R.E.M.: "Man on the Moon"

11 November 1992

"A shimmering diamond amongst a sack of dirty socks."

— Pete Stanton

Only once since becoming an adult have I found myself convinced that there was a hidden conspiracy. It was the last day of August, 1997 which had been something of a golden summer. I had been working at a Calgary-area liquor store and on the drive back there came the news of a serious car accident involving Diana, Princess of Wales and her new lover Dodi Fayed. Not being a royalist, the initial shock quickly wore off and I forgot all about it. That evening, however, the news came in that the former future Queen of England had passed away from injuries sustained in said crash. Almost immediately, a thought flashed through my mind that I must have felt was going to rock the very foundation of the British monarchy: they must have faked it.

We're conditioned to believe in conspiracies from infancy: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. The simple prospect that it could be our parents who were behind these childhood misdirections didn't even enter into it. Then there's God, who I had mercifully avoided hearing about until my parents put me into a Baptist church-run playschool when I was four. (Even then, Santa still seemed vastly more plausible) Fictional givers of gifts, chocolates and/or money and that twisted nutcase up in the clouds were all handed to me to accept or reject but the only thing I was prepared to believe in due to my own personal creed was wrestling. There were whispers that it was fake but I wasn't having it. Rotten Ron Starr once smashed a bottle of champagne over his head while being interviewed by Ed Whalen on Stampede Wrestling: was it fake when Starr screamed at the camera, his face now a mask of crimson? "Macho Man" Randy Savage once crushed Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat's windpipe with the ring bell: was it fake when Steamer was stretchered off as he gasped in agony?

In preparation for this blog post, I thought about immersing myself in the unique works of Andy Kaufman. Note my use of the phrasal verb 'to think about' because that's basically all I did. I didn't binge watch all five seasons of the classic US sitcom Taxi. I didn't watch hours of Kaufman's material on YouTube. I only made it about five minutes into My Breakfast with Blassie before deciding it made for pointless viewing — which was at least a useful reminder that the great man didn't always hit 'em out of the park. I didn't even bother with the 1998 Jim Carrey biopic Man on the Moon though I did watch most of its companion documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond — Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton.

Having been such a big wrestling fan as a boy, I was especially drawn to Jerry "The King" Lawler's appearances in Jim & Andy. The Memphis legend had been in cahoots with Kaufman when they did their infamous spot on David Letterman but no one knew for sure at the time that they were friendly behind the scenes. Such was the world of kayfabe. (Kaufman's untimely passing at the age of thirty-five did not sway Lawler, who was a good guy in the Memphis territory, into saying anything positive about his old adversary) Taking this on, Carrey refused to break character while on the set of Man on the Moon, much to the annoyance of director Milos Forman and many others. Lawler, for his part, seems baffled and even at times disturbed by Carrey's behaviour. But give credit where it's due: it takes a special kind of talent to out-kayfabe an old school pro wrestler.

The film Man on the Moon got its title from the 1992 hit single by R.E.M. I assumed there must have been a Kaufman sketch about an oddball astronaut landing on the Moon or one involving Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descending from the Apollo 11 craft only to meet a character like Latka who was already there. But no, the title simply refers to Moon landing conspiracies and how they relate to rumours that Kaufman engineered his own demise in 1984. But also, his commitment to the characters he played. The wrestling heel he portrayed in Memphis in the early-eighties came out of legit grappling exhibits he would put on with any woman who was willing to challenge him. He wasn't able to apply the figure-four leglock, couldn't execute a drop kick and probably didn't even know how to throw a realistic-looking punch. When he and Lawler finally met up in the ring, the King invited him to put him in a headlock, only for his opponent to get out of it with a minimum of effort. Lawler the proceeded to give him two dangerous piledrivers which led to Kaufman wearing a neck brace in public for the next several months.

