The Associates: "Party Fears Two"

4 March 1982

"The song is excellent with an Abba-style piano tune (at least I think it's a piano) breaking up the verses, rolling drums and a lyric which starts in the shower and proceeds to a party."

— Neil Tennant

I must say it's rather nice to be blogging about Neil Tennant as a Smash Hits critic after having just posted the sixth and possibly final Single of the Fortnight for the Pet Shop Boys. As I have written before, being a valued member of the Hits staff and then a pop star of more than some "note", he was bound to factor into the story of this top pop mag. Having pumped out his fair share of synthy classics, it's cool to see how he rates a synth-pop number of old. Well, sort of.

The Associates have often been cited as purveyors of synth pop along with the likes of The Human League, Soft Cell, Blancmange, Yazoo, Depeche Mode, New Order, Erasure and, yes, ver Pet Shops. I've said it before and I'm not alone. Simon Price in his liner notes to the essential Sparks compilation Past Tense lists them as part of the trajectory of synthy duos that came along in the aftermath of the late-seventies/early-eighties' success of the Maels (I don't have my copy of it handy but, in addition to many of the groups mentioned above, he may also have brought up Eurythmics and Tears for Fears). They appear as a pair on many of their album and singles covers (though that's not the case in their videos).

The duo aspect is difficult to ignore but I'm not so sure it's a synth-pop dynamic so much as it is the classic charismatic vocalist with moody instrumentalist pairing at work. Yes, the Maels seemed to operate in this fashion and so, too, did Tennant and Lowe and Lennox and Stewart and Alf and Clarke but this type of relationship existed outside the fairlight synths and Linn drum machines. Morrissey and Marr remain arguably the definitive singer-instrumentalist pairing and they did indie rock jangle. What's more, they were part of a quartet, The Smiths. As for The Associates, when Johnny Black inquired about how many members they had, he was only given the vaguest of answers. "Somewhere between two and nine people," was singer Billy McKenzie's best guess.

Synth-pop or not, duo or nonet, "Party Fears Two" is so outstanding that McKenzie and Rankine would struggle to better it. They came close, particularly with much of the Sulk album that would be released two months' later, but even otherwise solid singles like "Club Country" and "18 Carat Love Affair" pale in comparison. Their early indie work hints at something special to come, while their later, post-Rankine material manages to sound like McKenzie was having considerable difficulty recapturing what they once fleetingly had. To describe them as a 'flash in the pan' smacks of being derogatory but it's a label that fits.

In any case, who cares if they never came close because "Party Fears Two" is simply a perfect pop song. Though frequently knocked for his vocal histrionics (Fred Dellar, in an otherwise positive review of Sulk, says they "mar and jar") McKenzie's singing suits their material. Anyone who is so over-dramatic in real life would of course be a nightmare to deal with but these people frequently make the best pop stars (no wonder he and Morrissey got along so well, at least for a time). I have to think that Tennant is thinking of "Dancing Queen" when he brings up the "Abba-style piano" but the keys twinkle even more delightfully here. (Having trusted what I saw in the video, I credited the "fetching" Martha Ladly with the piano part but it seems it was Rankine's all along; perhaps they just wanted her there so they could have someone the camera loved just as much as McKenzie)

Sadly, we are now living in a world in which both of the core Associates are no longer with us. Luckily, they remain fondly remembered. McKenzie was said to have been the inspiration for The Smiths' "William, It Was Really Nothing" (which prompted an eventual reply song "Stephen, You're Really Something" recorded during a brief McKenzie-Rankine reunion in 1993). Rankie would go on to lecture at Stow College in Glasgow where he would play a vital role in the formation of Belle & Sebastian. Most of all, they put together "Party Fears Two", a number that borrowed from elements of the seventies but managed to point the way forward for many in the eighties. Simon Reynolds called them the "great should-have-beens of British pop" but at least they were all that this one time.

