— Peter Martin
A funny memory I have from taking the school bus home involves discussing bands breaking up. "Did you hear that Wham! broke up?" "Did you hear that Culture Club broke up?" "Did you hear that The Police broke up?" I may have been eight (my age at the end of 1985) or nine-years old and I was discussing groups that had broken up. It's possible that only one of the above "Did you hear" conversations actually happened the way I remember but I do recall thinking about the end of all three at some point in the mid-eighties. The very fact that young elementary school boys talked about at least one band breaking up seems extraordinary now. For one thing, groups don't really split up anymore (they go on "hiatus"); also, when it does occur it's not particularly big news; and, finally, what were a bunch of kids doing talking about the end of The Police?
But this was a time when rock groups could be big and boy did Sting know it. His organization never formally announced a break up — which means we must have been rumour mongering on the school bus, also an odd thing for little tykes to be doing — but his profile was high enough that he could make a seamless jump to a solo career. He was no longer able to reel off one massive hit single after another but his debut solo album The Dream of the Blue Turtles sold well around the world, he did three separate turns on stage at Live Aid (one with The Police as well as guest sports with Phil Collins and Dire Straits) and appeared in the film Plenty alongside Meryl Streep and Tracey Ullman.
The Police last cropped up on this blog with "Invisible Sun", a haunting single about everyday people being left in the ashes of war. A far cry from some of their more well-remembered but facile hits, it let me to conclude that Sting really should have pursued weightier material more often. Well, perhaps not actually. It's now four years on and martial law in Poland, Beirut under siege and the military gunning down protesters in Korea has faded away. There are still problems in the world but lives aren't shattering to nearly the same extent as then. Why not look to an issue that hadn't yet killed anyone but which very well still could.
As Peter Martin says, there's an admirable sentiment here and Sting is making a statement that needed to be said. Fine but what of the record? Well, it's as if he's trying to jam puzzle pieces together that really don't fit. Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé is a great choice. It's a beautiful piece of music and one that represents Russia without caricaturing it: the listener doesn't instantly picture squat dancing, Russian dolls and the Kremlin as it's playing. Nevertheless, Sting's lyrics don't really work with the composition. Actually, the words just aren't all that good. Sting has his own unique delivery but there's an over-abundance of syllables that makes singing along nearly impossible (assuming anyone would ever want to). It's as if he has stuffed this record full of ideas but without crafting a good song.
It's amazing that "Russians" was even a single and that it managed to outperform "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" in the UK since it really sounds like a deep cut that you zone out on while listening to the album. It's great that Sting kept up the desire to tackle issues but not at the expense of a grim record. Though recorded well before it, this is very much a post-Live Aid single: intentions are good and that's good enough. At least for some.
"Russians" wraps up the 1985 batch of Singles of the Fortnight on a slightly damp note but it has been an unexpectedly good year. Last fall, just as I was wrapping up the '84 group, I began looking to the year ahead and it didn't seem like it was going to be up to much. The UK number one singles are, with the possible exceptions of Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" and Madonna's "Into the Groove", poor and I thought that once you get past my top three or four albums (Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen, The Style Council's Our Favourite Shop and maybe R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction) the quality completely bottoms out. But I was wrong. Bob Stanley has complained that the eighties were lousy because great records were often at a disadvantage for chart success and he's right — and, indeed, even some of the higher placing hits from this year covered in this space have been some of the weaker entries. But at least there is some depth to an apparently shallow time.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Anya: "Moscow Nights"
A lot of cracks in the Soviet mystique began showing in '85. Mikhail Gorbachev, aka the smiling face of the Red Menace, took power, Samantha Smith, their symbol for peace in the United States, was killed in a plane crash and Rocky beat Drago. But if you thought the latter was embarrassing then get a load of "Moscow Nights" by Anya. A follow-up to Elton John's hit single "Nikita" — if you call releasing a record about the USSR after being cast as a Checkpoint Charlie border guard in pop video a "follow-up" — it tries to build on the exoticism of "One Night in Bangkok" but at least Murray Head, Bjorn and Benny from ABBA and/or Tim Rice probably went to the Thai capital and saw the clichés they sang and wrote about and that's more than can be said for this crap. Also, why is Anya singing with that accent? Leaving aside issues with cultural appropriation and all that, who does she think she is, a wrestling villain carrying around the hammer and sickle?
