Oceanic: "Wicked Love"

13 November 1991

"There's nothing quite like a "sooper" Oceanic tunlette to perk up flagging bodies and droopy eyelids, is there?"

— Marc Andrews

Are you sure about that Marc?

I'm going to get straight to the point: this record is a big pile of crap. Not nearly as exciting, fun or inventive as it thinks it is. Way too busy and cluttered for me to enjoy it. The singing doesn't do anything for me. A great big mess. No merit whatsoever.

Marc Andrews is correct that "Wicked Love" is a copy of previous Top 10 hit "Insanity" which was also lousy. I'm convinced that he managed to choose the worst new single here and so I'm going to provide my thoughts on all of this fortnight's contenders. This will allow me to (a) see if it is indeed the most pitiful of the bunch and (b) give me the chance to write about something other than bloody "Wicked Love". Let's get to it.

~~~~~

The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu: "It's Grim Up North"

The KLF, The Timelords, The One World Orchestra, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu — and I'm probably leaving out other names that Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty used for their organization along the way. '91 was their year and they ended it in a big way, first with this thrashy racket which helpfully lists off some of England's grimmest towns and then a quick follow-up that I'll be getting to next week. Rather divorced from their fantasy Transcentral world of black and white police cars, stadium concerts and giant mobile phones which may explain why it didn't do anything beyond Britain. A clear step ahead of Oceanic but they were capable of much better.

C&C Music Factory: "Just a Touch of Love"

The law of diminishing returns is all over the singles review page this fortnight. At least C&C Music Factory managed to have three big hits before bottoming out with "Just a Touch of Love" as opposed to Oceanic and their one smash followed by a coattails riding follow-up. Not as terrible as I expected but not really my sort of thing. Next!

Cathy Dennis: "Everybody Move"

Now best known as a songwriter, Cathy Dennis had a successful pop career in her own right which peaked in 1991. She had a way with a tune and was nice to look at but she never mastered being comfortable as a pop star. Smash Hits pushed her hard but she had an easier time having hits in North America. Like C&C's "Just a Touch...", "Everybody Move" is just another ho-hum minor hit that wasn't going to convince anyone who had managed to resist her earlier chart entries. I think I liked it at the time but it could've been my hang up on redhead girls in my mid-teens that decided it for me.

New Edition: "Word to the Mutha"

A supergroup isn't really a supergroup unless current stars get together to form a band. New Edition had been a teen sensation in the eighties but then they grew up and virtually everyone involved became a star. Bobby Brown had dominated 1989 but associates Bell Biv DeVoe had stolen his thunder a year later with "Poison". And I think Ralph Tresvant had been big with one of those gloopy R&B ballads too. Then they reformed at a time when no one was demanding they do so and became one of the most forgettable band reformations in all of pop. Somehow not a hit. (Note: "Word to the Mutha" was officially credited to Bell Biv DeVoe with the others listed as guests; ver Hits was right to have gotten it wrong)

Julian Lennon: "Help Yourself"

In 1979 Bob Dylan became a born-again Christian and subsequently had a hit with "Gotta Serve Someone". Always game for taking the mickey, John Lennon responded with "Serve Yourself" which would go on to become a widely bootlegged favourite. Given the religious icons and hucksters on display in the accompanying video, it's likely that Julian was taking a page from his famous dad, right down to the Lennon-esque spoken part at the end. That said, it's one of those songs that people will describe as 'Beatley' even though it doesn't sound all that much like the Fab Four except in the generic sense. A good one which Andrews was not overly fond of for whatever reason. I was going to go with James but I think "Help Yourself" would've been my SOTF. Well done, Jules!

Shakin' Stevens: "I'll Be Home This Christmas"

