths broke up far too early but at least they had a good four year run of recording and touring behind them; Suede were only just getting started and it was already over.

Yet reports of their break-up were about a decade premature. When the smoke cleared, guitarist and co-songsmith Bernard Butler had departed and the remaining core of Brett Anderson, Matt Osman and Simon Gilbert went about looking for a replacement. Filling Butler's shoes proved so daunting that they ended up adding two new members, guitarist Richard Oakes and keyboardist Neil Codling. This new five-piece Suede ended up being a far more consistent line-up and it has remained since their reformation in 2012. The shadow of the gifted Butler was difficult to escape but they managed to do so.

(It's interesting how when a vocalist-lead guitarist bust up occurs, the remaining band members tend to side with the supposedly egomaniacal singer over the "humble" and dedicated musician. For a brief time at least Morrissey managed to take fellow Smiths Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce and Craig Gannon with him for his solo career while Liam Gallagher managed much the same when he and brother Noel parted ways during the implosion of Oasis. The Stone Roses and The Verve are said to have contemplated a guitarist swap. There is a definite downside to having a perfectionist musician barking orders at supposedly lesser players while the financial benefits of remaining loyal to a charismatic singer must also be considered)

Coming a few months' prior to his shock departure, it's tempting to think of "Stay Together" as an attempt on the part of Brett Anderson to make an appeal to his disgruntled bandmate. The signs that Butler wasn't long for Suede had been there for some time. There's also the title which contrasts sharply with the likes of "The Drowners", "New Generation" and "Beautiful Ones": "Stay Together" is a command rather than a paean to the sort of doomed romanticism Anderson clearly cherished. Cheap drugs, crummy towns that manage to be just out of the reach of London, bad sex in uncomfortable locales: these are the topics Anderson mined to death over the nineties, not a plea for a couple to remain.

Nevertheless, the song's narrative of couple remaining holed up in the midst of a Ballard-esque nuclear winter could only have come from Suede (unless, of course, J.G. Ballard had ever got round to recording an album). Plus, there's evidence that Butler was not especially enamoured by Anderson's lyrics. Incidentally, not thinking much of "Stay Together" is something to the pair shared — and I join them.

We've all had growers in our lives. Records that we immediately wrote off as flimsy and feeble that we eventually came round to. Similarly, there are those tracks we barely notice until they reveal themselves. (I'll never forget the time I was listening to the Chic compilation The Definitive Groove Collection when it dawn on me what a magnificent tour de force the instrumental "Savoir Faire" is) But what about 'shrinkers', songs that might impress us right out of the gate only to let us down big time on subsequent listens? As opposed to Blur, Suede were not at their best when doing slower numbers. "The Wild Ones", a lesser placing chart hit from the end of 1994 from their overrated second album Dog Man Star, has a stateliness about it that "Stay Forever" lacks and even it isn't quite in their top tier of material. Suede always did good singles even when their albums weren't up to much but this one is disappointingly hook-free and surprisingly unmemorable.

While Suede have could easily broken up in the summer of '94, it was fortunate that they didn't. The quintet iteration of what North Americans annoyingly called 'The London Suede' has produced a respectable discography with passable albums and some stellar singles. Bernard Butler moved into a Johnny Marr-esque role as a sessioner to the stars and his brief but fruitful pairing with singer David McAlmont resulted in "Yes" and "You Do", 45's which rival anything his former band ever managed at their best. Everyone was better off following his departure. Not to mention "Stay Together" would've been a lame way to go out.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Cypress Hill: "Insane in the Brain"

I don't know, Brett Anderson's overwrought profundity is all well and good but why choose to listen to one of his lesser works when you could dance around the room or just chill out to the fun and festive raps of Cypress Hill? And I say this as someone who isn't much of a hip hop fan. I'm sure that it sounds great high on the same northern lights cannabis indica that they no doubt enjoyed but part of being a kid who was shielded away from such stuff was imaging what it must have been like, even if I had no idea what it was like. A good drug song ought to convey the feeling to those who aren't so lucky/are so fortunate to be on the shit themselves and "Insane in the Brain" is one of the finest examples. There's no message to take away and no gimmicks, just hip hop to enjoy whether you're baked to the Moon or not.

The Valentine Brothers: "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)"

14 April 1983

"It may not be very new, and the Valentine Brothers (a Los Angeles combo) not very familiar, but this knocks the spots off most everything else on this page."

