XTC: "Generals and Majors"

4 September 1980

"Two singles for the price of one — and the freebie isn't a flexi-disc or musically anything less than high quality."

— Deanne Pearson

What I previously said:

Old Farters Parters may not have had great taste in records but he and his chums knew a little about pumping out ace stuff of their own. Seemingly as much attracted to this due to its value-for-money two record set as for its infectious synthesized whistling and all-around jauntiness, it's interesting to note just how much emphasis reviewers placed on B-sides and extra tracks in making their evaluations. It's commendable of them to do so but in the case of "Generals & Majors" they needn't have bothered as it fizzles with energy and is a perfect launch pad for their sublime album Black Sea — and a taster for what a live powerhouse they were supposed to be at the time.

It was the early part of 1979 and Swindon's XTC were struggling to break through in a big way. While their sound of "Roxy Music's Editions of You on diet of a cheap white powder" proved popular on the live scene and their first two albums from a year earlier sold well, they had yet to land on the singles chart, a trend that would continue to blight them for much of the next twenty years. Records like "This Is Pop" and "Statue of Liberty" are still top notch and they don't seem out of place alongside other new wave/post-punk 45's of the time but for whatever reason they failed to make an impact. Well schooled in Beatles-Beach Boys-Kinks recordings, Andy Partridge nevertheless lacked strong commercial pop instincts, especially around this time. What they need was for their less productive songwriter — a young man with a penchant for Uriah Heep and prog rock — to step up.

"Life Begins at the Hop" introduced the second phase of XTC, in which the wild organ bits of Barry Andrews were jettisoned in favour of the stellar fret work of Dave Gregory. It also launch Colin Moulding as a formidable songwriter to rival the much more prolific Partridge. Less ragged and stuttering than their earlier work, it has a classic, clean sound and told the tale of young kids spending time at this local joint where they could enjoy nuts and crisps and "co-co-co-cola on tap". The lyrics seem naive but the single got them on Top of the Pops for the first time and it delighted enough buyers to give them a modest chart entry of 54. Progress was being made. Confident, Moulding delivered another single that would also open their third album Drums & Wires. "Making Plans for Nigel" is still the number they are best remembered for in the UK as it tapped into Thatcherism and ludicrous Tory job placement schemes. It also happens to be utterly brilliant and it took them all the way into the Top 20. Not bad for a secondary, George Harrison-esque songwriter. 

For his part, Partridge was beginning to feel the heat. A third Moulding-composed single on the bounce ("Ten Feet Tall") came and went while his mostly excellent Drums & Wires contributions were destined to become deep cuts. He did pen the non-album single "Wait Till Your Boat Goes Down" but it quickly disappeared. Stressed but far from discouraged, Partridge offered up nine outstanding pieces for follow-up album Black Sea but Moulding once again got the ball rolling with "Generals and Majors", their breakthrough smash that never was.

XTC's fourth album was all about power. They now had a pair of ace guitarists who would were both adept at lead and rhythm parts and in Terry Chambers they had perhaps the hardest hitting drummer of his generation. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a period in which they were receiving rave reviews for their concerts. North Americans started paying attention and this resulted in fans across the Atlantic thinking of them as a power pop group and they ever began to get lumped in with British groups who otherwise didn't want to have anything to do with them. (Elvis Costello had to keep their influence on his composition "White Knuckles" from the Trust album a secret from his bandmates or he "risked a rebellion") Critical praise, a growing reputation, some chart momentum: this ought to have been their chance.

I don't know if I'd go so far to say that "Generals and Majors" was a failure. Sure, it underperformed but this was already nothing new for them. It didn't help that they didn't perform the single on Top of the Pops and the promo that was made was naff and was described by Partridge as "the worst video ever made by man". All things considered, 32 isn't bad and it kick started a modest run of three Top 40 hits on the bounce, a feat they never came close to replicating. (Amazingly, it is the highest charting single of the twenty-one new releases reviewed this fortnight by Deanne Pearson; the crop being a collection of has-beens, and no-names)

Yet, it wasn't the hit it deserved to be. The public may have been turned off by the material and probably didn't understand the satire involved. Britain was still a couple years away from the Falklands War when there may have been more of an audience for making fun of hawks and blind patriotism. Quite why the outstanding tune and band performance didn't wow more people is a bigger mystery. While Pearson is delighted by extra tracks "Don't Lose Your Temper" (one of thebetter b-sides by a group that didn't typically excel in this particular area), "Smokeless Zone" and "The Somnambulist", it's a iron-clad rule that XTC never did themselves any favours with the punters when they tried stretching out a little. So much for value for money.

