Prince: "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"

30 March 1994

"Squiggle — you're a genius."

— Mark Sutherland

That's right, Squiggle. Not The Artist Formerly Known as Prince or The Artist or TAFKAP but Squiggle. Sure, I suppose the staff at ver Hits could've knocked their heads together until they came up with something a little wittier but there's something to be said for the first thought being the one to go with. Squiggle: it really takes the air out of the tires of a singer with an overinflated sense of self-importance.

It was almost easy to forget that old Squigs was as prolific a recording artist as ever what with his name change and all. In '92 Prince was still a major pop star with the Diamonds & Pearls album and its accompanying singles (an oddity here was that its lower charting hits — the title track, "Money Don't Matter 2 Night", "Thunder" — were all vastly superior to Top 10 smashes "Gett Off" and "Cream"); a year later and all anyone seemed to discuss in relation to him was his new, unpronounceable name. Though the stunt earned him plenty of publicity, Squiggly Wiggly no longer seemed especially relevant when it came to his music.

But Rip, Squig + Panic had plenty left in him. While it's true that his eighties' peak couldn't be touched, it's a credit to the man that he never fell off to any noticeable degree. As thoroughly unnecessary as Batman and Graffiti Bridge undoubtedly are, they don't come close to the nadir David Bowie had been going through at the same time which stretched from Never Let Me Down to Tin Machine II. That said, this consistency paired with how he just kept pumping out the material meant that he could be taken for granted. While Q Magazine made it their mission from about 1993 on to help bring Bowie back into relevance, there was little need to do so for the Purple Perv.

This is the fourth and possibly last Single of the Fortnight/Best New Single for Squiggy McSquigface. While both "1999" and "Sign O' the Times" represent his creative zenith, "Anotherloverholeinyohead" is a welcome reminder that he couldn't quite manage to strike gold at will. "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", however, seems to fall somewhere in between. Not especially showy though still infused with more than enough of his swagger, it's plenty likable even if it struggles to grab the listener's attention. Squiggy Smalls is probably the last person you'd imagine having a song that you can put on and scarcely notice but that's what happens here. And it's not even a disadvantage. While you may not come away from it with an earworm, his sometimes grating voice sounds better than it usually does and his highfalutin tendencies are kept in similar check. As Mark Sutherland says, some of the song's ropier lyrics were in danger of being used to "chat up" disinterested girls

Yet, it "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" must have caught the attention of enough of the British public since it ended up becoming Squigonometry's sole UK number one hit. As Alexis Petridis notes, it's surprising he never managed it until the spring of 1994. On the other hand, did he really come that close prior this point? The magnificent double A-side of "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" from 1985 was unjustly denied the top spot by some load of shite from Foreigner but the only other time he was within inches of the summit was with "Batdance" which didn't have a hope in hell against Soul II Soul's immovable "Back to Life". As such, many regard this triumph as a lifetime achievement number one. I have to say though that I appreciate the fact that this one succeeded where so many others failed. Those of us who could give or take Can You Squig It's work were down for this one. Plus, the raunchy material no longer seemed to matter; what the Squigmeister did best in the nineties was craft smooth, effortless soul. What more did we need?

The practice of using Squig Newton's so-called 'love symbol' was quietly phased out come the millennium as her reverted to Prince. (Though it may not have seemed like it at the time, it was inevitable that he would eventually drop the squiggle; perhaps this explains why the great man turned down maverick Canadian musician/producer Bob Wiseman's million dollar offer to buy the name 'Prince' from him) By this point everyone had given up anyway so it hardly mattered. Squiggle never caught on outside the Smash Hits offices — and probably only performed modestly inside them — so it was collectively decided to deadname the old scamp. While he was never quite as successful as he had once been, his influence only seemed to grow, especially after his famous solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in tribute to George Harrison. The Squiggle years became this curious blip, one that deserves reappraising. Squigboy did his thing in a more understated manner. This may not have been the Prince we wanted but it was certainly the Squiggle we deserved.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul: "Fallin'"

What the faded-rock-legend-duets-with-imperial-period-pop-phenom dynamic was to the late eighties, the groups-of-wildly-different-styles-team-up was to the mid nineties. Sutherland doesn't anticipate much but surely he's a pop critic and thus incapable of identifying any weaknesses in either of these lauded and "deeply influential" bands. The Fannies don't seem to contribute much and it frankly doesn't help that a Tom Petty sample is the most stand out part of the backing. Honestly, the entire thing sounds sampled, begging the question of why they didn't at least choose to plunder a stronger TFC record. Luckily, De La Soul are present to pick up the slack and thus transforming a wholly forgettable work into a merely passable one. It's a pity the DLS zaniness didn't rub off on the Fannies since the Scots power poppers really could've used a bit of pizzazz. On the other hand, at least Trugoy, Posdnuos and Maseo didn't become a bunch of dullards thanks to hanging out with Norman, Ray, Gerry and the "Monkey Without Portfolio" so there is that.