Hailing from Athens, Georgia, which isn't too far away from the professional wrestling hotbed of Atlanta, southerners Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry fashioned a good old country-rock number in an appropriately unexpected way of paying tribute to Kaufman. While the three instrumentalists may shine in other R.E.M. tunes, it's the singer who takes centre stage. Stipe has never been noted for his humour and he wisely steers clear of the understandable but misguided approach of being funny as a way of tipping his hat to the great man. Instead, we get some of his finest cryptic lyrics with references to board games (because of the randomness of a roll of the dice can generally override any actual skill), historical figures (mythology) and the seventies band that did "All the Young Dudes" (I have no idea on this one; I always used to think the song's opening line was "Martin Luther and the Game of Life")

Reading Pete Stanton's review I'm struck by how little he's aware of all this stuff about conspiracy theories and wrestling and Elvis; his prime concern is with "Man on the Moon" being "so beautiful you could snog it". (Not snog to it, you can do that to damn-near any record but it takes a really potent song for you to stick your lips to the vinyl and smack away; if you happened to have a North American 7" with the giant hole pressed through the middle you could get up to some kinky stuff if that's your thing; I'm not advocating being a record fetishist, I just think great songs have a way of getting you to do things you wouldn't normally do is all) Whatever meaning there is underneath would be for nothing if it wasn't so brilliant. But it is and then some. Even held up alongside the likes of "Radio Free Europe", "Talk About the Passion", "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville", "Driver 8", "The One I Love", "You Are the Everything", "Losing My Religion" and on towards future greats like "Tongue", "Leave" and "I've Been High" (hey, I don't care if it sounds like Chris de Burgh!), "Man on the Moon" stands tall. It may not be the best track on the mighty Automatic for the People but it's hard to argue that they bettered it at any other time in R.E.M.'s long and storied career.

When right-leading types who complain about political correctness and cancel culture have a tendency to play what Cody Johnston of YouTube channel Some More News calls the "Carlin card". Comedian George Carlin would never have put up with these snowflakes crying about being offended, they seem to be saying (though they never acknowledge that he was able to change with the times and refused to punch down). What's forgotten is that it's Andy Kaufman who would have found more of a home in this era of social media and conspiracy theories. While it's easy to think that we've all become more like Kaufman as we push vaccine skepticism and fake news and all that nonsense, the reality is that we only would've ended up as fodder for more of his shenanigans. Oh the fun he could have had. (Or is currently having?)

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

INXS: "Taste It"

Is it just me or did INXS have a lot of singles that got to number twenty-one in the UK charts? I'm sure they only had two or three but coming in just shy of the Top 20 seems like the optimum chart position for your average XS' hit. 1992 saw the release of the strong Welcome to Wherever You Are, an album that helped get them through their early-nineties' wilderness of good songs that all sounded the same. Self-parody was avoided (at least for the time being) but this was still very much INXS and only INXS. The touch of R&B — not, mind you, the same R&B that had been taking over the charts, more that vaguely laid-back style of groove-heavy dance rock that pops up every so often — proved to be a nice addition as the guitars were scaled back except for in the chorus where they suddenly explode. Yet another top INXS single though it would be more memorable if it wasn't quite so forgettable. Funny how that happens, isn't it?

INXS: "Suicide Blonde"

22 August 1990

"Terribly saucy stuff, so let's just hope Kyles doesn't find out, eh?

— Marc Andrews

INXS last appeared in this space just over three years ago when I was covering the 1983 crop of Singles of the Fortnight, back when there was still no indication that they were going to become one of the world's biggest rock bands. Yet their prospects were looking up in North America while in Europe they were still a long way's a way from being accepted. It seemed to take the bulk of the decade for them to become superstars but their lead vocalist certainly made the most of it when his time finally came.

Moving ahead to 1990, Michael Hutchence, the Ferris brothers, Garry 'Gary' Beers and Kirk Pengilly had reached a creative and commercial peak with the Kick album and they were now left with the problem of how to follow it. They weren't the most experimental group to begin with and Hutchence's work on the Max Q project in 1989 may have undercut the need for him and his mates to move on in their day job. By the early part of '91 people at my school began making fun of INXS because their songs all sounded the same but in a pop universe in which George Michael was becoming ever more serious, Madonna was becoming pervy and dance music was changing by the minute, for once there was something reassuring about always sounding the same.

Since appearing on the cover of Smash Hits a year earlier, Hutchence had begun dating Kylie Minogue, the same Australian pop star and pinup that the rock 'n' roll heart throb had been drooling over in the middle of his interview with Lola Borg. Their relationship is credited (or blamed) for bringing about her transformation from girl-next-door to sexKylie but Minogue took the first step in that direction when she appeared topless in the Aussie film The Delinquents. Though naturally fair haired, she nevertheless sported a wig in the movie which she would describe to her new paramour as "suicide blonde". Yes, it seems she was indeed connected to the song, Marc.

