The Jam: "Beat Surrender"

25 November 1982

"You made a lot of people very happy, ripped a few tunes off but chose to call it a day while you were still at the top."
— Deborah Steels

The local betting shop isn't just a place for taking a punt on Stoke City's chances in the First Division or on some Argentine horse or on catching a dodgy disease just from touching the counter. No, it's also where you can go to put a bob down on your favourite record as it vies for the "coveted" Christmas Number One spot.

A year ago The Human League took it in a walk but the competition looks a good deal tougher this time round. Some of pop's biggest acts are vying for this year's title. The Jam (who, let's not forget, are splitting), Culture Club, Wham!, Madness, The Human League who clearly didn't get enough the last time. Some old codgers are also present and correct. Let Bitz be your guide to the best bets as well as those with an outside shot. At least one has got to be worth a flutter!

The Jam: "Beat Surrender" (2-1)

Mods from Woking all the way to, er, at least the other side of Surrey are blubbing that their heroes The Jam are bowing out. Indeed, there may be members of The Jam who are similarly downing tears at moment. But instead of weeping, how about celebrating? The Jam of old with chorus to shout along with! A tune to spin round the Christmas tree! Words that are a mystery to all but Paul Welder (and even he may not have the foggiest what he's going on about here!). It is said that 'succumber' is when "one" succumbs to a cucumber which is something no one round the Smash Hits office has ever done, though Tom Hibbert did confess to once bowing down to a courgette. A sure fire winner!

David Bowie & Bing Crosby: "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" (5-2)

Not a double A-side but two songs sung at the same time. A swizz! Dame David and grizzled old Bing couldn't agree so they both croon on top of each other, the clots! Yet, there's a welcome round-the-fire mood and it's just the sort of thing that will appeal to both your uptight auntie and your hip older sister. A contender!

David Essex: "A Winter's Tale" (5-1)

Some Yule warmth from the Essex boy. While everyone else will be at home with their grannies who complain about mum's trifle, our David will be all by his lonesome for the big day. Nothing brings joy to faces of the young than the misery of others! A definite dark horse for the prize.

Culture Club: "Time (Clock of the Heart)" (6-1)

As your Granddad will no doubt say as Christmas evening draws to a close, "that's it for another year". What we need in this situation is Time and who better to be on the side of this precious commodity than the Boy himself. But it may take Time to get used to this one. Time is of the essence, Boy, get to it!

Madness: "Our House" (7-1)

A jolly knees up for the whole family! Just the sort of thing to have on while Mum and Dad are clearing up the wrapping paper on Christmas morning as your younger brothers and sisters are fighting over who gets to read the Beano annual first! A song for when Mum yells at you to get out of the kitchen while she's getting the yuletide goose prepared. But, sadly, one that might miss out on the top spot since ver kids won't be spending their precious record tokens until after Christmas. An early fave for the coveted New Years Number One Spot though!

The Human League: "Mirror Man" (10-1)

They took the prize a year ago with "Don't You Want Me" but lightning doesn't look to be striking Phil, Joanne, Sue and the other three this time round. A couple at odds over their future is one thing to get behind this time of year but a bloke who can't stop staring at himself in the mirror? He's probably the sort of chap who gives his "bird" oven mitts instead of a nice necklace for Christmas and he's the one miserable soul round the table who refuses to wear the tissue paper crown from his cracker. Pass!

Phil Collins: "You Can't Hurry Love" (12-1)

See below

Wham!: "Young Guns (Go for It!)" (12-1)

Those Wham! lads are so dreamy and they've finally become proper pop stars. It's hard to say if "Young Guns" has the "legs" to see them through to Christmas Day but stranger things have happened. A little more holiday cheer wouldn't be unwelcome. In any case, they're young and talented enough that they could well find themselves in contention for the crown before "long". Give 'em a year or two.

Shakin' Stevens: The Shakin Stevens E.P. (20-1)

"Blue Christmas" had been a hit for Shakey's hero Elvis and he's looking for something similar for himself. There's good value-for-money with four "cuts" but that may prove to be four too many for some. A seasonal hit of his own might do better. Try again, Shakes!