Prince: "1999"

20 January 1983

"I first heard this at a disco and decided it was probably the Jacksons."

— Dave Rimmer

I turned six in the spring of '83 so I'm probably not the best judge but I can't believe that people were giving much thought to the millennium back then. I recall first hearing about the return of the Hong Kong colony to China a few years later — I was a news buff at a fairly young age — and thinking that 1997 was so way off in the future that it hardly merited consideration.The fact that the year 2000 and the millennium was approaching didn't occur to me until the mid-nineties when everyone began talking about Y2K and, in my pedantic family at least, how 2001 was the year everyone should be recognizing since "there wasn't a year zero". (It never occurred to us that there really had never been a year one either and that the calendar is a fabrication but that's a whole other matter) But to adults it was fast approaching — assuming humanity was going to survive long enough to see it.

The Bomb was something everyone heard about back in the day but it wasn't something I was particularly afraid of. (I was far more scared of volcanoes, that huge hole in the Ozone Layer and those disgusting slugs on the coast of British Columbia) We never did nuclear war readiness drills in school and Communism may not have seemed quite so threatening at a time when the world of Reagan and Thatcher was so bleak. To the older generation, however, the threat of nuclear war was still very much in the air. While some went out and protested, others were getting down and enjoying those few precious days that they had left. People like Prince.

"1999" is the beginning of Prince's ascendancy to pop's aristocracy. The fun-sized genius had his moments prior to this (as Dave Rimmer mentions, "I Wanna Be Your Lover" is a prime example) but this is where he kicks off the work that he'll always be remembered for. I've long had mixed feelings towards him myself. I admire his willingness to do his thing without thought for anyone else, his immense talent and the fact that he was always so balls out prolific in an era when more and more of his contemporaries were going three or four or five years between albums. As for his music, his songs have never thrilled me quite as much as I feel they ought to (the closest was probably when I first heard either "When Does Cry" or "Purple Rain" and even then I was too young and weirded out by his image) and I've never been too crazy about his weedy voice. I can take him in small doses but that's about enough. I can't pretend to like him more than that even if it flies in the face of the critical consensus.

Appearing on every good Prince compilation, "1999" is one of those ones I can happily give a listen to, even if I hadn't actually done so since the last time I dealt with it in this space. Taking the same snappy melody that he would put to good use on "Manic Monday" a couple years later (I must say I'd never noticed but clearly others have picked up on it for some time), he and his soon-to-be-christened band The Revolution pump out a saucy funk rhythm that really provides the blueprints for the emerging new jack swing movement — Janet Jackson's still awesome Rhythm Nation being something repeated plays of this really put me in the mood for. Fantastic and something that Prince may have never bettered.

It's odd to think there was a time when one might mistake a Prince record for the organization which Michael Jackson was still ostensibly a member of but it's not quite as crazy as it seems at first glance. For one thing, the sweet, brotherly harmonies of the Jackson 5 may have given them an impressive run of hits in the early part of the seventies but jump forward a decade later and their work had become much more individual. There's also the fact that the vocals on "1999" are divided up between Prince and Revolution members Coleman, Dez Dickerson and Jill Jones. (For my part, I thought it was a trio of singers, not being award of Jones at all; this tells you how much of a Prince fan I am!) Given that the Purple Perv was already known for playing a multitude of instruments and it probably wouldn't have surprised people to discover he was something of a control freak, hearing him share the singing might have surprised a few people. Why would one assume it to be Prince at all? I wouldn't necessarily have guessed the Jacksons but I understand the confusion.

The end of the Cold War is now past its thirtieth anniversary but "1999" is still relevant due to the imminent threat of climate change. It's looking more and more as if the damage is irreversible and it's only going to get worse. Maybe it'll soon be time for humanity to accept that its days are numbered. Partying like it's 2999 might be all we have left.

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Also Reviewed This Weekend

Kajagoogoo: "Too Shy"

Given that he has to be dragged from the spotlight, it's impossible to imagine Limahl being Too Shy in any situation. (Exactly how many lame British reality shows hosted by Ant & Dec has he been in so far? I honestly have no idea but I'd bet it's in the several "range") Good thing, then, that he's singing about someone else so good on him for not pretending to be the vulnerable, Prince-sized vocalist lost in a sea of much taller and more musical bandmates. And about the rest of Kajagoogoo: well done to that lot for not being the typical above-all-this-pop-nonsense prog rockers that the likes of Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones clearly were; the video makes it look like they're enjoying themselves just as much as Limahl himself. And well done for having a UK number one and a pretty big hit around the world which is still well-remembered to this day. All that said, "Too Shy" isn't all that good. Rimmer hates it but I just mildly dislike it. But, as I say, well done to all concerned.

