Kim Wilde: "Love Blonde"

21 July 1983

"Now that summer's here, I suppose the charts are likely to be groaning under the weight of a load of sticky, syrupy slop designed to get everyone holding hands under the moonlight and being quite vile."

— Deborah Steels

"She's got that sen-su-a-li-DEE..."

When I was in my late twenties I went through a period of underemployment followed by not having a job at all. When not preoccupied with fretting over my bleak future, I was busy having stimulating conversations with friends, listening to lots of jazz and reading some superb books. (Appropriately, it was during this period that I discovered the works of Geoff Dyer, who describes the transition from studying at Oxford to life on the dole in South London: "The difference was the quality of study — which, of course, was far higher in Brixton") Not interested in heavy semiotics, I took to the more creative writings of French philosopher Roland Barthes: Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse (which we'll likely get to in two or three years from now) and Camera Lucida, his study of photography.

In Camera Lucida, Barthes puts forth the notion of the punctum, a detail in a picture, which may or may not be relevant to the image but which nevertheless touches a nerve in the viewer and is typically the very first thing they happen to notice. I flipped out. I scanned every photo available to me in search of a punctum and then, once that source had become tapped, I started trying to spot them in song. (I once wrote a not-at-all-pretentious piece about the "punctures" of Bill Evans' Sunday at the Village Vanguard in which far too much of my attention was on the cover photo, a sign that the 'audible punctum' was beyond me) Of course, music operates differently from pictures. We look at a photograph and take it all in at once; a record we have to experience as it progresses from beginning to end. Still, I became fascinated by trying to listen for moments would grab me, throw me off, hit a nerve.

Kim Wilde's pronunciation is this song's punctum. To anyone thinking that "Love Blonde" is a straightforward jazz-pop ditty about a gorgeous woman who has men wrapped around her little finger, listen to how she makes the word 'sensuality' sound so lacking in, well, sensuality. (I first misheard this number as being the story of a young, working class girl who aspires to sophistication and cocktail bars but only ends up tripping up and exposing her real self, which, as I type, kind of still feels like a legitimate take even if the Wildes had no intention of making this point) The femme fatale in the lyric is only seen to be that way. She's off limits to young men gawking at her and only comes alive when she's out of the public eye ("Situation: no-go zone / But she'll cut loose when she's alone") The attention is empowering and she gives no quarter. While the song was conceived as a joke, it needn't necessarily be taken lightly. Wilde winks audibly at the listener here and there but refuses to ham it up. And if you think she was singing about herself then the mangling of the last syllable of 'sensuality' should remove all doubt: she's just there to observe admiringly from a distance.

Considering the weightiness of her previous batch of singles, it's strange to think that people had Wilde down in the dumb blonde bimbo category. Prejudice towards her hair and image obviously played a part but so too was the implication that her dad and brother were doing much of the heavy lifting. Just reading back at the glowing reviews her two previous records received, it's easy to spot that Marty and Ricki Wilde being praised just as much. That may be right or wrong but at this point it appears to be a situation unique to her; other solo artists weren't having to share the acclaim among critics with their songwriters and/or producers. (This isn't to downplay the crucial role the two played, just to give Kim her due as one of her generation's premier vocalists, one who made those outstanding tunes and pristine productions into such fantastic singles)

"Love Blonde" is Kim Wilde's third Single of the Fortnight — and on the bounce to boot — making her the first act to hit for a trifecta. Having seen her chart fortunes dwindle with her remarkable trilogy of devastatingly bleak singles ("Cambodia" followed by previous SOTF'ers "View from a Bridge" and "Child Come Away"), it provided a welcome relief to fans and got her back into the Top 30. Not a big hit, no, and it would be a while before she began to really storm the charts again, but it's a single that adds luster to her already admirable discography. Having a record based in early rock 'n' roll and jazz (which I suspect may even be in on the joke: the likes of Weekend and Rip, Rig + Panic were then being heaped with acclaim, in no small part because of their use of jazz, a music that is to be taken seriously not like that synthy new wave rubbish) is a wonderful one-off for Wilde and a testament her underrated vocal range. She may not have had "sen-su-a-li-DEE" but she was way ahead of her peers in the game of crafting dazzling pop.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

XTC: "Wonderland"

"So sloppily romantic and sentimental it's got to be tongue-in-cheek," observes Steels, perhaps assuming that cheeky old grump Andy Partridge had more than a little to do with it. And, for all I know, maybe he did. But "Wonderland" is a Colin Moulding composition. Sure, XTC's bassist was reserved and buttoned-up in the most classically English sense but his music has feeling to it that his much more prolific partner struggled with in the group's early years, only really getting it later on with beautifully expressive numbers such as "Chalkhills and Children" and "Wrapped in Grey". One of those XTC singles that they must have known had no hope but that's not a knock on it.

