Altered Images: "I Could Be Happy"

10 December 1981

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

— Ian Birch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Rolling Stones: "Waiting on a Friend"

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

(Click here to see my original review)

Kim Wilde: "Love Blonde"

21 July 1983

"So, it's great to hear Kim roaring back with a bit of finger-popping jazz, a great femme fatale lyric and a punchy chorus. Go to it, gal!"

— Deborah Steels

"She's got that sen-su-a-li-DEE..."

When I was in my late twenties I went through a period of underemployment followed by not having a job at all. When not preoccupied with fretting over my bleak future, I was busy having stimulating conversations with friends, listening to lots of jazz and reading some superb books. (Appropriately, it was during this period that I discovered the works of Geoff Dyer who describes the transition from studying at Oxford to life on the dole in South London: "The difference was the quality of study — which, of course, was far higher in Brixton") Quickly ditching the heavy semiotics, I took to the more creative writings of French philosopher Roland Barthes: Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse (which we'll likely get to in two or three years from now) and Camera Lucida, his study of photography.

In Camera Lucida, Barthes puts forth the notion of the punctum, a detail in a picture, which may or may not be relevant to the image, that touches a nerve in the viewer, typically the very first thing they happen to notice. I flipped out. I scanned every photo available to me in search of a punctum and then, once that source had become tapped, I started trying to spot them in song. (I once wrote a not-at-all-pretentious piece about the "punctures" of Bill Evans' Sunday at the Village Vanguard in which far too much of my attention was on the cover photo, a sign that the 'audible punctum' was beyond me) Of course, music operates differently from pictures. We look at a photograph and take it all in at once; a record we have to experience as it progresses from beginning to end. Still, I became fascinated by trying to listen for moments would grab me, throw me off, hit a nerve.

Kim Wilde's pronunciation is this song's punctum. To anyone thinking that "Love Blonde" is a straightforward jazz-pop ditty about a gorgeous woman who has men wrapped around her little finger, listen to how she makes the word 'sensuality' sound so lacking in, well, sensuality. (I first misheard this number as being the story of a young, working class girl who aspires to sophistication and cocktail bars but only ends up tripping up and exposing her real self, which, as I type, kind of still feels like a legitimate take) The femme fatale in the lyric is only seen to be that way. She's off limits to young men gawking at her and only comes alive when she's out of the public eye ("Situation: no-go zone / But she'll cut loose when she's alone") The attention is empowering and she gives no quarter. While the song was conceived as a joke, it needn't necessarily be taken lightly. Wilde winks audibly at the listener here and there but refuses to ham it up. And if you think she was singing about herself then the mangling of the last syllable of 'sensuality' should remove all doubt: she's just there to observe admiringly from a distance.

Considering the weightiness of her previous batch of singles, it's strange to think that people had Wilde down in the dumb blonde bimbo category. Prejudice towards her hair and image obviously played a part but so too was the implication that her dad and brother were doing much of the heavy lifting. Just reading back at the glowing reviews her two previous records received, it's easy to spot that Marty and Ricki Wilde being praised just as much. That may be right or wrong but at this point it appears to be a situation unique to her; other solo artists weren't having to share the acclaim among critics with their songwriters and/or producers. (This isn't to downplay the crucial role the two played, just to give Kim her due as one of her generation's premier vocalists, one who made those outstanding tunes and pristine productions into such fantastic singles)

"Love Blonde" is Kim Wilde's third Single of the Fortnight — and on the bounce to boot — making her the first act to hit for a trifecta. Having seen her chart fortunes dwindle with her remarkable trilogy of devastatingly bleak singles ("Cambodia" followed by previous SOTF'ers "View from a Bridge" and "Child Come Away"), it provided a welcome relief to fans and got her back into the Top 30. Not a big hit, no, and it would be a while before she began to really storm the charts again, but it's a single that adds luster to her already admirable discography. Having a record based in early rock 'n' roll and jazz (which I suspect may even be in on the joke: the likes of Weekend and Rip, Rig + Panic were then being heaped with acclaim, in no small part because of their use of jazz, a music that is to be taken seriously not like that synthy new wave rubbish) is a wonderful one-off for Wilde and a testament her underrated vocal range. She may not have had "sen-su-a-li-DEE" but she was way ahead of her peers in the game of crafting dazzling pop.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Altered Images: "Love to Stay"