There's an unwritten rule in pop that you have one shot at a Christmas hit — or at least there really ought to be. Shakey's early-nineties attempt at recreating the success of his '85 seasonal chart topper somehow managed to be even more feeble than cliche-fest "Merry Christmas Everyone" but he still had enough of a following to get into the bottom of the Top 40 with this, his first hit since "The Best Christmas of Them All" a year earlier. I doubt Cliff Richard was ever this crummy. I might even take "Wicked Love" over this nonsense.

Rozalla: "Faith (in the Power of Love)"

Zimbabwe's Rozalla Miller will be coming up in this space soon so this is serves as a bit of early research. The highlight is a searing .soprano sax part that is either synthesized or from an uncredited Courtney Pine. Rozalla's voice is a little too commanding for my taste but there are worse ways to spend three minutes. One of them is listening to Oceanic in fact.

Harry Connick Jr.: "Blue Light Red Light"/"The Bare Necessities"

"Let's light the tires and burn the fires, Big Daddy". Some people just don't know how to stick to what they're good at. Someone had to be Chet Baker-lite and it might as well have been Harry Connick Jr. "Blue Light, Red Light (Someone's There)" is an engaging recording though he sure managed to suck the fun out of "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book. His nibs was clearly at his best with original material; as for standards, leave 'em for the fat lady to sing. Or Will Smith for that matter.

Belinda Carlisle: "Do You Feel Like I Feel"

Oh Belinda, the eighties are over. That quivering voice was so suited to fairlights and big drums and all that bombast so no wonder she had trouble adjusting to the next decade. I'm frankly surprised she did as well as she did during the first half of the nineties in the UK. For what it's worth I would've dug it three years' earlier. Meh.

James: "Sound"

Andrews reckons they've been on a Simple Minds trip of late and he's not wrong, even if "Sound" is nowhere near as dull as it ought to have been. Weird that they had "Born of Frustration" at their disposal but they decided to go with this as the first single from forthcoming album Seven. Then again, they strike me as the type of people who probably thought that "Sit Down" should've been a B-side. Odd choice of single but nevertheless a stellar example of the new septet James. Andy Diagram on trumpet steals the show. Incidentally, I'm beginning to fear that they'll never get their own entry on this blog. Shame.

Michael Jackson: "Black or White"

The one everyone doubtless expected to be this issue's Single of the Fortnight. Kudos to Marc for passing on it even if he could've done better; I'm right there with him in his underwhelment. Neither better nor worse than I remember it being, just sort of the same. The public had been so pleased to have Michael Jackson back (even if he wasn't even America's biggest MJ by that point) that they lapped up whatever he decided to put out. Bloody hell, that video is garbage and always was. Certainly no "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" but I think we were well past the point of expecting something genuinely great. 

Extreme: "Hole Hearted"

Out to prove that they were more than a metal band desperately trying to have a hit with an acoustic ballad and they deliver...more acoustic stuff. "More Than Words" may have been crap but "Hole Hearted" was a modest improvement. Grunge is said to have killed metal (at least until the end of the nineties) but I reckon it killed itself. 

Bizarre Inc.: "Playing with Knives"

Jesus Christ, what the hell was with 'Inc.' being used so often back in the nineties? There was Models Inc., Money Inc., Inc. 182, it just never ended. Can't say I'm familiar with Bizarre Inc. but this reissue of "Playing with Knives" gave them a Top 5 hit. Not much to say here but it's better than "Wicked Love" because of course it is.

Bryan Adams: "There Will Never Be Another Tonight"

It's hard to say if the mammoth popularity of "Everything I Do" helped Bryan Adams' subsequent singles from album Waking Up the Neighbours or if it caused a backlash. Imperial periods don't normally include number thirty-two hits but the fact that this and predecessor "Can't Stop This Thing We Started" ("can't stop this cause we farted") performed as well as they did was probably due to his popularity being at an all-time high. Not great and miles away from "Cuts Like a Knife" and "Summer of '69" but not quite the worst thing on offer here.

