The Undertones: "Julie Ocean"

23 July 1981

"Lush balladeering might not sound like typical Undertones country, but the passionate intensity that distinguishes all their work is here in spades."

— Johnny Black

Smash Hits was in its infancy as a top pop mag in the autumn of 1978 when along came a single from little-known Ulster punks The Undertones. It didn't exactly set the UK charts ablaze but it would eventually take on a life of its own, particularly as its reputation grew due to the endorsement of a national treasure. DJ John Peel would admit that "Teenage Kicks" delighted him so much the first time he heard it that cried and he went to his grave a quarter of a century later still rating it as the greatest single of all time. No record even enjoyed such a credible recommendation but it remains a favourite of many who have that fondness for old school punk. 

It's a fine recording even if I personally don't think it quite lives up to Peel's tears of joy. Like other punk classics — The Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant", The Clash's "White Riot", The Damned's "New Rose" — I find that it typically sounds better when it bounces around in my head than when I actually listen to it. The iconic riff tends to be caticher and more vigourously played, the pace is faster and the vocals are screamed in appropriate punk fashion rather than using Feargal Sharkey's much more restrained approach. I've heard played by Asian bar bands and at open mic nights and even in those circumstances it tends to be more thrilling than the actual recording. I have no ear for melody and misfit amateurs don't know what they're doing but, hey, that's the punk ideal, isn't it?

"Teenage Kicks" ended up overshadowing the rest of The Undertones' stellar run of late-seventies' singles. Records such as "Jimmy Jimmy", "My Perfect Cousin" and "Wednesday Week" may not have caused Britain's hippest DJ to go all dewy-eyed but they are every bit as good as their much ballyhooed debut. The streak of Top 40 hits kept going into 1981 with the jubilant "It's Going to Happen!". An obvious throwback to sixties pop, it is one of their most confident and irresistible recordings. Yet, it stands alone on their third album Positive Touch and it must have been a struggle to come up with a potential second single from a cohesive LP lacking in standouts. It seems like deep cuts like "When Saturday Comes" or "You're Welcome" would have been more sensible options for their next 7" but someone thought otherwise. That simple and delicate number that clocks in under two minutes was chosen instead.

Johnny Black seems impressed with what The Undertones managed to do with "Julie Ocean" and, in a sense, he's absolutely right. There's not much to the original LP version but the additions pad things out enough that it was given a new life. More than doubled in length, it nevertheless avoids being repetitive. Sharkey shouts "That's typical girl!" a few times and the always tight musical unit stretches out towards the end; if you didn't know any better, you'd swear it was meant to sound this way all along.

An admirable effort but my chief sentiment towards it remains indifference. Even with the extras and longer running time it smacks of an album cut. It's possible they wanted something that wasn't "typical Undertones country" but then they shouldn't have been surprised by it placing outside of "typical Undertones chart territory". Positive Touch seemed set to establish them as an albums act to match The Clash, Elvis Costello & The Attractions and The Jam — Ian Cranna in ver Hits argued that it was their first LP to do them "justice" — but at the price of their abilities as an exquisite singles band. Some manage to make the transition from one to the other (though the best groups are able to be both at the same time) but it eluded The Undertones. They no longer made DJ's cry and no longer made the charts on a regular basis. Nice try though.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Stevie Wonder: "Happy Birthday"

"A million miles from his best", concludes Black. The twin hit single follies of "Ebony and Ivory" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You" are generally cited as Stevie Wonder bottoming out as a creative force (even if Macca is usually given most of the blame for the former) but the artist of the seventies was already in decline as the start of the eighties. It's hard to find fault in a campaign to get Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday recognized as a national holiday in the US but this limp track just about manages to do so. 1980's Hotter Than July is highly regarded in spite of it being a bit of a drop off from the heights of his '72-'76 peak to end all peaks but it lacks the heartbreaking melancholy of his best work. Now, I don't expect a celebratory composition such as this to be weighed down by Wonder's sorrow but there's little of the attention to detail in his earlier, much more effective tribute to an idol of his "Sir Duke". Basic as it is, it's remarkable that it is so forgettable. Still, kudos to Stevie for his good intentions and successful result even if bland songs always seem to capture the public's attention. 

