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.

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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)

Kim Wilde: "Child Come Away"

14 October 1982

"Add Kim's strong vocal performance plus a piccolo-headed arrangement that nudges into the realms of folk-rock and you have a Rak track that will ensure standing room only throughout Kim's current tour. Outstanding."

— Fred Dellar

A little girl is growing up in a small town. Everything about her life is normal: she goes to school, plays with her friends, argues with her brothers and sisters and refuses to eat anything with onions in it. She spends her pocket money on sweets and is disappointed that her parents still won't relent and get her a puppy. Then she learns about the abduction of a girl close to her age and her world is turned upside down.

"Child Come Away" is a song about two girls: the one who gets snatched and left for dead and the one who is privy to the unraveling of everything around her. Innocence ends up being yanked away from both. Obviously the former is put through so much more but the lingering affects are left as a burden on the former: not knowing quite what happened (much less how or why), learning little snippets of detail but being denied the full story by parents and a town that doesn't want to discuss it, living in fear that she could be next. Fred Dellar mentions a "town filled with terror" but I suspect there's more to it than that. The community is in denial as to what's been going on — or perhaps it was somehow even complicit in the crime.

That the Wilde family was able to come up with this gripping four-minute thriller is absolutely remarkable. Having already trotted out a pair of sorrowful yet superb singles with "Cambodia" and "View from a Bridge", they were well positioned to deliver yet another tragic piece and "Child Come Away" is their zenith. Kim seems to have toned down the vocal frostiness that worked such a treat on her early records but which wasn't appropriate for this type of song, leaving room for a sweetness that captures the childlike wonder and confusion going on. I don't know if I agree with Dellar that the "piccolo-headed arrangement" moves the song into the "realms of folk-rock" but it is effective nonetheless. I have to wonder if it's intended as a Pied Piper-esque tool to symbolise a child being lured away, while other children are being shuffled off to the side and told to go and play and stop asking so many bloody questions.

It's as a piece of writing, however, that "Child Come Away" truly shines. The lack of clarity in the story may seem strange at first but that's precisely the point. What exactly happened to this girl in the sand? What kind of appalling state was she left in that everyone in town — including the judge at the trial — turns away from her now? Has she been cast aside by the community as much as her captor/torturer ("I saw her face in the back of the car / As they were speeding out of this town")? We aren't to know, just as the other young girl in this song isn't to know. And we can look at this situation and gasp the heartlessness of the townsfolk but that's how close-knit communities often deal with these situations. Had it been a bigger hit it could easily have gone on to be used as the theme for the David Tennant-Jodie Whittaker mystery-thriller TV series Broadchurch.

So, all that said, how did it fail to catch on, falling short of the Top 40? Being her third single on the trot dealing with dark subject matter may have turned people off, especially DJs who were content around this time to spin sunny reggae-pop by the likes of Musical Youth, Culture Club and Eddy Grant instead. (Hopefully it did indeed manage to grip audiences during Wilde's tour; I like to think that she still occasionally floors her fans with it at shows to this day. If I ever get the chance to see her I'll holler in delight if she happens to dust this one off) In retrospect, it's a shame it wasn't released as a double A-side with its jauntier — though still appropriately angsty — flip "Just Another Guy": come for the whiplash pop-rock, stay for the searing devastation.

The Wilde trio of Kim, Marty and Ricki had quietly become one of the most formidable ensembles in early eighties' UK pop. Five Top 20 hits and a pair of well-received albums showed that they were onto something. Yet, this remarkable sixth single sputtered. Looking to change things up, they would hit upon a finger-clicking, toe-tapping jazz number that poked fun at Kim's reputation as a bombshell but long term this led her in the direction of uninspired and forgettable dance-pop. She would enjoy a commercial and critical renaissance by decade's end but those brilliant narrative songs had been sacrificed. Too bad that the Wildes didn't keep it going and that the public didn't appreciate them more.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Philip Lynott: "Old Town"

No doubt old school rock 'n' rollers hated the ex-Thin Lizzy leader going by the name of 'Philip' and had this record written off even before giving it a listen. Granted, catchy pub rock in the spirit of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and B.A. Robertson wasn't the most original path Phil Lynott could have taken to revive his fortunes but it's a bouncy effort and his Ferry-esque vocals go down surprisingly well. He even manages to imitate Billy Joel pretty well. An effortless stab at "aiming for a bit of class" as Dellar says which only makes me admire Philip Lynott even more than I already did. No mere boozy Irish rocker, the man could stumble his way into any genre he saw fit. Much missed.

(Click here to see my original review)

Stevie Wonder: "Do I Do"

10 June 1982 (with more over on the next page)

"Uptown, uptempo Wonderware and a zillion times more commendable than Stevie's recent pal-up with Paulie."

