Pink Industry: Forty Five

18 February 1982

"A four track 12 inch EP from former Pink Military frontperson Jayne and new playmate Ambrose. (Ambrose?)"

— Red Starr

I've written about several EP's in this space and they'll be a few more before long but this time I thought I'd do a little piece about how they're put together, according to someone who has no idea about how to do so. Here are my do's and don't's for compiling the perfect extended play with additional notes on how Liverpool's Pink Industry measures up with their first too-long-for-a-single, too-short-for-an-album release Forty Five.

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DO try to spread out the highlights. You know when there's a killer A side and you flip the bastard over only to discover that the B side sucks something awful? Well, you risk doubling the folly if you place the choice cuts back-to-back in a clever attempt to hook listeners. But just wait till they put on the second side and realise that there's nothing of note spread over two tracks.

✓ Forty Five begins with "Is This the End", the record's bleakest track. Ian Cranna Red Starr's fave is "Don't Let Go" over on the flip side.

DON'T make it a glorified single. This is what I will call the Crackers International problem. Erasure's bid for the 1988 Christmas Number One was a value-for-money four cut EP which excited enough people to give them their biggest hit to date. Yet, opener "Stop!" hogged all the airplay and it's doubtful anyone played the other three tracks more than the once. A genuinely strong set of tracks would've covered up "Stop!" being so damn repetitive. Ideally, every selection on your EP ought to be good enough to become the single

✓ No danger of this happening here, even though ver Pinks did eventually issue "Don't Let Go" as a single in its own right. But it was five years later so we'll let that one slide.

DO pad out your EP with an instrumental that you have lying around if you're struggling with . Three track EP's are a certainly a thing (there are even EP's with two tracks for some reason) but they're best avoided. Four's your optimal number. Even if you've got little more than a dismal two minute jam session, use it. Placed strategically at the end of side A it might even raise the odd eyebrow or bring a degree of delight to your hardcore fanbase who will doubtless feel convinced that this is the "real" you.

✓ Side A's closer is "47" (stylized as "~47~" though I'm not convinced the tildas are there for anything more than cosmetic purposes) which is your classic post punk tune with no lyrics because no one in the band could be arsed. Right they are too. On your standard single instrumentals smack of laziness (see the otherwise fine "Oscillate Wildly" by The Smiths); on an EP they provide depth — even if they do know such thing.

DON'T resort to including a remix, re-recording or live version of an old hit to bring your EP up to the optimum number of cuts. In this instance you're better off with fewer tracks. (NB: this rule does not apply to EP's that are geared specifically towards recycling material, such as Teenage Fanclub's Teenage Fanclub Have Lost It)

✓ (It's almost as if this study has been designed simply to make Pink Industry seem like geniuses)

DO try your best to get the running order as spot on as possible. Deacon Blue's Ricky Ross described placing the key opening and closing tracks on each side an album as the "four corners"; with an EP, you're looking at nothing but that dynamic. If you were decorating your living room, you could get away with leaving one or two corners empty; but what if it's all corners we're talking about? Think about it.

X I dig Forty Five (it's second only to the mighty Spiral Scratch in terms of EP's covered so far on this blog) but the running order is as baffling as Rubber Soul (seriously, how does "What Goes On" merit a more prominent placement than "In My Life"?). Kicking it off with "Is This the End" must've seemed dead clever (dead clever) but it belongs at the end. I mean, for god's sake, look at the title of the freakin' song!

DON'T cheat by putting out a standard two song 7" single and an "EP" with a pair of extra cuts for the 12". This is a sure-fire way of ensuring that you'll have yourself a Crackers International of your own. Make up your mind, buddy!

✓ Again, no danger of this occurring, even though it easily could have with the beloved "Don't Let Go". It's possible that more than two dozen people would've gone out and bought it had the catchiest, most likable track appeared first. (On the other hand, as Brian Eno said, only twenty-five people bought the first Pink Industry EP but everyone who did formed bands and had their charismatic female singers shave their heads)

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To sum up, Pink Industry did very well with Forty-Five. It's an excellent EP. I don't know if it deserved a bigger audience but those of us who have been pulled into its orbit have very much appreciated the experience. To quote that chap Red Starr's closing remarks of his review, "more of this sort of thing please". Well, quite.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Talk Talk: "Mirror Man"

DO manage to somehow be both critically acclaimed and underrated. This is a square that isn't easily circled but (a) you don't have to worry about doing so yourself and (b) your fans will refused to acknowledge the contradiction.

✓ Nick Drake aside, no one has ever toed the line between strong reviews and the air of being ignored like Talk Talk. The fact that they hardly ever had hits seems reason enough to consider them underrated despite the fact that music critics have done nothing but praise them.