~~~~~

Fourteen also rans and all but one are at least a bit better than "Wicked Love". But respect to Marc Andrews nonetheless: he avoided the obivous pick (MJ) and failed to be swayed by trendier types. He went with his favourite and good for him. The fact that his favourite is bloody awful matters little in the end.

~~~~~

Not Reviewed This Fortnight

Eg & Alice: "Doesn't Mean That Much to Me"

Reduced to a mention in the singles review sidebar but I've been a backer of Eg & Alice and their great lost album 24 Years of Hunger for so long that I just had to include them. Honestly, "Doesn't Mean That Much to Me" wouldn't have been my first pick as a single to promote the ex-Brother Beyond member's team-up with a former model and BMX champ but their sole LP of dense and moody sophisti-pop isn't exactly loaded with potential hits. This is one of the finest examples of how beautifully Eg White and Alice Temple harmonized. People often wonder why they weren't bigger but I just wish they'd recorded more together. Well ahead of virtually everything else here is this fortnight...yes, even Oceanic. 

Scritti Politti featuring Shabba Ranks: "She's a Woman"

20 March 1991

"No, our Green merely wants to know where you purchased your happenin' threads from. That's because he's a trendy old so and so and when it comes to his music he's exactly the same."

— Marc Andrews

It was towards the end of 1964 that The Beatles returned with a new brand new album and a stand-alone single. I say 'returned' but it wasn't as if they had gone anywhere. They had only been profession recording artists by that point but they had already put out three best-selling LP's and seven hit singles. As if out to prove that they could be even more absurdly prolific, they also released a four track EP of brand new material — albeit not necessarily of the highest quality in that particular case. They also had been touring at a near non-stop rate and also found the time to make their first motion picture, A Hard Day's Night. Yes, the Fab Four kept themselves busy back then.

But burnout was beginning to show. On the cover of fourth album, the cynically-titled Beatles for Sale, they appear to be exhausted, fed up and, in John Lennon's case at least, possibly putting on some weight. While their output had been gradually improving over the previous eighteen months, the material inside suggested that they were slipping a bit. Predecessor (and masterpiece) A Hard Day's Night had been made up of all originals but the well had dried up so much that they were back to recording a series of dismal and/or unnecessary cover versions (except for "Rock and Roll Music" which is a banger). Their own material on it has its moments (why "Eight Days a Week" wasn't released as a single in the UK is anyone's guess) but the likes of "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" and "What You're Doing" are among the most forgettable numbers in their repertoire.

As the great Ian MacDonald has said, A Hard Day's Night's closing track, "I'll Be Back", is a sign of coming maturity. Beatles for Sale acknowledges that changes are in the air but it hints that The Beatles aren't quite sure how to get there. They had only just met Bob Dylan and were only beginning to explore London's cultural scene but Lennon and, particularly, McCartney had remained tied to the juvenile boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-for-girl, boy-pines-for-girl formula that had made them wealthy. But musically they were beginning to stretch out, something that was apparent on their Christmas 1964 single. Lennon wrote the bulk of the A-side "I Feel Fine", which opens with the arresting sound of peeling guitar feedback. It's also punchier than normal and sets the stage for the metallic drone of "Ticket to Ride" and the outrageous riff fest "Day Tripper", both of which would come out the following year. On the flip was Paul McCartney's "She's a Woman", a rocksteady-ish shuffle that does nothing but clang all over the place. It's far from the most brilliant thing he ever thought up but it was a significant departure for Macca and it indicates that there may have been a lot more to him than all that sweetness and light.

The trouble with covering The Beatles is that their material is so familiar that it's almost impossible to forget their originals. Green Gartside avoided that particular hurdle when he chose a B-side that didn't make any of their UK albums and wasn't on many of the major compilations. This meant that it wasn't overly familiar with fans and this may have freed him up to alter a song by the sainted Beatles.

Looking at photos of Green, it's amazing how little he has aged over the years. He is currently sixty-seven years old but he could easily pass for fifteen years younger. Do a very simple bit of mental arithmetic and you'll deduce that he was in his mid-thirties when Scritti Politti released "She's a Woman", yet in its accompanying video he looks like he could have been in the same year at school with Chesney Hawkes, the dashing young pop figure who was just starting to ride high with the single "The One and Only". Dressing youthfully typically makes veteran pop types seem even older than they are but not so with Green. (This is all the more surprising when you consider how unwell he had been for the better part of a decade; it would seem that convalescing back home in deepest, darkest Wales had done him good)

An accomplished songwriter (there aren't many pop stars who get royalty checks for having their compositions on Miles Davis albums), it is perhaps a surprise to see him taking on a Lennon-McCartney tune. That said, his long-held interest in deconstructionism never took him in the direction of cover versions previously. That said, there isn't much in the way of channeling Derrida in a simple song with some poor lyrics (rhyming 'presents' and 'peasant' is bad enough but the lines they're used in don't even make sense) and minimal chord changes. That said, Green was right to explore its Jamaican roots. That said...oh, stop it!

Updated and with some samples that you don't hear everywhere — no small feat back in '91 — Scritti Politti gave "She's a Woman" a fresh coat of paint that it deserved. The old homophobe Shabba Ranks contributes some fine toasting that also aids in fleshing out such a frankly underwritten piece. Marc Andrews goes a bit overboard in his review, confident that it's as strong as vintage Scrit, but it's by no means a "Sweetest Girl" or a "Faithless" or a "Wood Beez". Strong and as solid as anything on 1988's Provision but still a clear step down from their very best work. Nevertheless, there are many worse things than a Green Gartside record even if it's a cover of a throwaway number.

It seems though that Green had been on something of a cover version kick in the early nineties. He had already hooked up with Martyn Ware for a revival of the B.E.F. brand on a remake of "I Don't Know Why I Love You (But I Love You)" (whose B-side happened to be a cover of The Beatles' "In My Life" sung by Billy Preston; it's not one of the better Fabs covers) and he would go on to do his take on Gladys Knight & The Pips' "Take Me in Your Arms and Love Me". Like Lennon and McCartney themselves at the end of '64, was he going through a bout of writer's block? Though he didn't look it, he was feeling the pressure of the pop life. "I don't feel well at all", Green tells William Shaw in Smash Hits, at a time when most would be milking the life out of a precious hit single. "I think I've got bronchitis". Notably, it wouldn't be long before he went on another health-related sabbatical from music before re-emerging in 1999. It would be nice to have him back again, if only for just a short time.