(Click here to see my original review)

London Boys: "London Nights"

14 June 1989

"Neither Spagna nor Milli Vanilli can hold a candle against this."

— Mike Soutar

There aren't many left but if you ever happen to browse around a South Korean record store there's a decent chance you'll come upon a copy of The Twelve Commandments of Dance by London Boys. I began noticing this a few years ago and wondered why music shops were choosing to stock this album when it was clear that no one wanted. Then, I happened to be speaking to a couple I know well about music. They both liked Michael Jackson, vaguely remembered Madonna and hadn't heard of either George Michael or Prince. Then, the woman mentioned that she really liked the London Boys and her husband concurred. Based on this admittedly slim bit of polling, I can conclude that there had once been a demand for their work even if there no longer was any. But such is the way of popular music.

When The Beatles left Liverpool for Hamburg they were unknown by most and disliked by the rest. Howie Casey, sax player for Merseyside group Derry and the Seniors, begged Alan Williams not to send that "bum group" over to Germany, fearing that they were going to ruin it for everyone. Nothing of the sort happened and the Fab Four returned to England a markedly better band, one that was a step closer to world conquest. John Lennon recalled that everyone thought they were German and that they "[spoke] good English".

Confusing Die Beatles for Germans wouldn't last long (especially after they made such a hash of both "Sie leibt dich" and "Komm, gib mir deine Hand") but there's no question that their time in Hamburg did them a world of good. Over the years, Germany became a place where pop stars of different stripes and various levels of success could go to turn their fortunes around or just get themselves together. Donna Summer spent most of her twenties in Munich where she would first meet fellow transplants Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte; she wouldn't move back to her native United States until after becoming a global superstar. David Bowie and Iggy Pop famously lived in West Berlin in the late-seventies which resulted in a creative flowering for both of them. The influence of American and British artists on German pop was such that English became the lingua franca of domestic acts from Boney M. to Propaganda.

So, a trajectory of The Beatles to Donna Summer to David Bowie and Iggy Pop to...the London Boys. (One of them is not like the others) Edem Ephraim and Dennis Fuller were German residents but they had originally been from, well, London. Being based in Hamburg, a name like 'London Boys' must have carried more weight than it would have back in their homeland (they were so-named because "everyone in Germany called us two boys from London"). Indeed, a group called Londonbeat had recently been on the charts with the single "9 A.M. (The Comfort Zone)" and it had been obvious that the group's three American vocalists and guitarist who everyone assumed to be German (turns out he was in fact from the UK) had next to nothing to do with the British capital. Bands from London didn't need to advertise where they hailed from; only those who came from elsewhere felt the need to tell everyone about it — something that Dennis and Edem doubled down on by titling their second hit single "London Nights".

When London Boys emerged in the spring of 1989 it was with "Requiem", an over-the-top dancefloor stormer that gave them a Top 5 hit. Its chart progress had been slow with the single drifting around the lower reaches of the flop side of the hit parade in December and January before returning in the spring when it would eventually peak. The momentum it generated was strong enough that its follow-up came in with a bang, being that week's second highest new entry (behind a still widely popular if increasingly stale Queen). "Requiem had only just dropped off the Top 40 a week earlier which would give London Boys an impressive nineteen straight weeks of chart action spread over a pair of singles.

But if we had assumed that Dennis and Edem's second hit was just going to be more of the same from the first, we were mistaken. Sure, "London Nights" is good fun with plenty of Euro-stomp energy but it's streets ahead of "Requiem". I had dug their first hit but found the pleading chorus ("this is the story now, the story of our love") utterly unconvincing. The duo drew upon religious imagery from time to time but in a very artificial fashion (even as a unaware twelve-year-old I knew that The Twelve Commandments of Dance was a lame title).

By contrast, "London Nights" felt the real thing. Being expats, they had memories of London to rely on but it feels like they'd been away for long enough that that they were able to pull off romanticizing it. With West Germany thriving, they weren't necessarily privy to the worst of the Thatcher years. There's a certain darkness in the verses but it's counteracted by an ecstatic chorus. Showing that they'd picked up more than a little from their adopted country, it's not unlike Propaganda's wonderful singles "Dr. Mabuse" and "Duel". On the other hand, it also draws upon Pet Shop Boys, who had already immortalized London as a hotbed of sleaze in "West End Girls".

