Anne Clark: "Hope Road"

6 May 1987

"It pays to be conscientious, pop tarts."

— Ian Cranna

Poor, old Jocky Cranna. He had once been this mysterious Scots chap who reviewed the albums in Smash Hits under the pseudonym Red Starr, confessed to wishing to be kissed by a princess (though not Princess Anne), once switched places with colleague Cliff White just to troll the readers and made it seem like reviewing albums was the only thing that mattered in life. Sure, he didn't go out of his way describe all his misadventures with pop types like Lester Bangs and Nick Kent but that only added to his allure: pop stars who reveal everything about themselves in song are bad enough but music critics using their platform for glorified diary entries?

The shine of writing for a top pop mag may have been taking its toll by the late eighties. Punk and its antecedents were no longer influencing the scene and there weren't those thrilling records of old coming out. The last time he did the singles back in September of '86 and admitted that there wasn't much on offer that gave him much of a thrill — and he's in a not dissimilar mood this fortnight as well. Yet, despite his apathy, he is surprisingly upbeat about the majority of the new singles, with eleven out of fifteen receiving mostly positive reviews and only one (Pepsi & Shirlie's Wham-esque "Goodbye Stranger") being dismissed out of hand.

But Cranna wasn't out to heap praise on a catchy pop hit, he wanted to keep discovering new and wonderful gems just as he used to during the heyday of punk. His unique reviews of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" back in 1985 give off the impression that he was really trying to find something else to topple such an apparently predictable SOTF. Why was he so ennamoured with Die Totenhosen and Freddy Love teaming up for a punk/hip hop crossover? Well, two reasons actually: (a) it was and still is awesome and (b) it was unlike anything else at his disposal. Be good but also be different.

Which brings us to his pick from the current issue of ver Hits. Anne Clark had been around and releasing records over the past four years but it doesn't appear Cranna has encountered her before — and, indeed, he's not alone seeing as how I'd never heard of her until recently myself. Being a spoken word artist and having released previous works independently, it is likely she is the sort of individual that may have cropped up in the NME or the Melody Maker while passing the offices of a teen pop mag by. If Cranna had been previously familiar with her then he gives no indication of such in his write up — and I daresay he wouldn't have been so enthusiastic either.

Cranna knows that "Hope Road" wasn't created in a vacuum. He mentions that it's "sort of Laurie Anderson meets OMD" (though I hear it more as Yazoo's "Only You" meets, well, The Flying Pickets' "Only You"), yet it's so unlike anything else up for consideration that it's no wonder it stands out. I used to have a notion that effective pop music cons us into believing that it's fresh and original even if we know that nothing really is.

Clark's tale of meeting some bloke at a party and following up his invitation to his place for dinner the following week is fascinating, if fairly unlikely. I quite like the fact that she sounds unmoved by this potential romance while still being interested enough to pursue it. As she looks ahead to their meet up, she wonders "what happens if I arrive and there is no Hope Road there?" as though she's expecting to be disappointed. Which makes me wonder: was handing out fake addresses a problem back in the day? I've heard of giving out false telephone numbers but telling someone you live on a street that doesn't exist? Not something I've ever had to deal with. More to the point, what does this rogue fellow have to gain by doing this to poor Anne? Getting a fake phone number is annoying but it doesn't put someone out the way an erroneous street would, especially if they happen to reside in another town.

The performance is so convincing, however, that poking holes in the narrative is something left for afterwards. Clark sings/raps in a downcast way that was very much her style at the time and her matter-of-factness makes it much easier to swallow. "Hope Road" keeps making me think of It's Immaterial's fabulous "Driving Away from Home (Jim's Tune)", a SOTF from a year earlier. The two aren't especially similar barring the spoken word nature, with the glib "Driving" giving a carefree look at getting out and seeing the world; Clark's composition takes the listener away from the outdoors and back into their tiny lives in cold, dank flats.

Cranna imagines that it's a metaphor for "politicians and, erm, the world around us" and I wonder if he's thinking of the general election in the UK that would take place just over a month later. Where does being seduced by a political party lead us, to hope or hopelessness? Would a potential (though ultimately unsuccessful) Labour government really make Britain better off than the status quo? Clark offers no response, only the idea that this should be a "message" to everyone and that is we shouldn't trust others, particularly people we've just met. Again, this is nothing new but the way she states it could only have come from her — and in the end, what else matters?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Voice of the Beehive: "Just a City"

Cranna digs the Bees' "Just a City" but is much more impressed with 12" b-side "D'yer Mak'er", a cover of a North American hit for Led Zeppelin in 1973. The original has the benefit of the loudest drums you'll ever hear on a reggae track (no surprises there) and the very un-Jamaican vocals of Robert Plant; this reinterpretation is no more culturally authentic (which is for the best, really) but it's sadly free of the usual winsome Beehive spirit. Good thing "Just a City" is a perfect slice of girl group-influenced indie rock that only Melissa Brooke Belland and Tracey Bryn could dish up. Hit single "Don't Call Me Baby" and should have hit "I Walk the Earth" are superior but this was a welcome sign of things to come. Why weren't they bigger?