~~~~~

Also "Reviewed" This Fortnight

Morrissey: "Sing Your Life"

"Then again, please don't. Away and boil yer head, "Mozzer"": Andrews' thoughts on Morrissey's latest single in "full". I'm all for giving short shrift to racists with a victim complex but for the fact that there's nothing wrong with "Sing Your Life". 1991 was about where the rose was coming off the bloom since no one much cared for the Kill Uncle album but Morrissey was still pulling his weight as a singles act. Written with former Fairground Attraction guitarist Mark Nevin, it comes from a time when he could just dabble in light rockabilly rather than going full-on as he would a year later with the overrated Your Arsenal. Not particularly memorable and Moz is beginning to edge ever so close to self-parody but it's an engaging little toe-tapper and a whole lot better than anything else on offer this fortnight other than Scritti Politti.

Jimmy Somerville with Bronski Beat: "Smalltown Boy (1991 Remix)"

12 December 1990

"Most hits of old don't usually benefit from the twitchy hands of a second (or umpteenth, in some cases) going over. Sometimes, as in this case, a tune does triumph over a fairly pointless remix."

— Marc Andrews

1990 draws to a close with a barely remembered remix of a classic eighties' pop song. A bit of an anticlimactic way to finish off a year? Possibly but it is all too appropriate as well. It is the tenth Single of the Fortnight to be either a reissue, a remix/re-recording or a cover version — and that's not including Salt-n-Pepa's "Expression", which would go on to be remixed in order to give it further chart life, and FAB featuring Aqua Marina's "Stingray Megamix", which was crafted in the spirit of DJs tinkering with samples and the like. Looking to recall the fresh sounds of the early nineties? Don't go flipping through the singles reviews in Smash Hits from this time.