"Suicide Blonde" not only involves "Kyles" but it represents the transformation that occured in Hutchence's private life at the same time. While INXS' notoriety was already beginning to decline a bit — particularly in the US — his status as a tabloid star was on the rise. Eighties Hutch was much more mysterious: I picture him dating chic young women in Hong Kong who wouldn't have been very well known outside of Kowloon; others may imagine him gallivanting with some lovely Aussie girls. In truth, he was already seeing some celebrity starlets but these dalliances were still kept hidden from the press. By the nineties he was seen with a series of attractive women in various corners of the globe. Matters were harmless while he was seeing Minogue but he began to take a dark turn during his subsequent relationship with supermodel Helena Christensen. Meanwhile his group increasingly became a sideline to his glamourous but troubled life.

There's also a new found sense of lust in his work from this point forward. The tragi-romantic poet that he aspired to be crops up here and there in INXS' eighties' material but less emphasis was placed on it in the following decade. Future singles like "Taste It" and "The Gift" enhance the aggressive sex drive of "Suicide Blonde". Yet while carnal desires dulled Marvin Gaye's output, this new fervor worked, giving his songwriting an extra edge. It certainly helped that Hutchence was in a good space creatively in 1990. As I have stated before, Max Q opened him up. He became a stronger vocalist and he proved adept at other styles. While INXS were always a tight unit, the musicians had been slow to adapt to the singer's new approach. 1990's X album has some terrific singles but it is frequently bogged down by uncertainty and inconsistency. The band really started to respond with the excellent Welcome to Wherever You Are and the underrated Full Moon, Dirty Hearts albums. If his sex drive was harming his personal life, it didn't affect his day job. 

In this way, "Suicide Blonde" captures INXS still sounding like the INXS of old with a few subtle changes, which is precisely why Marc Andrews is so taken with it. Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica solos are on the surface the kind of thing a tired old act running low on ideas might resort to but for the fact that they're sampled and edited to sound like DJ turntable scratching as played on a mouth organ. Always confident on the mic, Hutchence gives one of the finest performances of his career while his bandmates give it all the authority and power it deserves.

Just seven years separates INXS' first Smash Hits Single of the Fortnight from their second (and, presumably, last). Jump forward another seven years and Michael Hutchence was nearing the end of his life. The group released Elegantly Wasted (their final album with their original lineup) and then went on a world tour. At what would turn out to be his last live performance, Hutchence sang "Suicide Blonde" as the group's last encore of the night. The song would soon become a bittersweet reminder of his death but it now stands as one of many top singles from a gifted but complex artist who provided us Generation Xers with many happy memories. He is still very much missed.

Finally, this is the first go at evaluating the singles from fellow Australian Marc Andrews. He had graduated from the top pop mag's Antipodean edition to the big time. He is also one of several new arrivals to ver Hits who would gradually replace the old guard that I had been familiar with. Nineties Smash Hits would become a very different beast from what youngsters such as myself had been used to but at least they always had some of the best music writers in the business.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Steve Miller Band: "The Joker"

"Crosstown Traffic" was featured in a Wrangler jeans commercial and it flopped on re-release; "The Joker" was used by Levi's and it went to number one. That's justice for you. British chart nerds aren't fond of this one because it supposedly denied Deee-Lite the rightful chart topped they supposedly deserved which makes me glad that I never had a stake in choosing between a pair of charming and goofy singles. Great as "Groove Is in the Heart" is, I can't say it's better than "The Joker". Much more country than I remember it being, it unexpectedly fades as Steve Miller is in the middle of repeating earlier verses but that's just about its only blot. A great song to singalong with just as "Groove Is in the Heart" will get you on the dancefloor. They're both winners and should have shared the top spot.

Brother Beyond: "He Ain't No Competition"

19 October 1988

""It's always been a mystery why Stock, Aitken & Waterman never wrote songs for a group of boys and now, of course, they do."