— Fred Dellar 

It is generally accepted that Wonder's classic period began with 1972's Music of My Mind and saw him through a fab five L.P. run up to Songs in the Key of Life four years later but I think it ought to be extended a little in both directions. 1971's Where I'm Coming From acts as a dry run towards his artistic independence but it is mature and individual enough to qualify. Post-'76, there's the eccentric Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (imperial periods inevitably come with at least a small dose of hubris) and the hit-packed Hotter Than July from 1980. Despite the strong quality of the material, it tends to get left off of the "classic period" since he was no longer as prolific as he had been in the first half of the seventies and it may not have helped that it was his first long player lacking in a silly and/or slightly pretentious title since Signed, Sealed & Delivered a full decade earlier. For certain, his output had slowed down and this was just the beginning. ("Fun" fact: Stevie Wonder has only released four studio albums over the past forty years)

As if acknowledging that the creative peak was over, Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium I (a welcome return to form in the daft album title stakes) collects some of his choicest cuts from the previous ten years. Of note, the "recent pal-up with Paulie" is absent, possibly due to record label shenanigans, as are those fantastic early Wonder hits like "Fingertips", "Uptight" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours". A comprehensive career collection it isn't. Presumably, this is the stuff that the man himself was proudest of. I have trouble overlooking the decision not to include the sublime "Another Star" but it's a strong compilation all the same.

Possibly in an effort to get more people to shell out for yet another Stevie Wonder double album set, a generous four new tracks were included. Each one was placed strategically at the end of each side of vinyl with each newbie meant to fit in perfectly with their companion cuts. Side one of the first disc closes with the rocking "Front Line", a song about a Vietnam vet struggling with his post-war existence which fits the political tone of "Superstition", "You Haven't Done Nothin'" and "Living for the City". Flip the disc over and you get the sweetly "Ribbon in the Sky" which matches the loving and warm "Superwoman", "Send One Your Love" and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life". Put on the first side of disc two and there's the moody R&B groove of "That Girl" which hangs with "Higher Ground", "Sir Duke", "Master Blaster" and "Boogie on Reggae Woman".

The only trouble is, these closing tracks all pale in comparison to everything else. They can't even hope to come close to any of them. For example, "Front Line" might have made a fine deep cut but it lags when having to follow the mighty trio of numbers preceding it. "Ribbon in the Sky" comes across as just a cheap facsimile of some of Wonder's gorgeous love songs. "That Girl" feels flat held up against four of the catchiest tunes you'll ever hear.

Side four is a different matter. There are only three cuts, two of which are well-known selections from Songs in the Key of Life. Nothing against "I Wish" and "Isn't She Lovely" but they aren't quite standouts the way "Contusion", "Sir Duke", "Ordinary Pain", "As" and "Another Star" are. In fact, removed from Wonder's second album masterpiece and they don't manage to hold up as well. Thus, "Do I Do" closes out Original Musiquarium on something of a high note.

Still, it isn't quite grade 'A' Wonderware. The version on the compilation is a rather over-long ten minutes that doesn't quite justify its length the way both "As" and "Another Star" did on Songs in the Key of Life" (having said that, it doesn't get quite as tedious as either "Maybe Your Baby" or "Love's in Need of Love Today" so it does have that going for it); the single edit is more than enough with all the high spots covered. Yes, Dizzy Gillespie's solo has been axed but it's a disappointment so it isn't missed. (Jazz greats like Wayne Shorter, Walter Brecker, Victor Feldman and Jaco Pastorius had been appearing on a lot of pop and rock records in the late-seventies and their contributions vastly outstrip Diz's rather lax playing here) The one real issue with "Do I Do" is that it's clear Wonder was no longer leading the way. Bassist Nathan Watts was one of his secret weapons and here he plays the kind of frenetic scales that made Chic's Bernard Edwards into a star. And really, it could easily have been produced by Edwards and cohort Nile Rodgers in the midst of their post-disco boom period. Wonder's time as a leading light of pop and R&B was coming to an end.

Luckily, this did little to halt his success rate. The much maligned "Ebony and Ivory" had been a worldwide number one smash earlier in 1982 which seemed to launch Stevie Wonder as a more middle-of-the-road entertainer. His notoriety was such that even something rotten like "I Just Called to Say I Love You" was a megahit. The pleasant but inconsequential "Part-Time Lover" was probably the best he was capable of at the time. And there you have it with an imperial period: it may encompass a remarkable creative roll but it can even include shoddy work so long as it proves popular. And if you happen to be a national treasure, it can even carry on indefinitely long after the hits have dried up. When did classic Stevie Wonder come to an end? It's still chugging along.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Modern English: "Life in the Gladhouse"

Band that did one famous song in 'I-Didn't-Know-They-Had-Other-Hits!' shock. "I Melt with You" has managed to take on such a life of its own over the past forty years that it's surprising it wasn't a lot bigger at the time. But it wasn't even their first go in the Top 40. As the late Fred Dellar states, "Life in the Gladhouse" is dominated by its percussion. It's also loaded with key changes and Modern English seem content to show off their generally overlooked diversity of sound. The downside is there isn't much of a song to go with their vigourous performance. Lots of fun and a sure-fire fan fave live but not the sort of thing that will be remembered in the future. That's where "Melt with You" comes in.

(Click here to see my original review)

The Jam: "Absolute Beginners"

15 October 1981

"And if Paul Weller's lyrics won't see him installed as poet laureate in the next fortnight, they should at least help him grace the charts till his current supply of pocket money runs out."

— Fred Dellar

Poet laureate, Fred? Really? I mean, I love me some Weller — The Jam's Greatest Hits was one of the key albums in my musical explorations, I adore The Style Council and I even have plenty of time of much of his solo career — but he's hardly the first pop scribe I'd consider for the position. While there are poets who have used nonsense in order to craft their verse, at least it's possible to make out the nonsense; it is not so easy with Weller. His delivery is so fast, his enunciation so muddied that it is near impossible to make out what he is saying.