Renee & Renato: "Save Your Love" (25-1)

Like Wham! this pair have been slowly climbing the charts. The only trouble is, they aren't nearly as dishy as George and Andrew (not to mention Dee and Shirley). And their record isn't as catchy. In fact, it's downright awful. Buy it only if you're intent on giving it to your cousin as revenge for him giving you "There's No One Quite Like Grandma" two years ago.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Phil Collins: "You Can't Hurry Love"

Not pinched from The Jam's "Town Called Malice" but a cover of an ancient hit by a group called The Supremes, who Paul Welder, in turn, ripped off. Your mum who is convinced she is still "up" on pop's trends will no doubt be up for some Phil but there isn't enough holiday fun for the rest of us. Just as Culture Club needs more Time, the bloke out of Genesis had better get a move on pronto!

(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.

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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 Jam: "Going Underground" / "Dreams of Children"

20 March 1980

"Can they put a foot wrong? Can pigs fly?"

— Kelly Pike

As groups coming out of punk go, The Jam were old school. Paul Weller was barely nineteen when they first hit the charts and had already made the infamous claim that everyone should vote Conservative. This may or may not have been a joke but it seemed to hark back to the days of John Lennon speaking out against injustice yet still voting Tory because there'd be less tax for him to pay. And this was far from their own connection to sixties pop. Weller was openly professing his love for the likes of The Kinks and The Who at the same time The Clash were proclaiming there was no place for The Beatles, Elvis and The Stones in the world of punk. While everyone else wore ripped clothes and safety pins, Weller, Rick Buckler and Bruce Foxton wore suits and no one seemed to mind that the latter sported a mullet.

They even released records the way bands used to. With blockbuster albums such as Rumours, Hotel California and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack spawning multiple hit singles, The Jam would generally pluck only one LP cut for release on 45. Of their eighteen (brilliant) singles, nine of them never appeared on a studio album, giving them a remarkable percentage of one offs — and, if anything, the numbers are skewered when you consider that two of their hits taken from albums ("That's Entertainment" and "Just Who Is the 5 O'Clock Hero?") only came out in Britain as imports. Two of their number one singles may only be found on compilations, something that would be unthinkable a decade later when the stand alone single became a thing of the past.

The Jam's chart fortunes had been steadily improving over the past three years and the top five success of "The Eton Rifles" near the end of 1979 suggested they were really about to break through. Anticipation for their first single of the eighties was high and they didn't disappoint: it entered the charts at number one, which was still a relatively rare feat. "Going Underground" was such a massive success and it has been an enduring fan favourite ever since yet it was a double A-side, a fact often overlooked. Indeed, so taken is she with the anthemic tune that Kelly Pike neglects to even mention "Dreams of Children" in her review (and this was at a time when it was still fairly common for Smash Hits critics to comment on B's. And she's far from alone in that regard. While The Jam are renowned for some superb B-sides ("English Rose", "Smithers-Jones", "Liza Radley" and "Tales from the Riverbank" are among their most popular numbers), the flip side of their biggest hit is seldom cited and isn't always included on comps. 

"Going Underground" is beloved while "Dreams of Childrean" has largely been ignored but the two make a perfect single pairing. The tenth part of a continuum of singles stretching back to "In the City", the former is as pounding and driven as anything they'd ever done and gives a sense of completion to the narrative of Weller going from cynical, know-it-all youth to a young man growing comfortable with himself. I had never heard The Jam until the summer of 1991 when I got a copy of Greatest Hits on cassette. Side one had been a rush of numbers that I found exciting but didn't quite know what to do with; flipping the tape over, I was bowled over by the thrilling song with lines about how "you've made your bed, you better lie in it" and "we talk and we talk until my head explodes" (Weller's frantic wordplay and cottonmouth vocal made very little of it intelligible to me at the time and it still didn't matter) had me locked in as a fan for life. The explosive song ushers in The Jam's era of aggressive psychedelic rock and soul revivalism to close out Greatest Hits: a sign of what's not to come.