Partridge ended up penning the next three hit singles for his band (more on this in a few weeks) yet his insecurities proved difficult to shake. Record label Virgin considered the more photogenic Moulding to be their cash cow and they entered sessions for fifth album English Settlement (yet another one that would be tipped as their breakthrough) with both a hit maker and a challenging visionary behind their material. It was only when the reserved bassist put together the effects-heavy anti-hit "Fly on the Wall" that his star began to fade. And that would be XTC's unenviable path forward: breakthroughs that failed to materialise, expectations dashed, paltry sales and all from a band that was among the best in the world.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Leo Sayer: "Once in a While"

The "Old Sailor" doesn't impress Deanne Pearson much but he sounds in top form to these ears. 1980 may not have been a time for middle-of-the-road heartbroken balladeers to connect with music critics but things are a lot different forty years on. Sounding like a bit like a country singer, Leo is remarkably irony-free for a British vocalist but even that seems like a breath of fresh air considering the cynical pop world of the time being loaded with the likes of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Paul Weller. But were the record buyers buying it? Were they 'eck! People didn't bother with XTC when they got more and more progressive while turning their backs on his nibs here because he was doing the same old thing. There's just no pleasing some people, is there?

Adam & The Ants: "Kings of the Wild Frontier"

7 August 1980

"A record packed with activity and sounding like a new wave Indian war dance."

— Deanne Pearson

Between Deanne Pearson giving her thumbs up to "Kings of the Wild Frontier" in August, 1980 and Dave Rimmer making "Strip" his Single of the Fortnight right at the end of 1983, Adam Ant was on fire. He guided the Ants to seven Top 10 hits, including a pair of number ones, and then went solo and had three more big hits, with another chart topper added for good measure. Three number ones and ten Top 10 hits isn't exactly unprecedented but it's still very impressive and there weren't many people doing better. But both "Kings of the Wild Frontier" and "Strip" initially missed the Top 40; flops that bookend their imperial period.

Like virtually everyone of the time, Adam Ant came out of punk. He wasn't a punk in the conventional sense but that's probably for the best since orthodox punks tended to produce the least impressive music. Yet, his interest in fetish gear and S 'n' M lyrics had been a firm part of punk's early days being associated with Malcolm McLaren, Vivian Westwood and their famed London shop known as Sex. Siouxsie Sioux had managed to get away with looking like a dominatrix because that was what was expected of her; male punks were supposed to puke on stage, flash V signs and be ready for a scrap with the audience. Simon Price contends that The Ants were considered to be a "joke" in punk circles and at least part of this may simply be down to their desire to dress up like gimps and hardcore sex fiends.

'Dress up' is the optimal term here. Though they developed a loyal following, they weren't getting anywhere special in the late seventies and their record label Decca decided to drop them. They signed to an indie but not much changed. Then, McLaren swooped in and nicked the Ants away from Adam to form Bowwowwow. Deciding to go forward with a new line-up, Ant decided to change up their image and the Dandy Highwayman was born, albeit one that also incorporated Native American face paints into his image. Veteran 'Antpeople', as their fanbase had become known, reacted badly to this change because while dressing like Dick Turpin is clearly stupid, leather fetishwear is for real. Everybody knows that.

Boring old charges of selling out aside, his most loyal original followers must have known there was a fetching pop star hiding in there somewhere. Like Marc Bolan a decade earlier, you wonder what took him so long to figure this all out. Not especially handsome, he nonetheless had a face that a camera couldn't turn away from. Glam rockers were always able to cut a presence on stage and Ant is very much from this tradition.

The only thing lacking in this attractive package is quality music. I'm willing to acknowledge that Deanne Pearson isn't wrong about everything she has to say about "Kings of the Wild Frontier" only it sounds poorly recorded, the bass-heavy new wave sound has been done to death and Ant is a very workmanlike vocalist. (Did he ever need to be a good singer? Probably not but it still never helped his boring records) The single is one of his last with a real "punk" sound and, thus, could be a much more "authentic" document but, as I already suggested above, I tend to think it was all artificial.