No one in pop has as many mondegreens as Paul Weller. "With my Cherry Coke, walls come tumbling down..." is a personal favourite of mine but there are dozens of them spread out over his lengthy career. Yet, "Absolute Beginners" isn't flush with them since it's damn near impossible to make out anything he's singing about at all!

1980 had been The Jam's year. They had two number one singles and released the critically acclaimed album Sound Affects but by far the clearest sign that their popularity had gone through the roof was the success of "That's Entertainment", a deep cut that they refused to issue as a single in the UK. Copies of the West German release were made available in Britain and sales were strong enough for it to nearly crack the Top 20. (It doesn't appear to have done anything in Germany at all: it must have sold more on import than domestically) That's an imperial period for you.

Yet, there wasn't much of an attempt to capitalize on their popularity. 1981 was a relatively quiet year with just two non-album singles following "That's Entertainment". Any new product would have been in demand but the chart performances for both "Funeral Pyre" and "Absolute Beginners" must have been a bit disappointing. While both peaked at a solid but unspectacular number four, they followed the path of the single that was only being snapped up by loyalists: they entered high, lingered for a couple weeks in the Top 10 and then promptly fell off.

The last time I blogged about this one I felt the need to point out (repeatedly) that Fred Deller failed to notice The Jam's change of direction but I now recognise that there's no way he would have detected much of a shift with just one new single to go on. Weller had been upfront about his debt to the sixties from the moment The Jam emerged back in 1977 (something that immediately set them apart from the punks, who were all doing a feeble job pretending that the swinging decade didn't matter) so using a section was no different than covering The Kinks or stealing basslines from The Beatles. Speaking of the Fab Four, the in unison horns give way near the end to a "Penny Lane"-esque trumpet solo. As was the case with the bulk of their post-"Going Underground" work, this tune is awash in the sixties.

Brit-funk and new wave-influenced soul were on the rise in the UK in the early eighties. Spandau Ballet were coming along, ABC were about to drop but this first shot of black music to emerge from Weller was not coming from the same place as these bands. The dual force of Joy Division and Chic presented whole careers for several British groups but Weller was far too much of a mod with Motown and northern soul records to have much in common with them. (He would eventually find the connection with the proto-baggy "Precious" which was an effective tails to its co-double A-side "Town Called Malice", a song that did for "You Can't Hurry Love" what the 1980 single "Start!" did for "Taxman") Contemporary influence was all well and good but it would never outstrip 

The song's Wikipedia page mentions that record label Polydor would have preferred to have "Tales from the Riverbank" as the A-side with "Absolute Beginners" demoted to the flip. Notably, there's a [citation needed] mark accompanying it and it's easy to see why. While it isn't quite one of their prime singles, there's no question that it had the far greater commercial potential of the two. Weller's B-sides seemed to exist in a world divorced from his current interests and obsessions and "Tales from the Riverbank" is one such example. The title might seem like a bouncy number by his protegees Ocean Colour Scene but it's abrasive, the product of The Jam continuing to follow their post-punk path from Sound Affects and "Funeral Pyre". It isn't exactly hook-filled either. Nope, I call bullshit on this claim.

It would be a slow year for The Jam — though they did tour a fair amount, even if their North American venues weren't exactly Shea Stadium (not that there's anything wrong with playing the Ottawa Technical High School Auditorium) — but a crucial one as they entered their final stage. While Dexys Midnight Runners had been soul revivalists, The Jam were dealing with yet another part of the past to put forth a case for their future. I just wish I didn't have to check the lyric sheets every time I give them a listen.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Associates: "Message Oblique Speech"

Oh, so Weller should be named poet laureate forthwith but The Associates "spin out seemingly nonsensical lyrics"? At least we're able to make out Billy Mckenzie's nonsense. Yet, Dellar isn't wrong. David Bowie was known for 'cut and paste' lyrics but Mckenzie seemed to take the practice a step further by doing so with multiple songs all at once. The production is rough, the music raw but the Mckenzie-Rankine partnership was already flourishing. They were mere months away from the pop charts but "Message Oblique Speech" and "Party Fears Two" might as well be separated by regime changes, world wars and the shift from silent films to digital. Talented folk operating on a shoestring: just think what they could accomplish with a pile of record company money?

(Click here to see my original review)

The Specials: "Ghost Town"

11 June 1981

"A tune full of Eastern promise about towns going west, due to the current rate of unemployment."

— Fred Dellar

From 1979 to 1981, The Specials were the finest group in the world. They were a killer live act (and still are by all accounts). They looked like the part of the coolest people who were in the coolest band, just the sort of unit that young musicians have aspired to be a part of. The pop video was still in its infancy but they proved to be masters of cutting a sweet promo. They stood for something. Oh, and their first two albums — The Specials and More Specials (the mundane title of the latter won't do at all: it is anything but more of the same) — are brilliant, their run of hit singles is flawless and their B sides are as good as any you'll find.