A funny memory I have from taking the school bus home involves discussing bands breaking up. "Did you hear that Wham! broke up?" "Did you hear that Culture Club broke up?" "Did you hear that The Police broke up?" I may have been eight (my age at the end of 1985) or nine-years old and I was discussing groups that had broken up. It's possible that only one of the above "Did you hear" conversations actually happened the way I remember but I do recall thinking about the end of all three at some point in the mid-eighties. The very fact that young elementary school boys talked about at least one band breaking up seems extraordinary now. For one thing, groups don't really split up anymore (they go on "hiatus"); also, when it does occur it's not particularly big news; and, finally, what were a bunch of kids doing talking about the end of The Police?
But this was a time when rock groups could be big and boy did Sting know it. His organization never formally announced a break up — which means we must have been rumour mongering on the school bus, also an odd thing for little tykes to be doing — but his profile was high enough that he could make a seamless jump to a solo career. He was no longer able to reel off one massive hit single after another but his debut solo album The Dream of the Blue Turtles sold well around the world, he did three separate turns on stage at Live Aid (one with The Police as well as guest sports with Phil Collins and Dire Straits) and appeared in the film Plenty alongside Meryl Streep and Tracey Ullman.
The Police last cropped up on this blog with "Invisible Sun", a haunting single about everyday people being left in the ashes of war. A far cry from some of their more well-remembered but facile hits, it let me to conclude that Sting really should have pursued weightier material more often. Well, perhaps not actually. It's now four years on and martial law in Poland, Beirut under siege and the military gunning down protesters in Korea has faded away. There are still problems in the world but lives aren't shattering to nearly the same extent as then. Why not look to an issue that hadn't yet killed anyone but which very well still could.
As Peter Martin says, there's an admirable sentiment here and Sting is making a statement that needed to be said. Fine but what of the record? Well, it's as if he's trying to jam puzzle pieces together that really don't fit. Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé is a great choice. It's a beautiful piece of music and one that represents Russia without caricaturing it: the listener doesn't instantly picture squat dancing, Russian dolls and the Kremlin as it's playing. Nevertheless, Sting's lyrics don't really work with the composition. Actually, the words just aren't all that good. Sting has his own unique delivery but there's an over-abundance of syllables that makes singing along nearly impossible (assuming anyone would ever want to). It's as if he has stuffed this record full of ideas but without crafting a good song.
It's amazing that "Russians" was even a single and that it managed to outperform "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" in the UK since it really sounds like a deep cut that you zone out on while listening to the album. It's great that Sting kept up the desire to tackle issues but not at the expense of a grim record. Though recorded well before it, this is very much a post-Live Aid single: intentions are good and that's good enough. At least for some.
"Russians" wraps up the 1985 batch of Singles of the Fortnight on a slightly damp note but it has been an unexpectedly good year. Last fall, just as I was wrapping up the '84 group, I began looking to the year ahead and it didn't seem like it was going to be up to much. The UK number one singles are, with the possible exceptions of Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" and Madonna's "Into the Groove", poor and I thought that once you get past my top three or four albums (Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen, The Style Council's Our Favourite Shop and maybe R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction) the quality completely bottoms out. But I was wrong. Bob Stanley has complained that the eighties were lousy because great records were often at a disadvantage for chart success and he's right — and, indeed, even some of the higher placing hits from this year covered in this space have been some of the weaker entries. But at least there is some depth to an apparently shallow time.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Anya: "Moscow Nights"
A lot of cracks in the Soviet mystique began showing in '85. Mikhail Gorbachev, aka the smiling face of the Red Menace, took power, Samantha Smith, their symbol for peace in the United States, was killed in a plane crash and Rocky beat Drago. But if you thought the latter was embarrassing then get a load of "Moscow Nights" by Anya. A follow-up to Elton John's hit single "Nikita" — if you call releasing a record about the USSR after being cast as a Checkpoint Charlie border guard in pop video a "follow-up" — it tries to build on the exoticism of "One Night in Bangkok" but at least Murray Head, Bjorn and Benny from ABBA and/or Tim Rice probably went to the Thai capital and saw the clichés they sang and wrote about and that's more than can be said for this crap. Also, why is Anya singing with that accent? Leaving aside issues with cultural appropriation and all that, who does she think she is, a wrestling villain carrying around the hammer and sickle?