So, what did people see in "Kings of the Wild Frontier" as a record free of Adam Ant's poses? Well, not much at first. Upon this release in August of 1980, it only peaked as high as 48 and wouldn't make it into the Top 10 for several months once the ball really got rolling. The foot stomping chorus that could've come straight out of a Slade song should've had instant appeal with kids in the UK of the time but it drifted away before the majority of them had the chance to give it a listen. With the likes of ABBA, Blondie and The Jam dominating the charts, there may not have been room for Ant even if he was trying to force his way in. Notably, it wasn't until that autumn that things began to change. "The Tide Is High" and "Super Trouper" were both dutifully taken to number one but without that same thrill of old. Paul Weller and his mates were done releasing singles from Sound Affects and were looking to go in another direction. The Police were on the rise by then but they were a bit older; Bucks Fizz had won Eurovision but they were appealing to a less discerning pop fan. Adam & The Ants suddenly had a void they were happy to fill.

As I've said before, you probably had to be there to fully appreciate Adam Ant's genius. I'm sure that seeing him strutting his stuff on Top of the Pops doing "Stand and Deliver" was a sight to behold that had the kids yammering away in awe the following morning on playgrounds all over Britain. I'm equally sure that critics — who otherwise may not have taken him seriously — appreciated having a media-friendly star who could sell magazines after years of punks giving flippant interviews. I'll even acknowledge his importance as a bridge from punk to the New Romantics and as the template of the pop star for the eighties (surely Boy George, the compelling figurehead in a band with three other members who were all much better looking, was paying attention). An important figure and a character that demanded attention; so much going for him. A pity I've never liked any of his actual music.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

David Bowie: "Ashes to Ashes"

Pearson infamously dismissed Dame David's latest single as a "strange choice for a single" and "not a hit". Imagine her surprise, then, when it shot to the top of the charts a little over two weeks after this issue of Smash Hits was published. It's tempting to belittle her lack of foresight but how was she to know? "Heroes" only got to 24 in the charts and it's a killer record, so how could she have predicted a number one from this one? And, hey, I lack taste as far as Adam Ant's discography is concerned so why shouldn't she fail to see what an astonishing single "Ashes to Ashes" is? Whatever, it ended up topping the charts for a fortnight and is still the Bowie record I'm most interesting in going back to. Impressionistic, sparse, immensely creative, sort of catchy but not quite the kind of thing you might sing along with, highly individual: all the elements that made him so special and very much missed. "Ashes to Ashes" is a monster and should easily have been this issue's Single of the Fortnight.

Siouxsie & The Banshees: "Christine" / The Stranglers: "Who Wants the World?"

12 June 1980

"Barely recognisable as the Banshees."

"After a clutch of weak singles, the Stranglers totally reverse their position, and along with the Banshees shine out as this week's single of the weekers."

— Deanne Pearson

There's none of that 'Record of the week'/'Personal record of the week' stuff going on this fortnight (though someone really ought to have informed the reviewer that she was writing for a fortnightly publication), Deanne Pearson simply has two favourites that she is unable to choose between. This time, there's also less of a divide between her choice cuts: an elegant Cole Porter standard by Ella Fitzgerald and a burst of post-punk energy from The Flowers couldn't have been more different; while there certainly is plenty separating Siouxsie & The Banshees and The Stranglers, both groups came to prominence at a similar time, achieved comparable levels of success and would probably be similarly remembered today. Fans of one may well have been into the other, even if they hardly go hand-in-hand.

Siouxsie Sioux and Steve Severin had been members of the famed Bromley Contingent, a noted pack of Sex Pistols fans that likely had more talent than the band they followed. While Billy Idol made a career out of this association, Sioux and Severin were quick to distance themselves from the punks. She had started off the notorious Filth and the Fury TV interview with Bill Grundy but it wasn't long after that the pair stopped attending Pistols' gigs. They had already formed a band a year earlier and had used a young John Simon Richie (aka Sid Vicious) to drum for them at their first show. She received a great deal of attention following the Grundy debacle but rather than capitalize on the notoriety, she stepped back and got to work on making The Banshees into a much better group than the one she had attached herself to.

Meanwhile, The Stranglers were being lumped into a scene that they were merely running parallel with. Drummer Jet Black was born two years before John Lennon but their reputation for being elder statesmen of punk was overstated. With both Ian Dury and Charlie Harper of the U.K. Subs being in their mid-thirties, The Stranglers' drummer being over forty wasn't that out of the ordinary. A number of American punks — Patti Smith and Debbie Harry just to name two — were also past their twenties and Stranglers Hugh Cornwell and Dave Greenfield fit into that generation. Not everyone was like the nineteen-year-old Siouxsie Sioux.

