Pearl Jam: "Go"

27 October 1993

"Don't play this near any posh pottery, it won't stand a chance."

— Pete Stanton

David Hepworth and Mark Ellen, along with producer Alex Gold, were recently discussing Pearl Jam's upcoming concert at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. They seemed astonished that the quintet with members who are approaching the age of sixty would be able to sell out a show for around 70,000 people. Gold then made the helpful comment that they were all that was left of the grunge scene so where else was everyone to go?

Like the still-emerging Britpop, grunge didn't have a great deal of depth. You had Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. I know there's Mudhoney and Screaming Trees and a bunch of other bands I've totally forgotten about but those were the four groups that everyone was aware of. People either liked them or were at least aware of them. Being that it was meant to be a D.I.Y. movement, bands of even the highest quality were bound to slip through the cracks while the lucky few got signed up to big contracts. But just how lucky were they? Kurt Cobain's suicide naturally brought Nirvana to a halt and addiction derailed both Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. But Pearl Jam kept chugging along, something they continue to do to this day.

Respect to them, particularly when it comes to how they've stood up to corporate greed (even if this still hasn't stopped them from charging outrageous prices for tickets to their shows), I just wish I could enjoy their music on some level. Having not really heard them in probably a quarter century, I was struck by how timeless my disinterest in them is. I couldn't stand "Jeremy" when it came out back in 1992 and I still find the vast majority of their stuff impossible to get into.

I wouldn't say, however, that Pearl Jam's music is unlistenable. I've quite happily put on The Residents, Yoko Ono and Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz and listened to them. A piece of music would have to go an awful long way before I had it down as "unlistenable". As such, "Go" is perfectly listenable, I would just rather not have to do so. The problem is it's so lacking in enjoyable qualities as to make it unplayable.

Jazz purists like Philip Larkin used to assert that the genre lost something when it ceased to be a style of music people would dance to. (The very idea of Larkin dancing to anything is laughable) For some reason, young people sitting and snapping their fingers to a Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie record didn't constitute a sufficient level of enjoyment to count. I do not dance and didn't even like doing it back during that very brief period of my life in the late nineties when I would get dragged to clubs like The Embassy. I knew that the act of boogieing down wasn't the only way to show appreciation for a pop song. We may snap out fingers, nod along, tap our toes or do a sad little airband routine. We may sing along to either to the correct lyrics or whatever we've come up with in our minds.

In short, there are hundreds and perhaps even thousands of ways to express our enjoyment of music — and I can't think of a single way to do so with Pearl Jam's "Go". I'm willing to acknowledge that it must sound great in a mosh pit even though still somehow doubt it. The super aggressive grunge rock isn't exactly ear candy but it's the utter lack of a melody that really holds it back. Kurt Cobain was going through his most extreme period with Nirvana's third album In Utero and even it has plenty of hooks and tunes to stay with you. But that's the easy part. I like Nirvana but what of a band like Soundgarden, a group I've never thought much of? Well, at least they grew up on metal which always put some stock in dynamics and choruses and that shit. "Black Hole Sun" isn't exactly my thing but at least it might float around the back of my mind from time to time.

Due to grunge and MTV Unplugged, the nineties really revived guitar rock — and, with it, a self-righteous defense mechanism that bordered on the absurd. "At least they're not (insert name of pop phenomenon/boy band here)" was the common refrain from fans of alternative music if you so much as questioned the quality of a band like Pearl Jam. Sorry, not good enough. I may despise what a plastic pop princess stands for but there's always a chance I might dig one of her records; if the best I can say for Eddie Vedder is that I empathize with his politics then there's not a whole lot more to be said. I'm don't doubt that he would be a swell guy to have a beer with but I'm not in a position to experience this. And, anyway, what would we have to chat about after having admitted to him that I think his music sucks?

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Paul Weller: The Weaver EP

Not quite yet the embarrassing Modfather, Paul Weller was already being feted for his supposed phoenix-like rebirth on second solo album Wild Wood. Looking back, it seems like an over-correction from those final days of The Style Council as it led to a number of increasingly lifeless recordings that all sounded the same until he gradually began finding his way once again in the early 2000's. While previous hits from '93, "Sunflower" and "Wild Wood", are both pretty strong, if a tad underwhelming, "The Weaver" needed the padding of a value-for-money EP just to make it worthy of singlehood. "This Is No Time" is no less forgettable than the title track but things come to life on third track "Another New Day" which brings to mind some of ver Council's overlooked instrumentals such as "Blue Cafe", "Our Favourite Shop" and "The Little Boy in the Castle / A Dove Flew Down from the Elephant". Proof that Weller didn't need his garbled voice to carry a recording and that he was always at his best when he was at his most ambitious. He just had to get this bizarre need to be boring out of his system before he re-discovered it.