Yet that sign was right there on the other side. Weller admitted that he had been getting into post-punk acts like Gang of Four and Joy Division and this was the direction he ended up taking the band on their fifth album Sound Affects. He was also tripping on The Beatles' Revolver (to the extent that the single "Start!" brazenly nicked its bass line from the George Harrison classic "Taxman") and Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. These disparate influences may all be found on "Dreams of Children", with its mix of sparse instrumentation and production, horns, organ and backwards acid rockery and infectious R&B grooves. The same Jam that went along for the ride with punk and had molded themselves into part of the next generation of rock classicists was now beginning to shed what had made their name in the first place.

"Going Underground" / "Dreams of Children" ought to be ranked alongside Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel", The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" and Bomb the Bass' "Megablast" / "Don't Make Me Wait" as the finest double A-sides of all time. (One of them is not like the others but I'll be making my case for it soon enough) Having two potential hits on both sides of a 7" record only tells part of the tale: the two songs ought to compliment one another in a way not required of the traditional A-side/B-side dynamic. With their zeitgeist chart topping single, welcome to the past, present and future of The Jam.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Genesis: "Turn It on Again"

Growing up in the eighties, there seemed little difference between Genesis and Phil Collins' solo career and it was difficult to tell just what was his day job. Others weren't so coy: The Police broke up, Sting went solo and that's the way it was supposed to be. Not yet a solo artist and not quite established as frontman of increasingly regressive prog rockers, Collins seems to be laying the groundwork for both the future of his band and his status as an unlikely pop superstar in his own right. "Turn It on Again" seems like Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford are trying to figure out how this mainstream pop stuff works, not aware that the chorus doesn't need to be saved for the last thirty or forty seconds. There's a hook but it ends up getting frittered away by some unnecessary busyness. Traces of a good song. They had a lot to work out if this pop caper was going to fly,

Buzzcocks: Spiral Scratch

23 August 1979

"Having unleashed the best set of pop singles for years, the Buzzcocks remind us how it all started."

— Steve Bush

Oh dear, Steve. It's Buzzcocks, not the Buzzcocks (but, hey, at least you used a lower case 't': The Buzzcocks would have been unforgivable). Just as it's Eagles and Talking Heads and Eurythmics and Pet Shop Boys, bands and their stans can get awful prickly about that dad blasted definite article being improperly used. (Funnily enough, groups employing a "The" don't seem quite as bothered when they get dropped, as in Beatles, Rolling Stones and Kinks; face it, The The are the only group with an incorruptible band name)

Nomenclature aside, designer Steve Bush kicks his month-long singles review residence off (though he would be back) with a recommendation that we go out buy a reissue of the debut E.P. by Buzzcocks "while stocks last". Apparently there were stocks aplenty as it got one chart placing short of the Top 30. Coming off five Top 40 entries on the bounce over the past year, this is a routine showing for a group that never quite got their flawless run of singles over the chart hump. (The classic "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" couldn't get any higher than number twelve) Though Bush wasn't to know it at the time, the group was nearing its end. What got them started was about to finish them off.

Studying the singles reviews from 1979 in detail, it seems clear that there were some trying to move on while others were more resistant. Punk in 1977 had opened up so much for so many. The chords were minimal, the tunes were short and everyone dressed as they pleased. Indie record labels popped up all over the country and, with expenses kept to a bare minimum, groups could make a few bob from just a few thousand sales. Kids flocked to punk venues to see chaotic gigs. Oh, that it could only have kept going. For some, it never stopped.

Bush claims that the sound of these four tracks on Spiral Scratch is "dated" but it seems like those still pressing on with real ale punk here at the very end of the decade were the real relics. Releases from the likes of The Members, Sham 69, Angelic Upstarts, Generation X, even those rubbish post-Lydon Sex Pistol records: all churned out as swiftly and unprofessionally as they were two years earlier but without the same excitement of old. Some of the tunes were still as potent but it was old hat by this time. The fact that The Rolling Stones seemed to have already missed the boat with the punk-influenced "When the Whip Comes Down" and "Shattered" from their Some Girls album and those songs were from a year earlier is all you need to know.