London Boys had hits in Britain and throughout Europe (and, presumably, South Korea) but where they remained unknowns was in North America. While Milli Vanilli ran off a succession of Top 5 hits, Dennis and Edem remained an obscurity, something I could never comprehend. Their records were unavailable to me but the bulk of "London Nights" had permanently squatted in my brain. It became one of those songs I most associated with the end of my year in England and one that would lead me to over-romanticize this period of my life. I had enjoyed our many visits to London but it had never been a place I experienced at two or three in the morning when "the party's out and the fever [drove me] wild" but that's the kind of London I created in my mind. Again, such is the power of pop.

 

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Prince: "Batdance"

Half-Prince, half-Joker, the Purple Perv manages to look like Two-Face in the video of "Batdance". Even more confused is the record itself. It seemed cool at the time until the soundtrack came out when it was revealed that it was just a glorified megamix of the album and, indeed, a condescended six-minute summing up of the Batman film that was on its way. A mess and, as Mike Soutar says, "very odd indeed" but a just-past-peak Prince managed to tie it all up into a great party record to rival "London Nights".  Obviously he accomplished far more elsewhere but you'd be hard pressed to find another record of his that is this much fun. And I still quote "This town needs an enema!" on occasion without even thinking of Jack Nicholson or Tim Burton: as far as I'm concerned, this was all Prince's doing too. Shame I bought that soundtrack album though.

Prince: "Sign o' the Times"

11 March 1987

"If anybody else tried to turn such a cautionary tale into a brilliant single, they would undoubtedly end up sounding like Billy Bragg."

— Barry McIlheney

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On is a classic of seventies pop and soul. Keen to free himself from the Motown straitjacket of solo numbers and duets penned in house, the singer began seeking out his own collaborators to set his vision to music. When recordings done at the famed Hitsville USA studio in Detroit proved unsatisfactory, he transplanted to Los Angeles where he started from scratch. The resulting LP was (and still is) a revelation. Few would have ever thought that the black Sinatra that Motown head Berry Gordy had envisioned would have had something so beautifully crafted and well thought out (the only aspect that wouldn't have surprised anyone was how well the man could sing).

What's Going On ushered in Gaye's period as an albums artist. Follow ups Trouble Man, Let's Get It On, I Want You and Here, My Dear are all very different from each other but they all share the quality of having a consistent mood throughout. When rock hacks noodle on about concept albums they rarely mention Gaye but there may not have been anyone better at crafting them. The title track of What's Going On opens the album and it then segues into the very similar "What's Happening Brother"; the former is meant to create a dialog with someone who is hostile towards opposition to the war in Vietnam and the rule of Richard Nixon while the latter is about catching someone else (likely a veteran just back from 'Nam) up on current events. Themes shift from religion to ecology and on to inner city strife but all nine of its tunes maintain a kind of chilled intensity to them. By the time he got to the alimony-paying Here, My Dear (his true masterpiece), Gaye had been able to create essentially the same song again and again over the course of a sprawling hour and a quarter double album and the result was astonishing.

Prince didn't have Marvellous Marvin's singing voice but he was his artistic superior in every other way and his rise to pop dominance coincided with the demise of the Prince of Soul. He didn't pick up where Gay or anyone else left off because he had simply too much ground to cover. Always independent, the Purple One kept his distance from record company executives and showbiz glitz by keeping to himself in his native Minnesota. If he had any restraints, they were of his own creation.

Gaye and Prince aren't terribly similar but one thing they both shared was a propensity for leaving projects unfinished or unreleased. Gaye had an innate laziness to blame but Prince's reasons for abandoning various works over the years are much more complex. He would sometimes complete an entire album and have it ready for release before deciding at the eleventh hour to have it shelved, such as his famed Black Album which he suddenly decided was "evil". He was also a perfectionist and had a thing for butting heads with his longtime record label Warners.

Prince's supposed attempt at his own What's Going On goes back to previous albums that were subsequently ditched. Dream Factory had been a longstanding project that was meant to be a much more collaborative affair with members of The Revolution than what the normally dictatorial leader was accustomed to. Giving the likes of Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin some creative control may have seemed like a good idea (the two were capable enough that we'll be encountering the duo in their own right on this blog before long) but it didn't suit Prince's style, which would have been not unlike Duke Ellington allowing members of his vast orchestra a say in their solos and recordings. Unsatisfied with the results, Dream Factory eventually fell apart and so, too, did his loyal band.