— Chris Heath

I had now been in the UK for two months. I had by this point adjusted well enough to my new school, Mayflower Comprehensive in Billericay. I had quickly sussed that Drama was my favourite class, Religious Studies was somehow worse than I'd been expecting and Information Processing was useless without computers. I did really well in French and Geography, I sucked at Art and General Science and was just sort of all right in everything else. Along the way, I picked up a group of friends who I remained tight with for the rest of the year and had even master tying the tie I was required to wear every day. Every Friday my dad (a Maths teacher at Mayflower) gave me a pound to buy lunch and I typically used it on a slice of pizza, chips and an iced bun, washed down with something approximating cola from a machine. I missed Canada but that longing to be back was fading.

At home I began watching Grange Hill, Neighbours and Top of the Pops but the Saturday morning telly with all the music-focused programming would be something I would only know of rather than get into fully since we were going away almost every weekend. Overnight trips weren't quite a part of our routine (something that would begin just a few days after this issue of Smash Hits came out when we took the train to Scotland for half-term break with my grandparents who were visiting; I spent much of the journey up to Edinburgh engrossed in this very issue which my sister was already finished with) but we were already into day trips into London as well as visits to Colchester, Oxford, Southend and some hit-and-miss Essex villages. Getting away from out depressing little hovel as much as possible was a priority but I wish it hadn't been at the expense of just a little bit more telly.

When in the room I shared with my sister, I was happiest reading Smash Hits (or the pop bits of my sister's Just Seventeen mags) dreaming about one day forming a group of my own and listening to Radio 1's Sunday evening Top 40 countdown with Bruno Brookes. It was at this time that I began to experience my first (and strongest) bout of pop fandom rage. Not everyone seemed to share my opinion that Kylie Minogue's latest single, "Je ne sais pas pourquoi", was the greatest song in the world and I couldn't take it. For three consecutive Sundays I sat by the radio awaiting the results and for three consecutive Sundays I ended up bitterly disappointed. Enya's "Orinoco Flow" (my bête noire) didn't lodge itself at the top spot for long but it was nevertheless painful to be me for the better part of a month. Kylie then began to fade (the forgettable other side of the single's double-A "Made in Heaven" did "Je ne sais pas pourquoi" no favours) and my anger shifted to Robin Beck (and with good reason), Yazz and other usurpers. A pop injustice had occurred!

Blame? Oh there was a fair amount of it to go around. I thought people were stupid for buying Enya's dreadful record and not picking up Kylie's instead (this ire was not directed in part at myself since I didn't vote with my wallet, records being embargoed from out house because we didn't have a record player — at least not yet). I got annoyed whenever they'd play the naff video for "Orinioco Flow" on TV. But I reserved most of my wrath for Chris Heath for inexplicably trashing what I reckoned to be the best single I'd ever heard. His "clumsy, plodding ballad" was something that had gripped my eleven-year-old heartstrings. He found it "horribly dull" but I couldn't get enough of it. And I was certain that there were pop kids out there who'd refrained from buying it because some know-it-all writing in Smash Hits told them that it would be a waste of their hard "earned" bob.

(I would remain furious with Heath throughout the course of November but I eventually got over it. He soon became one of my favourite Smash Hits writers and I would eventually read his very fine books Pet Shop Boys, Literally and Pet Shop Boys Versus America, a pair of works that expertly dissect the the genius, insights and grumpiness of my favourite group)

What I didn't do, however, was target my derision in the direction of Brother Beyond, the band behind Heath's Single of the Fortnight. A Stock Aitken Waterman composition just like "Je ne sais pas pourquoi", it followed the near-number one success of "The Harder I Try", a single that was peaking two months' earlier when I arrived in the UK. It wouldn't be for a few weeks that I started following the charts and if I did hear the 'Yond's breakthrough hit it meant nothing to me. Thus, "He Ain't No Competition" became my introduction to the one legitimate alternative to Bros. And I was impressed — though not as much as my sister as it quickly supplanted Erasure's "A Little Respect" as her favourite song. (She never took to Kylie) It was only when I finally heard "The Harder I Try" proper on a compilation album that I got for Christmas that I realised that their second hit wasn't quite as good as their first and that maybe, just maybe, it had rode its coattails into the Top 10.

Opening with a sitar (an instrument that had a brief resurgence in British pop near the end of 1988: Hue & Cry also used one on their near-hit "Ordinary Angel") and a quick instrumental sneak peak of the chorus (a SAW trademark), "He Ain't No Competition" is from the off a much faster-paced number than its predecessor. Indeed, one of the charms of "The Harder I Try" was in its soulful, laid-back sound that flirts with lovers rock. 'Yond members Carl Fysh and David White might have even written it themselves; its follow-up has more in common with SAW, seemingly the sort of thing they had lying around in need of an artist or group to give it a good home. It resembles one the deep cuts on the second side of Kylie's debut album, such as "I Miss You", a track that Heath wishes had been the single instead of "Je ne sais pas pourquoi".