Rest in Power, Billy and Alan.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Shakatak: "Nightbirds"

Shakatak have released thirty-three albums? Seriously? I don't think this English jazz-funk group has ever been dubbed an institution but if anyone deserves the label, it's them. Chances are they've recorded at least a couple dozen songs that rival "Nightbirds" and it behooves me to seek them out pronto. I wonder if their only other Top 10 hit "Down on the Street" measures up to this sleek and effortless bit of wonderment. Or what about near-miss hit "Feels Like the Right Time" from when they were wet behind the ears? Or the much more recent "All Around the World Tonight"? So much for me to explore. And, hey, if the remainder of their vast discography happens to be a disappointment, then at least they'll always have the incomparable "Nightbirds" which would end up being their very own "Party Fears Two", right down to the identical chart peak. "Me, I love it," Tennant concludes. You and me both, Neil.

(Click here to see my original review)

The Jam: "Absolute Beginners"

15 October 1981

"And if Paul Weller's lyrics won't see him installed as poet laureate in the next fortnight, they should at least help him grace the charts till his current supply of pocket money runs out."

— Fred Dellar

Poet laureate, Fred? Really? I mean, I love me some Weller — The Jam's Greatest Hits was one of the key albums in my musical explorations, I adore The Style Council and I even have plenty of time of much of his solo career — but he's hardly the first pop scribe I'd consider for the position. While there are poets who have used nonsense in order to craft their verse, at least it's possible to make out the nonsense; it is not so easy with Weller. His delivery is so fast, his enunciation so muddied that it is near impossible to make out what he is saying.

No one in pop has as many mondegreens as Paul Weller. "With my Cherry Coke, walls come tumbling down..." is a personal favourite of mine but there are dozens of them spread out over his lengthy career. Yet, "Absolute Beginners" isn't flush with them since it's damn near impossible to make out anything he's singing about at all!

1980 had been The Jam's year. They had two number one singles and released the critically acclaimed album Sound Affects but by far the clearest sign that their popularity had gone through the roof was the success of "That's Entertainment", a deep cut that they refused to issue as a single in the UK. Copies of the West German release were made available in Britain and sales were strong enough for it to nearly crack the Top 20. (It doesn't appear to have done anything in Germany at all: it must have sold more on import than domestically) That's an imperial period for you.

Yet, there wasn't much of an attempt to capitalize on their popularity. 1981 was a relatively quiet year with just two non-album singles following "That's Entertainment". Any new product would have been in demand but the chart performances for both "Funeral Pyre" and "Absolute Beginners" must have been a bit disappointing. While both peaked at a solid but unspectacular number four, they followed the path of the single that was only being snapped up by loyalists: they entered high, lingered for a couple weeks in the Top 10 and then promptly fell off.

The last time I blogged about this one I felt the need to point out (repeatedly) that Fred Deller failed to notice The Jam's change of direction but I now recognise that there's no way he would have detected much of a shift with just one new single to go on. Weller had been upfront about his debt to the sixties from the moment The Jam emerged back in 1977 (something that immediately set them apart from the punks, who were all doing a feeble job pretending that the swinging decade didn't matter) so using a section was no different than covering The Kinks or stealing basslines from The Beatles. Speaking of the Fab Four, the in unison horns give way near the end to a "Penny Lane"-esque trumpet solo. As was the case with the bulk of their post-"Going Underground" work, this tune is awash in the sixties.

Brit-funk and new wave-influenced soul were on the rise in the UK in the early eighties. Spandau Ballet were coming along, ABC were about to drop but this first shot of black music to emerge from Weller was not coming from the same place as these bands. The dual force of Joy Division and Chic presented whole careers for several British groups but Weller was far too much of a mod with Motown and northern soul records to have much in common with them. (He would eventually find the connection with the proto-baggy "Precious" which was an effective tails to its co-double A-side "Town Called Malice", a song that did for "You Can't Hurry Love" what the 1980 single "Start!" did for "Taxman") Contemporary influence was all well and good but it would never outstrip 

The song's Wikipedia page mentions that record label Polydor would have preferred to have "Tales from the Riverbank" as the A-side with "Absolute Beginners" demoted to the flip. Notably, there's a [citation needed] mark accompanying it and it's easy to see why. While it isn't quite one of their prime singles, there's no question that it had the far greater commercial potential of the two. Weller's B-sides seemed to exist in a world divorced from his current interests and obsessions and "Tales from the Riverbank" is one such example. The title might seem like a bouncy number by his protegees Ocean Colour Scene but it's abrasive, the product of The Jam continuing to follow their post-punk path from Sound Affects and "Funeral Pyre". It isn't exactly hook-filled either. Nope, I call bullshit on this claim.