Sharpe & Numan: "New Thing from London Town"

10 September 1986

"In a fortnight sadly lacking in dazzling delights, this was the only single that demanded to be heard again."

— Ian Cranna

Looking at the quotation above you'd think that that "super"group Sharpe & Numan's competition this fortnight is nothing but a bunch of mid-eighties mediocrities and you may not be wrong (UB40? Paul Young? Sir Billiam of Idol? Falco? Nik always-a-laugh-and-a smile Kershaw? Ultravox for god's sake) but for the fact that Ian Cranna is pretty impressed with the bulk of what's on offer. True, there's nothing that's lights out brilliant or anything and some of these acts were beginning to look like relics even then but it's a respectable batch nonetheless. I might not demand to hear any of these again but I wouldn't turn very many off if they came on. If the singles here are low on "dazzling delights" then that certainly goes for this issue's SOTF.

My junior high school library had this one book that my friend Ethan and I spelled each other on perpetual lone. The Rock Book wasn't actually called The Rock Book but that's what we called it (it was something like The Rand-McNally Book of Rock or The McMurray-Douglas Real Estate Book of Rock but I have no idea) and it was something the two of us devoured. It was hardly a flawless work of reference: discographies were leaden with howlers (I'm still looking for that elusive Smiths album Sheila Take a Bow) and the fact that they reckoned The Police merited a larger spread than The Beatles was puzzling but it had a lot going for it as well, not the least of which being that it was the only thing available. While there were write ups on plenty of artists and groups we were familiar with, I tended to be drawn more to the acts I had no idea about. Love had a dead boring group name and didn't have any hits but the cover of one of their albums (Forever Changes, it would turn out) looked good and they were definitely something I promised myself I would look out for (until I promptly forgot all about them; good thing I had a chance to discover them years later). The Jam was Paul Weller's first group (I had no idea he'd done anything prior to The Style Council) in which he actually dared to rock (it didn't sound too promising but I hoped to give them a go). But the act I found myself especially drawn to was Gary Numan.

He seemed a quixotic character with brooding persona that was one part Peter Gabriel at his most outlandish in Genesis and one part Morrissey. British mope rock had its stars (in addition to Moz, there was Robert Smith and Siouxsie Sioux) and synth pop was still a major factor (The Rock Book was my thing in 1990 when two of synth's three greatest albums, Behaviour and Violator, were released; the other one is Dare) and Gazza seemed like a perfect meeting point. Sure, Depeche Mode were around but I always considered them to be too pervy and poppy to really fit in with the glum contingent. Turns out, it was too perfect a crossover. Still, he seemed charismatic, his album covers looked great and he looked like just the sort of figure to woo a moody adolescent. Perhaps it's for the best I never got the chance to listen to his music at the time.

LA act Sparks have recently been re-evaluated. Actually, it seems like they're always being given critical reconsideration, which is strange when you consider they've never really fallen out of favour. I'm not sure what to do with them myself. I got the triple set Past Tense collection last year and though I love material on the second disc, there's not much for me elsewhere. Plus, I think I'm getting weary of being told how underrated they are by everyone on Twitter. (I didn't think it possible to be underrated when you seem to get nothing but glowing reviews but there you go) They are, however, important to this week's entry since they invented the concept of the synth pop duo. Having jettisoned previous members, brothers Ron and Russell Mael managed to similarly rid themselves of glam rock and had become an electronic act by the end of the seventies and the commercial and creative second wind they enjoyed with the No.1 in Heaven album proved influential. While larger acts — The Human League, New Order, ver Deps, Propaganda — would also thrive playing synthesizers, their fuller lineups tended towards bringing guitars and drums and other "proper" instruments in to augment their sound. (Even synth-adjacent duos like Eurythmics and Tears for Fears gradually became open towards more analogue-friendly modes) Pairings had little to work with, a deadpan vocalist and his/her very camera-shy partner doing as little as possible behind a keyboard, but I think that kept them on the right path.

So, the once hugely popular Gary Numan had been seeing his chart fortunes waning for some time and it's a credit to his loyal posse of Numanoids that he managed to avoid the dumper for longer than most. By 1985, he was six years on from the peak of "Are 'Friends' Electric" and "Cars" but he must have seen how the likes of Soft Cell, Yazoo and Blancmange had been doing with vocalist-keyboardist dynamic. He promptly went out and brought in Bill Sharpe of Shakatak to be his very own David Ball, Vince Clarke or, er, other one from Blancmange. The pair got off to a promising start with the Top 20 hit "Change Your Mind" but they didn't immediately follow it up and soon Numan was back doing solo material. It wouldn't be for another year-and-a-half that they would be back: so much for building upon momentum.