What you get with Spiral Scratch is ten minutes of tightly played punk rock that doesn't try to hide the skills of the foursome. Bassist Steve Diggle and drummer John Maher were even at this early stage a peerless rhythm section and the late Pete Shelley proves himself an underrated guitarist, even going so far as to take a solo on the E.P.'s best track "Boredom". Howard Devoto made his lone shot at Buzzcockdom count with rapid-fire, shrieked vocals and some genuinely funny lyrics. All four cuts demonstrate that they already had a clear understanding of what they were doing but they somehow fail to suggest what might have been — or, rather, provide a blueprint for Buzzcocks that were, not those that could have been. The thought of Devoto remaining is one of those delicious what ifs but not one aided by what's on offer here.

Like The Clash and The Damned, Buzzcocks were a cut above the competition. Punk was never expunged from their sound but they were far too capable as musicians and songwriters to let the genre constrain them. But where some stagnated and others moved on, they were just about done. Sprial Scratch doesn't simply "remind us of how it all started" but puts a cap on how far they came in such a short period of time. They could have done more but why soil such a perfect discography — assuming you're willing to ignore all the stuff they did after they reformed.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Jam: "Where You're Young"

When you're young, you're full of angst, aspiration, passion and verve. When you're young, you're searching for someone to speak to you. When you're young, you cherish those figures who are fighting for something. When you're young, you don't give a toss if you can't make out the words to your favourite songs. When you're young, you're convinced that a line like "the world is your oyster but the future's your clam" is dead good even if deep down you haven't a clue what it means. When you get older, you realise that a number like this is just a filler on the way towards something you really want to listen to. When you're older, you respect those groups who used punk to better themselves.

The Jam: "Beat Surrender"

25 November 1982

"So, au revoir, confiture..."
— Deborah Steels

A remarkably prescient — not to mention amusing — farewell to The Jam from Deborah Steels there. Deliberately confusing their name with preserves may be a bit too obvious (did others do so at the time? I wonder if the Melody Maker considered using the headline The Jam Are Toast at this point...probably didn't) but to do so in French looks ahead to Paul Weller's future organization The Style Council. An E.P. called The Style Council à Paris, debut album called Café Bleu (featuring "The Paris Match"), a song called "Down in the Seine" on their follow-up Our Favourite Shop — and all from a band that drank cappuccinos and wore espadrilles, which I believe are some sort of European footwear. 

Even at a time when bands would still break up with some regularity (nowadays they go on "hiatus", a term I probably ought to loathe but for its sheer honesty: why bother with the farce of bringing a group to an end if they're only going to get back together again at some point?), Weller's decision to close up The Jam shop was stunning. The group was still in its imperial period, if only in the UK, and there didn't seem to be any indication that things were about to slow down either. But Weller had had enough and felt there nothing else they needed to accomplish. They were going out on top.

Except they were going out with something that is just sort of all right. While the call-to-arms choruses of "The Eton Rifles" and "Going Underground" still resonate, the attempt to emulate them on "Beat Surrender" falls flat. Weller's suggestion that we "succumb unto the beat surrender" (or "succumber to the beat surrender", it's impossible to tell) reads like he was struggling over quite what he had to say. (While I used to puzzle over 'succumber' being a possible portmanteau of succumb and cucumber, I'm now dismayed by the unnecessary redundancy — see what I did there? — of succumbing to a surrender) Of course it doesn't help that this is Paul Weller whose enunciation has never been muddier.