Nathan Moore got to play the vulnerable lad who made a million girls cry on "The Harder I Try" but his overlooked talents as a vocalist aren't needed as much here. There are verses where he gets to play the feeble little lamb but the chorus is all about strutting. Fair enough, he was a handsome guy with a champagne smile who clearly enjoyed the adulation of pop life and his confident vocals reflect this. It's likely that Pete Waterman had designs on Moore playing the roll of the teen heart throb even though this had already been achieved. Waterman was beginning to see himself as a pop svengali who molded his stars to suit his vision but he should have remained on the course previously set when SAW catered to the talents of their acts rather than the opposite. "The Harder I Try" had been tailored to Brother Beyond; "He Ain't No Competition" would be the vision that Waterman had for them. The fact that it's still a pretty good record is indicative of SAW not having quite lost their grip though it wouldn't be long.

Brother Beyond would move away from SAW following "He Ain't No Competition". Their debut album Get Even would be revamped to include their two Top 10 hits and would get a very favourable review in Smash Hits a month later. In the meantime, ver Hits also gave them that year's Most Promising New Group award (that the fans may not have actually voted on). Things were looking up for a band that hadn't had much luck until that summer. Riding the wave of their chart success, the 'Yond started off 1989 with their first self-penned hit "Be My Twin" (remixed to sound as much like a SAW number as possible) but the law of diminishing returns was already starting to affect them. A fourth hit, a remix of old flop "Can You Keep a Secret?" failed to reach the Top 20 and the bloom was off the rose. They would end the year outside the hit parade, right back where they had been at the beginning of '88.

The hits dwindled (though they did manage to fluke an American hit in 1990 with "The Girl I Used to Know", a better song than most of their non-SAW material) but Brother Beyond made the most of their fleeting time near the top.They did the media rounds, were always on the telly (probably even more than I was aware since, as I already said, I seldom got the chance to enjoy the Saturday pop shows) and were up for the Smash Hits program. They would even give reviewing the singles a go — and they even managed to do so without making this young pop kid cross.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

INXS: "Need You Tonight"

I still quite like both SAW contributions this fortnight but neither of them comes remotely close to this re-release of "Need You Tonight", a global smash in 1987 that the UK initially chose to spurn for some crazy reason. Subsequent singles "New Sensation" and "Never Tear Us Apart" managed to nab Top 30 spots — that were still way lower than they should been — so their sole American chart topper got a second chance a year on from its previous failure. This time, the British public almost made up for the injustice by taking it all the way to number two, a triumph that was dulled by finishing behind the horrible Coke-shilling "The First Time" by Robin Beck. Still, it got people talking and INXS would eventually become bigger in the UK than across the Atlantic. Sexy, unsettling, irresistible and one of those songs that cleverly manages to sound fresh in spite of how derivative the Aussies were. One of the singles of the year, just as it had been in '87. Amazingly, it was their only Top Ten hit in Britain.

Pet Shop Boys: "Rent"

7 October 1987

"You can always rely on the Pet Shop Boys to write a good tune — even though half the time they (the tunes) vaguely sound as though they once belonged to someone else."

— Lola Borg

The Pet Shop Boys are back (BACK!) with their second Single of the Fortnight on the bounce. While "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" proved a big hit around the world and probably played a part in their cross-generational appeal, it isn't one of their signature numbers, the type that fans cry out for at concerts to this day. "West End Girls" had not only topped the charts everywhere but it quickly became a firm favourite among fans but there wasn't always this convergence of wide spread popularity and favour with the devoted. The punters may have sent "Heart" to number one but the fans preferred "Left to My Own Devices" which didn't manage to do so well.