DON'T bear a passing resemblance to any popular comedians: no one will ever take you seriously.

X Actually, it's to the late Mark Hollis' credit that he managed to be a serious artiste despite being Eric Idle's doppelganger. Still, he'd have never gotten away with it had he looked like John Cleese.

DO try latch yourself on to a genre with fans that don't get so damn uppity about being a purist.

✓ Whereas folk, jazz and punk fans will revolt if you stray ever so slightly, synth-pop demands only that you employ a Casio keyboard, even if it's drowned out by guitars and horns and orchestras. Hollis had the freedom to roam in part because his band wasn't overly successful but also because he was involved in a genre that was more about what you stood for than the style of music you happened to play.

DON'T fret too much if the public aren't as receptive as the critics.

✓ Hollis went his own way, the punters be damned! And, hey, those royalty checks from that lame but successful No Doubt cover must've come in handy.

DO try to get yourself a Single of the Fortnight of your own so I can write about you in more detail.

X Well, at least that No Doubt cover might crop up...

(Click here to see my original review)

The Passions: "Skin Deep"

9 July 1981

"Not exactly commercial but brave and definitely Single Of The Week."

— Red Starr

This again? Longtime followers of this blog (cheers for that, by the way) will know that this is the same record that got this whole thing going way back in the spring of 2018. After posting on Tom Tom Club's "Wordy Rappinghood" two weeks ago I finally ran out of early Singles of the Fortnight — both acknowledged and inferred — and I decided to keep it going. Looking back at some of those first few posts on here I was struck by how little I had to say about some of them, how poor the writing was and, most of all, how I had very little idea what I was doing. But now that I am in the swing of this blog I think it's time that I did some revising. This entry is a complete re-write but others may just be edits of what I had previously scribbled — it all just depends on how satisfactory I reckon the originals to be. Links will be included at the bottom for anyone wishing to see what I had posted first time round. In addition, the 'Also Reviewed This Fortnight' section will sometimes cover a completely different secondary record, as is the case this time. As has been the case since February of 2020, these re-dos will be posted on alternate Saturdays.

A big thanks to everyone who has read all or some of this blog, whether out of genuine interest or pity (either way, I'll take it). Readership is low and I've struggled to build it up but I still hope to get more people interested. Please share or give me a comment on here or on social media. I'll even take some harsh criticism over being largely ignored.

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I don't know about you but I have no need to ever see another one of those lists of so-called one-hit wonders. Nor do I have any desire to watch a YouTube video all about the '50 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the Eighties'. I don't even wish to discuss them again once I'm done with this blog post — even if I reserve the right to go back on this promise in the future. One-Hit Wonders? How about 'More Original Discussion Topics on Social Media' instead?

So, yeah, I'm sick of hearing about them. But also, I'm not so sure there's much merit to a run down of one-hit wonders in the first place. For one thing, people tend to focus on the US charts. Dexys Midnight Runners had several hits in their native UK but just the one in America so they qualify, though I don't think I've ever heard the term applied to Styx who only had one hit in Britain. (And this doesn't even get to how an act did in other countries as well) In addition, it ignores the fact that having just one hit single is still better than none. Finally, and most significantly, it doesn't even matter all that much in the end. Are eighties and nineties artists beating themselves up for failing to duplicate their solitary chart success thirty and forty years later in spite of constantly being reminded of such? What good does belittling one of these bands do anyway? Why not celebrate acts on the fringes who were fortunate enough to get themselves on Top of the Pops and in the music mags and who now have fond memories of the experience instead?

The Passions are one such group. Initially on indie label Soho, they got themselves signed to Fiction, longtime home of The Cure. By 1981 they had been upgraded to Polydor, a major that had recently struck gold with The Jam. Not bad progress in the space of two years. (Like their better known label mates, The Passions were from the London area which no doubt helped them get the attention of big name moguls) Clearly someone saw something in them. Had they stayed on a tiny, enthusiast label, there would have been little chance for them on a national level.

were never able to translate the Top 30 performance of "I'm in Love with a German Film Star" from earlier in 1981 into further hits. Frankly, they were probably lucky just to have copped the one so they needn't have been too disappointed that no more were forthcoming. This isn't a knock against them: they put out some terrific singles right from debut release "Needles and Pills" in '79 but they never possessed the key to immediate, radio friendly pop; even "German Film Star" could have easily disappeared without trace. Bassist David Agar admitted to Smash Hits that the band tended to sell far more albums than singles so they knew the score.