"Beat Surrender" is one of the hundred and forty-three songs that Andrew Collins has selected for his Circles of Life blog. Acknowledging that latter period Jam led into Paul Weller's next project the following year, he is emphatic that it's not a "Style Council number-in-waiting, a dry run, a handover of power" even if it's inevitable that we hear it that way now. Quite how well do the Greatest Hits of The Jam and Style Council segue into one another? Not as seamlessly as you might think. "Beat Surrender" closes out the first chapter still half-clinging a rebel-rousing spirit; "Speak Like a Child" kicks off the second with a looser, more joyous feel, that old curmudgeon Weller with a spring in his step. While ver Council would deliver far better piano-pounding pop works ("Shout to the Top", "Walls Come Tumbling Down") they had soul, jazz, hip-hop and folk to get out of their system first. (And even if "Beat Surrender" is a TSC song in waiting then why stop there? Shouldn't their entire output from "Absolute Beginners" on be one great, big Council-esque tease?)

Steels admits that she'd been expecting a "wrist-slashing epitaph" of a finale and is pleasantly surprised by how bouncy this is. This being Weller, however, you'd think she would know he wasn't going to touch the sentimentalist route. "And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end / That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names": yes, I'm sure he had in mind Jim Callaghan in '77, Mrs Thatcher in '82 and punk being the big thing then, new pop the big thing now: bullshit indeed. Still, I suspect he's taking a blowtorch to his own legacy here as well. You're favourite band just broke up? Big deal. Other groups will come along and it doesn't matter in the end. Feeling like all he's been all talk, no action ("All the things that I shout about (but never act upon) / All the courage and the dreams that I have (but seem to wait so long)"), Weller seems to be setting himself up for his headlong dive into the Red Wedge movement which dominated the next half-decade of his career.

There's a lot here to be said but the song itself is just okay. Weller has written far better songs throughout his lengthy career but this is the only one that could close out The Jam — and for that it probably deserves its SOTF. (Who says it has to go to the best tune?) Some singles are events and "Beat Surrender" works best as an event. "A Solid Bond in Your Heart" could have brought things to an end with a stronger song but one lacking a statement. Steels even brings up the value-for-money second disc featuring "passable covers of "Movin' on Up", "Stoned Out of My Mind" and "War"" (the latter of which, far from being passable, is plodding failure) as if to reaffirm its significance ("Not only a number one but a fab way of bowing out" she closes). Playing up to their last waltz, it entered the charts at number one, it was played live on The Tube and Top of the Pops and the band embarked on a farewell tour. La confiure est fini.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Trevor Herion: "Kiss of No Return"

There's no way this should work. The accordion is so quintessentially European that it could easily be mistaken for a parody, there's little beyond a bass and a trim synth in the way of backing and then there's the lothario baritone on top. Scott Walker managed to pull it off and so too does Trevor Herion. A doomed hero turns idealistic notions of love and the lush life into anti-romantic wistfulness which is magnificent. Steels is smitten and who can blame her? As an added bonus, this beautiful pop song is set in Paris, a city that would soon be familiar to a member of la confiture. A sure-fire SOTF at any other time when the biggest band in Britain wasn't blowing itself up.

Musical Youth: "Pass the Dutchie"

16 September 1982

"This cover of an excellent Mighty Diamonds song — originally it was "kouchie" they were passing — boasts some fine youthful "biddley-biddley-bong" toasting and a rock solid rhythm."

— Dave Rimmer

Beverley Hills Cop. Bull Durham. The Flight of the Navigator. The Goonies. Gremlins. The Neverending Story. Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Risky Business. Robocop. Say Anything. Terminator. True Blood. Withnail & I. Popular eighties films all, none of which I have ever seen. Feel free to take this time to lift your jaw off the floor, if that's how you feel you must overreact to such news. Movies unseen have a strange power to astonish people in a way other forms of entertainment do not. If I say, for example, that I've never read Charles Dickens' Bleak House, which I haven't, I'm likely to be answered with either a "oh really?" or a "oh you should, it's great". If I've never seen Swan Lake, which, again, I haven't, then I'm probably most likely to get a response of "neither have I". But movies seem to be a medium in which many people assume we have as a common reference point. Of course, it's all bunk. Some cultural touchstones make an imprint and other just pass us by as if they never happened.

