Chaka Khan: "I'm Every Woman"

19 April 1989

""Climb Every Woman" — classic! Oh! I mean "I'm Every Woman"!"

— Holly Johnson

Some pop stars who sit in as a guest Smash Hits singles reviewer put a great deal of thought into the task they've been given (Martin Fry, Gary Kemp, a surprisingly insightful Zodiac Mindwarp). Others do it in as basic a "I like/don't like this" format as possible. Some used it as a pulpit to self-righteously yammer on (yes, I'm thinking of you, Gary Numan), while others just moaned the entire time (Erasure). But I will say that all managed to make a good faith attempt to listen to as many records as possible — until now. Holly Johnson wasn't about to waste a whole hour on doing the task that was asked of him.

Of the fourteen new releases in this fortnight's Hits, Johnson either outright refuses or demands immediate removal of six of them (considering they consist of a Cher/Peter Cetera duet, Bon Jovi, a still-rootsy Texas, a washed-up Pretenders and ho-hum efforts from both Kylie Minogue and Cyndi Lauper, I can't say as I blame him but it still wouldn't have killed him to have given them all a go). The ex-Frankie Goes to Hollywood frontman's lack of interest is even amusingly remarked upon in the 'Also not reviewed by Holly this fortnight!' sidebar.

But he isn't simply apatheic, he's largely unimpressed even by most of what he bothered listening to. Diana Ross? Edie Brickell? Paul Abdul? He's not having any of it. The Cure's "Lullaby" is perhaps the one true classic here and even it fails to spark much out of his nibs. While he digs the violins, he also admits that there isn't "much of a song hidden beneath" the arrangements (No doubt he hadn't seen the song's video because that would've made it a dead cert Single of the Fortnight) and doubts its chart potential. Considering that far more radio-friendly Cure singles like "In Between Days" and "Just Like Heaven" only performed modestly on the Top 40, it's probably no surprise that he didn't think this spooky nightmare about being devoured by a spider man stood much of a chance. And yet, it proved to be their biggest UK hit of all time.

In the end, we're left with a remix of Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" to take the Single of the Fortnight almost by default. This being Holly Johnson, he still finds things to complain about with elements of the spruced up house sound jarring on him. Though he does acknowledge that it's "better than usual" compared to most remixes out there, he still dislikes the piano and the "deadful" drum infills. Even a great record can't please the most slovenly of curmudgeons.

Remixing older hits had been a popular trend among DJ's in the late-eighties and, as Holly suggests, they had this knack for sucking the life out of the original. Old Motown gems "Reach Out I'll Be There" by the Four Tops and "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5 (later credited to 'Michael Jackson with The Jackson 5') ended up getting re-released in 1988 with more modern sounds added that only detracted from what a pair of brilliant songs they always have been. Bill Withers had some of his oldies rejigged at around the same time to somewhat better results even if they still seemed faintly pointless. If it's neigh on impossible for a cover version to top its source, what hope did a remix have?

I won't say for sure if the '89 mix of "I'm Every Woman" tops Chaka Khan's original from 1979 but just the fact that I have to think about it says all you need to know. Listening to her first post-Rufus outing now, I'm struck by how disco records always seemed to be flooded in strings. Ten years on, there was less of a demand for violins on dance music and Danny D's remix smartly pushes the chamber orchestra to the background. The other instruments remain and it gives the remix a brighter sound. Khan's voice also seems more dynamic under these conditions. While you'd never confuse "Reach Out I'll Be There" or "I Want You Back" for modern pop, if you weren't aware of "I'm Every Woman"'s past life, you'd be convinced it was a current slice of late-eighties' dance pop.

Khan's original doesn't typically get cited as a feminist anthem possibly because it could just as easily be taken as a song about begging a man by being, er, every woman. Either way, the remix underscores the point of the song because she was able to be as relevant as ever in spite of changing fashions. Just as I had written a few weeks' ago about Elvis Costello, I was similarly certain that Chaka Khan was much older than she was back in 1989. Donna Summer had just returned with the triumphant collaboration with Stock Aitken Waterman "This Time I Know It's for Real" and this gave her a youthful quality in spite of her pushing forty. Khan had an oldie (which you could tell by the video) and this seemed to make her even more advanced in years, despite being four years Summer's junior. And yet, this too makes the song more empowering. She's no longer a young singer with her life ahead of her but a grizzled veteran who still boasts of being all that. She had only just turned thirty-six but she might as well have been one of the Golden Girls to me.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

The Funky Worm: "You + Me = Love"

The Funky Worm were probably the flop act most familiar to me due to them being included on both The Hits Album 9 (with "The Spell", which didn't even make the Top 60) and The Hits Album 10 (with this, a modest chart improvement on its predecessor), despite "Hustle (To the Music)" being a hit and failing to make it on to The Hits Album 7 or 8 (those Hits comps used the word 'hit' quite liberally). Disco and funk revivalists long before the likes of Brand New Heavies and Jamiroquai, there's something charmingly unpolished about them. Vocalist Julie Stewart probably didn't have the vocal chops to overdo it but that's for the best. "The Spell" was the better of the two but the cheery blandness of "You + Me = Love" has aged better than I would have thought and there's more going on in the background than I ever gave it credit for. A shame they didn't last longer, they might have even made it on to The Hits Album 11. 