It would be a slow year for The Jam — though they did tour a fair amount, even if their North American venues weren't exactly Shea Stadium (not that there's anything wrong with playing the Ottawa Technical High School Auditorium) — but a crucial one as they entered their final stage. While Dexys Midnight Runners had been soul revivalists, The Jam were dealing with yet another part of the past to put forth a case for their future. I just wish I didn't have to check the lyric sheets every time I give them a listen.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Associates: "Message Oblique Speech"

Oh, so Weller should be named poet laureate forthwith but The Associates "spin out seemingly nonsensical lyrics"? At least we're able to make out Billy Mckenzie's nonsense. Yet, Dellar isn't wrong. David Bowie was known for 'cut and paste' lyrics but Mckenzie seemed to take the practice a step further by doing so with multiple songs all at once. The production is rough, the music raw but the Mckenzie-Rankine partnership was already flourishing. They were mere months away from the pop charts but "Message Oblique Speech" and "Party Fears Two" might as well be separated by regime changes, world wars and the shift from silent films to digital. Talented folk operating on a shoestring: just think what they could accomplish with a pile of record company money?

(Click here to see my original review)

The Associates: "Breakfast"

17 January 1985

"Melodrama at its best, this is the kind of thing to listen to on a brittle white winter morning, while feeling love-lorn and poetic."

— Vici MacDonald

We last encountered The Associates on here just as they happened to be on the ascent. They really did have it all: a frontman with a kind of melancholic charisma partnered with an able guitarist who in tandem pieced together a single that is so catchy and so addictive that when the good people at Ace Records finally get round to inviting me to curate a Singles of the Fortnight compilation it will be on my shortlist. Fleshed out with a strong cast of backing musicians — who weren't quite full time Associates (though you'd never know it given the way the camera operator seems to adore Martha Ladly's keyboard posturing), it seems they were only associated with The Associates — Billy McKenzie and Alan Rankine appeared set.

Three years on and looked at what's changed. That big breakthrough never occurred, the hits quickly began to dry up and everyone left. Well, almost everyone. Effectively an entirely new band (or a solo project in all but name), McKenzie was the man in charge and, given the state of the shambolic recording sessions that resulted in third album Perhaps initially being rejected by their/his record label, proved to be in over his head. Now, I'm not so sure that the original incarnation of The Associates was much cop to begin with. Yes, "Party Fears Two" is magnificent but the group struggled to better it and proved incapable of even delivering more of the same. Subsequent Rankine-area singles "Country Club" and "18 Carat Love Affair" aren't too bad but they don't light up a room or cheer up a dreary bus ride the way their predecessor did so effortlessly. So, it's not as if they were running with all this momentum but the departures of Rankine and bassist Michael Dempsey and Ladly's non-appearance here (she's listed as still a "member" until '86 but she doesn't appear to have done much with them during the mid-eighties) were huge setbacks.

Thus, McKenzie was coming back at a point of probable weakness. His songs could be a perfect vessel for any vulnerability he was feeling and in this respect "Breakfast" works well enough. The vocalist's Bowie-like pitch having been jettisoned in favour of something much more downcast and accompanied by strings and a graceful piano, the result is stark even if one may or may not end up feeling touched by it. Vici MacDonald isn't wrong about the record being best suited to "brittle white winter morning[s]" but it fails to align itself with any other mood and/or climate and forces listeners to either adapt to its bleakness or give up listening intently. This fortnight's critic isn't too bothered by McKenzie's "totally incomprehensible" lyrics but it's something I'm having trouble looking past. Even within the context of the singer's eventual suicide just over twelve years later it fails to connect with me. Matters may be too personal to allow others in or I'm just a cold and sad bastard but, either way, I find myself in admiration of the bleak beauty but shrug at the heartfelt but impenetrable confessions that lie within.