But things weren't any better on the charts. Of the seventeen UK number ones that year, four were covers, four more were reissues and one relied heavily upon the bassline of a familiar chart topper from nearly ten years' earlier. Yes, there were cutting edge artists out there but clearly the public weren't all that keen: they had loads of old stuff to be buying — and boy did the record companies who were gearing up for the 1990 Christmas rush know it. In addition to this 1991 remix of "Smalltown Boy", Marc Andrews has plenty of other shenanigans to deal with. Megamixes from Black Box and the cast of the 1978 movie Grease were just crying out to be reviewed as well as the pointless Robert Palmer medley of Marvin Gaye hits "What's Going On" and "I Want You". Somehow or other, two of these records did well (the one by Black Box didn't) so there was an appetite for such stuff.

Not that all that many purchased this one, even though so many did the first time round. "Smalltown Boy" had first emerged in June of 1984 and it must have seemed like a sure-fire number one smash. Unfortunately, its rightful place was denied by Frankie Goes to Hollywood's unstoppable "Two Tribes". (It was even kept from the runner up spot by Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" which was clinging on) The charts were loaded with quality at this time and so for Bronski Beat to get into the Top 3 with their debut single was no small accomplishment. Jimmy Somerville's falsetto was so affecting that it gave them a big hit all over the world, except for in the US where hints of it being a gay rights anthem likely turned off radio station programmers. 

Somerville's career took off even after he left Bronski Beat. He quickly teamed up with Richard Coles to form The Communards, another highly successful synth-pop group. While they would go on to have a number on with "Don't Leave Me This Way", they were never able to top "Smalltown Boy". I've written before that The Communards were more in their element when they were doing cover versions than when they tried to go political but Somerville more than made up for it with "Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)". Although only a Top 30 hit in early 1990, it proved to be his finest gay rights anthem since "Smalltown Boy".

He was only in Bronski Beat and The Communards for short spells and had just one solo album under his belt but the decision was nevertheless made to put out a compilation. While I'm less keen on the likes of Bryan Ferry (he's guilty of trying to make his solo career appear to be on an equal footing with that of Roxy Music) and Sting (just sad) doing so, this is an instance in which I can understand putting out a greatest hits that mixes material from both group and solo artist. It's also a fine collection, ruined only slightly by a lousy cover of The Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody". Bronkski, Communards and Somerville albums are hit and miss affairs but they all had their moments on 45.

Not on The Singles Collection 1984/1990 is this remix of "Smalltown Boy", yet it was still released as a single to promote it. Andrews is so pleased that (a) an old favourite is back (BACK!!) and (b) it has only been remixed and not canabalized into a ghastly megamix he doesn't even bother mentioning the altered credits. If 'Jimmy Somerville with Bronski Beat' seems akin to issuing "Yesterday" by 'Paul McCartney with The Beatles', ver Hits only makes it that much more grievous by marking it down as a straight up Somerville solo outing. While relegating Bronski to a guest star role is unfortunate, the pop kids of the early nineties were more likely to flock to a product with Jimmy's name on it than an outfit that had become a bit of a relic.

Speaking of which, fellow eighties' pop veterans ABC had issued their first compilation album earlier that year. Titled Absolutely, it brought together their dozen Top 40 hits along with a few remixes. One of them was "The Look of Love". A highlight of their still remarkable Lexicon of Love album, it had been re-jigged into a depressing and tuneless mess. The group did not sanction its remixing and were said to be against its inclusion on Absolutely but record label priorities won out. The single failed to chart mostly because it sucks something awful.