Holly Johnson: "Americanos" / Swing Out Sister: "You on My Mind"

22 March 1989

Welcome to yet another in an on-again, off-again series of pop groups reviewing the singles in Smash Hits and failing to agree on a favourite. We have previously looked at "reviews" from The Communards, Bros and Brother Beyond and now it's the turn of the then-husband and wife pair at the heart of rockers T'Pau, Carol Decker and Ronnie Rogers. The group had been commercially strong in 1987 and '88 with hits like "Heart and Soul" and "China in Your Hands" but their success had begun to taper off more recently. Nevertheless, they were still relevant enough and not quite as down the dumper as they'd eventually be (joining, among others, Bros and Brother Beyond) at the time, with the scruffy Rogers being the butt of some ver Hits "hilarity". With guest reviewers being much more geared towards the pop "bent", it makes for a welcome change to have a rock 'n' roll duo to shake things up. But is that what they managed to accomplish? Were they trying to accomplish anything beyond keeping their names in the kiddy pop mags so as not to tumble off the giddy carousel of pop? In any case, props to Decker and Rodgers for being pop fans first and foremost, rather than tragically pathetic rock 'n' rollers. It's something I've noticed from a lot of the guest reviewers who are closer to the rock end of the scale: a lot of these axe-wielding, scruffy longhairs were much more open-minded than us pop kids would have thought. 

~~~~~

"This is very much in the same groove as "Love Train". See, what I like is variation — to release a fast one then a slow one."

— Carol Decker

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a lesson in how to be an earth-shakingly huge pop star courtesy of Carol Decker. "Release a fast one then a slow one": I hear that's what George Martin instructed The Beatles to do after "Please Please Me" hit big. The Fab Four went on to follow this 'fast-slow' pattern with "From Me to You", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and so forth. (John Lennon, the heart and soul — see what I did there? — rocker handled the fast stuff while that big girl's blouse McCartney did all those weepie slow songs. Our Carol sure learned from the best.

Kidding aside, Decker has a point. Holly Johnson was a great pop star but one of dubious talents. Frankie Goes to Hollywood's run of chart topping singles — "Relax", "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love" — remains unassailable but otherwise there's not much else of note. His solo return was a pretty big deal in the early part of 1989 and "Love Train" and "Americanos" were both big hits but the rot would soon reveal itself. I remember that summer getting the latest issue of Smash Hits that had the lyrics to third single "Atomic City" which I still hadn't heard. It didn't take my sister and I long to work out how it would go. And the slower numbers on his solo debut Blast! weren't fooling anyone ("Heaven's Here" was the album's fourth single and it deservedly flopped). Johnson was capable of one type of pop song and that's where it began and ended. (While I quite like "The Power of Love", there are plenty who don't even rate it and it's by far Holly's best attempt at a weepie ballad)

America. (Essex girls called 'Amer-eee-ca') Bloody hell, the British were obsessed with America back in 1989, even though I'm sure plenty of Brits would deny it now. Living in the UK, we were always bemused by how a country with all this great music and literature and musicals and beautiful villages would ever envy the crass Americans but that is precisely the "Great" Britain that we were living in the middle of. Sure, Canada had a feeble culture and a pitiful sense of national self-esteem but what excuse did the British have? When I think back to sad American-themed restaurants, English youths who were into the NFL, stars of Dallas and Dynasty being fawned upon by talk show hosts and a nation that couldn't stop going on about the US I still shudder. The last thing I needed was a pop song that delved into all this nonsense.

"Americanos" (this was before the term came to mean an espresso with hot water added; I live in South Korea where for some reason it is a much more popular drink than a cup of brewed coffee) celebrates Britain's infatuation with the superpower across the water while also sending it up. The video makes it clear that we're dealing with irony here but if you were only listening to it on the radio and/or watching Holly Johnson mime to it on Top of the Pops, it might have been lost on your average listener. I was still just eleven-years-old and I figured he meant every word. I had enjoyed predecessor single "Love Train" but I was naturally cooler towards this one.

In a Britain so enamoured with all things America, we're meant to think that Johnson's lyrics are a celebration of the USA but are they? "Coke, Pepsi and Oreos": a line that sounds awkward set to music and one that kind of gives away the game. Coke and Pepsi are available everywhere and if these admittedly delicious beverages (I'm more of a Pepsi man myself but I wouldn't turn down a Coke) are supposed to be America at its best than it may not be quite as wonderful as we've been led to believe. "Need it or not, that's what you got" takes aim at mass consumerism and the real kicker is the song's best line, "everything's organized from crime to leisure time". 

So, "Americanos" has humour but not quite enough to save it. Johnson had turned himself into much more of a family-friendly entertainer after his provocative Frankie Goes to Hollywood years and he always had an underrated voice but the results are grim. Try as he might, he wasn't able to transcend the tediousness of the British and how they licked the boots of those Yanks. It only made me want to be back in Canada where we loved to hate the Americans better than anyone.