"Change Your Mind" had been Numan's biggest hit of '85 with solo efforts barring a live EP missing the Top 40 altogether. 1986 got off to a better start with back-to-back chart entries but now all of a sudden he's back with his partner Sharpe in a synth duo. "New Thing from London Town" is reasonably good, not quite up to the scratch of "Change Your Mind" but probably of a higher standard than much of his other recent work. Sharpe's playing does its best to rescue Gazza from the goth rock sewer, its sound not unlike the cinematic darkness of Propaganda's "Dr. Mabuse". Cranna wonders just what this "new thing" is supposed to be and it's a good question (a quick study of the lyrics doesn't reveal much). If it's meant as a statement of intent then Numan doesn't go far enough and it's not helped by being yet another one off effort. A redone version cropped up on solo album Strange Charm and the pair wouldn't be heard from again until they had a minor Top 40 entry in early 1988. Automatic, their one album as a unit, wouldn't come out until '89.

Gary Numan had been resistant to give the Sharpe & Numan tag a proper go, admitting that he didn't wish to alienate the few fans he had left. A pity since the project might have given him the shot in the arm his career needed at the time. It seems he never wished to stray too far in one direction, either by going fully synth pop or by going with a stronger goth-industrial approach. While it may have been admirable for him to try to toe that line, there's too much compromise to his work as the eighties progressed. Synth duos Soft Cell, Yazoo and Blancmange were largely gone by this point but the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure had now emerged and both would carve out excellent careers loaded with hits and strong albums. On the other hand, by the time the one-and-done Sharpe & Numan pet project LP had finally come out a new American act called Nine Inch Nails was busy finishing off their debut Pretty Hate Machine. Trent Reznor has always made a point of citing his debt to Numan but this is arguably a case of the protegee surpassing the mentor. Sometimes you just have to take a side already.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Housemartins: "Think for a Minute"

Housemartins backlash has begun: Cranna despises their "weedy, contrived silliness" and you have to think this is down in large part to "Happy Hour", their huge hit that had ver blokes all over England chanting along while downing pints. Yeah, yeah, the song was in fact about socialism (or something) but they were asking for it with such a stupid video. "Think for a Minute" was the follow up and is a marked improvement to Cranna. I have a lot of time for Paul Heaton and his first two bands but this is too much trying to right a wrong with another extreme. This time it's self-righteousness that harms the record. Heaton and co-writer Stan Cullimore (and later collaborator David Rotheray) would soon come up with much better tunes about society's descent into me first Tory solipsism but I guess this is acceptable as a early go — though, having said that, early flop single "Flag Day" is similarly themed and also superior. Spoiler alert: we'll be seeing them before long when it really starts to go right. Stay tuned, readers.

Pete Shelley: "On Your Own"

4 June 1986

"Not surprising, coming from someone who, since his days with The Buzzcocks, has written more brilliant songs and influenced more people than...well, than someone else who's written tons of brilliant songs and influenced loads of people."

— Vici MacDonald

"Pete Shelley swaps his usual easy nonchalance for a vaguely menacing electronic growl on this rather sad and lonely little song which contrasts the satisfaction of being in control with the uncertainties of being alone."
— Ian Cranna

Two quotes from Smash Hits staff? What, did they tag team the singles this time round? No, only the comment at the top comes from the June 4 issue of ver Hits while the one below it is from a month earlier. Former Buzzcock (there's no definite article though if people can go on about 'Beatles', 'Who' and 'Jam' then there's no reason we can't say 'The Eagles', 'The Talking Heads' and, yes, 'The Buzzcocks) Pete Shelley's latest record was reviewed twice during this time. This oversight may be due to a delay in the release of the single, editorial carelessness or Vici MacDonald wanting to build up a recent favourite over some pretty so-so (at least in her judgment) new releases. Given how much she admires Shelley as well as her feeling that he hasn't received his due ("Fact: Pete Shelley is a genius and it's a crime that he seems doomed to obscurity"), I wouldn't be surprised to discover that it's the latter.

Having two reviews to go on is nice. The thoughts of MacDonald and Ian Cranna diverge considerably even though they both appreciate "On Your Own". He considers it to be "unsettling" while she reckons it's "joyous" — and they're both right. There's a barely concealed dark heart to the song but the clipped new wave sound makes it seem less weighty. It's catchy but no less spooky. Borrowing big eighties production, a touch of synth-pop and even a bit of goth rock, it would seem to be very much a product of its time but for all these cliches of the eighties being delicately threaded together so they become tough to pick out. Shelley is so subtle that you'd never know he'd previously been involved in all that punk nonsense.

The punks were now entering their thirties and this left a lot of them in a bind. Many were enjoying success of late — John Lydon was at the helm of a new lineup at PiL, Mick Jones had formed Big Audio Dynamite, The Damned were at their commercial peak, Feargal Sharkey was doing well after leaving The Undertones, Siouxsie Sioux was still going strong with The Banshees and even former Generation X chums Sir Billiam of Idol and Tony James (of Sigue Sigue Sputnik) were having hit singles; the bulk of these acts were also getting Singles of the Fortnight so they had at least some critical support — but they weren't the youthful figures they'd been a decade earlier. Calling Bill Grundy a "dirty bastard" (among other niceties) may have been excusable when they were twenty (and because it was true) but now? Could these people still shock like they once did so effortlessly? Wouldn't it be embarrassing if they even tried?