— Dave Rimmer

Eighties' Thatcherite hell was a topic that came up over and over in UK pop. The themes dealt with on albums such as Pink Floyd's The Final Cut, The Style Council's Our Favourite Shop, Deacon Blue's Raintown, Pet Shop Boys' Actually and Julian Cope's Peggy Suicide can all be boiled down to chronicles of a dreary Britain in the midst of the Falklands War, riotting, shabby new towns, union busting, the AIDS crisis, football hooliganism's apogee and the dominance of media empires of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell. If they hesitated to do so on full length L.P.'s, pop stars took dead aim at Mrs. Thatcher in many individual songs as well: Elvis Costello mocked her in "You'll Never Be a Man" and then went one better eight years later when he fantasied over her death in "Tramp the Dirt Down", a sentiment echoed by Morrissey — who one might expect would've had some political sympathies with the Iron Lady — in "Margaret on the Guillotine". The Specials' "Ghost Town", Hue & Cry's "Labour of Love", Billy Bragg's "Between the Wars", Depeche Mode's "Everything Counts", The Housemartins' "Flag Day", Wham!'s "Wham Rap!"...I'd go on but I think I've made my point — plus I can't think of any more.

So, that's Britain but what of the USA at this time? I had trouble thinking of a song about Ronald Reagan and/or Reaganite America until I remembered The Ramones' "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg", which the good Tom Hibbert named a Single of the Fortnight in 1985. Beyond that, however, there's not much. Some older liberal rock stars came up with tunes condemning the old coot's vulgarity and there are lots records about his involvement in the arms race but many of those are by the likes of U2, INXS, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Genesis and Midnight Oil, groups who didn't share a great deal in common beyond simply not being American. As for what real Americans were dealing with in the decade of post-New Deal individualism and tax cuts for the wealthy, there's not much to go on. (Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." had been used as a rallying call for Reagan's conservatism only for it to come to light that it was about Vietnam war vets being left behind by a nation that didn't want to have anything to do with them; while it fits, it's important to note that it wasn't regarded as anti-Reagan until well after the fact, the Boss evidently not keen to cross his fanbase which may have leaned right wing)

In this void we say hello to the Columbus, Ohio brother duo of John and Billy Valentine. While it would be convenient to place them in the context of politically conscious black American pop, it's rather difficult to do so since "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" is a one off for them. Appearing after a brief overture which — duh! — opens their second album First Take, the song concludes and is followed by four smoochtastic love songs before wrapping up with an instrumental rendition of the present song and a reprise of the overture (which ought to have been the finale if we're being technical) — I think it's fair to say that the duo didn't exactly have a glut of material with which to pad their latest work. (The track's placing near the LP's opening could be taken as a warning to any interested ladies that these Valentines are (appropriately) romantic but perhaps a wee bit too cash poor to show them a really good time but better that than leaving the message of 'oh, and by the way, we're broke; you don't happen to have a ten spot you could lend us, do you?' for the end)

The remainder of their discography may be politically apathetic but that only underscores the poignancy of this attempt. These are average guys, interested in women and having a drink and watching sports on TV, they're not concerned about pollution or Apartheid (not sufficiently to have recorded and released songs about them at any rate). A lack of cash in their pockets is what's driving them. The bank turned them down for a load but treated them with dignity and family members can't help because they, too, are feeling the pinch but the government has been giving them the runaround. The supposed economic stimulus of tax breaks has resulted in an improvement in their lives, or this is what the new has been saying at any rate. This is, of course, nothing new or profound but is a welcome change in an American music landscape of the time so lacking in everyday problems.

With vocal stylings clearly influenced by Marvin Gaye, it's tempting to wonder if this is the sort of thing he ought to have been doing during his final years rather than pissing them away on nauseating sex tracks. With Marvelous Marvin's What's Going On already a massive influence, you'd think this would be right up his alley. The only trouble is, Gaye's work had his ego to deal with, putting himself at the centre of everything he did. (A key track on What's Going On is "What's Happening Brother" in which an out of touch Gaye is gamely attempting to reconnect with his people, community and the world around him while never quite managing to shake the feeling that it's all about him) "Money's Too Tight" has an everyman quality about it that Gaye could never have pulled off, even when his creative faculties were still intact.