Neil Tennant is credited with coming up with the term 'Imperial Phase', about then a singer or group is at the height of their popularity and has "the secret of contemporary pop music". Uniquely, The Beatles had it throughout their entire time as a popular act, Elton John had it through much of the early to mid-seventies and for much of the eighties it was all about the powerful trio of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince. For others, the Imperial Phase was much more fleeting. From July of 1987 through to the following summer, the Pet Shop Boys had five hit singles, a best selling album, made a feature film and began contributing songs to other artists. Their North American popularity hadn't yet waned and they were probably the most successful pop act in the world over those twelve months. You don't take a step wrong when you're at the peak of your imperial power — even if It Couldn't Happen Here had been mauled by critics, it said a lot of about their influence and level of success that they were able to have a film made at all.

Their five hit singles from their Imperial period are still well-remembered, and not just by their core audience. Their chart positions were 1, 2, 8, 1 and 1, with "It's a Sin", "Always on My Mind" and "Heart" all hitting the top while "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" would have joined them if not for the colossus of "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley, giving them three chart toppers and one near miss. Yet, there in the middle of their imperial phase is that '8' that stands out like a sore thumb. That modest showing only dwarfs what it did in the US, where it failed to chart entirely. It might as well have reached 48. "Rent" would eventually go on to become one of their most popular singles but it was the runt of the litter in their hit singles basket. The album Actually having just come out a month earlier, some fans would have been hesitant to go out and buy it again, especially when they didn't do anything with the song itself aside from trimming it down to three-and-a-half-minutes for optimum airplay. Remixes of "Opportunities" and "Suburbia" a year earlier improved their chart fortunes but the edit of "Rent" wasn't as fortunate. It's kind of remarkable they chose it to be a single at all, as the simple but likable "Heart" was there on Actually's second side, a hit in waiting. The clever "Shopping" also had chart potential, as did "One More Chance". "Rent" is a much less obvious single, similar to the way "Jealousy" would end up as the fourth 7" pulled off of Behaviour: you wouldn't necessarily expect it but you're glad they went ahead with it.

Tom Hibbert called "Rent" a "mercenary love song" and that may be partially why it failed to do better with a wider audience. The song's narrator is, as Tennant has admitted, a kept woman who has been taken care of by her well-off boyfriend. She has a place to live, her expenses are paid for and she's never had to work for a living. She also has sacrificed true happiness for this life and is now resigned to a love that doesn't completely fulfill her. Tennant says he envisioned one of the Kennedys having this secret woman on the side that he has a long-term dalliance with. What we don't get is a sense of closure, as if her life will just go on being largely unhappy with just hints of a true relationship involved. The public doesn't want to have anything to do with such unromantic characters: if they were in a movie, they'd either discover true love with each other (kind of like in Pretty Woman) or she'd free herself of this affair and go it alone (like Muriel's Wedding). A bit of a wasted life, albeit one that is also acknowledged as not being so bad all things considered. The pop charts had no time for such bleak realism, imperial phase or not.

But being a man, I wondered about the other side of this tale. I had originally intended this entry to be a short story set in Jakarta about a young women who grew up in poverty but is now at the beck and call of a rich western businessman. She is able to provide for her mother and sisters and is the envy of her friends but she's grown depressingly resigned to this life. He flies in (I was imaging from either Hong Kong or Singapore) from time to time for business and that's when they can steal their moments together. I worked on this story for a while but hit a wall while trying to flesh out the character of the rich boyfriend. I wanted him to also have a sense that things weren't quite right but it never really rang true. He's the one perpetuating this lifestyle for the two of them so why on Earth would he want to change anything? And if he does want to end it, he has the money and the power in the relationship and he won't be affected long term.

At a time when glitzy American dramas like Dallas and Dynasty were peak (and British telly presented Bread as a comedic, working class answer to those two), few looked beyond the luxury goods and high living. At a time when it was still assumed that Charles and Diana were relatively happy (or perhaps 'weren't entirely unhappy' would be more accurate), many would have traded to have a similar swanky lifestyle. And at a time when Thatcher was busy selling off public utilities (which Tennant and Lowe spoofed in the aforementioned "Shopping") and claiming that there's no such thing as society, the establishment only saw power players and not the human beings lurking underneath. What few dared say was that there's a price for living a glamourous life but only the Pet Shop Boys — in all their imperial power — were there to document it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

INXS: "Need You Tonight"

Groups from the Antipodes traditionally take longer to break in Britain than in the States and this was never truer than in 1987 when INXS began conquering America while still being little known across the Atlantic. Kick was their sixth album and was packed to the brim with potential hits yet they couldn't get themselves arrested in the UK, a country that just so happened to be falling for Neighbours and its generation of young actors and pop stars at the same time. "Need You Tonight" would soon go to number one in the US but it would require another year to really get going in Britain. What took them so bloody long to embrace the sextet? Having a dishy, charismatic frontman in Michael Hutchence wasn't enough, nor was the sexy rock produced by a tight, underrated group of musicians. They probably didn't even care for the state-of-the-art video first time 'round. At the time I was ten years old and rightly assumed that everyone in the world loved INXS. And they did, it just took some longer than others.