Those who left their punk pasts behind came out of it better. Once The Clash had ditched Jones they went on to release the disastrous Cut the Crap in which Strummer, Simonon and Tory Crimes decided to rehash what they did when they were younger — only much crappier. Their spurned guitarist and creative force, however, went on to form a new group that made his old bandmates look ever sillier. Lydon continued to be the outspoken loudmouth that comes so naturally to him but he was utilizing funk, jazz and rock musicians to galvanize his hit and miss material. Pete Shelley kicked off his solo career by dabbling in some Numan-esque synth recordings, which did garner criticism, but what he always had was his songwriting talent to keep him afloat. It's just a shame that so few were listening by this time.

Shelley had departed Buzzcocks back in 1981 just as work on a fourth album was going off the rails. While his contemporaries were getting a second wind on the charts, he struggled, with the single "Homosapien" doing well in some Commonwealth countries but without much else to show for it. It's here that his relation to "On Your Own" must be discussed and speculated upon. Had it been a sizable hit Shelley would have been questioned about the song and if it happened to be about himself — and, failing that, who else it might have been about. His band didn't appear to have had that acrimonious a split and they'd reform by the end of the decade. Nevertheless, it's reasonable to assume that this is an account of his own solo career. Buzzcocks were a tight four piece, especially by punk standards, but it was his songs that made them special. Since he was already doing the bulk of the heavy lifting, why not go solo and enjoy the spoils further? But now he's on his own and the spoils are awfully thin. He has the creative final say that he has longed for but at the price of no more group camaraderie.

Pete Shelley passed away in his adopted hometown of Tallin, Estonia back in December of 2018. News of his death may have paled in comparison with David Bowie or Prince (both also reviewed this fortnight, as is a new release from Strange Cruise led by the late Steve Strange of Visage; the Grim Reaper has paid a visit to an awful lot of the pop stars here) but it garnered headlines in the music press and was much-discussed on social media. MacDonald is worried that few appreciate Shelley's talents but it seems people did come round to him in time. Now, that was almost entirely down to what he did with the Buzzcocks but there may have been some residual respect for his solo work. He never tried to cling to punk but didn't seem interested in latching himself onto a trendier genre either. All he could do was be Pete Shelley: to hell with people not getting him.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

a-ha: "Hunting High and Low"

1986 was a-ha's year: not only did "Take on Me" conquer the world but they also enjoyed further Top Ten success and Morten Harket had supplanted all the members of Duran Duran combined as the discerning teenage girl's pin up of choice. The law of diminishing returns did little to derail this souped up title track from their debut LP but it was just more of the same only not as good as their first two hits (though, as MacDonald says, it's a marked improvement on its predecessor "Train of Thought"). An early stab at a more dramatic sound that would be developed into singles such as "The Living Daylights" and "Stay on These Roads", "Hunting High and Low" indicates that there was a lot more to a-ha than cute videos and handsome Norsemen.

Glass Torpedoes: Someone Different

26 July 1979 (and here)

"Liverpool will rise again!"

— Red Starr

What I previously said: 
The spidery riffs and a hard-plonking beat make this an easy to like if kind of underwhelming first SOTF. The ghostly, expressionless vocals and minimalist atmospherics put it very much in the context of late-seventies new wave. It seems they were very young at the time — the fact that they were on a label known as Teen Beat sort of gives away their age — and, thus, were a promising bunch. Or so it seemed.

Cliff White and Red "Ian Cranna" Starr switched places this fortnight. It seems it was something they agreed to do just to spite all the youngsters who had been writing in to complain about their awful reviews. This fortnight's singles begins with a short message which reads as follows:

Well, it's what you wanted, wasn't it? No Cliff White on singles and no Red Starr on albums? What do you think of it so far? — Ed.

And there we all were thinking that Tom Hibbert ushered in the era of trolling-merriment to ver Hits.

Being in the middle of 1979, it's strange to think that Liverpool was having an especially tough time of it. Their Bob Paisley-era football squad was at its zenith with a high-powered offence and a stingy defense (just sixteen goals allowed all season!) that once again put them comfortably atop the old First Division. (Inevitably to be outdone was Everton coming a respectable yet underwhelming as ever fourth) In terms of pop music, this was hardly The Beatles rockin' The Cavern Club but there was probably a good deal more depth to be found in Scouse post-punk than during the Merseybeat boom.

Not leading the way and not forging a future was Glass Torpedoes. For a nice debut single by a young act, there was every reason to expect they had a bright future. For whatever reason, it didn't happen but it says a lot that Starr would nevertheless see big things for their hometown in general on the evidence of this one record. Well, not really. He's nearly as impressed by "The Pictures on My Wall" by Echo & The Bunnymen, yet another new act out of Liverpool. Listening to the pair of new releases back to back it's difficult to spot the group who would carve out a nice career and the group that would ultimately go nowhere. They're both solid examples of post-punk but neither is particularly notable beyond speculating where they'd be headed next, if anywhere. Quite what did a Glass Torpedo think when Ian McCulloch claimed that his group could have been U2? "Yeah, and we could have been Echo & The bloody Bunnymen".

