Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield: "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" / Black: "Wonderful Life"

12 August 1987

"The brilliant thing about the Pet Shop Boys is that they get everything right — memorable tunes, perfect production, intelligent lyrics, excellent sleeves, loads of style and a self-deprecating sense of humour — a very rare combination."

"It's heartening to see someone who a) isn't particularly handsome, b) has a spook-name (ie Colin Vearncombe), c) has no discernible "image" and d) writes slightly odd lyrics, get into the charts purely on the strength of their music, which in this case is very strong indeed."

— Vici MacDonald

March 5, 1988. A fairly typical Saturday. I got up and fixed myself a heaping bowl of cereal which I gingerly carried down to the TV room in the basement. I got in as many cartoons as possible before my parents demanded I get ready to go to my 10:00 AM swimming lesson at the Y. Back home for a quick lunch, I set the VCR to tape afternoon wrestling and then it was back to the Y for basketball. We stopped at 7-11 for a slurpee which I enjoyed while watching two hours of wrestling before the late Saturday afternoon lull. We always ate dinner early because hockey was on at 6:00. I made it through the first two periods of the game, awaiting the bowl of popcorn that my dad always made for us. Once that had been kicked, I was done with my country's national sport and wandered up to the living room. Mum had recently begun listening to the Saturday night Top 30 singles countdown on CBC radio while doing her knitting and I joined her. And this was the night I first heard the Pet Shop Boys.

Neil Tennant worked at Smash Hits for about three years. He had previously been a British editor for Marvel Comics and had also done work proofreading cookbooks and TV tie-in books. Throughout that time, he had been honing his craft as a musician and songwriter and in 1981 he met a young architechture student and amateur keyboard player named Chris Lowe who he quickly partnered with. Being on a top pop mag had its benefits and Tennant's position undoubtedly aided his eventual career in pop, particularly when he went to New York to interview The Police and used the trip to meet Bobby O, the trendy club producer and singer.

Yet, many of his colleagues didn't think much of his budding pop career. They thought the name 'Pet Shop Boys' was rubbish (admittedly, it does take getting used to) and they weren't especially keen on the demos he'd occasionally play them. Nevertheless, Bobby O had produced an early version of "West End Girls", which somehow managed to nab a lowly chart position in Canada, and they would soon be signed to EMI. Figuring that the giddy carousel of pop beckoned, Tennant packed it in with ver Hits and made that unlikeliest of jumps — from pop journalist to pop star.

His former employer would be one of their biggest backers but they weren't initially showered with praise. Tom Hibbert reviewed "Opportunities (Let's Make Lot's of Money)" by expressing surprise that this was a case of "former pop journalist in a case of rather good record shock!!" and compared it favourably to an already passe Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Nevertheless, Ramones and Prefab Sprout impressed him much more. Hibs also gave his thoughts on the reissued "West End Girls" at the very end of 1985. Here, he seems impressed with what they created but doesn't offer much in the way of appreciation or lack thereof. Again, he preferred the not bad/not great sounds of The Lucy Show. Next up, Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode considered "Love Comes Quickly" to be a "good follow up" to their breakthrough hit and reckons it's the second best single on offer (though he also wonders if he should get some revenge on the person who once described "Blasphemous Rumours" as a "routine slab of doom in which God is given a severe ticking off"). Their next two singles, a remix of "Opportunities" and "Suburbia", aren't held in much esteem by critics Ian Cranna and William Shaw respectively before we come "It's a Sin", their first release of 1987. Charges of plagiarism had famously been made by the nauseating Jonathan King but he seemed to have at least one ally in that regard with Tom Hibbert. Enjoying the song, he then points out how much it resembles "Wild World" by Cat Stevens "note for note". (Was Tennant so studious about pop that he couldn't help but copy others?)

So, that's six releases and they've been met with good to middling reviews. Fair enough, there's nothing wrong with that. Respect, though, to the Hits writers for not going out of their way to praise their old colleague The optics of "West End Girls" getting a Single of the Fortnight from a magazine that he'd only just worked at might not have been so good, even though it seems obvious now that it fully merited such an honour. Maybe they were holding out for Tennant and Lowe to craft something that they couldn't ignore. Make 'em earn it.