A minor hit on the Billboard R & B charts, it's unlikely that it or the First Take album did much for their finances. Luckily, they were to make a pretty good windfall from a cover a couple years later by yet another British act who also had a problem with Mrs. Thatcher. Though Simply Red have a spotty discography (especially when it comes to their many cover versions), their recording of "Money's Too Tight" is one of their highlights, perhaps because it hit so close to home. Yet, the Valentine Brothers' original is the preferred rendition. Proof that you didn't need to be a socialist of any kind to find the Reagan-Thatcher years abhorrent, you just needed to be like the many who were thrown away as a result of them.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Nile Rodgers: "The Land of the Good Groove"

"Unusual dance track from the former Chic guitarist turned David Bowie producer," Rimmer observes, unaware that the deeply influential group he formed with Bernard Edwards was still active in 1983. This suggests that sitting behind a mixing desk was much more Nile Rodgers' day job than playing in a band that used to be (a) successful and (b) good. Speaking of which, bandmates Edwards and Tony Thompson play on this and the rest of Rodgers' debut solo outing Adventures in the Land of the Good Groove. One wonders why they didn't cut it under their own name since it displays far more creativity and sass than their own work at the same time. That said, you'll never need to hear it again once you've gotten through it the once.

(Click here to see my original review)

The Cranberries: "Linger"

2 February 1994

"Settle back into an old leather sofa for a long, long time and let it linger."

— Tony Cross

One of the very few highlights of my time on Twitter was the weekly, then bi-weekly, music polls done by one Richard Shaw. For one thing, he seemed like the sweetest person on social media: friendly, welcoming to all and happy to hear from others even as their opinions differed wildly from his own. (In a healthy society, these would be simply the bare minimum but on a platform like Twitter the bar had been lowered considerably) Plus, his polls were loads of fun while we were all coping with the pandemic. He'd pick a year seemingly at random and then give his followers the week to think over their Top 3 albums. Once he'd gone through every year from about 1964 to 2000, he went back to the beginning and did it all over again but with five albums to select and a fortnight for everyone to chew things over.

It was during this second round that I began posting pros and cons lists for albums I was considering — and some which I wasn't but which were notable enough to merit inclusion. For example, when we looked at 1976 I tweeted P&C for Station to Station (P: 'A triumph considering all the coke'), The Royal Scam ('C: A bit generic compared to the others') and Songs in the Key of Life ('C: That extra E.P. is just rubbing it in!') among others. I got some good feedback on it so it became my thing right up until I began losing interest. One observation of mine that I particularly liked was a con for Belle & Sebastian's 1998 album The Boy with the Arab Strap: 'It has aged well but I haven't'.

I meant it as a joke but I began to think that there might be something to it after a while. When critics and fans talk about songs and albums aging well or being dated, I often find myself unsure quite what they mean. The low hanging fruit in the argument is that anything from the eighties with a fairlight synth and some big Bob Clearmountain drumming hasn't aged well but is that always the case? (I personally think it only applies when you're dealing with an out-of-touch old rocker from the sixties who wanted to sound contemporary...yeah, those records haven't aged well at all) I can kind of see why we might say that The Beatles have aged well but I'm not so sure about others who supposedly haven't. The onus is on us: the records haven't changed, we have.

Take this Single of the Fortnight Best New Single from Ireland's The Cranberries. When I was seventeen — an age I was on the precipice of in February of 1994 — it meant something to me. Delores O'Riordan's lyrics read like the sort of poetry that I might have considered myself capable of jotting down on some loose leaf paper in my bedroom. (Suffice it to say, my attempts at profound, lovelorn verse were not up to scratch, an opinion held by everyone but me) At sixteen, I was keen to get me one of those girlfriends that everyone else seemed to have; "Linger" was the sort of song I heard at that age as a challenge: I could make this heartbroken girl happy even if others had failed. A year later, I was facing the end of my first real relationship — hey, four months as boyfriend-girlfriend in high school counts for something! — and now I was the one who couldn't let go, who let it linger for far longer than I needed to.

"Linger" also happened to play a role in my first breakup. It was a cold Friday afternoon and we walked together from high school over to the students centre at the nearby university. We didn't have a whole lot to say to each other by then. She was preoccupied by homework or jotting something in her diary or — most likely of all — building herself up for what she needed to do so I sat down and put Now That's What I Call Music 27 into my Walkman. Midway through "Linger" she gave me a look that said we were done. I turned off the music which put the cassette in a now-permanent state of being at a song that I couldn't bring myself to listen to again.