Before I get to praising "Ghost Town", I'd like to discuss its pair of stellar flip sides. While the record's A side is rightly seen being the zeitgeist of early-eighties' Thatcherism, "Why" and "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" are equally potent throwbacks to that era — even though they both remain sadly relevant to this day. Being the age of the Rock Against Racism, one might have expected Specials' guitarist/singer Lynval Golding to have composed a bitterly angry treatment in opposition to the rise of the National Front and neo-Nazis; instead, "Why" is sad, as if written from the perspective of an innocent black or brown child confronted with prejudice for the first time. (The Specials themselves would record a much clearer anti-racist jab with "Racist Friend" though it is much more earnest)

The Kinks-esque character in "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" is an interesting counterpoint to "Why". There's nothing to suggest that the protagonist in this Terry Hall-penned number harbours any ill-feeling towards minorities but it does suggest that whites who feel like others have taken their jobs might want to consider making their own lives a little less dreary. White people who drink all the time to dull their senses really have no business considering others to be inferior. A sort of sequel to "Nite Klub" but with the mindless hedonism of old having given way to being resigned to just how empty his life is ("wish I had lipstick on my shirt, instead of piss stains on my shoes"). Yet, it's a song not without a sense of humour. Hall had begun to find his way as a songwriter to be reckoned with.

A duo of outstanding B sides but they're both bonuses. No one bought "Ghost Town" for anything but the A side and rightly so. As I have already mentioned, much has been made of it capturing that period of riots and strikes and the sheer misery of Thatcher's Britain but it's also a remarkable single in its own right. (Tom Ewing has made that very point much more elegantly that I ever could: "even if the grim energy of “Ghost Town” hadn’t fitted the times so well, even if the song had remained simply a lament for a scene (and a band) in breakdown, it would still be a gothic masterpiece") While I tend to prefer much more concise 7" mixes/edits of pop records, this is a very obvious exception: three-and-a-quarter minutes of running time does not do it justice; six minutes better allows for build-up and an appreciation for its unsettling atmosphere. Having more time to listen to "Ghost Town" forces the listener in to experience ghastly neighbourhoods and New Towns and streets of nothing but urban decay. The shorter version is great but only with the extended mix does the listener grasp the full scope of Jerry Dammers' vision.

Famously, The Specials imploded while "Ghost Town" was still riding the charts. Having the E.P. The Special A.K.A Live go to number one a year earlier was a feat that the Coventry septet could enjoy together; this time, however, there was a distinct lack of joy in spite of having the most popular record in the country, one that would be a near-unanimous pick for single of the year. Golding has said that he knew the band was finished while performing it on Top of the Pops. What should have been their crowning moment became a bittersweet valedictory address.

Golding, Hall and fellow Special Neville Staple were off to form Fun Boy Three, a group that would similarly go out on a high note two years later with their version of "Our Lips Are Sealed". Guitarist Roddy Radiation and bassist Sir Horace Gentleman would also quickly depart. Associate Special Rico Rodriguez was allegedly convinced that he shouldn't be playing in a largely white group and he and his trombone headed back to Jamaica. Keyboardist/songwriter/bandleader Dammers and drummer John Bradbury would carry on with the respectable In the Studio album and a memorable hit single "Nelson Mandela". Dammers was a well-known group dictator in the mold of Kevin Rowland but where the Dexys leader thrived in spite of sacking virtually everyone he ever played with, the series of resignations crippled the dentally-challenged one's empire. He built up a formidable group that was briefly the best in the world but it was one that had to come undone once it had reached the top. They were too good to remain together.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Siouxsie & The Banshees: "Spellbound"

Dellar describes "Spellbound" as a winner and he's right on the mark. John McGeoch tends to hog the critical spotlight (his 12-string playing is a clear influence on Johnny Marr on The Smiths' "Bigmouth Strikes Again") but his bandmates are right there with him. Dellar seems to reckon that Siouxsie drags things down a touch but this is a vintage performance from her and a classic example of her innate ability to take command of a song. For his part, Budgie's relentless drumming holds everything together as was typical for them. "Spellbound" is one of their finest singles and deserved a whole lot better than a routine Top 30 performance. It even deserved to be Single of the Fortnight, if only for a peak-of-powers Specials getting in their way.

The Clash: "The Magnificent Seven"

16 April 1981

"The working man's 9 to 5 (or rather 8 to 5) — clocking in, knocking out, bussing home, dossing down — brought to you in startling Clash-O-Scope." 

— Fred Dellar

Of all the major groups in the rock 'n' roll era The Clash have to be one of the least important. They racked up strong sales but it isn't as if they enjoyed an imperial phase of chart dominance. The critics rightly praised them but they were just as quick to slam them when the occasion called for it. They had a loyal legion of fans albeit one that seemed to get cross with them if they were ever suspected of — heaven forfend — selling out. They were the 'only band that mattered' yet a not insignificant chunk of their discography is of little consequence.

On their seminal 1979 album London Calling, bassist Paul Simonon took the unprecedented step of contributing a song of his own. The pairing of Mick Jones and Joe Strummer had done all the songwriting up until this point but the group's third LP was a two disc set and there happened to be space for the sullen badass in the rhythm section to earn some royalties. As debut compositions go, "The Guns of Brixton" is a triumph. Unsurprisingly, the bass dominates and it is one of their most effective attempts at reggae. It also hints at hip hop (though I would say that given that I was more familiar with Beats International's "Dub Be Good to Me" when I first heard London Calling). A highlight of what is arguably their finest album, it manages to undermine the much more conventional contributions of the main songwriters while holding its own up against the likes of the mighty "Rudie Can't Fail" and "Spanish Bombs".