Levellers: "This Garden"

13 October 1993

"I wouldn't buy it, but I like it when something new is done."

— Stakka Bo

"I like the sound."

— Oscar

Are you in a band with leftists politics and you're struggling to come up with a name? Well, the solution is simple: do a bit of reading into the English Civil Wars of the mid-seventeenth century and you'll find something that will no doubt fit.

It's not quite as commonplace as I assumed. New Model Army and Levellers are the only two notable bands who took their names from this time period. There was a nineties' Scottish group called The Diggers but they got their name from a novel from the sixties with no connection whatsoever to Fairfax or Cromwell. Yet, I'm going to assume that there are plenty of much smaller outfits who support social democracy and have names like The Roundheads or Pride's Purge — and if they haven't been taken, have at it!

Though there is this wealth of potential band names from the era, it's worth noting that neither of the big two are especially well-remembered anymore. Perhaps your older brother or your mate's older brother was into New Model Army but they never really did much for you. (By "you" I'm referring to myself) Or Levellers had that feeble call-to-arms "anthem" "One Way" which you quite liked when you were fourteen but you've subsequently disowned because everyone you respect has told you how naff it is. (And, again, by "you" I am referring to myself)

"One Way" only got to number fifty-one on the charts in Britain back in 1991 but it has somehow cast a shadow over the rest of their work. Levellers had fifteen Top 40 hits but they somehow couldn't get people to forget about that flop of their's from early on in their recording career. Some will mockingly sing the cliche-ridden chorus, others won't even mention it at all but I just know that when nine out of ten critics and/or music fans give Levellers a good coating down, this is the song they're thinking of.

I'm neutral when it comes to Levellers. On the one hand, I completely understand why "One Way" makes so many want to vomit. Having not actually listened to it in over thirty years, I would quite like to have its annoying refrain wiped from my memory. Crapping on it is the low hanging fruit but there are other songs of their's that leave a lot to be desired. Much of what appears on breakthrough album Levelling the Land is poor — "Fifteen Years", their first of many hits that fell just short of the Top 10, is if anything worse than "One Way" — or, at best, leaves me feeling indifferent. On the other hand, I have an answer to the as yet unasked question "what is your favourite Levellers song?" (It's the poignant "Searchlights" from the 1995 WarChild charity compilation Help and it's so damn good that it rivals other better known highlights such as Radiohead's "Lucky" and Suede's "Shipbuilding") They did some stuff that sucks but they also had some good songs in them — they just weren't those that their fans tended to flock towards.

"This Garden" I would place on the good side. Like Oscar and Stakka Bo of, well, Stakka Bo, I'm not bowled over by it but there's enough to it to make me want to go back and give it a listen every so often. Ira Robbins, in a career-spanning review for Trouser Press, describes its eccentric mix of didgeridoo, dance music grooves and raps in the verses as "disastrous" but I hear it as a brave stab that works in spite of the fact that it really shouldn't. It helps that Simon Friend is almost doing a music hall send up in his spoken word parts (I was going to say that it reminds me of Phil Daniels on Blur's "Parklife" but that single was still a year away from making its large imprint on British culture) instead of some sad and laughable white boy MC spot. For a band that could have easily stuck to the anarcho-folk-punk that helped them gain a sizable following in the late eighties and early nineties, it's refreshing to hear them stretch out and even pull it off.

Where "This Garden" is superior to something like "One Way" is in its subtlety. Their early singles hit the listener over the head with messages that aren't in the least bit deep but a much more measured and considered approach to their songwriting began to take shape on third album Levellers. It's quite shocking to hear such a working class-friendly band admit that "blood, sweat and tears really don't matter, just the things that you do in this garden". In reality the song's meaning isn't terribly different from "One Way", only that it's expressed with far more originality. If their new-found musical catholicism wasn't impressive enough, there was also some strong lyrical touches that go far beyond the pablum they previously dished out to audiences. Rather than ramming your message home, why not make punters have to think about your latest protest song?

