Hipsway: "The Broken Years"

19 June 1985

"If all their songs are this excellent we're going to hear an awful lot more of them."

— Chris Heath

Though a potential career ambition of writing for Smash Hits was staring me right in the face, I spent the bulk of my teen years hung up on making it as a pop star. Why scribble a bunch of nonsense for the magazine, went the gist of my thoughts at the time, when I could appear in it instead? I thought a good ride on the giddy carousel of pop — but I couldn't get it to go anywhere in practice. I lacked talent, wherewithal, pluck, determination, confidence and any other distinguishing traits that separate successful musicians from everyone else. I guess I could write lyrics passably by the standards of a fifteen-year-old (I only knew two other people who wrote songs at that time and they both "played" in the same "band" as I did - and they were both a year younger than me!)

Musically speaking, the only thing I could ever manage was to hum a vague melody - likely based on a tune I'd just heard — while repeating a word or phrase. These "ideas" wouldn't be taken any further: I'd have it swirling around in my mind for a while before getting distracted by something else and moving on. There was never any potential in them so why would I bother with just an insignificant trifle? Or perhaps I should have stuck with it. Listening to "The Broken Years" there's not a whole lot else to it beyond a catchy funk riff and a simple chorus of the title repeated and repeated. Simplicity at its finest — unless of course you want something inspiring or something that takes you someplace or the feeling that you're connecting with a song.

Chris Heath is captivated by the little that's going on and his analysis is mostly spot on. Yes, it does kind of sound like a "punchy mixture of The Kane Gang and The Smiths" and, indeed, there isn't anything "startlingly new or original about it" (to bring these two observations together, indie groups going through a Chic phase was old hat by the mid-eighties so it's really no wonder "The Broken Years" didn't catch on). I might even give him the point that it's "sung brilliantly by the deep-voiced Graham Skinner" but I'm not sure that suave and carefree vocals are called for. These broken years he sings of should seem difficult and ought to have taken a lot out of the populace and, you know, be broken. Hardship isn't something that comes out of the very confident Skinner and I'm not convinced they've been all that broken for him — or that he even has much empathy for those who have been through hard times. To be fair, however, I'm not sure anyone could have pulled out a good vocal from such terrible lyrics. "Ah, broken by the years / Lie in the broken years / Just like always everyone / Token of my fear...": 1) what are you boys talking about? and 2) no, scratch that, I don't care.

The one thing it might have in its favour is a thrilling quality that most of the other records this fortnight lack. From the heavy hitters (Dire Straits, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna) all the way down to once-great indie acts (quite the fall from grace for Pink Industry), there isn't much else to recommend so I guess Hipsway can nab a SOTF by default. Of course, Heath's review is much more glowing than that ("This, the first single by four blokes from Glasgow, is simply the best record I've heard for months") to which it could be suggested that something needed to come along to drag pop out of the slump it was going through. To some extent, that's true. Overly-slick records with little by way of substance (like, cough-cough, "The Broken Years") were easy to come by in '85 but one had to look elsewhere. Other issues of Smash Hits for one. Heath could have found irresistible cowpunk, nonsensical yet charming sixties pastiche and first rate Teutonic dance pop to explore. That was the thing about the eighties: the best stuff rarely rose to the top but it was still in there to discover for ourselves.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Style Council: "Come to Milton Keynes"

A grotesque travel brochure for the infamous New Town, "Come to Milton Keynes" is effectively Mrs. Thatcher's "no such thing as society" quote in song — which, granted, was spoken two years after Paul Weller wrote this but it's not like the Tories hadn't been acting like this was the case all along. People have their little homes, they lock themselves away, draw the curtains and pretend like everything isn't going to hell outside. Good material on which to base a song but this is merely good. Quite why they chose to release a cut that works well on their excellent album Our Favourite Shop but which doesn't really do much on its own is anyone's guess. The probably the first sign that things weren't quite right and that a half-decade's creative roll might just be up.

The Dukes of Stratosphear: "The Mole from the Ministry"

24 April 1985

"You say it's actually by XTC? Really?"

— Roland Orzbal

They're back! Yes, the fair gentlemen Roland Orzbal and Curt Smith have emerged from their lair on the outskirts of Bath to bestow upon us a brand new single — and all we had to do was wait a "paltry" four years. In that space of time, Mrs Thatcher won yet another election, English football sides got themselves banned from Europe and Australian telly stopped being rubbish — and you very well may have forgotten all about Tears for Fears. Here's to them being a chart "fixture" for the foreseeable future without any further down time!