It took a while but I eventually got over that breakup. Other girls would come and go and it wouldn't be until I reached my thirties that I would meet the woman I would eventually marry. It was twenty years after having my heartbroken for the first time that we had out wedding. And what of "Linger" now that I'm in a happy and stable relationship? It just doesn't hit home the way it once had. But beyond that, I'm simply too old and grown up for it anymore. Jotting down your thoughts as poetry is something everyone should go through as a teenager but it's a phase no different than having a punk rock period or being into The Doors. It's teen stuff so what's a grown man in his forties to do but feign concern and scoff to himself? The music didn't change, I did.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Elastica: "Line Up" 

North Americans didn't take Britpop well. The music press that had enthusiastically built up the likes of Hootie & The Blowfish and Dave Matthews Band were unhappy about English hacks over-hyping Blur and Oasis. But they were receptive to Elastica, possibly because they sounded like just another American alt rock act. I'd say "Line Up" sounds like Hole but at least Courtney Love had (has?) some swagger which is more than can be said for Justine Fricshmann and her Elastica cohorts. The Britpop depth chart was shockingly depleted once you got past Blur and Oasis and this even applied to those on the artier side of the movement. (Also, is this even all that arty?) Again, this record hasn't changed: it's as duff as it's always been.

Manic Street Preachers: Life Becoming a Landslide

19 January 1994

"Suddenly the room is Wembley Stadium and rock 'n' roll is your salvation. Or something."

— Mark Sutherland

An elephant in the room I've mostly avoided up until now is just what a different magazine Smash Hits had evolved into by the early-to-mid nineties. I've already mentioned how the title of Single of the Fortnight had been replaced by Best New Single but this was one of the subtler changes. The longstanding Bitz section had been replaced by pages of celeb gossip, much of which wasn't even related to the world of pop.

Here is some of what comprised issue 395 of ver Hits:

✔ A teary-eyed editor-in-chief Mike Soutar giving his thoughts on the imminent relocation of the Hits offices from Carnaby St down to Oxford St. Bloody hell, they practically could've carried all the furniture down the road themselves. I bet he regrets chucking away all those Sham 69 and David Bowie reference books now.

✔ Taking the mickey out of actress Juliette Lewis for having hairy armpits. I'd be more inclined to dis her wooden acting myself.

✔ Rating Sting, Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart on how they fare as grandads of rock. Somehow, Mr Peacock Rod comes out with the lowest score making him less of a geezer than his younger compatriots. The Hits makes no mention of their trio single "All for Love" which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it used to be their mandate to keep viewers abreast on the hits of the day; on the other hand, the record is crap so it's no big loss.

✔ A photo of Axl Rose swimming with a dolphin which is taken from the video for some useless single from 1991's Use Your Illusion albums which came out in (checks notes) 1991.

✔ Gossip. Loads of it. A celeb gossip round-up from Leesa Daniels, Hollywood gossip courtesy of Sandro Monetti and Soap gossip from Marc Andrews because Australia. Not exactly a crapton of music gossip but the music coverage in general is lacking so much throughout this issue in general that I doubt many even noticed.

✔ More from Marc Andrews as he interviews a couple of the actors from Home & Away. They aren't Frank, Roo, Emma or Dag Dog so this pair means zilch to me. They even shoot down the idea of doing a Kylie & Jason style duet but I imagine the Aussie-soap-star-turned-pop-star pipeline had gone dry by this time anyway.

✔ Oh for the love of god, must I go on with this task that I chose to do??? Let's skip a bit.

✔ The by-now customary pull out songbook featuring lyrics from the following: Def Leppard, Therapy?, Tag Team, Soul Asylum, the aforementioned Sting/Bryan Adams/Rod Steward throat-ripping team-up, Dr Dre and RuPaul. The Leps aside, this about as 1994 as you can get — unless, of course, you wish to consider the good music that came out this year.

✔ Robbie Williams refuting many of the definitely baseless rumours that had spread about Take That. Someone ought to lie down with him on his bed and see what he thinks of them now.

✔ Alex Kadis follows Bad Boys Inc. on tour. Two observations here: (a) why the hell was 'Inc.' so common in the nineties? and (b) it was good of them to have been the "cheeriest men in pop" considering they played RC Cola to Take That and East 17's Coke and Pepsi respectively, wasn't it?