Even still, the charts would have been a much better place had there been room for something as out there and as futuristic and as addictive as "Skin Deep" during the summer of 1981. Red Starr describes it as "much more aggressive" than it's more successful and better-remembered predecessor but that's not even the half of it. "German Film Star" could have been done by Young Marble Giants but "Skin Deep" is unlike anything you're likely to hear. If the tribal percussion brings to mind Talking Heads then the layers of guitar effects and robotic voices give it whole new depths. If Barbara Gogan's "indecipherable wailing" makes you think of Cocteau Twins then the steady funk grooves up the enjoyment level considerably. It's as if they were channeling new wave, post punk, blue-eyed soul, industrial, dream pop and world beat — genres and sub-genres that represented pop's past, present and future — all in one.

Yet, few were listening this time round. It's likely that such an intense record turned people off after their ethereal hit. How would it have gone over live though? While newcomers may have tried to tune it out, I can imagine longtime fans going crazy over it. And that's what they had left: a loyal cult following which hopefully grew after their stint of national exposure. Try telling their fans that they were just a one-hit wonder.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Spandau Ballet: "Chant No.1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)"

The incessant rhythms and slick horns may indicate otherwise but Gary Kemp's clipped guitar playing and Tony Hadley trying just a little too hard to sound like a mix of Bryan Ferry and David Byrne give away that the Spands had glam and new wave values at heart. Or at least they once did. They were quicker out of the gate than New Pop rivals Duran Duran, Culture Club and Wham! but they blew their creative load an awful lot faster as well. Starr likes it in spite of the odd complaint (despite what I said above, I actually kind of like Hadley trying to sound like his idols: it's certainly preferrable to when he sounds too much like himself) and hopes that it's a "sign of better things to come" but I'm not so sure they ever managed to better "Chant No.1". A welcome reminder that these "clothes horses" sure could play though.

(See my original review here)

The Passions: "Skin Deep"

9 July 1981

"A near-instrumental with wiry guitar and hustling beat taking first place over choirs and bursting balloons...Barbara Gogan ...contribute[s] some spirited but largely indecipherable wailing"

— Red Starr

Our first proper dip into the Smash Hits Singles of the Fortnight and we've already happened upon a flop. The Passions were coming off their first — and, as it would turn out, only — Top 40 hit with "I'm in Love with a German Film Star", a reasonably good tune which descends into novelty too much for me to take it seriously. But they took a bold step with its follow up. Dispensing with that whole song thing, they manage to carve out a groove with layers of robotics, funk guitar, synthesized choirs and, yes, Gogan's wailing (I can't hear the bursting balloons myself but there's lots going on in there) building upon each other. It doesn't seem especially remarkable at first but as it all frantically comes together the effect is startling and begs for repeat listens. 

It would be easy and understandable to look on askance at such a good record being denied even a nominal chart entry but I just don't see it. If anything it strikes me as the sort of little-known album cut that fans trot out to self-righteously belittle casual listeners. And they'd be right to do so. It may not have made an impact at the time but hopefully their fanbase appreciated it for the killer live showstopper that it almost certainly had to have been. And they had a SOTF as a feather in their caps — assuming anyone bothered to tell them. (Quite what effect, if any, that this modest achievement had on peeking the interest of readers is something I hope to go into at some point in the future)

To be fair, though, the competition isn't exactly stellar. Beyond this and the little number I've praised below, the only other single that has made of an impression is the lightweight but charming and catchy "When You Were Mine" by Bette "Mrs. Suggs" Bright (which Red Starr didn't think much of). Elsewhere we have some familiar acts doing pretty substandard work. U2's "Fire" is not even particularly notable for this single-word-album-title/Christian-lite rock period prior to their ascendancy, Kate Bush reminds us that she could be just as capable of irritating listeners as captivating them and did you know that Spandau Ballet is an anagram for Paul's Bland Tea? Just saying.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Icehouse: "We Can Get Together"

We're a half-dozen years ahead of the pink-florescent-leotard-soft-rock-slickness of "Electric Blue" — not to mention one positively epic permed mullet in the accompanying video — but this is equally drenched in the eighties, albeit in far less grievous fashion. Some new wavy guitar, a synth and some big drums provide the backbone to a simple yet spirited piece with a promo featuring some state-of-the-art early eighties graphics. Dated but in a good way — and that goes as much for song as video. So worthy of praise that it could have easily been a co-SOTF alongside The Passions. Perhaps "Red Starr" felt that they had brighter days still to come and didn't need to be propped up. "File under Highly Promising," his nibs concludes but I'm quite sure they never bettered this little gem. Their hairstyles, on the other hand, still needed some work.