We then come to Camille, yet another aborted project. Using a female alter ego of the same name, Prince presumably sought to channel his feminine side into an album. I suppose it's an interesting concept and something we shouldn't be the least bit surprised he ever embarked upon but I can't say I'm yearning to give it a listen someday. Prince's voice was hardly butch to begin with yet the very idea of him having his vocals altered to a higher register makes me shudder. The album was in the can but it was nixed and it's likely that Warners got in the way. Undeterred, he went straight back into the studio for an ambitious triple album called Crystal Ball. Again, it was mostly finished but the suits didn't fancy putting out such a giant package. (It's surprising that Prince didn't have more pull with his record label back in those days but they must have correctly realised that his muse wasn't as commercial as Michael Jackson's or Madonna's)

Dream Factory, Camille and Crystal Ball failed to emerge but that meant that there was a glut of unreleased material, a sizable amount even for someone as prolific as Prince. Having rejected a pair of albums in the past few months, it behooved Warners to green light the double album Sign o' the Times. Far from being just a work of social consciousness, the LP covers a lot of thematic ground. His usual perviness is dialled back but there are still a great deal of more mature love songs. The fact that the sources of this material were so wide ranging is a credit to his ability to make the album hang together as well as it does. Indeed, the mood is so consistent that it could well be his Here, My Dear rather than his What's Going On.

As for the single itself, "Sign o' the Times" is really good though it can be difficult to pin down exactly why. It isn't flamboyant like so many of his previous hits and the arrangement is quite sparse. This isn't so remarkable in the context of his overall career but as a mid to late eighties pop superstar it isn't what listeners would have expected. Parade's dense, European soundscapes did set something of a precedent for this move but his more recent work only cemented it. The beat is simple and there are only flourishes of jangly guitar. Yet, restraint suits Prince: those over the top theatrics, those unnecessarily long solos, that voice that hits those high notes far more often than I ever would request: not present here and not missed.

So, the album isn't his What's Going On but how do the title tracks compare? On the surface they may seem similar but there are differences. There's a sense that Marvin Gaye really was concerned with the state of the world (even if his interest was fleeting as he moved on to themes of seduction and humiliating his ex-wife on future albums) while Prince is merely observing it. He reels off a laundry list of troubles in the world in the concerned manner of someone watching the evening news (something he even acknowledges with "you turn on the telly and every other story is tellin' you somebody died"). These then build up into a frenzied fear of a nuclear war and the end of life as we know it. He once encouraged everyone to dance as if The Bomb was on its way yet here he is planning to start a family ("we'll call him Nate...if it's a boy": his choice of baby names being a sadly telegraphed excuse to rhyme something with 'late': Prince wasn't always the greatest lyricist). A maturing Prince was no bad thing.

The Sign o' the Times album became a landmark and was his best work since 1999. Purple Rain was like more of the same but without the thrill and spark of its predecessor, Around the World in a Day was good fun but too much of a stylistic exercise to take completely seriously and Parade was uncharacteristically dry. Most artists thrive within the confines of the thirty-five to fifty minute album length but here was a guy who seemed to be at his best with the double album. So much music to make with so much to get out and so much left in the vaults, Prince needn't worry about concepts since he was a theme unto himself.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Johnny Hates Jazz: "Shattered Dreams"

So, I was eleven and I was at an age in which I was torn between the things of my childhood and growing up. Puberty was coming, I began thinking about having a girlfriend someday (not as soon as I was expecting but still) and dreaming about being a singer or an actor. For some reason, "Shattered Dreams" became this song of aspirational adulthood. Now that I am all grown up I know just how hollow this is. Clark Datchler is one of those classic puts-so-much-of-himself-into-something-so-meaningless vocalists that I can't help but chuckle at how pained he has convinced himself to sound. It would be a guilty pleasure save for the lack of pleasure to be found. They always said Johnny Hates Jazz were naff but I was convinced that they had to be good. They were right. Let the kids with big dreams for the future have 'em.

Prince & The Revolution: "Anotherloverholeinyohead"

16 July 1986

"I think God will go out and buy this one."

— Samantha Fox

Prince's reputation has never been higher. His popularity and prominence took a dip in the nineties — his 1990 release Graffiti Bridge being his first album in ages that few seemed to care about — and using that silly symbol seemed like an act he'd never recover from but he came roaring back at some point after the millennium, the crowning achievement being his show-stealing solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in honour of George Harrison's posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. This performance wowed viewers at the time (even if some fellow musicians on stage seem less than excited by it) but it has YouTube to thank for its legend. And Prince was cool again. Then in 2016 he passed away and he went from living legend to god.