It was perhaps with this disaster in mind that ace synth-pop producer Stephen Hague was commissioned to give a tasteful update to "Smalltown Boy" for the Somerville comp. The drum machines are sharper and Hague has transformed it into more of a floor-filler but the essence of the song remains. Unless you play it and the original back-to-back you probably wouldn't even notice the difference. The worst I can say for it is that it sounds like "Smalltown Boy" had it been recorded in 1990, rather than in '84. And this is the how the best remixes succeed: they may have been touched up by a producer and/or DJ but they retain what made them great all along and even manage to sound like the group or artist behind them could have recorded them in their remixed form.

"Smalltown Boy (1991 Remix)" only just hit the Top 40 for a couple weeks during the dead post-Yuletide period. It deserved better but at least it didn't spoil the original for everyone. And it would be followed by an equally nice remix of Soft Cell's eighties' classic "Tainted Love" which was done along much the same lines: a synth-pop producer at the helm (in this instance it was the great Julian Mendelsohn) to make sure that the life wasn't sucked out of it with just some subtle additions. It was even released to promote Marc Almond's compilation Memorabilia. A pity we won't be encountering it in this space as we dive into '91. Oh well.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Righteous Brothers: "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"

"If it's not a megamix or a remix, it's a re-release!" cries an exasperated Andrews. "Really, readers, just what are they playing at, eh?" "Unchained Melody" had been memorably featured in the Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore pic Ghost and it promptly became the biggest selling single of the year. So, why not give The Righteous Brothers' true masterpiece another try too? I'm not the biggest Phil Spector fan in the world but he sure hit it out of the park on "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling". While I'm more than satisfied by the remix of "Smaltown Boy", I'm glad they didn't bother updating this brilliant record. Why mess with a good thing — even if that's what everyone else was doing at the time.

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.

S'Express: "Theme from S'Express"

29 June 1988

"Yes, I admit to being a bit of a seventies revivalist — and quite proud of it too I am."

— Marc Andrews

Cor! Yet another special edition of VER HITS!!!

Every so often I get the urge to pull away from top pop mag Smash Hits in order to see what some of the less celebrated music journals were up to. I have already taken a look at reviews from both Record Mirror and Star Hits and now it's time for Smash Hits Australia!

As a Canadian, I have always been vaguely jealous of the land Down Under. While my homeland is bigger and has more people, Australia is generally better known. They have exotic animals, while we have the beaver, which only prompts everyone — myself included — to giggle like schoolchildren. The country is on an island (or is it a continent? No one seems able to offer a satisfying answer on that one) and they're the big boys of their neighbourhood, while my homeland is just north of the nation that perpetually overshadows us. They had big pop stars and their telly was popular; we had singers that were a joke and hardly anyone in Canada watched our domestic TV shows, let alone anyone else. (This even carries on in South Korea where I currently live: Australia is one of the few countries that gets a special Korean name — 호주, which is pronounced 'ho-ju' and guarantees, fact fiends, that there's at least one country in which Australia and Austria do not enter back-to-back at the Olympics' opening ceremonies; Canada is simply known as the (almost) phonetic 개나다) They even got their own edition of Smash Hits while we had to make do with Star Hits from across the border.

Similar to the US counterpart, Aussie Hits drew heavily from the British original. Both used a mix of original material and copy they nicked from the parent mag. This present issue, for example, includes a piece about Neighbours and future Memento/Iron Man 3 star Guy Pearce and a short feature about a "supergroup" called the Australian Olympians recording a charity single called "You're Not Alone" in anticipation for the Seoul Olympics (well, I wasn't expecting much so at least it didn't disappoint!). Aussie content fleshes out Bitz, RSVP and the letters page but much of the remainder of the issue contains articles recycled from Blighty (including pieces on Pet Shop Boys, Debbie Gibson and Bros). And fair enough, it's not like the average Australian pop kid would've been privy to "real ale" Smash Hits.