(Click here to see my original review)

Kim Wilde: "Child Come Away"

14 October 1982

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

— Fred Dellar

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Philip Lynott: "Old Town"

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

(Click here to see my original review)

Kim Wilde: "View from a Bridge"

15 April 1982

"Have you ever noticed how clever the Wilde intros are?"

— Ian Birch

"There's this word 'Art'," Kim Wilde explained to Mark Ellen at the end of 1981. "There seems to be this tremendous disrespect for Pop Stars, but if people put this 'Art' sticker on you, then they don't feel so guilty about liking you."

As one of the rising stars of '81, Kim Wilde had to deal with a pair of labels that chafed. One was that she was just another chart topping bimbo (something she would later embrace and satirize on future Single of the Fortnight "Love Blonde"), the other was the contention that she was in fact a serious artiste. As you may have noticed, one of these descriptions isn't as damning as the other. No matter, Kim wasn't having any of it. Except for the fact that she was entering her most artsy period.

Ellen's interview with Wilde took place at about the time she was promoting "Cambodia", her fourth single of the year and first not to be tied to her self-title debut album. It also happened to have a much darker edge to it than the new wave power pop that had made her successful. Though critically acclaimed (not, mind you, by Smash Hits, who didn't even review it — and this was from a time when there would typically be two dozen new releases on the singles page), it failed to return her to the Top 5 heights of both "Kids in America" and "Chequered Love". Nevertheless, number twelve is fair enough and interest in it was enough to allow it to linger around the Top 20 for six weeks.

"Cambodia" signaled that changes were coming. Father Marty Wilde was still writing the lyrics and he evidently chose to go into deeper subject matter than trivial affairs like boys and tinnitus. Quite whether "Cambodia" happens to be about "someone who loses her lover in sad circumstances" (Kim's explanation) or PTSD caused by the early-seventies' Cambodian incursion (my interpretation; who's to say who's correct even though it's Kim), it was heavy. Not keen to lighten things up for the follow-up, Marty went with thoughts of suicide.

That's right, thoughts of suicide. The song concludes with Kim's character's fate left undecided. Sure, she admits to hearing a voice that said "jump" and she "just let go" but then admits that she's unsure if this is "fact or fantasy". Actually, I wonder if it's all meant to be a dream: she's watching from the bridge as a heartbroken girl plunges into the Thames or the Severn or the Tyne only to discover that the jumper is in fact her ("I see it's me").

Luckily, the grim lyrics contrast with a more upbeat, synth-driven tune composed by brother Ricki which gives it much more of a pop feel than its predecessor (and, indeed, the single that followed it). Though her chart fortunes were trending downward, this probably helped it give her a fifth Top 20 hit on the bounce. It would be difficult not to conclude that the narrative is bleak but the bounciness of the tune may have fooled a few youngsters out there.

Marty the lyricist spun perhaps his finest verses, Ricki the musician/producer put together a gorgeous arrangement with, as Ian Birch rightly notes, a stirring intro and, not to allow her father and brother to hog the credit, Kim the vocalist dials back on her patented vacant style of singing in order to put in a much more emotive performance. Quite whether the Wilde trio caught this audio synergy due to their familial ties is not for me to judge but there's no question all three had peaked in their respective tasks all at once. Kim Wilde may have been perfectly happy being a pop star but singles like "View from a Bridge" are art pop documents able to stand proudly alongside the best creations of many more serious artistes.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts: "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"

Another one of those 'Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers' even though I did know that but thanks all the same. Strangely, it never comes up on lists of 'Popular Songs That Actually Suck'. I guess that's because of all that cool rockin' out with leather jackets and guitar parts that anyone could play and all that shouting. Good stuff unless you're one of those miserable spoil sports like myself who wants something more from their pop music. The video opens with a rip roaring selection from the far superior Joan Jett number "Bad Reputation" which really ought to have undermined "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" in the eyes of more people than just your's truly. Birch reckons it's nothing but a "lumbering elk" and "Suzi Quatro on a slow turntable". Dismal — but by all means keep shouting along if you're into this sort of shit.

(Click here to see my original review)

Kim Wilde: "Love Blonde"

21 July 1983

"So, it's great to hear Kim roaring back with a bit of finger-popping jazz, a great femme fatale lyric and a punchy chorus. Go to it, gal!"

— Deborah Steels

"She's got that sen-su-a-li-DEE..."