Having said all that, the real reason The Stranglers never quite fit in with punk was that they weren't really punks to begin with — or, at best, they were punks in the same way that Lennon and Keith Richards were punks (ie not at all). They played aggressively, sure, but garage rock had been around since at least the mid-sixties and the only thing punk about, say, "Louis, Louis" by The Kingsman is that people commenting on YouTube videos will claim that they're the first punk (even though they weren't). They may have done well as a result of punk and the genre's rise in popularity opened doors for them that had previously been locked tightly

"Hong Kong Garden" had already been a single-of-the-year candidate back in 1978 so The Banshees were hitting their stride right from the start. Their run of singles stretching over at least the next decade is outstanding, as good as any group of their time. As Pearson suggests, "Christine" is something of a turning point, as they began exploring sounds beyond the bleak and doom-laden. The lineup of Sioux, Severin and Budgie (maybe I'm just not much of a Banshee follower but I often forget that they were just a trio; a lot of five-piece groups would have struggled to match their power and layers of sound) are synched up so well. Siouxsie's voice is confident and only she could do S&M goth rock but I do wish she could be a little more playful, not unlike the way Robert Smith is able to coyly flirt with the listener on The Cure's "The Lovecats". Groups like Strawberry Switchblade and The Belle Stars were swiftly finding a home merging post-punk wastelands with glorious pop but this was beyond the reach of Siouxie Sioux, assuming she ever even wanted it. Nevertheless, "Christine" is a fine track that takes a proud place in The Banshees' admirable discography.

While The Banshees were on a roll, The Stranglers were struggling following their superb early singles like "Peaches", "No More Heroes" and "Nice 'n' Sleazy" which all did well during punk's golden age. While younger groups (so much for their age not being an issue) were progressing, developing as songwriters, trying new things, their more recent material had begun to stagnate. "Who Wants the World?" does have some of that old energy but I'm not as convinced by it as Pearson. The Stranglers boxed themselves into a corner: they were better off when their songs were kept simple but, as a result, this often meant that their records sound incomplete. As she says, Wakefield's organ is as brilliant and distinctive as ever but the rest is lacking. A reasonable stab at their patented brand of dirtbag rock but an unmemorable one. They weren't quite ready to move on from not being punks but the near-number one success of their 1982 single "Golden Brown" would be just what they needed. It only goes to show they weren't new wavers either.

In a Smash Hits singles review that also features an appalling Sex Pistols' cover of The Monkees' "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone", it is clear that some were having trouble letting go from the heady days of '77. Then again, post-Lydon Pistols were all about ripping people off: some of their fans may not have known what was going on but a flash-in-the-pan band was happy to exploit them. The Stranglers had never been punks, Siouxsie & The Banshees weren't any longer and the Sex Pistols were busy proving that punk was just a brand. Maybe no one was punk and no one had ever been punk: now there's a thought.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bob Marley & The Wailers: "Could You Be Loved"

I've long preferred The Wailers to Bob Marley & The Wailers: the original trio of Marley, Pet Tosh and the recently departed Bunny Wailer was a superstar unit and one in which no one individual deserved to hog the spotlight. (I have nothing against the post-Tosh/Wailer period though I resent reissues of earlier albums that use the latter credit) Now joined by Rita Marley and a bunch of people I've never heard of, it's only right that his nibs would take lion's share of the credit. His work following the Natty Dread album is inconsistent but the bulk of the singles are still pretty good. "Could You Be Loved" is one of those ones that I never need to listen to because I can always count on it winding up played in the mild of a film about backpacking the tropics or political prisoners or bloody romantic comedies since the Marley estate will allow the great man's stuff to spread as far out as possible. Punk had become a brand and the king of reggae would soon follow suit.

Ella Fitzgerald: "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" / The Flowers: "Ballad of Miss Demeanour"

29 May 1980 (with more on the next page which may be found here)

"Puts you in the mood for slushy romantic '50s films on a Sunday afternoon complete with Clark Gable/Betty Grable (according to gender) and a box of chocolates."

"Clever, quirky, and compelling."

— Deanne Pearson

There's some confusion with this fortnight's singles. Deanne Pearson has two picks earmarked for 'Record of the Week' but has them categorized differently. Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of the Cole Porter classic "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" is her 'Personal record of the week' while "Ball of Miss Demeanour" by new wave act The Flowers is her 'Record of the week'. I initially had the latter penciled in as the subject of this post because of the more definitive title but I reconsidered the matter when I thought about which one would have been her favourite. If anything, it's probably more likely that her personal choice is the one she prefers. It's impossible to say either way so I've made them co-SOTF.