The Australian version obviously doesn't measure up to the original but it is streets ahead of the American Star Hits. Two things give it the edge: (1) the tried and tested humour of the UK edition is present and correct and the Aussie staff does a commendable job keeping up with it and (2) the singles review page appears to be a regular part of the magazine (though I only have two proper issues to go by). The Americans wanted to focus on album reviews, leaving the singles to only be included seldomly (I only decided to write about bloody Until December giving "praise" to Corey Hart because the options were so limited) but Smash Hits isn't Smash Hits without both 45's and LP's.

A big thanks to Michael Kane's excellent Flickr page for providing the scans from this issue. I highly recommend it for everyone who loves their music magazines.

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House music was supposed to be the sound of the future. Electronics and samples were the way music was headed. It wasn't so much a "guitars are on the way out, Mr. Epstein" scenario and more a "we can just use Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner rather than get a guitarist of our own". Odd, then, that Marc Andrews would listen to "Theme from S'Express" and hear the past.

Mark Moore was the house boffin who seemed to be the most willing to pretend to be a pop star. I just posted the other day about the difficulties that DJ's had playing the pop game but the man behind S'Express seemed more amenable to this world. Coldcut seemed to find a way around it by recruiting glamourous vocalists to front their records but they weren't interested in embracing the spotlight themselves. Tim Simenon could happily mug for the camera in Bomb the Bass' videos but he was still an awkward band figurehead. But Moore did promo, had little trouble looking like a pop star and would even get himself on the cover of Smash Hits.

Moore's idea was to dispense with the mixing desk and make S'Express seem as much like a real band as possible. Looking like Chris Lowe or Vince Clarke with a keytar in hand, he made himself into the man behind the music, which of course he was. Jocasta, Michelle and Linda Love are credited in the Original Soundtrack album sleevenotes though it's unclear what they actually did. This was well in advance of controversies surrounding fake lead vocals on Black Box and Milli Vanilli records and no one cared if those striking girls were lip synching to lines like "Come on and listen to be baby now ooh" and "I've got the hots for you". All that mattered was that they were cool and their song was a banger.

And what a song it is. With the basis of the tune pinched from the superb "Is It Love You're After" by Rose Royce, Moore could easily have pieced together something limp that couldn't even approach its source material but the layers of other samples only make you forget about everything that came before. Talent borrows, genius steals, says the old cliche but there's also a certain genius to be found in being able to crib bits of various other records and make them into something that's a marvel in and of itself. Sure, Andrews used to "boogie" and "bump" to some of these numbers when he was a "wee thing" but the future would be all about "boogieing" and "bumping" to these wonderful hybrids for another generation of "wee things".

"Theme from S'Express" had already topped the UK charts for a fortnight when Andrews gives it his seal of approval. As with a lot of popular house music of the time, it didn't do much in North America but it almost made the Top 10 in Australia. Americans and Canadians weren't ready for this type of thing outside of the clubs but Europeans and Aussies recognised it immediately as the glorious pop that it was, past, present and future.

Postscript: We'll be seeing Marc Andrews again in this blog after making the move to Britain and the switch to "real ale" Smash Hits. Stay tuned.

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Also of some cop

Louis Armstrong: "What a Wonderful World"

So, if S'Express seemed old to Andrews then what of Satchmo? I love me lots of Louis and it can be tempting for us big fans to be dismissive of the later hits like "Hello Dolly", "We Have All the Time in the World" and "What a Wonderful World". He could barely play the trumpet by this point in his life and for me his vocals always take a backseat to his extraordinary soloing. All that said, this was excellent in 1968, 1988 and still now in 2021. While clearly not the most gifted vocalist around, few had more character (he and Johnny Cash still have the most recognizable singing voices in all of western music) and he knew how to emote properly. Used memorably for the Robin Williams film Good Morning Vietnam, "What a Wonderful World" gained a second wind in the summer of '88 and a whole new generation was able to get a glimpse of Pops' genius, even if it was a long way off from the Hot Fives and Sevens. It even got to number one in Australia so Andrews wasn't alone.