When I was in my late twenties I went through a period of underemployment followed by not having a job at all. When not preoccupied with fretting over my bleak future, I was busy having stimulating conversations with friends, listening to lots of jazz and reading some superb books. (Appropriately, it was during this period that I discovered the works of Geoff Dyer who describes the transition from studying at Oxford to life on the dole in South London: "The difference was the quality of study — which, of course, was far higher in Brixton") Quickly ditching the heavy semiotics, I took to the more creative writings of French philosopher Roland Barthes: Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse (which we'll likely get to in two or three years from now) and Camera Lucida, his study of photography.

In Camera Lucida, Barthes puts forth the notion of the punctum, a detail in a picture, which may or may not be relevant to the image, that touches a nerve in the viewer, typically the very first thing they happen to notice. I flipped out. I scanned every photo available to me in search of a punctum and then, once that source had become tapped, I started trying to spot them in song. (I once wrote a not-at-all-pretentious piece about the "punctures" of Bill Evans' Sunday at the Village Vanguard in which far too much of my attention was on the cover photo, a sign that the 'audible punctum' was beyond me) Of course, music operates differently from pictures. We look at a photograph and take it all in at once; a record we have to experience as it progresses from beginning to end. Still, I became fascinated by trying to listen for moments would grab me, throw me off, hit a nerve.

Kim Wilde's pronunciation is this song's punctum. To anyone thinking that "Love Blonde" is a straightforward jazz-pop ditty about a gorgeous woman who has men wrapped around her little finger, listen to how she makes the word 'sensuality' sound so lacking in, well, sensuality. (I first misheard this number as being the story of a young, working class girl who aspires to sophistication and cocktail bars but only ends up tripping up and exposing her real self, which, as I type, kind of still feels like a legitimate take) The femme fatale in the lyric is only seen to be that way. She's off limits to young men gawking at her and only comes alive when she's out of the public eye ("Situation: no-go zone / But she'll cut loose when she's alone") The attention is empowering and she gives no quarter. While the song was conceived as a joke, it needn't necessarily be taken lightly. Wilde winks audibly at the listener here and there but refuses to ham it up. And if you think she was singing about herself then the mangling of the last syllable of 'sensuality' should remove all doubt: she's just there to observe admiringly from a distance.

Considering the weightiness of her previous batch of singles, it's strange to think that people had Wilde down in the dumb blonde bimbo category. Prejudice towards her hair and image obviously played a part but so too was the implication that her dad and brother were doing much of the heavy lifting. Just reading back at the glowing reviews her two previous records received, it's easy to spot that Marty and Ricki Wilde being praised just as much. That may be right or wrong but at this point it appears to be a situation unique to her; other solo artists weren't having to share the acclaim among critics with their songwriters and/or producers. (This isn't to downplay the crucial role the two played, just to give Kim her due as one of her generation's premier vocalists, one who made those outstanding tunes and pristine productions into such fantastic singles)

"Love Blonde" is Kim Wilde's third Single of the Fortnight — and on the bounce to boot — making her the first act to hit for a trifecta. Having seen her chart fortunes dwindle with her remarkable trilogy of devastatingly bleak singles ("Cambodia" followed by previous SOTF'ers "View from a Bridge" and "Child Come Away"), it provided a welcome relief to fans and got her back into the Top 30. Not a big hit, no, and it would be a while before she began to really storm the charts again, but it's a single that adds luster to her already admirable discography. Having a record based in early rock 'n' roll and jazz (which I suspect may even be in on the joke: the likes of Weekend and Rip, Rig + Panic were then being heaped with acclaim, in no small part because of their use of jazz, a music that is to be taken seriously not like that synthy new wave rubbish) is a wonderful one-off for Wilde and a testament her underrated vocal range. She may not have had "sen-su-a-li-DEE" but she was way ahead of her peers in the game of crafting dazzling pop.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Altered Images: "Love to Stay"

Having never come across the Alts prior to starting this blog, I had been looking forward to exploring the work of a very fondly remembered early eighties act. Then I put on "I Could Be Happy", which I reviewed last summer. I wasn't impressed. People told recommended other songs but they left me similarly unenthusiastic. Are we supposed to be charmed by this stuff? Do people think it's cute? I'd pretty much given up until I reluctantly put "Love to Stay" on last week and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it sparkles where prior singles are dull and flat. It's the sort of thing not unlike what Saint Etienne would be doing a decade later. Indeed, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs would've happily traded in their vast collections of French Yé-yé and Belgian popcorn records to have composed something as elegant as "Love to Stay". Nevertheless, it somehow missed the Top 40 and Altered Images were pretty much done. And just as they were hitting their stride too.