While it is very much a period piece, it didn't occur to me how ahead of its time Barbara Donovan's vocals are. She anticipates many of the riot grrrl acts of the nineties with her monotone delivery. It's impossible to say if the likes of Sleater-Kinney or Babes in Toyland knowingly cribbed from her but there's always the possibility of a domino effect. I certainly hope so since it would be nice if there was a bit more to them than just a proto-Single of the Fortnight.

Finally, in my original write up from March of 2018 I seem unaware that this is an E.P. we're dealing with. I guess I didn't examine Starr's review very well since he brings it up himself. The other two tracks are all right and further evidence of their promise. If only they'd been able to deliver on it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Talking Heads: "Take Me to the River"

There's been some backlash of late towards David Byrne. His old bandmates, it would seem, object to the fact that a self-centred, socially awkward geek doesn't seem to care about them. Curious. While it's always worth going back to see just what a wondrous foursome they were forty years ago, it's also important to acknowledge that not everything they touched turned to gold. Underrated songwriters, they attempted a rare cover here that they were fond enough of to keep as a part of their concert setlist for the next five years. I'm happy for them they like it so much but the results are grim. Nothing beats ruining a perfectly good soul classic like sucking all the life, religiosity and sexiness out of it. But don't just blame David Byrne.

The Communards: "Disenchanted"

7 May 1986

"Proud, dignified and an excellent return to earlier form."

— Ian Cranna

As the classic synth-pop groups of the eighties go, The Communards don't feature especially prominently. They seemed to combine all the weaknesses of their competitors while lagging way behind in terms of strengths. Like Erasure, they took themselves too seriously but they lacked Andy Bell and Vince Clarke's songwriting chops. Like Soft Cell, they had to rely on a cover version to put them over the top but Jimmy Somerville was no frontman compared to Marc Almond. Like New Order, they presented to the public a dull, everyday image but were without those distinctive qualities of a Sumner or a Hooky to set them apart. Like the Pet Shop Boys, they weren't particularly showy but they cared little for playing the pop star game. Like Yazoo, they were a short-lived entity but one that failed to make the most of their moment. True, they had their political convictions but that hardly translates into sturdy pop.

Somerville had previously been in Bronski Beat, who enjoyed a worldwide smash with "Smalltown Boy" in 1984. It's one of those numbers that seems like it should have been even bigger but it has managed to remain in the public consciousness.  The "return to earlier form" that Ian Cranna alludes to is this very same band which must have made Somerville's newest group seem an offshoot project at the time — not only were they fronted by the same fun-sized, helium-voiced singer but keyboardist and future minister Richard Coles had also been an unofficial member of ver Beat. Both groups had members who were openly gay and were very much following the example of Tom Robinson by singing about it at every turn. Bronski, however, was a three piece and utilized many more talented figures in their work; The Communards were a duo with much less at their disposal.

I have to agree with Ian Cranna that "Disenchanted" is a definite step up from "You Are My World" which is over-lush and a prime example of how Somerville could make his very strong voice sound so unlistenable (the chorus is ghastly). Nevertheless, this follow-up is a dreary outing. No longer singing from the outsiders perspective, Somerville offers guidance and hope to a young outcast who could easily be the same character in "Smalltown Boy". His isn't a very insightful perspective but there's nothing wrong with a little tried and true homespun wisdom. And Somerville does a commendable job keeping his vocal histrionics in check. Where it goes wrong is the punchless tune. It drifts along, betraying the beats per minute as though it's meant to be a bedsit gay anthem divorced from the clubs and is far more restrained than it needs to be. Is it too much to expect to be thrilled by a record anymore? I might be inclined to agree with Cranna that it's "dignified" ('proud' would be a judgement call) but that's precisely the point: it holds itself back, doesn't reveal anything and is surprisingly conservative for something by a pair of hardcore lefties. And if the 'bedsit gay anthem' bit above seems like a fine prospect, I would offer up for consideration The Smiths: lyrics that really speak to human inadequacies, a real sense of a vocalist-listener connection and tunes to cherish. 

Where The Communards managed to connect was with their politics. Somerville had always been outspoken on gay rights — Bronski Beat had been formed around the idea that LGBTQ groups of the time weren't addressing their community in their music and felt that needed changing — and was now becoming more involved in the left in general. But where the likes of Billy Bragg and The Style Council could effectively communicate what they stood for through their music, Somerville and Coles needed to have something to stand on away from their recordings. "Once you get geared into pop music, Coles observes, "you become part of the thing you decried. Red Wedge was a career enhancing thing for us in a funny way and gave us more of a profile". It does a group with strong principles but some duff records good to be focusing on what they really cared about.

