Memphis: "You Supply the Roses" / Art of Noise: "Moments in Love"

28 March 1985

"It makes me really happy — I wish the charts were full of songs like this."

— Rose McDowall

"It makes my eyeballs feel floaty."

— Jill Bryson

"It makes me feel like ice skating in the cold night air while listening to it on my Walkman."
— Rose McDowall

A Radio One DJ, a twelve-year-old with very strong opinions and a pair of Scots goth-bag ladies: it's been a while since an actual Smash Hits staffer had to sift through the singles, hasn't it? But no matter, they're not going the Number One route of only featuring mindless guests in the critics' chair, these are all people with something to say and not simply looking to advance their careers in such a modest fashion. It makes me think there's a pop music critic in all of us.

As one hit wonders go (a term, incidentally, that I despise; not only does the classification depend on the country — Madness being far from a one and doner in the UK despite being exactly that in the US and Canada — but it's snarky and mean-spirited and conveniently leaves out the fact that one solitary hit single is still far better than none) Strawberry Switchblade are fondly remembered. Their sole smash "Since Yesterday" has oak-aged which certainly helps but their image also left an imprint on people. No one looked like them. No one would ever have thought to look like them. Not conventionally beautiful but there's something about them. They make me feel like I'm back in junior high school and I have a crush on that weird girl which I'm determined not to share with anyone under any circumstances.

First up is Rose McDowall's pick of "You Supply the Roses" by fellow Scots Memphis. Formed by disillusioned members of Orange Juice James Kirk and Steven Daly, it is a bright and sunny bit of indie pop — with "twinges of country" as she points out — that the Blades are already familiar with. Either confusing it with an old country standard by the likes of George Jones (so baked it is in old school Nashville values, I can easily see a version of it popping up on Elvis Costello's Almost Blue) or already a firm favourite in Gorbals-area clubs, it isn't quite up to Jill Bryson's standards even though she too is pretty impressed. I like it but not as much as I'd like to like it. It makes me think of how I like turkey and I like cranberry sauce but I don't really care for them together.

Bryson opts for "Moments in Love" by Art of Noise. Impressionistic and warm, it's ruined by the lack of a tune to grab hold of. I would very much like to appreciate the charms of Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn and Paul Morely but it smacks of a work that is interesting rather than gripping. A fine enough listen but one which is forgettable as soon as its finished. (Did Bryson make her selection while it was still playing?) It makes me feel like I have something to say and I'm itching to say it but the words stubbornly refuse to come out.

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Also Reviewed With Feeling This Fortnight

Cocteau Twins: Aikea-Guinea

Jill and Rose are feeling all sorts of things with this Cocteau Twins 12" EP. Here is an exchange of them trying to outdo one another:

J: It's all very atmospheric — in fact, it makes my skin ripple.

R: Well, it makes my organs wobble.

J: And it makes my eyeballs flip.

R: And it made my record player jump.

(The seeds of their eventual falling out, perhaps)

Some typically gorgeous industrial loveliness from yet more Scots. It makes me feel like a tulip growing out of a crack in the concrete outside of a smoke-spewing factory.

Cocteau Twins: "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops"

26 April 1984

"The Cocteau Twins are a band I've never really listened to and I feel that maybe I've missed out on something."

— Dave Gahan

The majority of Singles of the Fortnight are chosen because of the songs. (I know, a stunning bit of insight to kick off this week's entry) This one isn't one of them. As Dave Gahan says, Cocteau Twins are fairly new to him and the little that he offers up in analysis amounts to praise for Elizabeth Fraser's voice, something he could have just as easily used to prop up any Twins record, be it "Sugar Hiccup" from a few months earlier or "Aikea-Guinea" a year later (though, amazingly, not the astonishing "Lorelei" — the dead cert number twenty-one hit that they never had — since it was never released on a single or an E.P., their preferred format at the time).

Gahan's ignorance of ver Twins brings to mind the thrill of being there to experience a fresh new act. Long before I gave myself to Louis Armstrong, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Miles Davis, The Beach Boys, Fairport Convention, Steely Dan, Roxy Music and Blondie, I was once a moody adolescent having his world changed to the sounds of Pet Shop Boys, The Beautiful South, Happy Mondays, The Wonder Stuff, Billy Bragg and, yes, Morrissey. Much fun as it is to discover that Satchmo did something as mind blowing as "Beau Koo Jack" over ninety years ago, there's nothing quite like stumbling upon something completely new that very few people have heard before that sounds like nothing ever made before.

Fraser's voice is, of course, the main attraction and the the primary reason why Cocteau Twins sounded so fresh. Elastic like Kate Bush, soothing like Joni Mitchell, deadened like many of her forerunners coming out of post-punk, she still manages to sound like none of them only like herself. No one has ever managed to make a virtue out of sounding so completely incomprehensible, which is just as well given that her lyrics seem to defy all meaning. (I was surprised to discover that the chorus isn't made up of the line "tease a lucky, lucky penny, penny, penny bicycle..." though less so that the actual words make every bit as much sense)

Fresh is something we feel in pop rather than something we are able to rationally account for. Their ingenious fusing of  industrial music and dream pop had to come from somewhere for Fraser, Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde to cotton on to it. A fairly recent addition to the band, Raymonde's superlative bass playing is something straight out of Peter Hook's bag of tricks and they owe more than a little to the Joy Division sound in general. Still, I'll take a dozen or so Cocteau Twins records of the time over anything those miserable Mancuians ever did and that's because the indie Scots were able to inject some sparkly magic into all of their best work. You may be completely original or utterly derivative but if you can't make your records shine than what's the bloody point of putting them on? How else will you get the Dave Gahan's of the world to sit up and take notice?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Human League: "The Lebanon"

Some unabashedly rawk guitar, the situation in the Middle East, Philip Oakey's stubble, Joanne Catherall's shoulder-pads: yes, The Human League were becoming very serious indeed. Having taken their beautifully crafted and wildly successful synth-pop sound one step too far with the irritating "(Keep Feeling) Fascination", it was probably about time they gave it a rethink. The results probably ought to be laughably bad but they pull it off by reigning in all the grown up elements into the pure pop that they still had a grasp of. It's no "Love Action" or "Don't You Want Me" but a track that still sits proudly alongside the League's admirable collection of singles — and an indication that they were well aware of just how political the charts were becoming.