Levellers didn't make a tremendous impact in North America but there was a Canadian group who had more than a little in common with them. Vancouver's Spirit of the West had formed playing aggressive folk music which appealed to university students who were just getting accustomed to consuming vast quantities of alcohol. To this day their appropriately spirited crowd-pleaser "Home for a Rest" remains a favourite among their loyal fanbase. But it's also a rather polarizing song. Haters can't stand it and I have to admit that they have a point. SOTW got better and had further hits in Canada but they could never quite escape the shadow of that one tune of their's with a big chorus that first gave them fame. "Home for a Rest" would be their "One Way" but I'll take "And If Venice Is Sinking" which is very much their "This Garden". Hardcore fans don't know anything.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bitty McLean: "Pass It On"

I feel like I'm pointing this out a lot of late but the selection of singles in this issue of Smash Hits is remarkably poor. The guys from Stakka Bo aren't even that crazy about "This Garden" — "that's as positive as we're going to get, so Best New Single it is!" their review concludes — and they don't have a great deal of enthusiasm for much else on offer. And who can blame them? There are good songs but the recordings of them aren't up to much. Bitty McLean's penchant for good-natured cover versions is tested to its limit on this gospel take on The Wailers "Pass It On", a deep cut from their groundbreaking 1973 album Burnin'. A straightforward modernized copy of it would have been preferable even if it would have had its flaws too. The Marley version (I'm not sure if it's the original given that he nor bandmates Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh actually wrote it) is suitably laid back and moving but none of that survives in Bitty's treatment. Good on him for picking a Wailer's track that hasn't been covered to death, it's just too bad he sucked the life out of it.

JoBoxers: "Boxerbeat"

17 February 1983

"I don't mind girls who want to look like Bananarama but when the boys start..."

— Anon.

An unintended consequence of punk was that it led to a dearth of old school workingmen's bands. Given that they had relocated to the United States at around the same time, Slade would not have been a target of the punks but it was hard-faced, hard-drinking bands like them and The Faces and Status Quo (and, most importantly of all, any potential younger acts) who would really falter as the seventies gave way to the eighties. True, there had been overly working class bands like Angelic Upstarts but they got themselves stuck in the corner of punk; whereas everyone with any kind of future had been able to spread themselves out.

Dexys Midnight Runners were one of the few groups to emerge out of punk to cultivate an image of a gang of lads on the prowl for drink and a punch up. But it was all image. The ever-changing line-up and their practice of adopting new band uniforms on a yearly basis (they went from dock workers to health fanatics to urchins in rags and dungarees to preppies; leader Kevin Rowland even carried this forward in his solo career, famously dressing in drag for the sleeve of flop covers album My Beauty) only confirmed that it was all a show. Whether it was the superstars of New Pop dressing as members of Bananarama or supposed toughs in a badass gang, everyone in a UK dominated by music videos and Smash Hits seemed perfectly happy to get dressed up.

Well, not quite everyone. London's JoBoxers were keen to point out to all who'd listen that they weren't like those "production-line haircut bands" or even Dexys, a band whose Searching for the Young Soul Rebels image appeared to have rubbed off on the suspenders, Doc Martens and flat caps favoured by singer Dig Wayne and the quartet who used to be in punk band Subway Sect. Yet, they claimed this was how they normally dressed. "We're for real," Wayne would claim, perhaps unaware that he'd just set off a big popular music red flag. 

Still, the unnamed Hits reviewer this fortnight seemed to buy it. These people who dress like Bananarama (are they the same folk who are in these so-called "production-line haircut bands"? Something tells me there would be plenty of intersection of the two on a Venn diagram) are for some reason the enemy. JoBoxers have "no synths, no wimpy vocals"; the critic here conveniently leaves out that they also have no originality and no creativity but I guess those sorts of qualities don't matter when you're "for real".

I don't mean to trash "Boxerbeat" though. It's a perfectly competent slice of pop-soul, loads of fun and I have no doubt JoBoxers would've been a great act to have seen live back in their day. But in a fortnight with some strong candidates — I would have had a difficult time choosing between Madness' "Tomorrow's Just Another Day" and Orange Juice's "Rip It Up" had I been in charge of the singles in this issue; also coming in strong are OMD's "Genetic Engineering" and Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio" — it's simply an also ran. The same old punk from six years earlier was no different than this spirited but derivative soul.