But if we shift back to when he was at his creative and commercial peak Prince wasn't always held in high esteem by everyone. Since Dave Rimmer awarded the Purple One with a "coveted" Single of the Fortnight back in 1983 with the still phenomenal "1999", many further new releases of his were reviewed in ver Hits. To say the results are mixed is probably a compliment to the little scamp with only William Shaw's critique of "Raspberry Beret" being mostly positive. Rimmer also had a crack at evaluating "Little Red Corvette", the follow-up to "1999", which he accuses of being too much of a Springsteen rip off while arguing that Prince is an "inconsistent chap". John Taylor isn't crazy about the heavier direction he seemed to be taking with "When Doves Cry", though he does acknowledge that Prince records take a while to grow on him. Andy Kershaw is unsparing in his derision for "Let's Go Crazy", even going so far as to have a go at the singer for being the "ugliest man in the world". (Though surely Kershaw has seen himself in the mirror, right?) Brookside's Simon O'Brien and Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode aren't especially fond of "Paisley Park" and "Kiss" respectively but the critic with the biggest ax to grind is Vici MacDonald. Having already slagged off both "Purple Rain" ("I know it's all supposed to be desperately steamy and sexy but, me, I remain unconvinced") and "Pop Life" ("Yaaaawn...Prince is sooo boring"), she tackles the recent single "Mountains" by generously reeling off all the many things to like and admire about the man before ultimately concluding that his latest isn't much cop at all.

Many will read MacDonald uncharitably — even though Kershaw's "analysis" is much, much worse than anything she ever wrote — but her feelings towards Prince often dovetail with my own. He was a true original, was musically curious, oozed talent and he didn't give a toss what anyone thought. That's stuff's all great, I just don't like at least half of his records. I've never cared much for his voice and I've never felt moved to any great extent by any of his songs. With so many things we're expected to appreciate about Prince, the only thing left wanting is his actual music.

With the critical blowtorch being taken to the likes of "Purple Rain", "When Doves Cry" and "Kiss", it's curious that he nabs a second SOTF with the relatively obscure "Anotherloverholeinyohead". The third single from Parade, the sort-of soundtrack to his recent film Under the Cherry Moon, its just-within-the-Top-40 chart performance was underwhelming though this was by no means unusual for him. Not unlike "I Would Die 4 U" and "Glam Slam", it doesn't pop up on compilations and is seldom discussed to any extent these days. While taster 45s from upcoming albums usually performed well, second, third and fourth singles often didn't and this one is no exception. It isn't even a standout on the pretty good Parade album: the minimalist funk grooves of "Kiss" and "Girl and Boys" and the stately "Sometimes It Snows in April" lay waste to this very unremarkable, Prince at his Princiest of songs.

So, what does Samantha Fox see in "Anotherloverholeinyohead" that it's worthy of a SOTF in her mind? Well, her review doesn't give away much, unless you're deeply interested in learning about how the Foxtress grew up listening to Prince's "really rude" records that she acquired from the flea market where her mum had a stall. She seems to genuinely love his music and it sounds like his records played no small part in her, shall we say, "development". While mentioning that she likes how he "changes the pitch in his voice" on this (has he really?) there's not much else to say. This could be any Prince single and she'd give it a glowing review, even if she manages not to say much about it.

But, then, what can she say about it? For someone so adventuresome and all over the place, this is very standard fare, the prototypical Prince single of the time: big piano chords, some slap bass, a refrain that is equal parts Rick James and Meat Loaf, loads of slinky vocals all over the shop. And all this would be perfectly fine if not for the rum tune and trite lyrics. The hooks don't draw the listener in and twisting a common English expression into song is never the best idea, even in the hands of someone so laughably capable. I suppose it's a credit to him that he can belch out something so inconsequential into a reasonable song but this ain't good enough for me. Good thing there's another Prince track that will be covered before long on here where us sceptics will once again be forced to eat crow.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Paul McCartney: "Press"

One rock god phoning it in deserves another, eh? Well, not quite. Though far from a classic of old, this is a pretty decent number from Macca's supposed creative wane. Opening with some country-ish guitar playing, it quickly goes synthy. This was the beginning of Paul's decision to sound contemporary so he roped in 10cc Eric Stewart as a co-writer and Hugh Padgham on production. I'm sure getting the guy behind the desk of all those massive Phil Collins albums seemed like a good idea at the time but it has the ring of a middle-class, Live Aid direction. He would have been better off getting a real synth-pop producer like Trevor Horn or Stephen Hague in or he could have given "Press" a storming, Long Ryders country feel. Nevertheless, it's all likable enough though there's way too much going on. Dig the accompanying promo in which His Nibs takes the London Underground to the general delight and bemusement of the public. I gotta say I'm imPRESSed the whole thing doesn't seem staged. (See what I did there?)

Culture Club: "The War Song"

27 September 1984

"Whether I'll feel quite the same when everyone from the neighbour's budgie to the weird bloke downstairs is whistling it too is another matter, of course."