✔ Sylvia Patterson meets with Winona Ryder. Not a pop star but she once dated Johnny Depp...who also isn't a pop star.

✔ Reviews! Mark Sutherland "does" the singles! Age of Innocence and Mrs Doubtfire: I saw them both! Also, Tombstone and Son-in-Law, which I didn't see and probably wasn't even aware of.

✔ Letters. No Black Type and no correspondence of interest.

✔ Finally, a crossword puzzle and a short Q&A with Louise from Eternal. And a small poster for Wayne's World, another movie I've never seen. Because I've never thought Mike Myers was funny. In fact, I think he sucks.

All told, not much from the world of pop. A common complaint I've heard leveled at nineties' Smash Hits is that it went too far in the direction of "manufactured" groups like Take That and The Spice Girls but it seems more like they just wanted to be all things teen entertainment. Bad Boys Inc and Robbie Williams and Louise Nurding weren't everyone's thing but they were in the charts. But try telling that to Mark Sutherland, a rock 'n' roller who was a man out of time.

Whether by design or by chance, this fourth single dressed up as an E.P. (with it by now the dominant format, virtually every CD single was in effect an extended play) cleverly capped off their early hard rock indie sound while guiding listeners in the direction of the bleak, skeletal work that would appear on their pivotal third album The Holy Bible near the end of 1994. Life Becoming a Landslide's second track "Comfort Comes" isn't up to much but it does suggest that their days of sloganeering might be finally drawing to a close, even if they weren't quite done with their tired use of alliteration. In addition, while third track "Are Mothers Saints" does worringly hint at the Welsh lads going through a Red Hot Chili Peppers phase, it's more considered and philosophical lyrics also point the way forward.

But the title cut has next to nothing going for it. Just another Manic Street Preachers song that sounds just like the one that came before it. While their song titles may have once been a strength — just as they would as they awkwardly moved into their trio years near the end of the decade — by now they had become a signpost for why it's best to avoid them at all costs. "Life Becoming a Landslide": why would I ever need to give it a listen when I already know exactly how it's going to sound?

The Manics always seemed like a band who desperately wished to not to make the mistakes of the groups that came with them, particularly The Clash. Some critics fans have knocked Give 'Em Enough Rope for been far too polished and this was about when there were worries that the so-called 'only band that mattered' were going to sell out. Richey Edwards, James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore were well aware of this and made a point that they would never fall victim to the pop/rock machine. Their second album was called Gold Against the Soul for god's sake. Their mostly brilliant first album was then followed by a tepid second release which sounded like they were already running out of material. They had to push on and a good thing too since it resulted in three albums on the bounce at their creative peak — The Holy Bible, Everything Must Go and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours.

With four Singles of the Fortnight/Best New Singles to their credit from just their first two albums, Manic Street Preachers have been well represented in blog. And there may very well be more to come. "A Design for Life", "Kevin Carter", "If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next" and "The Everlasting" could all be coming in the months and years ahead (well, except for the fact that I know that at least two of them won't be featured but why spoil the surprise, eh?) Pet Shop Boys and, I suppose, Scritti Politti aside, I tend to get sick of groups who pop up on here this many times and ver Manics are no exception. But in this instance, I'm quite sure I would've been mildly fed up with them at the time as well. All that shouting, all that seriousness, all those predictable tunes. I wasn't about to be pretending it was Wembley Stadium with my air guitar while listening to their stuff; doing Hollywood gossip column for a once-great pop mag doesn't even seem so foul by comparison.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Charlatans: "Can't Get Out of Bed"

In addition to the Manics, Sutherland also approves of the latest from Inspiral Carpets (they were still around in '94?), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Therapy? and The Orb — so you might say he digs his indie. Pop and hip hop acts don't do so well but he also isn't terribly fond of new releases from Soul Asylum and The Charlatans, so I guess not all guitar bands were to his taste. I've always kind of liked Northwich's favorite sons but I will admit that the country-ish "Can't Get Out of Bed" isn't one of their stronger efforts. It took them a long time to shake off the overstated claims that they were just inferior Stone Roses clones but they were beginning to find their way. The fact that ace organist Rob Collins was coming to the end of a spell in prison couldn't have helped their progress. A firm fan favourite but since when was a group's cult following any kind of authority? Like the Manics, they'd soon be back and better than ever.