It must've been something of a shock, then, for Strummer and Jones to embrace some of the same qualities, though from a more American perspective, a little over a year later. Simonon introduced this new element to the group and now it was being usurped by his bandmates. To make matters worse, "The Magnificent Seven" was done without his involvement, the memorable if repetitive bass line being courtesy of Norman Watt-Roy of Ian Dury's Blockheads. (The use of a multitude of session musicians contributes to then-current album Sandinista! being less their White Album and more their Exile on Main Street) There was little to no Jamaican influence with this being them at their most New York.

"The Magnificent Seven" isn't as potent as "The Guns of Brixton" but it is an impressive work nonetheless. American and British groups who also tried incorporating the sounds of the New York streets into their recordings were often successful but their efforts often seem much more contrived. The Rolling Stones' Miss You from their startling 1978 album Some Girls managed to twist Studio 54 idealism into the menacing reality of Son of Sam-era paranoia but it's studied and mannered as if this was their bet to remain relevant. Blondie's hip hop dalliance "Rapture" is typically great even if it is ruined by Debby Harry's laughably bad rapping. By contrast, was Strummer really even trying to rap on "The Magnificent Seven"? He was never much of a singer and his angry, sputtering drawl is very much on the same continuum as "I'm So Bored with the USA", "Safe European Home" and "Clampdown". Perhaps Joe Strummer always rapped.

Very much an albums act, Clash singles had been underperforming both in terms of quality and sales for at least a couple years. "The Magnificent Seven" only did modestly on the charts but it ended up being their best 7" since "London Calling". The backlash against Sandinista's length and almost schiztophrenic variety of styles ended up being such that even something as enthralling as this failed to interest many. Few even bothered to think of picking apart the three disc set in order to focus on their favourites. Potential newcomers weren't interested either and it would only be with the hook-laden "Rock the Casbah" a year later that they managed to have a commercial second wind.

The Clash hadn't made a punk album since their brilliant self-titled debut but the label had proven to be difficult to shake in the years ahead. Beyond fans wishing they'd never moved away from the sound of '77, perhaps the biggest reason for this is that they never lost the essence of being The Clash. Those distinctive vocals of Strummer in particular and the giant beast of a band with attitude and talent to spare never altered. Rather than flocking to different styles, it was as if genres and sub-genres came looking for them. They couldn't have sold out since they never stopped being The Clash.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Carl Wilson: "Heaven"

Never the compositional genius nor the bronzed surf heartthrob that brothers Brian and Dennis were, Carl Wilson had to rely on his beautiful voice and stellar guitar playing to make his mark on The Beach Boys (with the odd gem like "Feel Flows" and "The Trader" as creative peaks thrown in). With Brian and Mike Love reclaiming control of the group, Dennis had already gone off and put out a brilliant solo album of his own, the now highly regarded Pacific Ocean Blue. Carl's push for independence seems like too little, too late with the emotional turmoil of the group's late-seventies' nadir having taken its toll. Dellar isn't overly impressed by "Heaven" and certainly there's not much to it beyond once again showcasing that astonishing voice at the centre of it all. Lovingly made but empty, it proved that Carl might just have been creatively bankrupt enough to belong back in The Beach Boys.

Donald Fagen: "New Frontier"

3 February 1983

"Near MOR fare (of four star quality) from the ex-Steely Dan mainman..."