And earn it they did with "What Have I Done to Deserve This?". Intended as a duet, they had Dusty Springfield in mind and no one else would do. A fortnight earlier, the SOTF had been awarded to "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", a duet that might as well not have been one, which Michael Jackson had failed to recruit either Whitney Houston and Barbra Streisand to join him on. In that case, the lesser known Siedah Garrett guesting was probably for the best but here it's impossible to imagine anyone else being adequate. With Springfield's extraordinary vocals and Tennant's much more limited pipes, you'd think we'd be in for a mismatch but this is avoided due to his refusal to try to keep up. While she glides along with her slightly croaky whispered manner, Tennant does some of his Brit-raps from with some understated singing (one of my favourite bits is "you always wanted me to be something I wasn't" with his voice coming across like a sullen child at the end). George Michael really brought his A game to his duet with Aretha Franklin and Marc Almond would attempt to do the same when he paired with Gene Pitney on "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart" but if one doesn't have the vocal chops to pull it off then it's best not to bother trying.

It's an irregular duet and an irregular song and one that there was considerable uncertainty about (it had initially been difficult to track down and convince Springfield to join them by which point Tennant and Lowe had gone off it) which is fitting for such uncertain subject matter. Tennant has said that the couple gets back together by the end of the song but that isn't exactly spelled out at any point (the closest is probably in her proto-scatting near the end: "we could make a deal"). If that is indeed the case, then it's an unstable detente that the two have reached. They aren't parallel to one another but going in separate directions. If they do indeed up back together, they'll only end up still not able to get through.

The song was a huge hit all over the world and was only prevented from reaching number one by Rick Astley. Beyond its commercial performance, it represents a turning point for the Pet Shop Boys. Having the cachet of Dusty Springfield as a guest aided their reputation among older listeners and it also helped them as they began to transcend irony. While critics always exaggerated their propensity for "writing pop songs about pop songs", it was a difficult label to shake. But this was a hit single that didn't rely on a knowing wink and perhaps the first time that the public became aware of this other side — and, significantly, their first to fully impress a Smash Hits critic.