Having recently been voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Duran Duran aren't the joke they once were. Yes, they were a global phenomenon and hit making juggernaut back in their day but they had their critics. Harsh critics. People who knocked their hair and fashion sense and music videos and they even managed to go after their actual music from time to time. At their best, they were very good indeed but they could also put out some crap. Nevertheless, if it comes down having to choose between a band who is "for real" and a bunch of "pouting pretties" like Duran and the Spand then I'll take the the flash suits, art school pretensions, pin up looks and ridiculous exoticism any day.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Men Without Hats: "The Safety Dance (Extended 'Club Mix')"

Bundled together with fellow 12" remixes of Eurythmics and Leisure Process (whoever they are), our anonymous friend isn't terrifically fond of Montreal's Men Without Hats, reckoning they were only capable of "a bit of electronic doodling and a fabulously stupid name". I will say "The Safety Dance" doesn't deserve to be their best-known song since "Pop Goes the World" blows it out of the water. Also, the name isn't that bad especially since their first best of was given the title Greatest Hats which is somehow both on-the-nose and brilliant at the same time. And this "Extended 'Club Mix'" manages to clock in at a reasonable four-and-a-half minutes so it could be worse. A pointless 12" all the same, however.

(Click here to see my original review)

Stakka Bo: "Here We Go"

29 September 1993

"Breezier than a string vest on Ben Nevis."

— Mike Soutar

"Love Will Tear Us Apart"; "There She Goes"; "Personal Jesus"; "Union City Blue"; "Born of Frustration"; "Girlfriend in a Coma"; "DJ Culture"; "Mysterious Ways"; "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth"; "Is She Really Going Out with Him?"; "I Know You Got Soul"; "I'm Coming Out"; "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style"; "Waterfront"; "Glory Box"; "Violently Happy": good to great singles that all somehow stiffed at the unlucky number thirteen spot.

There's no hard and fast rule as to where a single will peak. Great singles have ended up finished well out of the Top 40 while everyone can name a handful of number ones that they consider to be irredeemable. But some inferences can be made from peaking in the upper part of the teens. For indie groups with sizable cult followings such as Depeche Mode, James and The Smiths, thirteen was a pretty standard chart placement. But when it comes to Joy Division, The La's and Dream Warriors it was more a case of bands hitting one out of the park but to only a modest reception. You could say that "Love Will Tear Us Apart" could have and should have performed better but it could just as easily have done a lot worse.

Sweden's Stakka Bo was sort of group/sort of collective/sort of solo project for multi-talented frontman Johan Renck. Nowadays he is best know for directing all five episodes of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl but in the early nineties he was a struggling musician. Had he been British or American Renck would have become a DJ or he would have formed a band. But what am I saying? Most Swedes who aspired to a career in music back then would have either become DJ's or formed bands as well. This Renck fellow was a different sort — and not simply because he looked closer to forty-seven than twenty-seven (though like many who age young, he now looks like a relatively youthful fifty-seven). His incompetence and lack of know-how led to him putting out one of the most remarkable one off pop hits of the decade.

It was in around 1993 that everyone just assumed that everything on techno dance records was sampled, even to a naive listener such as myself. There was a reason every drum sound seemed the same. Plus, why would penny-pinching producers bother hiring sessioners to perform on their work when they could just get someone to pinch from hit records of the past?The flute part on "Here We Go" must have surely been taken from some old Herbie Mann tune from the seventies while those vocals in the chorus ("here we go again" / "get your gear and start to spend...") sound like they came from an obscure eighties club hit by Bobby O or Jellybean. Yet, they were both made in house by colleagues of Mr. Bo.

The tag-teamed raps of Stakka Bo and chum Oscar bring to mind the Stereo MC's and their skeletal frontman Rob Birch but "Here We Go" is otherwise unconnected to, er, "Connected". Musically, it's more reminiscent of the trendy acid jazz of Brand New Heavies and Jamiroquai albeit with less of a blatantly retro sound. Maybe it's just the presence of David Wilczewski's flute but it also vaguely suggests trip hop. Eurobeat aside, it's as if they were plundering all the dominant early nineties' variants of dance music just to put together the best pop record possible. It shouldn't have worked out for them but somehow or other it does.