I'd never heard "Pass the Dutchie" until a few months ago (not so surprised by this discovery, are you?), around the time I began compiling a list of Smash Hits Singles of the Fortnight. While I decided to embargo most SOTF's that remain unfamiliar to me until I have to deal with them, this one piqued my curiosity due its status as a number one hit (the first one we're encountering on here though the next one isn't far off). If not exactly a near universally loved chart topper handed down from one generation to the next like "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Wuthering Heights" and "Ghost Town", it may be more in the vein of "Maggie Mae" or "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick" or "The Only Way Is Up", a huge success that those present at the time took great pleasure in and remember fondly to this day (it was recently the subject of a How We Made feature in The Guardian), if not so much those of us who missed out. It may even have more than a little of the zeitgeist to it.

Being very much of its time, it's tempting to dismiss "Pass the Dutchie" as dated. It's a term I try to avoid using — even though that hasn't stopped me in the past — because it's unhelpful and smacks of being a cop-out argument. In any event, I wasn't there at the time (well, I was five-years-old in '82 but given that my favourite album at the time was Sesame Street Disco it wasn't as if my tastes were refined enough even for Musical Youth) and didn't even have knowledge of this song a half-dozen or so years later when I was approaching the age of Dennis, Kelvin, Michael, Patrick and Junior and might have understood it so how can I say one way or the other if it hasn't aged well.

Listening to it now, however, I can happily say that there's plenty going on to enjoy. Tom Ewing's analysis makes the case that if it is gimmickry then at least it's "gimmickry with ambition, the very best kind." (Perhaps this also explains why we're both so fond of "Mouldy Old Dough" by Lieutenant Pigeon since it's a prime example of a creative novelty hit) Kelvin Grant's very youthful toasting contrasts well Dennis Seaton's smooth — though not slick — vocals. Some Caribbean clichés have been added (a reference to Jah here, some delicate steel drums there) but it refuses to be married to a reggae purity — there's far too much pop ebullience in the way for any of that nonsense.

Pop to be sure but not manufactured pop. Having cut my teeth as a music fan on the formulaic — though, admittedly, occasionally brilliant — late-eighties pop of Stock Aitken Waterman and the family friendly, boy/girl next door images they cultivated in their charges, it's wonderfully refreshing to come across a band of youngsters who'd clearly cooked up something from their own collective imagination (though ironically co-produced by one Pete Waterman). It's a cover sure (in fact its a mash-up of "Pass the Kouchie" with U Roy's "Rule the Nation" and U Brown's "Gimme the Music) but one that they brought enough of themselves into while not sacrificing any musical authenticity. Expunging the original's drug references probably ought to have rendered this a ham-fisted and watered-down recording, consigned to going no further than a very rough home demo on a dodgy tape recorder. The very fact that they pulled it off to the tune of an addictive hit record is nothing short of remarkable.

It probably wasn't inevitable that Jamaican music's seventies golden age and UK ska's two year window of chart dominance would usher in a reggae pop boom but that is indeed what happened in the waning months of 1982. New Pop had gone on sabbatical and five London lads stepped up to fill the void. Musical Youth were never spoken of alongside the progressive leftist pantheon of the Rock Against Racism or Two Tone but what they had to offer may have been just as radical and self-sufficient. British kids of all races could only look on and wonder if they too could be part of the generation to rule the nation.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Jam: "The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow)"

Blimey, what pitiful pack of singles poor old Dave Rimmer had to sift through. Far too many covers and more than a smattering of established acts who were floundering creatively. I  didn't have much desire to write about yet another Jam single but the glut of inspiring records has left me with little choice. Coming in the group's imperial phase, "The Bitterest Pill" made the runner-up spot in the charts — held off by the young bucks above — and is a decent first attempt at grand gesture lush pop, something Paul Weller would improve upon in the next three years. Irritatingly overloaded with garbled, indecipherable  lyrics, it doesn't quite work although I've long had a distant fondness for it as something you'd never expect The Jam to record. It's almost as if Weller needed something new to come along.