Kim Wilde: "Child Come Away"

14 October 1982

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

— Fred Dellar

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

ABBA: "The Day Before You Came"

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

Kim Wilde: "View from a Bridge"

15 April 1982

"The Wilde family comes up trumps again. Dad's written a spry story, Ricki has peppered his production with some Trevor Horn tactics while Kim supplies those wonderfully subdued and smokey vocals."

— Ian Birch

It's difficult to pinpoint the precise moment that Smash Hits — top pop mag loaded with song lyrics, features and reviews — became Smash Hits — even better pop mag with all of the above plus pages full of whimsy, hilarity and getting the members of U2 to draw pictures of ducks — but a key issue in along the way came out in the middle of April 1982 with contributor Mark Ellen pointing his fellow scribes in a direction they'd all soon be heading towards. Putting the newly famous Bananarama on the cover, ver Hits decides to dispense with all that exclusive interview/intimate profile nonsense and has the 'Narns traipsing around some popular London spots, including the Zoo, the Monument, Pall Mall and, er, Burger King. The "haystack-haired" trio overate, palled around with a very unconvincing pair of Charles and Di impersonators, picked out some ridiculously overpriced duds from an upscale fashion boutique on South Molton Street and enjoyed 75p slices of rich chocolate gateau, all of the Hits' dime (desserts AND clothing).

Possibly on the very next day (there's nothing to lead me to believe that the two pieces were done on consecutive days, I just like to think that's how it worked back then), Ellen flew off to America in order to interview Meat Loaf. Sitting down in his rock star lair in Connecticut, they discuss Meat's work ethic, the inspiration he provides to fans and his cash-flow troubles — despite receiving instructions before hand to under no circumstances ask His Nibs about money — before the county sheriff shows up in order to help repossess the Loaf family home. The plus-size star suddenly goes mental and is soon off in pursuit with a baseball bat in hand and murder in his eyes. (This anecdote is expounded upon in Ellen's autobiography Rock Stars Stole My Life! which I highly recommend)

The insanity of the preceding two features are sadly not hinted at in the Singles Review for that fortnight. Of course when your SOTF is a paean to suicide then one might be forgiven for dialling back on the craziness.

One of the clichés of suicide is the assumption of many that those who take their own lives are cowards. Facing a grim future, the theory goes, people are too afraid of whatever is in store for them and they ultimately decide to end it all as a result. It's a nice idea — and, to be sure, one I've not been above uttering myself — but it overlooks that the act of ending one's life takes a certain amount of bravery. How does one get to the precipice of existence and go through with it knowing that it'll all be over and there won't be any second chances?

Quite whether the protagonist in "View from a Bridge" ends up going through with offing herself is another matter. Songwriter, former pop star and patriarch Marty Wilde has offers up the following analysis:

"I don't know if any of you have ever travelled across the Forth Bridge, but if you have and you've ever stood in the middle of it when the mist is very low you will get more of a feeling of what the song is all about. That's how I pictured the song, a girl in the middle of the bridge, in a raincoat, jumping off and disappearing into the fog." 

But the lyrics indicate there may be more to the story. Building up to such a desperate moment, the crushed, heartbroken girl finally makes the leap, only to feel the tug of her ex-boyfriend's arms, who then, it transpires, turns out to be a "ghost without a face". Our Kim then admits that she doesn't know "what's fact or fantasy / Cause when I look below the bridge, the girl I see is me."

Confusing, then, but getting a grasp of suicide is something few who haven't been there have been able to explain. Marty Wilde's lyrics do his best to work it out and perhaps he has succeeded. Daughter Kim's delivery is also commendable, even if it's largely how she sang at the time; emoting probably wouldn't be the best way to convey the moment before (possibly) jumping. (In a review of the accompanying Select album, Elly McDonald considered her voice to be "amazingly vacant" which I initially took to be a compliment)

So there you have it: a day out with Bananarama, a Meat Loaf meltdown and high praise for Kim Wilde's single about suicide. They don't make top pop mags like this anymore.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bardo: "One Step Further"

Kim Wilde's SOTF triumph would appear to be all the more impressive considering the big names who also put up singles for consideration. No less than seven artists or co-artists here have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (In truth, however, that number really ought to be either five or nine, although you're invited to try to convince me exactly why Hall & Oates and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts belong while Olivia Newton-John and Simple Minds don't) and that's not even including other notables such as Spandau Ballet, Squeeze and Talk Talk. Some formidable names but it's not as if the likes of Bowie, Costello and McCartney/Wonder submitted some of their finest work here. Tedium reigns on the singles review page and a half and it's up to cheery Eurovisionist duo Bardo to pick up some of the slack. "One Step Further" is far from a brilliant number but it's a likable, hook-filled singalong which makes for a welcome change alongside all the more-of-the-same synth-pop and white boy funk. Blimey, am I getting tired of eighties music?