A retooled Bronski Beat were still doing well by this time but getting ver Nards going proved a slower prospect. "Disenchanted" crawled up just inside the Top 30, a modest single placing higher than the performance of "You Are My World". Clearly the Somerville-Coles originals weren't going to cut it and they'd need to fall back on a cover version. It worked spectacularly (more in terms of sales than actual song quality) but at the price of their own tunes never quite being able to cut it. They were much like all those great synth-pop groups only they weren't much cop for the most part.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Go-Betweens: "Head Full of Steam"

"Disenchanted" might have been an okay choice for SOTF if not for all the vastly superior records on offer. Kate Bush milking it in the best possible sense with "The Big Sky", OMD's powerful rockist workout "88 Seconds in Greensboro" ("B-side of the fortnight"), Pet Shop Boys' "Opportunities", Blancmange's "I Can See It" (synth-pop groups all showing Somerville and Coles how it's done) but the latest from The Go-Betweens tops 'em all. (And that's not even including the latest single from former Buzzcock Pete Shelley which I'll be dealing with before long) A taster for their great fourth album Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express, "Head Full of Steam" has it all: intriguing and funny lyrics, addictive jangle pop, lovely harmonies and co-leaders Robert Forster and Grant McLennan in makeup, wigs and halter tops in the video. Their earlier work showed promise and this is where they begin delivering on it. Hot take: there wasn't a better group on Earth for the next three years.

Kate Bush: "Running Up That Hill"

14 August 1985

"It's definitely, um, what's the expression? Uh, er — look, I'll come back to you on this one..."

"Er, amazing? No — too obvious. Uh, hang on a mo..."

"...appetising? No — hey don't go away..."

"...provocative? piquant? tantalising?..."

"...interesting? Yes, that's it — interesting!"

— Ian "Jocky" Cranna

Interesting? Interesting? Well, that's some hefty praise from Red Starr Ian "Jocky" Cranna. Perhaps years of being decencitised to this particular adjective as an ESL instructor (sample teacher-student exchange: "Why do you like horror movies?" "Interesting") leaves me with the feeling that His Nibs doesn't really mean it. Or he's baiting us readers (or "viewers" as ver Hits liked to label the increasing number of young people who shelled out 43p to "view" every fortnightly issue) by using increasingly flowery language to get us to follow along with him to the end of the page only to finish with something so trite. Whatever his intentions, who can blame him? How does go about describing such an extraordinary record as "Running Up That Hill"?

Cranna has put together one of the most "interesting" of reviews this issue. The SOTF isn't in its by now customary spot at the top of the page on the left and it's being presented as if he's going through the records while doing his write up. Early favourites ("God bless Marc Almond!", "God bless Propaganda!", "God bless Shakatak!": he sure wants to keep ver Lord busy blessing moderately popular "stars") are quickly dispensed with, each one failing to live up to Cranna's lofty expectations. Bland offerings from The Thompson Twins and a Mike Barson-free Madness are similarly dispensed with before he comes to the latest single by Kate Bush. "Now this is how to return in style!" he enthuses.

It was quite a return for Kate Bush. A star since her late teens when all of Britain fell for "Wuthering Heights" (and who could blame them?), she began losing momentum with 1982's The Dreaming. Many critics didn't think it was much cop (though David Hepworth reckoned it was rather good, commenting that "it's good to see someone go over the top and come back in one piece"), it didn't sell as well as its predecessors and only one accompanying single, "Sat in Your Lap", managed to "dent" the hit parade. Then, she promptly disappeared. Rumours began spreading that she had fled to the south of France or she'd been using her layover to binge on junk food and had ballooned to two hundred and fifty pounds. Whatever else may have been going on, the dumper beckoned.

Not that that mattered in the slightest to Kate Bush. The Dreaming didn't sell but it strengthened her resolve. While the gossipers were having a field day, she was busy starting her own recording studio and perfecting the material that would return her to the top of the charts and fully establish her reputation as a major figure.

"Running Up That Hill" kicks it all off with clearly her most astonishing piece since "Wuthering Heights". Cryptically singing about gender issues and the need to swap roles, she brings up making a "deal with God" (the song's original title until she was strongarmed into changing it for fear of offending some — possibly some of the very same folk who are always whining about political correctness) to allow the sexes to understand each other better. Fine intentions, of course, but in less capable hands this could be dangerous territory to tread upon, issues having the tendency to overwhelm the songs they're utilized in. Bush being too much of an individualist to make this a feminist lament, she acknowledges not really being able to comprehend being male any better than a man can understand being a woman. She doesn’t expound upon much — just what she’s offering God in this deal, is her beau likely to agree to a sex swap — but what would be a Kate Bush track without leaving more questions unanswered in the end?

Vocals, instruments, production are all tied together beautifully with every detail immaculately thought out. Elements of prog rock, art rock and so-called world music have all been stirred up (Bush’s musical open-mindedness was such that Chris Heath had to admit in his glowing review a month later in Smash Hits that “it’s the sort of record your parents will probably like too and will pinch off you to play”) and talented multi-instrumentalist brother Paddy’s balalaika playing is a particular highlight, giving it the feel of Eastern European peasants digging ditches and cooking up cast iron pots of borscht.