Not to knock them too much but the other thing Stakka Bo had over the Stereo MC's was their message was much less preachy. Coming from an educated, middle-class Swedish family, Renck's business degree shouldn't lend itself to good pop lyrics but, once again, he proved to be a master of making chicken salad out of chicken shit. Assuming audiences even cared what he had to say in the first place, it's possible to interpret "Here We Go" as either extolling the virtues of a hedonistic, live-for-today lifestyle or as a warning not to get caught up in all this consumption. Other Swedes involved in pop were often prone to composing word salad lyrics but Renck put a surprising amount of care into the words here — even if the message may be rather unclear.

As the intro no doubt gives away, "Here We Go" only managed to get to number thirteen in the UK. We could knock the British for their crappy taste — I mean, what the hell business did bloody Haddaway or a three-year-old reissued and more-useless-than-ever Roxette ballad have finishing above it? — but it performed no better in much of the rest of Europe. Plenty of people clearly liked it just not nearly enough to make it the mega-hit it deserved to be. And we should be careful what we wish for: had it done better, Stakka Bo might have gone on to have further hits and he would have been able to afford to pay others to direct their videos and he wouldn't have gone on to direct promos for The Cardigans and Suede and All Saints and he wouldn't have been behind the series Chernobyl. Plus, "Here We Go" is brilliant enough that it never needed another hit.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Culture Beat: "Got to Get It"

Stakka Bo and pals may not have known what they were doing in crafting some fabulous dance-pop but German producer/DJ Torsten Fenslau knew exactly how to come up with catchy and danceable Euro techno for a mass audience. Mike Soutar isn't over fond of breakthrough global smash "Mr. Vain" but he finds himself enjoying follow-up "Got to Get It" almost in spite of himself. I, on the other hand, reckon both records are pretty great. This one doesn't have the hooks of its predecessor but it's probably a little more durable. ("Mr. Vain", for all of its many good qualities, is the sort of thing that is very easy to tire of) Not quite bursting at the seems with pop energy like "Here We Go" but plenty wonderful all the same. Tragically, Fenslau would pass away in a car accident while "Got to Get It" was in the UK Top 10.

Radiohead: "Creep"

15 September 1993

"Now it's a massive hit in the States and Radiohead can claim the big hit they deserve."

— Tom Doyle

The entire concert up to this point had been brilliant but the ninth number, "My Iron Lung", was on a whole other level. The five piece played got to the song's instrumental fade out and it just exploded — a fade out that simply refused to fade away. These blokes from Oxford didn't smile much but they looked (justifiably) pleased with themselves at this moment. Lanky guitarist Ed O'Brien had composure enough to hand his guitar off to a roadie who, in turn, gave him a new one for the next number on their setlist. Meanwhile, Thom York and the Greenwood brothers conferred. Then they whispered something to O'Brien who proceeded to request his old guitar back. Evidently, they had been so happy with the way they played "My Iron Lung" that they decided to play it some more.

Radiohead's concert on April 8, 1998 in Calgary would've been memorable anyway but this moment was unlike anything we'd seen before. In an era of having setlists taped to the stage and phony between-song banter — "let's play this song...c'mon man, it's easy!" — this was clearly not stage managed. The remainder of the show went from strength to strength but I couldn't get their improvised reprise of "My Iron Lung" out of my head. "One to tell the grandkids about", purred The Calgary Sun the next day. Unbeknownst to us, Q magazine was even there with the show being featured in an upcoming issue.

I went to see Radiohead with a half-a-dozen friends and mutual friends but I knew a few other people in attendance that night. Presumably up near the front was my university chum Tasya who shared my love for Britpop and witty but sensitive singer-songwriters. I bumped into her on campus a day or two later and we chatted about the show. Not only had she seen them in Calgary but she also caught them in Vancouver two days earlier. I asked how the two concerts compared. She said the Vancouver show was marred a bit by the crowd with Thom York even having to appeal to the idiots shoving and crowd surfing like mad. Clearly, their performance in Calgary was something else. For what it's worth, it was quite likely the best of the four shows they did in Canada that spring. While I'm sure the Toronto gig was a blast, York was heard yelling at a fan in Montreal who kept demanded they play one of their biggest hits. "Fuck off, we're tired of it!"

Though not quite exclusively so, bands hating their biggest hits seems like a particularly nineties phenomenon. Kurt Cobain famously couldn't stomach performing "Smells Like Teen Spirit", much to the dismay of many of Nirvana's fans. Michael Stipe has never been fond of "Shiny Happy People" even though the trio R.E.M. would eventually go on to re-record it for Sesame Street. Guitarist Graham Coxon bristled at having to play on Blur's first number one single "Country House". Beck never quite disowned breakthrough "Loser" but he did grow uncomfortable with the song, refusing to allow its inclusion on the soundtrack to the 1995 Jim Carrey film Dumb & Dumber.