The Human League: "Love Action (I Believe in Love)"

6 August 1981

"This is more like it. Soul music made in Sheffield."
— David Hepworth

A bit of a cheat this one since David Hepworth didn't exactly bestow a SOTF among this lot. We're still a ways away from it becoming an established part of the singles review page so it's not as if they were being mandated at the time. But he reserved the bulk of his praise for this particular record and that's good enough for me.

Hepworth is currently co-host of the splendid A Word in Your Ear podcasts (along with fellow erstwhile Hits scribe Mark Ellen, more on him at some point in the future). They typically sit down with music journalists, biographers or musicians flogging a memoir but on a couple of occasions they've engaged in some fond reminiscences with other hacks from Britain's top pop mag. Well, mostly fond. Hepworth has admitted that the singles review was a particular bugbear for him, recalling that:

"Half way through you start resenting the singles. You have to respond to these things and you don't feel like doing it. You just start making cheap jokes at their expense which the readers loved."

Hepworth had a fractious relationship with Smash Hits readers over the singles reviews, although just how much of that was played up to tease the audience is guess work. The 21 February 1980 issue saw a change in format with new releases all discussed in a page-long article. Hep prefaces with the following bit of baiting:

Heh, heh, heh. That's put a spanner in your work's hasn't it? New format, y'see. Specifically designed to foil those folks who scan the page for names of their favourites and then grab pen and paper to fire off the usual "Who does David Hepworth think he is?" letter. Gotcha!  

A month and a half later and he's back doing the singles, which have begun to waver from one issue to another between the old (and future) format of highlighting each release with its own entry and what we'll call the Hepworthy style. This time he begins with a slightly different tack to take on readers: 

First, I must deal with my correspondence. I am grateful to the Arsenal and Police fan who wrote from Enfield to point out that he/she didn't care for the way the Singles Column was currently laid out. Thank you for you helpful advice. Now why don't YOU go stick YOUR head up a dead bear's (Look, Dave, it's no use being diplomatic — you've got to be firm with 'em! — Ed.)

Leaving aside issues with the singles and a surly reviewer, this entry marks the ascendancy of The Human League to the frontline of UK pop. A decent avant-garde outfit who'd yet to tap into the public consciousness, they abruptly went pop in 1981 and found themselves slowly beginning to catch on. In one of their aforementioned Smash Hits-themed podcasts, Mark Ellen put forth a theory that the arrival the magazine altered the landscape and helped move once serious-minded, album-oriented acts — such as Adam & The Ants, Dexys Midnight Runners, Madness and, yes, The Human League — in the direction of the teen dominated singles market. Not so much a sell out as a realisation of just what was going on — although that is often exactly what selling out amounts to. It's a tired and pathetic charge to level upon most and in this case it has absolutely no merit whatsoever — to the extent that as I write this I suspect that I'm trolling myself in order to conjure up an argument when one doesn't exist.

In any event, the Sheffield soulsters' musical integrity remained following their transformation. But what the likes of "Being Boiled" and "Empire State Human" lack is pop dramatics which "Love Action" and its predecessor "The Sound of the Crowd" have in spades — and this is well before we even get to a certain cut from parent album Dare that would close out the year.

The Human League brought so many elements together to make "Love Action" such an outstanding single: the pained, ravaged baritone of Phil Oakey, an industrial yet elegant synth backing, the presence of backing singers/dancers Joanne and Susan adding a touch of working class glamour, even the sinister but still kind of amusing video from a year later. Sheffield Soul in all its glory.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Kim Wilde: "Water on Glass"

Hepworth's grumpiness should be considered in the context of the awfully dire pile of 45's he had to sift through this issue. No one save for ver League escaped lashings from his curt pen. And who can blame him? "Water on Glass" is rather good in a scramble-to-find-a-third-single-off-an-unexpectedly-successful-album kind of way but Our Kim's coasting when held up next to "Kids in America" while her — in Hep's words — detached vocal sounds a wee bit too apathetic for a song dealing with tinnitus, even though this is something she would soon perfect on her very fine run of upcoming singles. Her bandmates, however, deliver the goods with a rousing performance that just about saves a pretty mundane SOTF runner-up. She could and would do better.