The only problem is that "Running Up That Hill" is almost on its own, with just the gorgeous piano ballad "Under the Ivy" on the record's flip to accompany it. It's a sparkling single but an even better opener to her masterpiece Hounds of Love. Then again, releasing the first cut as a teaser could only have made everyone salivate over what was to come — and they wouldn't be disappointed. Amazing? Appetising? Provocative? Piquant? Tantalising? Interesting? All of those — and so much more.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Woodentops: "Well Well Well"

A London quintet with a musical debt to The Smiths and one Animal Jesus (XTC's Andy Partridge in yet another in-no-way on the nose alias) doing production duties, The Woodentops looked like the next indie darlings when the emerged in the summer of '85. This lot weren't watching Paul Young croon at Live Aid a month earlier. Energetic and raw, "Well Well Well" is good sketch of where they were but it seems a long way off from the superb Giant album they would release a year later. A pity I know what is to come which prevents me from fully enjoying what they've done here but at least they didn't piss their promise away.

The Incredible T*H* Scratchers starring Freddy Love: "Hip-Hop-Bommi-Bop"

24 May 1984

"Alas, possibly distracted by the cheap and nasty Bommerlunder alcohol, Dusseldorf's punkiest don't take this even remotely seriously and said Fred returns to New York in despair."

— Ian Cranna

I teach at a university here in South Korea that was once notable for having members of a successful K-pop group on scholarship. (I wouldn't quite go so far as to call them 'students' given that they were seldom seen on campus apart from the school festival every autumn they were required to perform at) They were popular with the student body but the foreign teaching staff didn't think too much of them, especially after member Lee Gi-kwang appeared on a Korean TV comedy program in blackface and a curly wig, chomping on a big piece of watermelon. Little was said at the time — although it would later be cited as an example of racism tarnishing K-pop — and I am not aware of him ever apologising for it but I was always hoping he'd eventually get what was coming to him. (Of course he never did but they would all eventually have their degrees revoked for never having done any actual school work so maybe there's something to that karma thing after all)

I bring up this anecdote so as to introduce the one foul element to "Hip-Hop-Bommi-Bop": its video. With the members of Die Toten Hosen blackening up as cannibalistic natives about to devour Freddy Love, I'll grudgingly admit that it probably does visually communicate the song's fish-out-of-water status even if they could have done so in far less offensive fashion. (They doubled down for live appearances with similar Jolson-like visages though free of the primitives-cooking-round-a-giant-steaming-pot narrative) Now, of course, it may not have caused an outcry in mid-eighties West Germany and the Totes may not have known they what they were doing (ignorance being a common excuse for racism though it must be said that it's hard to imagine how crude stereotypes and vulgar imagery couldn't be taken the "wrong" way). For what it's worth, the African-American Fab 5 Freddy doesn't appear bothered by the actions of his collaborators even if it's safe to assume that he would have preferred they remain as Ayran as ever.

So, don't bother with the video and just take in the music which is absolutely brilliant. Die Toten Hosen were a bunch of snotty punks from Düsseldorf who'd recently had a hit with the German drinking song "Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder", which starts off like all good (and, to be sure, plenty of bad) folksy, sea shanties before quickly morphing into an absurd racket of a helium-voiced "singer" repeating the chorus at a faster and faster pace. It proved popular with their cult following in Germany but perhaps they correctly deduced that its appeal would go over the heads of audiences not of the Teutonic persuasion. They then went about drafting in a heavy hitter on the New York hip hop scene and made a virtue out of foreigners not getting the whole Toten Hosen shtick — and perhaps this is why it succeeds at transcending novelty pop since I am forced to enjoy this in spite of the gags that mean nothing to me.

Bearing no resemblance to the original recording its based on, Fab 5 Freddy (aka Freddy Love here, since the Totes decided to rechristen themselves 'The Incredible T*H* Scratchers' their guest star might as well take on a pseudonym of his own) is all over this, adding a professionalism that these misfit German punks didn't have. There's a structure and a tune present that previously failed to appear, all the while retaining the "Eisgekühlter..." charm. Freddy, though, is from the old school and there's plenty of D.I.Y. hip hop amateurism that meshes well with his blackface chums. His was the kind of rap that one can easily picture youths in Harlem doing to impress their buddies: the rhymes are often simplistic and telegraphed, the meter oh so predictable but it feels improvised and charged with the zest of someone who could lay down verse after verse like a modern day jazz cutter. It's difficult to say just what Campino and Andi and the rest are contributing here, though, as Ian Cranna points out, that guitar is perfect, crunchy and simplistic like all good punk rock but with touches of Chic-like funk jangle. The percussion may well be their doing too but it could just as easily be programmed. Maybe the Toten Hosen quartet were there simply for some rock 'n' roll spirit, useless bandmembers being essential to punk and rap alike.