(See my original review here)

The Undertones: "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?)"

18 October 1979

"On the other hand, these guys are utter naturals and this is their best offering since their first."
— David Hepworth

With Cliff White gone from the singles review page, Smash Hits was free to try out some new people for the job. The grumpy reviews from Andy Partridge and Chris Difford may have turned them off of the idea having pop stars do the dirty work for them (something they wouldn't go back to for quite some time) but, then, White's often confrontational relationship with cross readers may have prompted others on staff to shy away from the task, thereby prompting the need to bring in these ringers. Red Starr was all about the albums (at least for the time being) and Steve Bush was too busy transforming these rather lifeless, stilted pages into the work of aesthetic art they'd eventually become. Luckily, they found their semi-regular man in David Hepworth, a music critic of the highest quality who wasn't the least bit resentful of the fortnightly burden being placed on him — not yet at any rate.

In an era in which music journalism appears to be on the wane, Hepworth is one of pop's most prominent critics. He currently hosts the excellent Word in Your Ear podcasts along with fellow Hits alum Mark Ellen, he's prolific enough to have published a book every year for the last half-decade and his vast knowledge, wealth of theories and deep Yorkshire brogue make him a regular for radio and online interview segments. How odd that the demise of the printed pop rag would result in a music critic becoming just about famous.

I have long had aspirations to be a music critic and Hepworth is one of my inspirations. But his example shows you why I could never really cut it in that field. My generation of hacks has been defined by so-called poptimism. A response to rockist nonsense that predominated in the eighties and nineties, the poptimists laid to rest the concept of having "guilty pleasures" like ABBA and The Bee Gees, instead they chose to evaluate them on their own merit. Old charges that Elvis was no good because he didn't "write his own songs" no longer mattered. The movement spread so quickly that Britney Spears went from being dismissed as yet another pop bimbo in around 1999 to being treated with respect five years later.

Hepworth is no poptimist but he does possess at least one trait that comes in handy in order to be one: he can happily listen to music made by people younger than he is. Nowadays this is nothing special — fifty-year-olds consume K-Pop and there's a good chance you'll see packs of middle-aged friends having a grand old time at an Ariana Grande concert — but back in the day the generation gap meant something. Much older music seemed ancient, newer stuff was just throwaway junk. Older critics evaluating punk could have been beset with resentment but I think they were often better at separating the wheat from the chaff. Acts that presented themselves as all about punk rock snarl could be seen off by those not under its spell; those who had the musicianship and tunes to back them up were easily identified as groups with some merit.

There may be some artists more to his taste (see below) but it's to Hepworth's credit that he's able to see that "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?)" by The Undertones is the best thing on offer here — even if he doesn't go right out and say it. Like the Buzzcocks (also reviewed this fortnight, though not at their best), Derry's finest were one of those punk groups who were able to stretch out their appeal beyond their natural fanbase. While the Sex Pistols and their ilk were still churning out the same old turgid noise to the same fans from three years earlier and The Clash were busy lapping up far too many influences for everyone to keep up, The Undertones were all about bringing pop and punk together. This was most clearly evidenced by the multi-generational appeal of their first single "Teenage Kicks". John Peel famously wept the first time he heard it but it's just easy to picture young children getting down to it as it is forty-year-old DJ's.