— Vici MacDonald

On the last Sunday of November, 1984, about forty mostly British and Irish pop stars gathered at a recording studio in Notting Hill, London to hastily record a single for the Christmas market to benefit victims of the appalling famine in Ethiopia. Band Aid was to be a coming together of UK music royalty and seemingly everyone on it was at peak popularity and worldwide fame. The resultant "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was an instant success, triumphing in one of the most hotly contested seasonal number one showdowns ever. The holiday having already come and gone, it nevertheless topped the charts in Canada for the first two weeks of January '85. Though I liked the record (and still do to this day in spite of the many legit criticisms leveled against it), the real delight was the video. I was just seven but I could already identify plenty of the central figures involved. Well, vaguely recognize at least. I probably knew Sting and Phil Collins and was aware of the lead singers of Duran Duran and Wham! Okay, that's almost all of 'em but I did begin spotting others when I would see the video every year from that point on. (Oddly, the individual I took longest to pick out was a thin and sullen Paul Weller, by far my favourite of the lot) But there was one more figure who I definitely would have known right away: Boy George, probably the most recognizable pop star in the world.

But it seems this wasn't the same Boy George. His brief solo vocal on "Do They Know It's Christmas?" — "and in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy / throw your arms around the world at Christmas time" — comes nearly two months after the release of "The War Song", a chronological fact that I've been having difficulty squaring over the last several days. Band Aid was, as I already stated above, a convergence of everyone who was anyone (and Marilyn) in the British music scene, not a bunch of also-ran's and has been's (especially Marilyn) headed for the dumper. For that's what "The War Song" did to Culture Club's momentum.

Or perhaps not. Though disinterested in the "trite" lyrics, the tune is catchy enough to warrant a SOTF from Vici MacDonald and, not being simply a critical favourite, it quickly shot to number two on the charts, just missing out on the top spot by Stevie Wonder's monster syrup-fest "I Just Called to Say I Love You" (in what was, I must say, a pretty loaded top ten). While it did fade away almost as quickly, spending just two more weeks in the charts' top quadrant, it was hardly the career-stalling disaster that plagued ABC two years earlier with their brave reinvention "That Was Then but This Is Now". "The War Song" proved yet another hit single in several other countries and likely the last Club single to be familiar enough with the public that many a neighbour's budgie or weird bloke downstairs may have hummed along with it.

Yet the bloom was off and though the single sold it has been described by Boy George as the song that "ruined" his career. Reappraisal has led to it being described as naff which is apt considering the chorus. I've always suspected, however, that they probably knew it was ludicrous as well, which doesn't suddenly make it a brilliant record but does help explain their intent. Consciously singing about how "war, war is stupid / and people are stupid" and knowing the banality behind it gives Boy and Jon Moss and the other two an excuse but thinking that they had something profound to say with these words just makes it all seem pathetic — and I like to think that we're still a ways away from Boy George sinking that low.

How do I know? Well, I don't really. But common sense tells me that if I was able to gauge the lame juvenailia of my teenage poetry with some accuracy — at least some of the time —then a quartet of towering pop stars must have at least a similar filer. More importantly, I reckon that "The War Song" is a response to the group that had stolen most of their thunder over the previous year and one who also wasn't shy about exposing blunt but basic sentiments to the masses. Frankie Goes to Hollywood first hit the charts with the sexually explicit "Relax" and followed that up with taking a shot at the arms race in "Two Tribes". Both were absolutely massive singles in the UK and may have made groups like Culture Club look passe. Probably not keen on getting into raunchiness — Boy George having said famously that he wasn't "really all that keen on sex" — it fell to Reagan and Chernenko and the threat of nuclear war as a topic for Boy George to grapple with. Though the record itself is superb, the lyrics in "Two Tribes" are hardly loaded with high level ideas. Holly Johnson's delivery of "when two tribes go to war" is powerful but it reads poorly, particularly followed by "a point is all that you can score". So, war is like sport, huh? Wow, I guess all those field marshals and generals in the First World War were correct and good on Frankie to restate some seventy-year-old sentiments. 

