— Dannii Minogue
One of the less commonly known Hits-isms is to be "in reception". I do not have the time or patience to see if it ever got printed in the top pop mag but it was a used by Hits staff as shorthand for desperate pop types who weren't going to wait for the press to call them, they were going to call upon them instead. Miranda Sawyer explained that being "in reception" meant that whoever was waiting there wasn't worth bothering with. It was the preferred location of the likes of Sinitta and Dannii Minogue. (Hits staff became so cynical about someone being "in reception" that one day they neglected to notice that Morrissey was paying them a visit!)
Pop stardom seemingly came easy to Kylie but her younger sister had to work for it. Not, mind you, by crafting a series of nifty records or working on her vocals but by being as shameless a pop shill as one can imagine. She was "in reception" enough to get her face on the cover of three separate issues of ver Hits in 1991 alone. With Hits staff having better things to be getting on with, she even got drafted in to sift through the singles — and, by the standard of your average pop star "in reception", she doesn't mess it up.
She's dealing with an odd assortment of "new" releases, some of which aren't new at all. The use of oldie "Should I Stay or Should I Go" in a Levi's advert took it to number one which resulted in a newfound interest in The Clash; "London Calling", title track from their classic 1979 double album, was their third (and final) re-release of the year. Oliver Stone's biopic The Doors starring Val Kilmer ("more Van than Jim", as Q Magazine drolly observed) was on its way and their American chart topper from way back in 1967 was put out to promote it, giving them a belated hit with a song that somehow didn't catch on the UK the first time round. Finally, a supposed remix of Madonna's "Holiday" was given a second life, which was a tacit acknowledgement that Madge wasn't what she once was.
Still, Madonna wasn't the only one delivering subpar work at the time. Pet Shop Boys' "Jealousy" is a great song and an outstanding closer to their masterpiece Behaviour but there was no need for it to be a single in the spring of '91. The once great Deacon Blue had fully embraced middle-of-the-road tedium with, again, a single no one asked for. Gloria Estefan had given up on entertaining people in favour of depressingly trying to inspire them. And who else? Feargal Sharkey? Pass. Kim Appleby? Nah. Living Color? Uh, no. Dannii's old chum and future "charismatic" Christian leader Mark Stevens? No, I don't think we'll be doing that, Let's just jump ahead to the only rock star of the age who still made kids want to be rock stars, even those who were already having hits of their own.
Young and impressionable pop types tend to look up to their betters. Late-eighties' pop was full of artists who worshiped Prince; it mattered little that they couldn't demonstrate an iota of the purple one's creativity or even copy his sound all that well, the important thing was that they had good taste. With post-Batman Prince not being much in the way off "cop", there was room for another pop-rock god for pin up stars of the era to hold in high esteem. A few years' earlier it might have been Guns N' Roses or Terence Trent D'Arby but in 1991 there was really only one act who could reliably fill the void: Lenny Kravitz.
Lisa Bonet's soon-to-be ex has already appeared in this space, from an issue of Smash Hits less than two months' before this one. Then, he was given a "prized" Single of the Fortnight by up and coming star Chesney Hawkes, a youngster of about the same age as Dannii Minogue. While the Aussie singer gushes about equally about the record and his nibs, Hawkes is far keener to wax about Kravitz himself ("What a dude. What a cat"). The two clearly idolize Lenny. They both were pursuing conventional pop careers but there's the sense that they yearned to be earning it the way he seemed to be.
Hawkes had apparently been chuffed about previous single "Always on the Run" but it didn't catch on enough to reach the Top 40. There were no similar difficulties this time as "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" came just shy of the Top 10. Minogue reckons it's "pretty mellow" for him but she likes it all the same and, indeed, so did quite a few other people. As I said a few weeks earlier, he would've done better reversing the order of release of these two singles. "Always..." did little to pave the way for "...Over..." and it probably stood a better chance of riding the coattails of it into a respectable Top 30 placing of its own had it come out second.
The one thing "Always..." has going for it is that it hides its influences a bit better. On ",,,Over...", however, it's easy to agree with Minogue's observation above. Doing his best Marvin Gaye and with an elegant string section on hand, he's paying tribute to Philly soul. Yet, the Beatle-esque melody and use of a sitar confirm that he's borrowing as liberally as she suggests. This also hints that not only was it important for pop stars to have good taste in music but for their heroes to be similar. Liking Prince meant you had good taste but liking Kravitz meant he had good taste.
"It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" sure seemed to be a brilliant record when it came out in the spring of 1991. Not so much now, mind you. There's nothing particularly wrong with it but it certainly doesn't seem as spellbinding as it once was thirty years ago. I don't think it has aged poorly per se, only that knowledge of older pop is far more commonplace nowadays. In spite of Dannii Minogue claiming that it was a mish mash of styles, it seemed to younger listeners that there had never been anything like it. And in a way, that's correct. Such studied, deliberate pop had never been seen before people like Kravitz emerged (at approximately the same time, a quintet in Manchester was ironing out their own sound plundered from vast record collections; they'll doubtless be cropping up in this space before long). It seemed like the coolest music around until I discovered Roxy Music, Curtis Mayfield, Chic, Burning Spear, Laura Nyro, Sly & The Family Stone, Joe Henderson and Emmylou Harris and others who valued true originality. At that point, who needs Lenny Kravitz?
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Pixies: "Planet of Sound"
A "crock of shit" according to the lovely yet potty-mouthed Danielle — and honestly she's not wrong. Pixies have always been one of those indie acts that indie kids adore in spite of some glaring holes in their catalog. Peaking with the great Doolittle in 1989, they were still strong on the following year's Bossanova but the continuing lack of respect for bassist Kim Deal's contributions to the band left them increasingly at the mercy of leader Frank Black's madness. Trompe le Monde was by far their weakest album to date; "Planet of Sound" was representative of their gradual decline as they embraced noise over pop hooks and melody. The imminent arrival on the world stage of a certain Seattle three piece should have made the Boston scene irrelevant but love for Pixies in particular would never fade away. While there are reasons to hold them close to the bosom, there are an equal number of reasons you needn't bother with all but their best stuff. To wit.