INXS: "The One Thing"

15 September 1983

"This is not the greatest song in the world but INXS go for it as if it were their one and only chance of making a record..."

— David Hepworth

Two photos accompanying this fortnight's singles review page. The first is of a young and contented David Hepworth (perhaps he is so pleased because he knows this will be the last time he will perform such an arduous task), critic pics having become a thing since the early part of 1983. The other is of an even younger, even more contented sextet of Australians, a band photo as seen on the back of "The One Thing" (the front cover of which also includes helpfully printing the words 'In Excess' for those of us not quite sure how to pronounce their odd sort-of-an-abbreviation, sort-of-an-acronym name — I first thought they were called "ink-ses").

They're half a decade younger than when I first became familiar with them but it's clearly INXS despite the grainy, black and white photo making it difficult to pick out details. The Farris brothers are all at the back, with Andrew and Jon (who is shirtless with either a pair of swimming goggles or a Chippendale bowtie around his neck) not quite as interested in get in on the action as the rest of their bandmates with a similarly unimpressed Tim just in front of them gamely caught mid-leap. In front is bespectacled sax player Kirk Pengilly possibly just about to crouch down. To the right is Garry Gary Beers, catching some quality air and doing his best to look as silly as possible. On the left, Michael Hutchence, the group's lead singer, barefoot and wearing a pair of shorts and vest, a long way away from the rock 'n' roll sex god he'd one day become.

But did anyone have an inkling of what they'd one day become? As much as Hepworth admires INXS ("listening to this makes you realise how few new groups have any simple old fashioned energy") and the song itself (it "doesn't sound like anyone else at all, which is recommendation enough these days", a point I was going to take issue with until it dawned on me that the song it reminded me of is "Jesus Says" by Ulster pop punk metallers Ash who did it fifteen years later), he doesn't bother pointing out how promising they are or how they're an act to keep an eye on. In all likelihood, he didn't even consider their future prospects. One look at their photo and he may have assumed he was dealing with a half-dozen no-hopers who'd chanced upon a fluke decent pop song.

"The One Thing" is a record I had been unfamiliar with until very recently and I'm finding myself judging it too much based on what they'd do later. It lacks "Devil Inside"'s alluring creepiness, "Need You Tonight"'s lustful vigour, "Never Tear Us Apart"'s naive romanticism and, generally, the swagger of a band at their creative and commercial nexus. In a vacuum, however, it's spirited and powerful and proof that years of cutting their teeth in the Australian pub rock scene turned them into a tight, underrated unit. As Hepworth says, this is them giving it their all and leaving nothing to chance. Pengilly's solo is especially startling when placed in the context of the many slick tenor spots that had come as a result of the popularity of Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" five years earlier. They could have very easily played it safe but they owe their careers to being bold.

While the SOTF didn't do much for them in the UK, where, like fellow Antipodeans Crowded House, it would take them longer to become a chart fixture, "The One Thing" delighted North Americans enough to give them their first international hit. No more daft photo sessions, an increasingly charismatic sex god fronting them and loads more swagger. INXS were away.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Soft Cell: "Soul Inside"

"This is the new Soft Cell single and this is me reviewing it," Hepworth snottily begins. The sheer ubiquity and sameness of Soft Cell singles seemed to grate on the nerves of at least one top pop mag critic — a marked contrast from the sheer ubiquity and sameness of the only Soft Cell single that ever gets played today. Still, "Tainted Love" is an excellent composition and Marc Almond and Dave Ball gave it a great performance, which is more than can be said for "Soul Inside". There's a tune in there somewhere but as Hepworth says it doesn't seem the vocalist knows what to do with it. (The purposely off double-tracking is appalling: can't Almond even harmonize with himself?) This is just another Soft Cell single? Maybe time to pack it in lads.