Simon Reynolds has called them the "great should-have-beens of British pop" and I think that can be taken to mean a lot. They should have had more hits and success. They should have been much more than a flash in the pan. They should have fulfilled their promise. They should have had a turn on the eighties revival circuit - perhaps even to this day. And they should have found a way to get an apathetic public over to their side. But should they have been able to top "Party Fears Two"? That's asking an awful lot.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Colourfield: "Thinking of You"

Billy McKenzie wasn't the only one experiencing a come down around this time. Having been a key part of The Specials' stunning run of superlative singles and doing fair business with offshoot band Fun Boy Three (especially their swansong "Our Lips Are Sealed", still my favourite SOTF, just pipping ver League's "Love Action"), it's a bit sad to see Terry Hall going the cheerful route with his latest act The Colourfield. It's a difficult song to dislike but it's also hard to take seriously. Maybe I'm not even meant to. Still, aren't there better things he could have been doing? Like taking a page out of Billy McKenzie's book and going for more sorrow for one.

The Associates: "Party Fears Two"

4 March 1982

"The song is excellent with an Abba-style piano tune (at least, I think it's a piano) breaking up the verses, rolling drums and a lyric which starts in the shower and proceeds to a party."
— Neil Tennant

"At least I think it's a piano". Much as I love music, I must confess that I have no ear. I can't hold a tune for the life of me, I've never been much cop at playing an instrument and aspirations to form a massively successful pop group long ago evaporated when I finally began to accept what I failure I've always been. (My one talent, if you can call it that, is for composing parodies, albeit done strictly at a dilettante level) Nor do I understand music to any degree beyond the basics. I used to think that squelching and DJ scratching came as a result of tricks of the mouth. And I'm still not completely sure exactly what a chord is.

It is therefore nice to read a Smash Hits critic expressing some confusion as to an instrument being played. And this particular Hits hack is no mere lightweight. Neil Tennant may have been a History graduate from the north of England with a background in publishing but he was soon to front my favourite group of all time. His musical ignorance makes me feel a little bit better about my own. (Tennant would have done well to check out "Party Fears Two"'s accompanying video in which the camerman spends an inordinate amount of time focusing on a fetching Martha Ladly of Martha & The Muffins as she nonchalantly twinkles the keys)

I'd been anticipating this first Tennant review ever since I unleashed this blog and I was hoping it would be a good one. Long familiar with some of his most arresting lyrics, I wondered if his criticism would mark a not dissimilar territory. (In particular, I imagined that his bitchy, irony-strewn numbers such as "Miserablism" and "Shameless" would make for superb critical fodder) It comes as a surprise, then, to read that Tennant has his music lover's hat on here, expressing appreciation for rock and funk and jazz and Gary Numan, genres I would never normally associate with Neil Tennant's discerning tastes.

But I hesitate from making this piece all about its critic — especially since he'll be making a fair share of appearances as both reviewer and reviewed in the years ahead — because the SOTF is an absolute gem, a gorgeous mix of sunny joie de vivre and acute melancholy. McKenzie's operatic Bowie vocal doesn't quite gel at first but it gradually makes itself at home in the song, eventually cascading into a blissful twenty second finale alongside Ladly's catchy as all hell keyboards and some lovely strumming from Alan Rankine. And it only gets better with each subsequent listen.

It's sad, then, to consider that this would end up being as great as The Associates ever got, their promise imploding on McKenzie's increasingly temperamental behaviour. Their position as the future of British pop ended up being usurped by the once and former Smash Hits scribe Neil Tennant.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Weekend: "The View from Her Room"

Indie-inflected jazz that isn't simply ahead of its time, it's better than virtually any of the generation of UK-based, Sinatra-inspired acts that were soon to emerge from Glasgow and Hull and, yes, Woking. Tennant fails to mention that Weekend's vocalist is Alison Statton, late of influence-on-everyone, bought-by-no-one's the Young Marble Giants, who manages the transition from sparse post-punk to jazz balladeering rather well. Like The Associates, we're hearing a future that never happened: it all could have been so different.