It's hard to say if this had much of an influence on the future of rap rock and, in particular, Run DMC's celebrated cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" since (a) "Hip-Hop-Bommi-Bop" remained a curio that doesn't appear to have made much of an impact over in the US and (b) Run, DMC and the other one already had this cross-genre merging in mind. It's actually rather fascinating to picture how it might have turned out had they waited a few years to record and release "Hip-Hop-Bommi-Bop". In keeping with the original's mandate to repeat the "Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder" refrain as quickly as possible, it would have worked well with one of those rapid-fire choppers like Busta Rhymes or Twista that were a pretty big deal in the early nineties. More importantly, they may have also ditched the blackface nonsense in favour of having the members of Die Toten Hosen act like the toughest bunch of white homeboys imaginable. Blackface might be offensive and unfunny but the whitest people on Earth acting as if they're black? It's never not funny.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bronski Beat: "Smalltown Boy"

One of the most charming aspects of eighties pop is the tendency of acts to disguise issues for the purposes of mass consumption. Kids could hear the superb "Smalltown Boy" and not clue in to just what Jimmy Sommerville was on about and then, if they were anything like me, not have a problem with homosexuality when eventually confronted with it. Thus, a song about alienated and unwanted gay youth could be about alienated and unwanted youth. None of this should diminish the song's standing as a vital gay-rights anthem, I just wish to point out that I'm fond of being able to relate to something that doesn't have my life in mind. Either way, "Smalltown Boy" is ace and a great introduction to Sommerville's powerfully alienated falsetto — and something he never really topped.

Pink Industry: Forty Five

18 February 1982

"More of this sort of thing please."
— Red Starr

One of the unforeseen pleasures of doing this blog is that it has turned me on to some brilliant records that I would never have otherwise encountered. I expected to develop a heightened appreciation for the likes of Dexys Midnight Runners and The Human League but I failed to consider the lesser knowns who have fallen into my lap. From the jazz art snot of Ludus to the ghastly but beautiful deconstructionism of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, it's clear that the eighties produced a vast array of sonically deranged geniuses who never got their due — and we've only just begun.

One of musicology's most longstanding clichés is that while few bought The Velvet Underground's debut album, everyone who did so ended up forming bands. Now I don't doubt the truthfulness of this claim — even if I've never seen any survey results that confirm it — but I have to wonder if it's as remarkable an outcome as one might think. Didn't plenty of hippies and rednecks end up putting together country rock outfits when they first heard The Flying Burrito Brothers? How many literate but disaffected young people took up poetry and confrontational performance art upon listening to Patti Smith's Horses? Weren't there an entire generation of overcoat-sporting Scots that invested in fairlight synthesisers due to The Blue Nile? Smallish, cult-like acts inspire further, even smaller, even cultier groups and so on into obscurist infinity.

Locked into this chain of influence at one point or another resides Pink Industry. Their musical heroes — the ones I can hear at any rate — weren't especially well known nor were any of the groups that came along after them. It's fine that I can sit here in 2018 and see so much of indie lush industrialists Cocteau Twins in this music — and even that's just speculation considering that Liz Fraser and Robin Guthrie were likely busy ironing out their own sound while the Pinks were foisting this upon us but certainly the two groups were on to much the same audio alchemy — but naturally no one was to know who would be listening and who would be forming bands as a result back in '82. 

Red Starr prefers side B opener "Don't Let Go" for its Velvets influence and vocalist Jayne Casey's wailing but I'm partial to "Is This the End" which commences the flip side. A haunting piece, it's a curious choice to kick off an E.P. and not just because of the title. It has the feel of a track that brings an album to a bleak conclusion, not unlike "Decades" on Joy Division's Closer or "The Overload" on Talking Heads' masterpiece Remain in Light. Cinematic, powerful and rich, its sheer gorgeousness is only slightly dampened by the knotty sense that few could have been listening beyond John Peel's devoted following — and what does it matter given that they all promptly went out and formed bands. For its part, "Don't Let Go" falls into similar territory. I don't hear Lou Reed and John Cale so much as those vaguely industrial groups fronted by wistful female singers doing what would eventually be called dream pop. (And, yes, Cocteau Twins are precisely who I'm thinking of)

So, just where am I going with all of this? Nowhere really. Forty Five is a remarkable work that probably was influenced by the giants of underground music and hopefully influenced plenty of figures going forward. Few ended up buying it but those who did would have quit smiling, messed up their hair and messed about with their mates over cheap instruments. What more could you want from the periphery?

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

ABBA: "Head over Heels"

"Oh God," Starr writes, his eyes doubtless rolling as he churned out this bit of copy, "number one for weeks and weeks." Surely his mood improved when he discovered just how wrong his prediction was. "Head over Heels" was the end of the Swedes' grip over the British charts, taking just a nominal spot in the Top 30. As Starr says, it's just another decent ABBA song in a world of much better ABBA songs and the punters agreed. They might have done better, however, to flip the record over as "The Visitors" sees them firing on all cylinders for just about the last time. Good time party bands tend to keep their melancholy hidden but this epic song of aliens being baffled by the world's madness and repression might have peaked the interest of a public that no longer had much use for them.