Do you recall their earlier work, being that it's been such a long time, oh viewers? No? Well, they had a record called "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" which might as well have been called "Everybody Wants to Buy This Flippin' Great Single" because that's what everyone did — and who could blame them? It was joyous, instantly singalongable and felt important. Their next big hit was called "Shout" which was a little closer to the duff side as Roland and Curt never got round to telling us what they could do without and just ended up repeating the same chorus fourteen thousand times and even it managed to sell by the camperized van-load. The accompanying album Songs from the Big Chair, too, was bought by everyone on Earth and ver Fears were on top of the world. Then they figured it would be the perfect time to disappear.

But now they're back and their latest single, "Sowing the Seeds of Love", is sure to delight all that hear it and send them swiftly back up to the top of the charts. It harks back to the sixties (ie a time when people bought lots of flowery shirts, grew their hair and sat in fields listening to hoary old men playing sitars) but its, er, seeds go back to a job that the singer briefly had with this very same top pop mag. "The second summer of love?" Roland Orzbal asks Paul Margach. "I wasn't aware that the first one ever ended."

Back in the early part of 1985, the Hits was going through a bit of an overhaul. Neil Tennant was off to form a band of some sort (any idea how that worked out?) while other members of the staff were moving on to other pop mags or even getting out of the country. We were short staffed and, to make up for it, we asked a lot of famous people to come in to review the singles and some even said yes. The lead singer of Tears for Fears was one such kind pop star who agreed.

"I basically did it for a laugh," admits Roland Orzbal. "Curt couldn't be bothered so I was all alone." He wasn't terribly impressed by much of what he heard. "They kept teasing me with the promise of a Beatles record for me to review but they kept putting on lousy pop records. I began to suspect that they were just trying to keep me happy but, sure enough, "Ticket to Ride" was there in the pile".

A longtime fan of the Fab Four, Roland was keen to hear the ancient single - "if only to get the taste of the rest of this rubbish out of my mouth" — but he was unexpectedly more taken by another record. Lacking a proper sleeve, it looked as old as anything The Beatles ever did — and sounded like it too.

That release was called "The Mole from the Ministry" by a bunch of old codgers calling themselves The Dukes of Stratosphear which the singer might have confused for something done over twenty years earlier. But Roland knows his sixties pop and had never heard of them so he figured they were a new act. What he didn't realise was that they were an old bunch pretending to be a new group who, er, came from long ago. Or something. 

XTC were by then a trio of hoary old blokes from Swindon who had had some chart hits in the early eighties but who had subsequently stopped touring and soon slid down the dumper. They initially denied being The Dukes of Stratosphear and adopted the aliases Sir John Johns (hmmm, an odd name), The Red Curtain (doesn't sound made up to us!), Lord Cornelius Plum (again, somewhat curious) and E.I.E.I. Owen (oh stop it!) but it was one of pop's most poorly kept secrets — even if few at the time cared one way or another. One who did seem to give a toss was Roland ("I couldn't believe it was XTC").

Roland had always admired XTC but he was especially impressed with this new direction. "They were channelling the Beatles so well and it was funny," he remembers. "It's about a mole that is messing with people's lives but they figure it must be their own madness causing it. This mole sounds evil and scheming but I sort of wonder if he's just pretending to be manipulative just to further mess with people. He could be an incompetent bugger but people think he's pulling the strings."

The music also made the singer sit up and take notice. "It sounded just like "I Am the Walrus", it was brilliant," he enthuses. "The Beatles hadn't mattered to people in such a long time that you sometimes felt embarrassed talking them up but that seems to be changing now. Admitting that you were into the Beatles five or ten years ago was tantamount to throwing up your arms and telling the world that you thought all modern pop was crap."

He was so impressed that he began to think about doing his own homage to sixties acid rock and, during ver Fears' lengthy layover, that's exactly what he did and the result is their super new single "Sowing the Seeds of Love". But aren't the words a little too straightforward compared to the Dukes?

"Well, maybe but I tried to nestle current concerns into an old psychedelic piece. A lot of it is about Margaret Thatcher and what she's doing to Britain. But I like to think that there's some of the same paranoia in "The Mole from the Ministry" with some added hope for a more loving universe".

Roland is thankful to the Hits for introducing him to The Dukes of Stratosphear and for a inspiring his latest single. So would he care to review the singles again for the sake of his own creativity? "No, I think once was enough. Get someone like Dr. Robert from the Blow Monkeys. God knows he could do with some inspiration."