It's tempting to tie "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Shiny Happy People", "Country House", "Loser" and, indeed, "Creep" together due to fears of selling out but I'm not sure that's all there is to it. Cobain and Coxon both quickly grew bored of the hits they'd had with Nirvana and Blur respectively while Stipe and Beck felt concerned that their songs had come to unfairly define them. As far as Radiohead goes, it was a bit of both.

The weird thing about listening to "Creep" now is that it suggests nothing of the future the group would have. Perhaps this is why subsequent projects always seemed to surprise critics and fans alike. No one saw The Bends coming which, in turn, led to OK Computer which was similarly stunning to listeners. From there, no one knew what to expect from Kid A: whatever possible sound people imagined was not what they got when they heard it for the first time. (Following the Kid A-related Amnesiac a year later, Radiohead's fans would splinter into two groups: those who just went along for the ride of further surprises and puzzlement and those who just hoped they'd find their way back to recording another Bends; on the other hand, I wasn't interested in either: I had given up caring about what they'd do next while also having grown weary of their overrated second album) The promising group of 1993 had of course been Suede whose next creative step never seemed too difficult to predict. By contrast, it never seemed as if Radiohead were promising which is rather fitting for a band who never made any promises.

"Creep" is a great example of why I try to avoid commenting on particular pieces of music which supposedly "haven't aged well". I mean, I suppose it has since it sounds the same as it did thirty years ago but I think that's pretty much the case with all pop records. What has changed is me. I'm in my forties and I'm quite happy to say that I've aged out of it. As a sixteen year old I was awkward, lazy, had low self-esteem and sometimes felt like a bit of creep; today, some of these "qualities" remain but they've been dialed back. Plus, I'm not a creep. I never really was but I sure as shit felt like one. How does a song about youthful angst really speak to those of us who have moved on? For that matter, what if this is also why the members of Radiohead have done their best to keep their distance from it.

Because of my lack of teen moodiness, there's less to extract from a song like "Creep". I can happily go back and listen to eighties pop and bask in the memories or take in the aspirational elements of the time but nineties indie is often held back by its misery. Use it as therapy if that's what you need, by all means, but what do you do with it after the pain has been tucked away? Even though it wasn't a big favourite of mine at the time, I certainly understood why friends of mine found something in "Creep". But what is there to extract from it now at my age? Good memories?

Just as a rejuvenated Graham Coxon would do with a reformed Blur on his once bete noire "Country House", the members of Radiohead would eventually make their peace with "Creep" — at least to an extent. While Coxon has admitted that "Country House" is a lot of fun to play, York, the Greenwoods, O'Brien and Selaway have trotted out "Creep" on occasion though they still haven't really warmed to it. York did find the time to play around with customarily unsettling remix during the COVID lockdown but it's the sort of thing I was content to hear only the once. I won't be demanding they play "Creep" since I'm in no hurry to see them live a second time. Again, once was enough.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

M People: "Moving on Up"

Those who demand "Creep" at Radiohead concerts will no doubt disagree but the competition is so stiff this fortnight that I'm not so sure it deserved to be Single of the Fortnight Best New Single. I'll say it's a tight three way race between "Creep", Eternal's smooth and effortlessly catchy "Stay" and the Bjork/David Arnold Bond theme from an alternate universe "Play Dead". But the high quality doesn't end there. The Wonder Stuff's On the Ropes EP presents a punchier band still putting out prime material in spite of the fact that their glory days were now behind them. Similarly, Kate Bush's "Rubberband Girl" isn't quite up to the standard of her seventies and eighties material but it's a solid work nonetheless. Then there's M People with "Moving on Up". Their previous hit "One Night in Heaven" is the one I prefer but not by a whole lot. Singer Heather Small could really overdo it and she does let her side down a bit in this regard but the infectious electro-pop rhythms and that baritone sax more than cover up for the vocal histrionics. Some stellar pop this fortnight even if I remain unconvinced as to the merits of "Condemnation", Depeche Mode's brave but uninspired take on gospel. They can't all be winners, can they?

Donald Fagen: "New Frontier"

3 February 1983

"The guitar licks are quite tasty too."