Depeche Mode: "See You"

21 January 1982

"If it doesn't make Number One, I'll write and complain."

— Mark Ellen

Letters

Smash Hits Letters

52-55 Carnaby Street

London W1V 1PF

£5 record token for the letter that delights us most.

~~~~~

LOUISE, WON'T you smile at me
Like you did in R.E.?

Miss Shaw spoke with scorn

And she looked quite forlorn

As she spoke of us writing our own private creed

(Mistaking me, perhaps, for the Venerable Bede),

You shot me a glance

And my heart did a dance

But ever since then you just look away

Even when we get to the end of the day.

You act as if you simply don't care

Of my heart, you just aren't aware

And that's why, Louise, I just have to speak

Because my will grows ever so weak

I swear I won't touch

I just like you so much.

And now all I want is to see you again,

Though I know not where or when.

Maybe it will be over half term break

When you're out for a stroll 'round Appleby Lake

Then you'll come round to mine on Galveston Road

And we'll play Altered Images and Depeche Mode

Maybe you'll even smile at me

Like you did in R.E.

Graham D., Cheltenham

You sure your Louise doesn't prefer other bands? Have a five quid record token to invest in something she actually likes. Failing that, your purchase could inspire yet more verse. Just some helpful advice from one lonely git to another.

~~~~~

WELL DONE, Mark Ellen. You had The Jam, Soft Cell, the Spands, even bloody Bow Wow Wow to choose from and you had to go for those talentless turds Depeche Mode. I'll admit that "Just Can't Get Enough" was nice but all the pop flash they had departed along with Vince Clarke. I can't believe you'd praise something so obviously dull and without merit. If they're light years ahead then I'd hate to see what's in the future. Thankfully they've had their last hit and we won't be hearing from them again. Mark my words.

Richard, Skegness

We'll hold you to that. Send us a crate of Skegness Rock to the address above if the Deps do manage to eek out another hit.

~~~~~

WELL DONE: Depeche Mode made the cover of the latest issue and you print a glowing review of their latest single, the wondrous "See You". I suppose I ought to be grateful that Smash Hits has finally decided to pay attention to Basildon's finest but I can't help but be overwhelmed by a sense of anticlimax. What took you so long?

Depeche Mode have been slowly gaining momentum over the past year and it has been disappointing that Smash Hits has mostly ignored them in favour of Haircut One Hundred and Toyah. What do they have that the Mode doesn't? Do third form students jot down Toyah lyrics in the margins of their notebooks in the middle of geography lessons? Do the Haircuts inspire a dreamscape of art and brilliant people and philosophy? I think not.

Hail Depeche Mode, the future of pop!

Nancy, Braintree

We imagine that Toyah and the Haircuts inspire a love of pop music, as do Depeche Mode. But our apologies nonetheless. The next time synth-noodlers from an English New Town emerge from the shadows we'll be right on them.

~~~~~

DID YOU know that if you rearrange the letters of 'Depeche Mode' you get 'Deedee chop me'?