— Fred Dellar

We're going back a bit for this post. Having decided earlier this year to include singles from before mid-1981, I realised that I had skipped one from the start of 1983. Though Smash Hits had begun giving a more prominent space for Singles of the Fortnight, they failed to do so this time round with largely unflattering reviews of Rockers Revenge and Jimmy Cliff sharing the top left hand spot usually reserved for critic picks. A stingy with praise Fred Dellar (the latest from Michael Jackson is only able to "almost convince you that "Bille Jean" is a great record. Which it isn't") doesn't specify a favourite so I refrained from covering it back at the beginning of 2019 but now that I'm inferring earlier SOTF, I feel more comfortable putting words in his nibs' mouth.

~~~~~

An ambition of mine that I'm sure never to realise is to write a a jukebox musical based on the music of Steely Dan. Glamour Profession, as it is so named, is about a rotating cast of musicians who toil in the studio under the direction of an unseen pair of demanding and persnickety composers named Don and Walt. Beginning at around the time of 1974's Pretzel Logic, just as this organization was transitioning from a "proper" five-piece band into a diarchic unit surrounded by crack jazz and rock sessioners, it examines the hired hands as they rehearse under watchful eyes and, during the odd lull between songs, discuss their lives as working musicians. A backing vocalist, guitarist or saxophonist breaks into a full rendition of whatever song that they happen to be working on (I always imagine "Bad Sneakers" from the Katy Lied album working particularly well) before receiving word that Don or Walt (if not both) are unhappy with that take and wish to do it again (wheels turnin' round and round...).

One scene I've thought about at length (which I nearly wrote for this entry until it dawned on me that I haven't the faintest idea what I'm doing) is about a pair of musician buddies meeting in a quiet studio and catching up before another session is to begin. One has been out of the country and is surprised to discover that Walt is out of the picture. They spend much time discussing the implications of this new arrangement, unable to work out if it's for the best or not. Only one stern teacher barking at them seems to be a plus but then Don doesn't have his old partner to blame for sabotaging the session: the studio musicians will have to take the brunt of the blame. This new direction leads them into a rendition of "New Frontier".

Lead singers who go solo could do a lot worse than stick with what they know. The natural thing to do is stretch out from the confines of a band but does that ever really work out? Why not just do what's easiest: it worked before so why not keep it going? Fans who are already familiar with a group's material can appreciate hearing more of the same from a newly solo artist, especially since it helps dull the sting of a break up. The musically illiterate Morrissey emerged following the dissolution of The Smiths with a number one album and a string of top ten hits. Was Viva Hate a better work than The Queen Is Dead or Strangeways, Here We Come? Not at all but it greatly impressed people that he was able to cut it on his "own".

Sticking with a familiar sound also allows the vocalist to control the narrative. Keith Richards was said to have been livid when he first heard Mick Jagger's debut solo album She's the Boss — not because it spat on the legacy of The Rolling Stones but because it sounded too much like them. But coming on the heels of the patchy Undercover, it's not a bad effort and reaffirms the vital role he plays in his day job (though it probably helps that this was prior to Richards becoming everyone's favourite Stone). Bryan Ferry had long held solo ambitions and interspersed albums released under his own name with Roxy Music LPs. Again, the stuff he did on his own is decent but seventies Roxy is a much different beast than eighties Stones. Gradually, however, his band moved away from their remarkable art rock and their polished and slick later work began to fall closer in line with his solo recordings. Avalon was a commercial and critical success and Ferry deftly harnessed it into Boys & Girls, in effect its follow up. (Such was his blurring of the lines between group and solo artist that many subsequent compilations have drawn from both sources)

In a sense, Donald Fagen doesn't really fit in with Ferry, Jagger and Morrissey — which, considering the company, is probably for the best. Steely Dan fell apart following the sessions for their seventh album Gaucho and Fagen appears to have continued where he left off with The Nightfly but there's no sense of him having any prior solo ambitions, there wasn't a grand strategy involved and he wasn't setting out to proven anything to anyone. Eighteen of the album's twenty-eight session musicians were veterans from prior Dan works, with all but two having appeared on Gaucho, including Larry Carlton and Michael and Randy Brecker. That same old exactitude of the playing is present and correct, as are Fagen's witticisms.

"New Frontier" is Fagen's madcap tale of planning a party in a bomb shelter "in case the Reds decide to push the button down". The song isn't traumatically retelling how terrified he was by 'duck and cover' drill exercises or how he was kept awake with worry during the Cuban Missile Crisis but looks forward to the Bomb and the promise it brings. I imagine a fifteen-year-old geek, clipboard in hand, with a list of names that he has earmarked for a spot in the "dugout that my dad built". Is it even a list? Is the coming disaster just a ruse to get the Big Blonde to have a little nuclear fallout with our Donny? So much to chew on here.

Gone from The Nightfly are characters like Hoops McCann with Fagen instead using himself in the role. A bomb shelter becomes a teenage fantasy nightclub and he's the bouncer. The album is often described as a departure in that it got him being much more autobiographical. There's more than a little truth in this and certainly not having Walter Becker around to bounce ideas off would have made it much more convenient to look within. But I'm not so sure it goes into his own life and experiences, just the knuckleheaded thoughts that roamed in his mind. Perhaps this is what the jukebox musical should really be about.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Buebells: "Cath"

With Altered Images, The Associates, Aztec Camera, Big Country, Orange Juice, Simple Minds and Strawberry Switchblade, Scottish pop more than held its own in the early eighties. But what of The Bluebells, a group that lacked both the cool factor and/or the cultural import of their contemporaries? Obviously they'll always have "Young at Heart", a song I previously slagged, to keep the memories alive and the royalty checks coming but "Cath" is a much better song and gives one an idea of just how they manage to fit in. While Kenneth McCluskey didn't have the charisma of Billy McKenzie, Clare Grogan, Jill Bryson or Rose McDowall, the group didn't have a particularly distinct sound the way Big Country and Simple Minds did and they weren't songwriters like Roddy Frame or Edwyn Collins but they might have been the best possible compromise of all of 'em. I'll take "Cath" with "Party Fears Two" and "All I Need Is Everything" and you can have the rest.