Ella Fitzgerald's recording of "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" was already twenty-three years old by the time Pearson had recommended it in Smash Hits. She was signed to the Verve label at the time and was riding a wave of success following several top notch albums. In 1956, she recorded Ella Fitzegerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook with a young arranger and conductor by the name of Buddy Bregman. While he would only work with the Great Lady of Song on one additional Songbook (that of the great duo of Rodgers and Hart), she would cut six additional LPs — many of them two record sets — of material of composers from the golden age of American songwriting. These collections are excellent but the quality of them is so high that it can be tricky for individual tracks to stick out. Is "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" any better than, say, "Love for Sale" or "Begin the Beguine"? Nope. All thirty-two songs from the Porter Songbook are great but too much of a good thing etc., etc.

On its own in single form, however, "Ev'ry Time..." is stunning. Fitzgerald sings it as only she could: her voice sounds like no one in the history of recorded music yet she wasn't the least bit flashy with it and takes command of a song without overwhelming it. No one has ever been able to make her voice wobble like she could: a technical deficiency that was one of her strengths. Cole Porter had been at his peak as a songwriter in the thirties and his material would have been familiar to Fitzgerald but it's for the best that she didn't tackle his stuff until twenty years later. Her voice was never better than when she was in her forties and the quality of the Norman Granz-produced recordings for Verve in Hollywood are immaculate. The LP era coincided with the rise of the modern American recording studio. (Oddly, older jazz artists such as Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington adapted to the medium of the long playing album better than younger acts like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker)

Pearson's 'Record of the week' (doesn't she know that ver Hits is a fortnightly mag?) couldn't be more different from her 'Personal' pick, the former not even being in the same league as the latter and how could it be? Porter's composition is a classic and was good enough that even Simply Red's version from 1987 isn't bad. The Flowers had something fresh (Pearson states that the "new wave of pop is headed by bands such as these and The Teardrop Explodes"; one wonders if the Scottish punk-funk-popsters had hit singles in them like their Merseyside contemporaries — they also toured with the likes of The Human League and OMD so they were certainly adjacent to success) but it now sounds far too much like a post-punk period piece, in some ways older than Ella taking on the Great American Songbook. No one would have heard a jazz vocalist in 1956 and thought "damn, this is the future!" but there almost certainly were people listening to "Ballad of Miss Demeanour" thinking those very thoughts. Pearson is one of them.

I've been doing this blog for long enough that the romance of the post-punk/new wave era has completely warn off. The Flowers (not to be confused with the Australian band of the saand would later become Icehouse) possess many of those traits that ought to have made them seem dated more than forty years later: HI-Ray (aka Hilary Morrison) has those manically robotic vocals that bring to mind Lene Lovich, The Slits and Gary Numan, the bass is ultra sparse, the guitars spidery and they all come together wrapped in a cheap, echoey production. Yet, it's a better composition than many of the tackier tunes I've sifted through over the last three years. It doesn't necessarily suggest a promising future (in spite of what I wrote above) only that this Edinburgh foursome must put on an awfully good gig so go out and see 'em dammit!

Two vastly different records from May of 1980. One was already nearing its quarter century, the other freshly pressed in some dingy Edinburgh shop. One was a standard, the other would stand alone. Today, one of them is a relic from a distant past while the other has since been brought back to life by Lady Gaga. One is timeless, the other very much of its time. The rock era carbon dates many of the genres and artists who have come up through it; the Great American Songbook just keeps carrying on.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Fleetwood Mac: "Think About Me"

Considered by Pearson to be the nadir of ver Mac, even if she acknowledges that the musicianship and vocals are both "quality". She's put off by the song being a filler and I guess that's fair enough though I'd argue that it's just one of many examples of Christine McVie being their strongest songwriter. It is sturdier than your average Lindsey Buckingham composition (though like "Don't Stop" it demonstrates that she was very good at crafting tunes that could easily have been written by his nibs) and has more musical meat on its bones than those flowery Stevie Nicks numbers. That said, "Think About Me" is one of twenty absolutely superb tracks that make up their true masterpiece Tusk and I can understand it slipping through the cracks or getting ignored. Granted, the remixed single version smooths things out a little too much but this isn't pop-rock you should be thumbing your nose at.