Simon, Arundel

So what? Kim Wilde is an anagram for 'wide milk' and Duran Duran spells 'And and ru ru'. We're currently working on one for Dexys Midnight Runners. Suggestions to the address above.

~~~~~

I NOTICE that Mark Ellen still hasn't written in to complain that his beloved "See You" failed to hit Number One as he so confidently predicted it would. Does it rankle that the supposedly tune-free "Town Called Malice" has been dominating the charts instead? He couldn't even be bothered to mention its nearly as wonderful double A-side companion "Precious". If Depeche Mode (or any other group for that matter) want to get to the top of the charts, they'd be wise to put out a single when Paul, Bruce and Rick are otherwise occupied. Mr. Ellen should know better than to doubt The Jam.
Barry, Scunthorpe

Our boy Mark did indeed compose a letter complaint as promised but he sent it off to the folks who compile the charts. This space is reserved for the gripes of our beloved readers, our writers may do so elsewhere.

The Jam: "Absolute Beginners"

15 October 1981

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

— Fred Dellar

From one imperial phase to another: last week it was The Police and now we have The Jam. They have a few similarities on the surface — both trios with charismatic frontmen and both groups rose in popularity at about the same time. (For Sting and his crew this meant damn-near world domination whereas Paul Weller and co. had to be content with a much more parochial following, albeit one that was so fanatical that they managed the unprecedented feat of getting import-only Jam singles from Europe on to the UK Top 40) In terms of presentation and style, however, the two acts couldn't have been more different. Where The Police were older — considerably so in the case of guitarist Andy Summers — The Jam were younger, with a following that was equally wet behind the ears. Where Sting's songwriting seemed locked in a world of minute human obsessions, Weller's tunes spoke of people slipping through the cracks of Thatcherism. Where The Police borrowed from pub rock and reggae, The Jam nicked from mod, sixties pop and, now, soul.

"Absolute Beginners" is the beginning of The Jam's final period in which they began to fully embrace black music. And this was no mere blip: soul, Motown, jazz and house music would all end up defining the next ten years of Weller's career. Of course no one was to know this at the time. What's fascinating is that there may not have been much of a sense that they were heading in a different direction. Fred Dellar's review in the October 15th issue of the Hits mentions Weller's lyrical fortitude — as quoted above — as well as being impressed that they'd be literate enough to borrow the title of a Colin McInnes novel for the name of their new single. As for their new sound, there's a "punchy brass line to help things stay alive" but not much an indication that they might be heading in a new direction. Going all R & B seemed to go over His Nibs' head.

The Jam's previous single was "Funeral Pyre", which ramps up the psychedelic/post-punk fusion of their Sound Affects album to an extreme. Where were they to go after such an abrasive, jarring record? Add a horn section apparently. There's a little more to it though. Weller's guitar playing does a deft balancing act between a jangly-Motown style and some clipped new wave. If The Jam's run of sublime singles — beginning with "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" back in '78 all the way through to the end of '82 — can take us on a narrative continuum, as I would like to think they can, then here we have Weller taking a blowtorch to his cynicism of old in the appropriately named "Funeral Pyre" only to start all over again with the unusually idealistic "Absolute Beginners". Or did Weller simply get up on the right side of the bed for a change?

We're not to know but that's beside the point. Just to have this capsule of what The Jam were up to in the autumn of '81 makes the stand-alone single worthwhile. Years later, with his empire beginning to crumble all around him, Noel Gallagher began lamenting about how singles had to take a back seat to albums and that he didn't have the freedom to release a new forty-five without an L.P. following hot on its heels. Attempting to take stock of the hubris-fuelled disaster that was Be Here Now, Gallagher expressed feeling let down at how the "D'You Know What I Mean?" single came out in advance, then the album itself was released and that it was "over almost before it had begun". He looked back in envy at his musical heroes of the eighties, The Jam and The Smiths, as acts who could churn out singles seemingly whenever they felt like it, regardless of whether they had an album to promote. The dynamic of "D'You Know..." — and, to be sure, far better singles — is that it is supposed to represent the album as a whole; stand-alone's are to be judged on their own terms, not necessarily as a signpost of what's to come but as a postcard of what's up. 

That's not to say, however, that a single is little more than a trifle to bestow upon the populace. I like to think there was a time when the single could be as much of an creative statement as an entire album. Plus, an ace three-minute pop song could only whet one's appetite for more to come. Just what could The Jam have in store next?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Haircut One Hundred: "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)"

Horns. Loads and loads of horns. Well, three really. This isn't the fairlight synthesizer nor a Bob Clearmountain-esque big drum sound but there's something intrinsically eighties to pop songs with a horn section. Well, not really but they do crop up on the SOTF as well as on Orange Juice's "L.O.V.E...Love" and on this little firecracker. Dellar admits throughout various selections of this fortnight's singles review page that he wants to turn that mother out and this is the best one to get down to. A very youthful-looking Nick Heyward leads his Haircut chums through something that Talking Heads could very easily have recorded with a bit more edginess but without nearly this much passion.