Kim Wilde: "Child Come Away"

14 October 1982

"Add Kim's strong vocal performance plus a piccolo-headed arrangement that nudges into the realms of folk-rock and you have a Rak track that will ensure standing room only throughout Kim's current tour. Outstanding."

— Fred Dellar

A little girl is growing up in a small town. Everything about her life is normal: she goes to school, plays with her friends, argues with her brothers and sisters and refuses to eat anything with onions in it. She spends her pocket money on sweets and is disappointed that her parents still won't relent and get her a puppy. Then she learns about the abduction of a girl close to her age and her world is turned upside down.

"Child Come Away" is a song about two girls: the one who gets snatched and left for dead and the one who is privy to the unraveling of everything around her. Innocence ends up being yanked away from both. Obviously the former is put through so much more but the lingering affects are left as a burden on the former: not knowing quite what happened (much less how or why), learning little snippets of detail but being denied the full story by parents and a town that doesn't want to discuss it, living in fear that she could be next. Fred Dellar mentions a "town filled with terror" but I suspect there's more to it than that. The community is in denial, perhaps even complicit, as to what's been going on.

That the Wilde family was able to come up with this gripping four-minute thriller is absolutely remarkable. Having already trotted out a pair of sorrowful yet superb singles with "Cambodia" and "View from a Bridge", they were well positioned to deliver yet another tragic piece and "Child Come Away" is their zenith. Kim seems to have toned down the vocal frostiness that worked such a treat on her early records, leaving room for a sweetness that captures the childlike wonder and confusion going on. I don't know if I agree with Dellar that the "piccolo-headed arrangement" moves the song into the realms of folk-rock but it is effective. I have to wonder if it's intended as a Pied Piper-esque tool to symbolise a child being lured away, while other children are being shuffled off to the side and told to go and play and stop asking so many bloody questions.

It's as a piece of writing, however, that "Child Come Away" truly shines. The lack of clarity in the story may seem strange at first but that's precisely the point. What exactly happened to this girl in the sand? What kind of appalling state was she left in that everyone in town — including the judge at the trial — turns away from her now? Has she been cast aside by the community as much as her captor/torturer ("I saw her face in the back of the car / As they were speeding out of this town")? We aren't to know, just as the other young girl in this song isn't to know. And we can look at this situation and gasp the heartlessness of the townsfolk but that's how close-knit communities often deal with these situations. How was this not used in the TV series Broadchurch?

So, all that said, how did it fail to catch on, falling short of the Top 40? Being her third single on the trot dealing with dark subject matter may have turned people off, especially deejays who were content around this time to spin sunny reggae-pop by the likes of Musical Youth, Culture Club and Eddy Grant instead. (Hopefully it did indeed manage to grip audiences during Wilde's tour; I like to think that she still occasionally floors her fans with it at shows to this day) In retrospect, it's a shame it wasn't released as a double A-side with its jauntier — though still appropriately angsty — flip "Just Another Guy": come for the whiplash pop-rock, stay for the searing devastation.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

ABBA: "The Day Before You Came"

And while we're on the topic of great melancholic pop that punters and radio conspired to spurn, all hail ABBA's swansong "The Day Before You Came". Variously interpreted as recalling the last days of mundane loneliness before finding love, some sort of murder/suicide plot or the tale of a stalker, the very ambiguity of just what motivates this song's protagonist is precisely what makes it so intriguing. (I tend to lean towards the stalker theory although I'm beginning to warm to the concept that the whole thing is a delusion with 'You' never coming) Dellar mentions the amusing line about watching every episode of Dallas but I also like the fact that this lonely, aimless soul reads both the morning and evening papers, a throwback to the omnipresence of print media. Just imagine how much more miserable she would be if she spent her commutes playing nothing but Candy Crush on her mobile?

Stevie Wonder: "Do I Do"

10 June 1982

"Worth its weight in goldfish."

— Fred Dellar

A twenty-five word review: you're spoiling us, Dells. The brevity of this write-up is so stark that I went about counting the word length of all twenty-two singles up for consideration this fortnight. (I went through them just the once, not especially feeling like double-checking so there may be the odd error here and there) Bolstered by a seemingly Proust-like hundred and sixteen word critique of Carrie Lucas' "Show Me Where You're Coming From", the average length here is forty-seven words (and the median isn't much more forgiving, clocking in at forty-five). His concise "analysis" of Stevie Wonder's "Do I Do" is the shortest piece here, beating a dismissive review of ver Quo's "She Don't Fool Me" by four words. And, you know, it's cool. Dellar expended all the lexicography he deemed necessary for these pieces and maybe it's something I can learn from. Thus, in the spirit of prosaic economy, I present my own attempts at capturing Little Stevie's single in less than a baker's two dozen.

Stevie Wonder's run of seventies albums — Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life — is unbeatable. 

Wow, that's twenty-five already. I really shot my word count load listing off all those albums. Best not to bother with them.

Was Stevie Wonder aware that he was no longer on a creative roll? The seventies were in the can and his release rate began slowing...

Okay, so my penchant for kick starting these posts with vague notions that have been running through my head won't work here.

Taken from Original Musicquarium, the single set an annoying trend of new tracks being tacked on to a greatest hits, thereby ensuring purchase from fans.

So much for being able to add a little context.

As Dellar says, this is a marked improvement on his recent Macca collaboration "Ebony and Ivory". A pity that the inferior number is remembered today.

Well, I guess there's no space here to bring up Fred Dellar's critique, such as it it. Not a big sacrifice given there's so little there.

Chopped down to five minutes, the single mix leaves out an unremarkable Dizzy Gillespie solo and useless rapping. What's left is a typically Wonder-ful groove. 

Now, I don't like to write reviews on Amazon or iTunes or TripAdvisor but if I did they would probably read like the above. Next.