Having never come across the Alts prior to starting this blog, I had been looking forward to exploring the work of a very fondly remembered early eighties act. Then I put on "I Could Be Happy", which I reviewed last summer. I wasn't impressed. People told recommended other songs but they left me similarly unenthusiastic. Are we supposed to be charmed by this stuff? Do people think it's cute? I'd pretty much given up until I reluctantly put "Love to Stay" on last week and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it sparkles where prior singles are dull and flat. It's the sort of thing not unlike what Saint Etienne would be doing a decade later. Indeed, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs would've happily traded in their vast collections of French Yé-yé and Belgian popcorn records to have composed something as elegant as "Love to Stay". Nevertheless, it somehow missed the Top 40 and Altered Images were pretty much done. And just as they were hitting their stride too.

Altered Images: "I Could Be Happy"

10 December 1981

"Another certified winner...Clare's subdued singing slides over a surging guitar sound and a sizzling bass."

— Ian Birch

"I Could Be Happy" is the last Single of the Fortnight of 1981. It was reviewed in the penultimate issue of the year, the singles page — and, indeed, all reviews — getting the boot from the finale in favour of the first annual poll winners issue. The cover stars of that Christmas Eve, stocking filler issue? None other than Altered Images. (Well, it's actually a close up Clare Grogan's cheery visage but I'm sure that the other four weren't too far out of shot, it was their band too...)

No, the Ims didn't carry home a packing crate filled to the brim with awards. They were nowhere to be found in the running for Best Group, Best Single or Best Album, though Grogan did all right for herself in the Best Female Singer and Most Fanciable Female categories finishing fifth and third respectively. But they did manage to snare the prize for Most Promising Act for 1982. A kind-of, sort-of best newcomer award — though, as the short write-up points out, U2's fifth place was exactly where they came in a year earlier and that "isn't it about time they came up with a really hot single and fulfilled some of that potential?" — it would alter over the years, eventually evolving into separate trophies for Best New Group and Best Solo Artist. One thing that would never change about it was its status as a prize for dashed expectations.

Rewind a fortnight and the Ims are headlining the singles review page and Ian Birch is beside himself with how much he loves their latest record, though I can hardly blame him considering what dull pickings he had to choose from. Still, I can't help but feel that he's overstating things a bit. I suppose the vocals are subdued, even if they're undermined by the far too joyous video, but "surging guitar sound and sizzling bass"? I'd opt for well played musicianship which suits the material, though I will cop to my assessment being not quite as punchy. He also praises the "chemistry" and "magic" at play between the band and their producer. Yeah, I guess they worked well in the studio with a professional crew, good for them.

I don't wish to bash on Grogan and co. I really wanted to enjoy this single but I couldn't manage to get up the requisite enthusiasm that everyone else seems to have for it. The lyrics don't help matters. If the first verse doesn't strike the listener as twee ("I would like to climb high in a tree", "Maybe swim a mile down the Nile") then minds could very well be altered upon hearing them a second and then a third time. "All of these things I do," Grogan repeats throughout, a sentiment diminished considerably by her disinclination to list off a few more activities that might get her away from the unhappy situation she's in.

A silly video featuring five very smiley young Scots, those supremely repetitive lyrics and some musical gumdrop perkiness all adds up to giving "I Could Be Happy" the taint of a novelty song. And as we all know, novelties eventually wear off. Hope that Most Promising Act award won't be your millstone.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Clash: "This Is Radio Clash"

Some confusion going on here. Birch seems to have actually reviewed "Radio Clash", the B-side. Not that it matters a whole lot: both tunes are the same tune, running at the same length, with just a few extras and some added dub going on. And Birch is right to have reviewed the wrong side: "Radio Clash" is much more in keeping with what the only band that matters to people who demand that bands matter to them were up to in '81. Following on the heels of the much misunderstood, near career suicide of Sandinista!, this is The Clash at their boldest and bravest, even if as actual singles go it can't possibly hold up to their best work. It could only have meant that they had further tricks up their sleeves for the year ahead. Speaking of dashed expectations...