March 12, 1988. Another typical Saturday. Cartoons, swimming, basketball, wrestling, hockey. I like music but I am still a year away from becoming obsessed by it (to the extent that it doesn't occur to me to buy the single or album). I don't know the first thing about Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe and Dusty Springfield. I have no interest in girls and heartbreak is completely off my radar. Writing about music — writing about anything — means nothing to me. I liked that song I heard a week ago and wish to hear it again. I was now a fan of the Pet Shop Boys and I remain one to this day. Those other interests of my childhood would all fade away.

~~~~~

"What Have I Don't to Deserve This?" deservedly was Vici MacDonald's pick but it had to share the honour with "Wonderful Life" by Black. The late Colin Vearnecombe had been toiling in obscurity for years before finally breaking through with the hit single "Sweetest Smile". Melancholy, stylish and with a typical soprano sax of the era, it's one to go either way on. While it makes for a nice closer to his debut album Wonderful Life, it isn't overly memorable and doesn't exactly scream "MEGA HIT!". Still, it took him into the top 10 even though it hardly feels like the start of a lengthy run of hits. It wouldn't last

"Sweetest Smile" did well enough but it isn't the song Black is best known for. (One only need look at the YouTube numbers in which his first hit is at close to 750,000 views compared with its follow up at just under 70,000,000) "Wonderful Life" had originally just missed the top 40 but was now back and it managed to equal its predecessor's chart placing the second time round. And it's the big one, the one that should have gotten his brief time as a chart factor going. The only Black song people are likely to know.

I remember once being shown a video in high school about suicide. A very messed up individual had slashed his wrists and was hopelessly trying to outrun the police. The cops soon had him cornered but it took three or four of them to nab him safely before carting him off to the police station. We then saw him in his cell, his wrists wrapped but he had by then calmed down. He said he was glad to still be alive.

There's a bit of that going on in "Wonderful Life". A cheerful sentiment, expressed with sorrow. Only someone who had reached the pits of despair can find joy in a meager life — and, even then, it may not happen. If "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" captures that dreadful uncertainty of a couple clinging to an unhappy relationship, then "Wonderful Life" puts the best possible face on a break up. That vague sense of relief that creeps in among a Niagara of unhappiness.

The song's sentimental connection is poignant enough that its limitations aren't initially apparent. After a while it drags a bit and the chorus gets repeated a bit too much. Rationally speaking, it's a good minute-and-a-half too long. And, yet, when I am in the mood, it can keep going for all I care. The song's refrain becomes a mantra and hammering the point home is its strength.

Black's output was rather up and down. Though not quite musically catholic, the Wonderful Life album manages to combine indie with goth and sophisti-pop and even some very eighties rock. Probably as a result, it lacks consistency. Yet, he got it right with the title track, a song that while still appreciated by many (70,000,000 YouTube views is nothing to sneeze at), ought to be a standard by this point. It's almost as good as the Pet Shop Boys.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Smiths: "Girlfriend in a Coma"

Philip Larkin considered jazz to be either about being a 'Wells' or a 'Gibbon': someone who felt that it was a genre that was always getting better or forever heading downhill. The Smiths are kind of the same: either they started off on a hot streak and then went into gradual decline or they just kept improving right up until the end. I'm a Smiths Gibbon and think they were never better than in their first year or so. "Girlfriend in a Coma" comes right at the tail end of their run ('Smiths Split Confirmed', as this issue's Bitz reports) and seems to show why things weren't as they used to be. Morrissey no longer put the same care into his lyrics and musically it is one of the simplest things Johnny Marr had done to date. The nice melody just about manages to make it seem better than it is and it does all right for itself on compilations but it's probably for the best that they threw in the towel when they did.

David Bowie: "Time Will Crawl"

3 June 1987

"This is a v. wonderful record and it's just a pity the rest of his ropy old "Never Let Me Down" album isn't up to the same high standard."

— Vici MacDonald

When I was a boy, David Bowie was a part of rock royalty. He had songs like "Let's Dance" and "China Girl" which were huge hits and he strutted on stage at Live Aid with Mick Jagger doing "Dancing in the Street". He was also a giant concert draw and seemed cut from the very same cloth as Phil Collins, Dire Straits and Sting: middle class and older than conventional pop stars who appealed more to our mums than to us. Some of his songs were all right but did any of them matter with Culture Club and Duran Duran around? He was establishment and I had little inkling that he had a massive discography of extraordinary works put out during the decade of my birth. Nothing by the mid-eighties would indicate a musical genius, just a big star. Then he seemed to lose his way.