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Style Council: "Walls Come Tumbling Down"

The Style Council's latest single is, as usual, chart bound but there is some confusion as to one of the song's lyrics. "What's he going on about?" queried our tea boy. "Why's he singin' about enjoying a Cherry Coke as the walls come tumblin' down?" Hits staff were similarly puzzled so we reached out to Paul Weller for clarification. But we couldn't get hold of him. We also tried keyboardist "Merton" Mick Talbot and "backing" singer D.C. Lee but neither of them got back to us. Then, we contacted drummer Steve White who seemed dead chuffed to get be getting a call. "Oh that," he chuckled. "Paul and Mick are very health conscious and I try to be too but my one vice is I drink quite a bit of Cherry Coke. Paul put that in as a joke but he's since said that it's a commentary on how when the revolution comes there will be some who will be standing there on the sidelines, sipping Cherry Coke and watching it all happen". Does that include yourself? "It might do but they shouldn't forget that I'm the strongest member of the group. I'd be a lot more effective at pushing down some walls than Paul!" Well, that clears that up then.

Strawberry Switchblade: "Trees and Flowers"

4 August 1983

"This is simply gorgeous. Rose and Jill are Strawberry Switchblade and on this, their debut single, they deliver deliciously sad and reflective vocals over some luxuriantly delicate music."

— Peter Martin

It's springtime here in Korea and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. One thing that you soon discover at this time of year is that they don't last long. A week to ten days seems to be the life expectancy of these flowers, although that can really depend on a particularly nasty rain and wind and then all bets are off. Of course, the fleeting nature of the sakura is precisely what makes them so cherished and, so, social media feeds are crammed with photos of the trees and well-placed Korean food trucks do a roaring trade at all the choice locales.

So, that's where I am and maybe it's why I'm finding writing this post about a song with a chorus of "...I hate the trees / and I hate the flowers..." to be so difficult. Sure, I can understand the appeal of staying in all day but that's just because I'm a lazy, directionless bugger, not because I'm agoraphobic. (This song is about agoraphobia, you know) I must say, I had no idea that fear of open spaces could lead to such hostility towards nature so I'm glad Strawberry Switchblade were able to enlighten me. I hope, however, that they weren't also trying to get me to understand the condition since I'm as ignorant now as I ever have been.

Scribe Peter Martin (who, judging from his photos, must be the Hits staff member who most wanted to look like a pop star) is absolutely enchanted by this but I could go either way. Conceptually it works: the very idea of setting lyrics about anxiety towards the outdoors and nature to a lush, pastoral production is a wonderful contradiction and so, too, is the contrast of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall's bored, deadpan vocals with the wistful instrumentation. Also, there's something intriguing about that chorus: in addition to hating the trees and the flowers, Jill and Rose also can't stand the buildings (particularly the way "they tower over me" they reckon). Trees and buildings, nature and development: they're all same it would seem.

Where it comes up a bit short is the feeling I get that so much more could have been achieved without all that fear. Yes, I am aware that you're not going to eek out much of a song about agoraphobia if you're content to explore the world but in a broader context of pop and creativity and inspiration the whole thing seems far too cloistered for my tastes. It's a good start but they were going to have to get out more.

Still, I can talk: I may get out a bit but what have the trees and flowers and buildings ever done for me? 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Style Council: The Style Council à Paris

"One of the most entertaining things about The Style Council", journalist Taylor Parkes considered in an episode of the Chart Music podcast, "was the glee with which they trolled the old Jam fans". Now, he and fellow guest Simon Price and host Al Needham were primarily discussing the homoerotic video for flagship song "Long Hot Summer" but I imagine these tunes messed with the heads of plenty of young English males who wanted the lad who did "Eton Rifles" and "Going Underground" to never change. (The fact that he was already shifting while in The Jam seems to go unacknowledged by many of their fans) No politics, no kitchen sink drama, no motivational truths, just "Long Hot Summer", one of Paul Weller's most poignant songs — one that would join Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" in capturing the lonely dark side of summer pop. The rest of the E.P. is filler with two instrumentals (something of a favourite for Weller and Merton Mick around this time: a year later, five vocal-free tunes would appear on their debut album) and a early take of "The Paris Match" (without the beautiful voice of Tracey Thorn to take it up a notch) but when you've got a career highlight to lead things off it hardly matters, does it?