— Fred Dellar

With Single of the Fortnight having been established in the middle of 1981, it's notable that the late Fred Dellar seemed to opt out in what would turn out to be his final singles review go in Smash Hits. Nothing thrilled him enough to give a record similar treatment to The Jam's "Absolute Beginners", Stevie Wonder's "Do I Do" and Kim Wilde's "Child Come Away". Held up against those three, I can't say I blame him. There are a handful of good records present but almost nothing I feel like I need to ever hear again.

Among them is Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" which Dellar forces into a shared review with baby sister Janet's "Come Give Your Love to Me". While he admits that the former is a grower he is far less impressed by the younger Jackson's "effort". (Surprisingly, this dismissal of the global smash from the blockbuster Thriller album wasn't included in the early '85 Hits feature Our Most Embarrassing Singles Reviews, though Dave Rimmer's even less enthusiastic assessment of follow-up single "Beat It" did make the cut) While it may seem to beggar belief that such a pop classic could be shrugged aside, under the circumstances I can understand such a move: the sheer thrill of "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" could render anything that follows it just a tad disappointing.

In truth, there are just a pair of numbers that Dellar seems to have any affection for. One of the is "Cath" by Scots The Bluebells, while the other is the second single from The Nightfly, the debut album from former Steely Dan co-leader Donald Fagen. Since his enthusiasm for the former doesn't quite match that of the latter, "New Frontier" takes the proto-SOTF "honours". How nice that these are precisely the same pair of singles that I'm fond of as well.

As I suggested before the last time this record came up three years ago, much of what is on The Nightfly is autobiographical. This isn't information I sought out in any particular way, I merely looked it up on Wikipedia and it presented itself to me. Sorry but that's as much due diligence as I was willing to put in. Perhaps had I persisted with more than just the first bit of Fagen's autobiography Eminent Hipsters I could've found out more but I only had the audiobook to rely upon. Much as I dig Fagen as a vocalist — even if he isn't much of a singer per se — his Long Island deadpan is not the sort of sound I can tolerate for long. "Read by the Author" may be an enticement when you're dealing with Alan Bennett or Stephen Fry but it acts as more of a warning when you've got Donald Fagen narrating.

Back to the autobiography: I'm not sure it matters. While I misinterpreted my initial reading of "New Frontier" by thinking that it's about a young man using his family's little-used fallout shelter as a pathetic nightclub, this is actually a perfectly good narrative with which to base a Steely Dan song around. More to the point, whether Fagen himself tried to lure girls from school into the family bomb shelter or he just invented such a scenario isn't especially important to us as listeners. I imagine the memory of this means something to him but for me it only goes to show just how much of a Dan-type character he has always been. If "New Frontier" is indeed extracted from his life then why not "My Old School" or "Barrytown" or "Deacon Blues" as well?

And, indeed, why not a whole lot more while we're at it? Let's be honest here: "New Frontier" sounds like a Steely Dan song: there's Fagen's faintly desperate-sounding voice, those familiar backing vocals, that trademark exactitude in the musicianship. With all due respect to the late Walter Becker, would anyone have noticed that he's not on it? Had there been an eighth Dan album it would've sounded not unlike The Nightfly. Come to think of it, there was an eighth Dan album! 2000's comeback Two Against Nature routinely gets slammed because it won a Grammy that it allegedly didn't deserve (though to be fair, voters undoubtedly didn't see the point of listening to Kid A more than the once and couldn't understand that the genius of The Marshall Mathers LP was that every song was meant to sound the same) but it's a worthy effort all the same. That said, it's no Nightfly. Few things beyond prime Steely Dan are.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Virginia Astley: "Love's a Lonely Place to Be"

Listen to a Virginia Astley single and it's too much; listen to a Virginia Astley album and it's not enough. Dellar isn't crazy about this piece of "pretty-pretties" and I know what he means. Three or four minutes just doesn't do her sound justice. It isn't that her work requires patience or persistence or hard work, it's just that a good deal of it needs to spread itself all over the listener in order for them to appreciate it. Either that or she was just too good and too important for singles even if this didn't stop her from releasing them. All I know is I've liked what I've heard from her, limited though it may be, but "Love's a Lonely Place to Be" just passed me by, like a dewy cherry blossom pedal that fell to the ground just as I looked the other way. Or something to that effect.

(Click here to see my original review)