Oh, you do, do you? Well, I would do what you do if I had an idea what you're doing. I'm not done doing nothin'.

Token "clever" review you might spot in a free weekly paper. More than a little hackish.

Given how I can happily listen to the sublime "Another Star" on a daily basis, I can't help but feel this is pleasant but disposable.

Summing up my honest feelings towards "Do I Do". This blog — not to mention music writing in general — would be a whole lot different if I wrote about every song this way. I've always felt, for example, that over-analytical sports journalists and commentators could probably do with a simple "well, Team A won because they're better than Team B" bit of punditry but the impulse towards basic banalities is not something I aspire to. I got a head full of vague notions and theories I can't wait to share with the world.

Glorious goodness that Wonder churns out so effortlessly, "Do..." succeeds in spite of some clunky lyrics about candy kisses. A great bass gets it moving.

Not bad and perhaps the best I can do for now. Let's finish up with one more that reads like a cliché pop mag review that manages to say as little as possible:

Well, I'll be damned. Little Stevie turns that mother out with a luscious groove from the heavens. He's still got it and then some. Ace.

And there you have it. Sort of an Exercises in Style for singles reviews. Not something I see myself attempting again unless another Smash Hits scribe I encounter here has taken upon him or herself to compose a twelve word review of a Strawberry Switchblade record. Until then, we'll have to make do with my standard notions and context and a smattering of analysis — and the next novelty piece I manage to cook up.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Monsoon: "Shakti (The Meaning of Within)"

The missing link between sixties raga and the joss stick techno of Talvin Singh, this is enlightened pop that shines on into a Karmic cascade.

Damn, I suck at this.

The Jam: "Absolute Beginners"

15 October 1981

"And if Paul Weller's lyrics won't see him installed as poet laureate during the next fortnight, they should at least help him grace the charts till his current supply of pocket money runs out."

— Fred Dellar

From one imperial phase to another: last week it was The Police and now we have The Jam. They have a few similarities on the surface — both trios with charismatic frontmen and both groups rose in popularity at about the same time. (For Sting and his crew this meant damn-near world domination whereas Paul Weller and co. had to be content with a much more parochial following, albeit one that was so fanatical that they managed the unprecedented feat of getting import-only Jam singles from Europe on to the UK Top 40) In terms of presentation and style, however, the two acts couldn't have been more different. Where The Police were older — considerably so in the case of guitarist Andy Summers — The Jam were younger, with a following that was equally wet behind the ears. Where Sting's songwriting seemed locked in a world of minute human obsessions, Weller's tunes spoke of people slipping through the cracks of Thatcherism. Where The Police borrowed from pub rock and reggae, The Jam nicked from mod, sixties pop and, now, soul.

"Absolute Beginners" is the beginning of The Jam's final period in which they began to fully embrace black music. And this was no mere blip: soul, Motown, jazz and house music would all end up defining the next ten years of Weller's career. Of course no one was to know this at the time. What's fascinating is that there may not have been much of a sense that they were heading in a different direction. Fred Dellar's review in the October 15th issue of the Hits mentions Weller's lyrical fortitude — as quoted above — as well as being impressed that they'd be literate enough to borrow the title of a Colin McInnes novel for the name of their new single. As for their new sound, there's a "punchy brass line to help things stay alive" but not much an indication that they might be heading in a new direction. Going all R & B seemed to go over His Nibs' head.

The Jam's previous single was "Funeral Pyre", which ramps up the psychedelic/post-punk fusion of their Sound Affects album to an extreme. Where were they to go after such an abrasive, jarring record? Add a horn section apparently. There's a little more to it though. Weller's guitar playing does a deft balancing act between a jangly-Motown style and some clipped new wave. If The Jam's run of sublime singles — beginning with "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" back in '78 all the way through to the end of '82 — can take us on a narrative continuum, as I would like to think they can, then here we have Weller taking a blowtorch to his cynicism of old in the appropriately named "Funeral Pyre" only to start all over again with the unusually idealistic "Absolute Beginners". Or did Weller simply get up on the right side of the bed for a change?

We're not to know but that's beside the point. Just to have this capsule of what The Jam were up to in the autumn of '81 makes the stand-alone single worthwhile. Years later, with his empire beginning to crumble all around him, Noel Gallagher began lamenting about how singles had to take a back seat to albums and that he didn't have the freedom to release a new forty-five without an L.P. following hot on its heels. Attempting to take stock of the hubris-fuelled disaster that was Be Here Now, Gallagher expressed feeling let down at how the "D'You Know What I Mean?" single came out in advance, then the album itself was released and that it was "over almost before it had begun". He looked back in envy at his musical heroes of the eighties, The Jam and The Smiths, as acts who could churn out singles seemingly whenever they felt like it, regardless of whether they had an album to promote. The dynamic of "D'You Know..." — and, to be sure, far better singles — is that it is supposed to represent the album as a whole; stand-alone's are to be judged on their own terms, not necessarily as a signpost of what's to come but as a postcard of what's up. 

That's not to say, however, that a single is little more than a trifle to bestow upon the populace. I like to think there was a time when the single could be as much of an creative statement as an entire album. Plus, an ace three-minute pop song could only whet one's appetite for more to come. Just what could The Jam have in store next?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Haircut One Hundred: "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)"

Horns. Loads and loads of horns. Well, three really. This isn't the fairlight synthesizer nor a Bob Clearmountain-esque big drum sound but there's something intrinsically eighties to pop songs with a horn section. Well, not really but they do crop up on the SOTF as well as on Orange Juice's "L.O.V.E...Love" and on this little firecracker. Dellar admits throughout various selections of this fortnight's singles review page that he wants to turn that mother out and this is the best one to get down to. A very youthful-looking Nick Heyward leads his Haircut chums through something that Talking Heads could very easily have recorded with a bit more edginess but without nearly this much passion.