The point is not to bash "Two Tribes", just to put "The War Song" in context. Boy George was a vastly superior lyricist to Johnson or Mark O'Toole (or Nasher or whoever handled works for Frankie) and this trite simplicity was a low hanging fruit that he should have avoided. But when you go from tabloid stars and teen idols to being asked to sing on the Band Aid single, you might feel like you've been neutered. Of course that brings us right back to the whole thing about my screwed up chronology and that, ultimately, this record really didn't kill off their careers or any of that nonsense. It was a misstep that they could have corrected going forward but they chose not to. Just be more like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and you'll never screw things up.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Prince & The Revolution: "Purple Rain"

MacDonald admits that she's "unconvinced" by the latest from the Purple Perv and I'm right with her (although it is possible she became convinced at some point over the last thirty-five years). Having always liked everything about Prince except for the bulk of his music, "Purple Rain" is especially troublesome for us few skeptics out there. Where "1999" and "When Does Cry" and "Raspberry Beret" usually sound better in my head (and, thus, give me the false impression that they're better than they are), this, the title track from his breakthrough '84 album, is as underwhelming and over-long in my imagination as it is in reality. What does everyone else on Earth see in it? Okay, it's heartfelt but it's not quite poignant and the dull faces on the concert goers in the video says it all (not to mention an awfully awkward peck on the cheek he gives to an annoyed-looking Wendy Melvoin). I guess it must work as an album closer and it's better than virtually every other single on offer here but, as classics go, not up to much.

Prince: "1999"

20 January 1983

"This is beaty, bouncy and seemingly about cramming in as much partying as possible because Judgement Day (ie The Bomb) approacheth. In a word: fab."

— Dave Rimmer

I turned six in the spring of '83 so I'm probably not the best judge but I can't believe that people were giving much thought to the millennium back then. I recall first hearing about the return of the Hong Kong colony to China a few years later — I was a news buff at a fairly young age — and thinking that 1997 was so way off in the future that it hardly merited consideration.The fact that the year 2000 and the millennium was approaching didn't occur to me until the mid-nineties when everyone began talking about Y2K and, in my pedantic family at least, how 2001 was the year everyone should be recognizing since "there wasn't a year zero". (It never occurred to us that there really had never been a year one either) But to adults it was fast approaching — assuming humanity was going to survive long enough to see it.

The Bomb was something everyone heard about back in the day but it wasn't something I was particularly afraid of. (I was far more scared of volcanoes, giant Pacific Northwest slugs and the hole in the Ozone layer) We never did nuclear war readiness drills in school and Communism may not have seemed quite so threatening at a time when the world of Reagan and Thatcher was so bleak. To the older generation, however, the threat of nuclear war was still very much in the air. While some went out and protested, others were getting down and enjoying those few precious days that they had left. People like Prince.

"1999" is the beginning of Prince's ascendancy to pop's aristocracy. The fun-sized genius had his moments prior to this (as Dave Rimmer mentions, "I Wanna Be Your Lover" is a prime example) but this is where he kicks off the work that he'll always be remembered for. I've long had mixed feelings towards him myself. I admire his willingness to do his thing without thought for anyone else, his immense talent and the fact that he was always so balls out prolific in an era when more and more of his contemporaries were going three or four or five years between albums. As for his music, his songs have never thrilled me quite as much as I feel they ought to (the closest was probably when I first heard either "When Does Cry" or "Purple Rain" and even then I was too young and weirded out by his image) and I've never been too crazy about his weedy voice. Is it too much of a backhanded compliment to suggest that he might be the ultimate artist just to have a nice, all-bases-covered greatest hits package?

Appearing on every good Prince compilation, "1999" is one of those ones I can happily give a listen to, even if I hadn't actually done so prior to this past week for well over a decade. Taking the same snappy melody that he would put to good use on "Manic Monday" a couple years later (I must say I'd never noticed the similarity until the other day but clearly others have picked up on it for some time), he and his soon-to-be-christened band The Revolution pump out a saucy funk rhythm that really provides the blueprints for the emerging new jack swing movement — Janet Jackson's still awesome Rhythm Nation being something repeated plays of this really put me in the mood for. Fantastic and something that Prince may have never bettered.

The end of the Cold War is now nearing its thirtieth anniversary but "1999" is still relevant due to the imminent threat of climate change. It's looking more and more as if the damage is irreversible and it's only going to get worse. Maybe it'll soon be time for humanity to accept that its days are numbered. Partying like it's 2999 might be all we have left.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Belle Stars: "Sign of the Times"

Between "1999" and Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" and Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" and U2's "New Year's Day" there may not have been a more quintessentially eighties singles review page in ver Hits than this fortnight's — even if they're offset by a reissue of The Beatles' "Please Please Me" and something called "Vintage English Rock & Roll" by That Hideous Strength, whoever they are. Missing out on the eighties retro nights, however, is The Belle Stars and their almost-a-future-Prince-song-title "Sign of the Times". The Belles had been a on cover version kick with their three previous singles and their penchant for studying the classics paid off grandly on this wonderfully catchy number. Rimmer is guardedly impressed, saying it's a "cover in disguise" and isn't especially into the spoken word bits but to these ears its an easy runner-up SOTF. The sound of The Belle Stars getting it right, even if only the once.