I've previously written that "Teenage Kicks" would cast a long shadow over the band but it was one they were trying to escape. "You've Got My Number" is actually a better group performance, with surprisingly intricate guitar work and more propulsive playing from the rhythm section. Feargal Sharkey ("as good a singer as you'll find anywhere", Hepworth reckons though I wouldn't go quite that far) has also improved as a vocalist with a much more authoritative delivery. Sure, it doesn't have that same energy and raw power as their debut and the writing is awfully slight but there's an inescapable feeling that a breakthrough is looming (on a much larger scale, the apt comparison may be with The Beatles when they released "I Feel Fine": not a great pop song but one performed so tightly and with such gusto that it ended up being a slight creative step backwards en route to a given leap forwards the following year). The Undertones would have their biggest run of success just on the horizon.

It's nice to see a band make that great leap forward. The Undertones had that potential and may have been held back somewhat by punk orthodoxy. Nowadays there isn't as much of an opportunity to be privy to musical growth, what with the prevailing poptimist notion that everyone is fine the way they are. It almost makes me wish for a return to rockist values: just don't call me a rockist either.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Nils Lofgren: "No Mercy"

So, what was it I was saying about about the generation gap in pop? Nils Lofgren is a year younger than Hepworth and just a few years older than The Undertones. (These things matter more to an ageist like myself than to anyone being discussed here) Still, "No Mercy" is the sort of clever singer-songwriter ditty that people with plenty of Randy Newman in their record collections really dig. Hepworth admits that "No Mercy" is "pretty melodramatic" (which, incidentally, ruled it out as SOTF in my estimation) but he is utterly charmed nonetheless. Lofgren's vocals may not be to everyone's taste but to those of us with good taste they sound sweet and effortless. A nice if unremarkable record, albeit one ruined slightly by some very unnecessary piped in audience noise. Is there anything wrong with just being in a studio?

The Undertones: "Julie Ocean"

23 July 1981

"Lush balladeering might not sound typical Undertones country, but the passionate intensity that distinguishes all their work is here in spades."
— Johnny Black

Smash Hits was in its infancy in the autumn of 1978 when along came an obscure single from Ulster punks The Undertones. It didn't exactly set the charts ablaze but it took on a life of its own, particularly as its reputation grew with the endorsement of a British national treasure. John Peel admitted that "Teenage Kicks" delighted him so much the first time he heard it that he cried and he went to his grave a quarter of a century later still rating it as the greatest single of all time. No song has ever had such an impressive recommendation — and one it couldn't possibly live up to.

I quite like "Teenage Kicks" but like many punk classics — The Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant", The Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love", The Clash's "White Riot" — I find that it typically sounds better when I sing it to myself than when actually I put it on. The iconic riff is catchier and more vigourously played, with vocals that are screamed rather than using Feargal Sharkey's more restrained approach. (It also sounds much more thrilling on an open-mic night played by misfit amateurs who have no clue what they're doing; maybe I do understand the punk ideal)

By 1981 The Undertones had long since moved on from the likes of "Teenage Kicks" but their apparent passionate intensity remained. The band seemed to grow into Sharkey's voice as they progressed and his quivering wail is the basis for their convictions. The original version of "Julie Ocean", taken from their album Positive Touch, is shorter and kept simple, a spotlight for their lead singer's affecting vocals. Rerecorded — and/or remixed — for its single release, it's twice as long with more space for Sharkey's bandmates to get their own passionate intensity rocks on. Lush balladeering in Johnny Black's eyes thus becomes overly lush, over-produced and far too thought out. You'd think they would have known better having once been punks.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Dexys Midnight Runners: "Show Me"

Soul revivalism with a slurred vocalist shouldn't really work but Dexys usually managed to pull it off. Coming from their brief period of sporting track suits, boxer boots and pony tails — sandwiched between the more familiar hoodlum dockworkers and dirtbags in dungarees phases — there's an appropriate athleticism on display here. Black praises this in spite of having some doubts about them, even going so far as to dub them "pretentious" — something he curiously fails to detect in The Undertones. Either way, "Show Me" is absolutely glorious, the sound of northern soul fanatics who won't come down, won't give in, won't let up. Plenty of passionate intensity going on here but all in service of yet another Dexys classic.