~~~~~

"I predict it will go to number 14. It's got a number 14 feel to it."

— Ronnie Rogers

Well, how about 28 instead, Ronnie Boy?

So, "Americanos" is all right but nothing like this would-be classic from Swing Out Sister. They had previously found chart fame and fortune with "Breakout", a catchy and stylish record that nicked from "West End Girls". This theft gave people the false impression that they were the next big synth-pop act but their hearts were in classy Bachrach & David numbers, with a bit of Continental pop sprinkled in. Thus, they managed to find a home alongside the likes of Everything but the Girl and The Style Council in what would eventually come to be known as sophisti-pop.

It was a genre that was popular but the rate of success from one group to the next could vary widely. A cynic might suggest that the more accomplished they were, the worse they'd end up doing and they wouldn't be wrong much of the time. Wet Wet Wet, Johnny Hates Jazz and Breathe did well on the charts despite an awful lot of subpar material while critical favourites like Prefab Sprout and Scritti Politti often struggled. But with "Breakout" and fellow Top 10 hit "Surrender" and a number one album It's Better to Travel, Swing Out Sister looked to be a rare sophisti-pop group that crafted quality music that also sold. Instead of becoming the next Pet Shop Boys, they started to look more like the next ABC. And they had a pretty sweet single they were about to unveil that was sure to turn heads.

Yeah, about that: "You on My Mind" has all the components of a great pop record yet smacks of being too effortless. I wrote last week about Madonna's "Like a Prayer" being too much of a throwback to sixties' gospel and soul to fit in with the dance trends of '89. This was no bad thing and no one complained at the time but that didn't stop Ms. Ciccone from rewriting history when she came to include a dramatically remixed version of the hit on her greatest hits a year later. Swing Out Sister approached their follow-up to It's Better to Travel in much the same way — albeit without them going back on it later on. A simple yet propulsive bass guides "You on My Mind" and when the horns come in, they're luxuriating in a bygone world of Scott Walker, Françoise Hardy and socialites kicking back on the Mediterranean. The late-eighties had a lot of time for the sixties but only for the hippies; the chic side of the decade that swung could forget it.

The British didn't purchase enough copies to take it to 14 (personally, I reckon it deserved to get to number 7) but the newly two-piece Swing Out Sister of Corinne Drewery and Andy Connell had recorded a firecracker single. Yes, it's middle-of-the-road but what does that matter when you're listening to it and you know full-well that you'll be playing it a second time. Try to get sick of Drewery's pitch perfect vocal delivery or those lush, warming horns. Try not to envy the pair for composing something simple but so effective, the type of thing any budding songwriter would kill to have crafted themselves.

While "Americanos" pretended to be a tribute to the US, "You on My Mind" is much closer to something that pays real homage to the States. It brings to mind the great songwriting teams — in addition to Bachrach and David, there's also Goffin and King and Holland-Dozier-Holland — and those wonderful in-house studio groups in New York, LA, Detroit, Memphis and Muscle Shoals. "You on My Mind" could even have been a part of the Great American Songbook. It passed me by back in 1989 — as singles that only get to 28 will sometimes do — but I have made up for it more recently. I could never be without it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Transvision Vamp: "Baby I Don't Care"

Decker and Rodgers could have taken up their allotted space here by ripping into Wendy James but they admirably take the high road. They admire her and quite like some of ver Vamp's other stuff but they aren't fussed about what would become their biggest hit and signature number. I respectfully disagree but I'm impressed that they were keen to judge them (and by 'them', I mean 'her') on their (her) musical merits. They don't even bother knocking her lousy voice and to those that do, don't be so misguided. As Decker diplomatically notes, James doesn't have a "vocalist's voice" and I'd say she puts its limits to good use on "Baby I Don't Care". Appropriately, she doesn't give a toss if she sounds strained and the song's message would end up getting lost if Decker herself or a Wilson sister from Heart tried to record it. The best use of bad singing since "With a Little Help from My Friends" — and a killer tune to boot.