Jump ahead a decade and I am in university. I didn't care much for the frat rock of Hootie & The Blowfish and Blues Traveller, I was quickly growing bored of Britpop and I couldn't be bothered with the bulk of drum 'n' bass and hip hop. It was during this time that I started going back to earlier eras and genres. Miles Davis, The Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder. I began hearing about Bowie in the seventies and I decided to explore his music from that time. Friends of mine who were into music as deeply as I was, nodded as I told them all about Ziggy Stardust and Low but others didn't have much to say on the matter. "He was in Labyrinth, right?" was the common lay response.

This ignorance annoyed me at the time (no one would ever associate a movie star with a one-off pop hit — and, yes, I am aware that Dame David was in fact in several films) but it's understandable in light of Bowie's late-eighties' fall from grace. A superstar in '85, he had become obsolete within a couple years and was so desperate to revive his fortunes that he formed a sad hard rock group by the end of the decade just to kick himself back into gear. Loyal Bowie followers will tell you that he eventually did and it's with (insert-album-title-from-Black Tie White Noise-to-Black Star-here). The fact that few can agree just when he did finally have that long-awaited return to form kind of reveals a hidden truth: it never really happened.

But how did the man who spent fifteen years at the forefront of popular music suddenly come adrift? The run of singles stretching from 1969's "Space Oddity" through to "Let's Dance" in 1983 is simply unbeatable and he did some pretty great albums in that time too. But his desire with the latter to produce a balls-out hit single with Nile Rodgers producing and Stevie Ray Vaughan doing a memorable blues guitar spot proved to be his creative undoing. No longer was he leading the way nor was he cagily latching on to the hip new trend. "Blue Jean" from 1984 proved a big hit but for the first time in ages Bowie seemed content doing more of the same. Parent album Tonight was patchy and easily his weakest LP to date.

Following up a relative failure is never an easy task. Bowie chose to take some time off (a feature in Smash Hits from earlier in the year notes that he'd been doing some production work as well as "reading 18 books a week and sitting around his homes in Switzerland and Scotland") and appeared in both Absolute Beginners and the aforementioned Labyrinth. If not exactly idling away his time, he doesn't appear to have honed his own music during his layover, neither did he seem to be soaking up what others were up to. Returning with Never Let Me Down, he made a conscious decision to get back to rock music. He may as well have told everyone that he'd run out of ideas.

But Bowie being Bowie, it wasn't a complete waste. Most of the album is wretched but a couple tracks salvage things a bit. "Time Will Crawl" makes its case for consideration on the great-songs-from-duff-albums list (along with "This Is England" by The Clash and "Undercover of the Night" by The Rolling Stones) with a powerful vocal — a positive side-effect of Bowie's hands-off approach to his two previous albums was that it forced him to focus his energies on his singing and his range became fuller — and a pretty good tune that does, as Vici MacDonald points out, hark back to better days. Tellingly, however, she compares it to "something" from the Aladdin Sane album, which had been his first long player until Tonight to have been criticised for being too similar to its predecessor. Nevertheless, an eighties Bowie recapturing his seventies paradigm was welcome.

Yet, having Ziggy and Aladdin on the brain wasn't going to do him any favours. Good as "Time Will Crawl" is, it wouldn't possibly have made the cut for either of those albums (it might have been good enough for Diamond Dogs which admittedly isn't one of my favourites). By his reduced standards of the time, it's a perfectly fine record and it still holds up. And even though MacDonald makes a point of bringing up his legacy, it's possible that much of his fanbase had little concern for what he had done a decade and a half earlier. Indeed, considering sales of Never Let Me Down quickly faltered amidst poor reviews, they were similarly apathetic towards his current stuff too. Appropriately, "Time Will Crawl" would limp to a token top 40 position in Britain while missing the US Hot 100 entirely.

Though no classic, "Time Will Crawl" was the best he was capable of at that time. And like his other good singles to come (I'm particularly fond of "Jump They Say" and "Hello Spaceboy"), it simply relies on Bowie's innate grasp of pop in order to succeed. He wasn't able to lead the way any longer and the artists he championed — Pixies, Grandaddy, Arcade Fire — weren't able to light enough of a fire under him. His work from 1993 up until the end of his life was respectable but he would never return to his heyday — though, mercifully, he also never reached the nadir of the late-eighties. But the public would eventually come back around to him. Bowie's death in 2016 stunned music fans all over the world and there are many who seem to still be grieving. Not bad for someone who was once 'the guy from Labyrinth'.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Sananda Maitreya: "Wishing Well"

More often than not, groups who everyone says sound like The Beatles actually sound nothing like The Beatles. They don't have that concise lightness and thrill of their early singles, nor the astounding inventiveness of their post-1965 work; in reality, all they have is three chords and a generic quality that isn't so much reminiscent of the Fab Four as just being vaguely similar to everything that has come since them. Kind of like MacDonald's view that "Wishing Well" sounds too much like Prince. Certainly the little perv's influence was everywhere at the time but perhaps more so in Britain than back in the States where white pop and rock music had yet to cotton on to his cool. With his chewy baritone alone, Sananda Maitreya marks himself out as well outside the Prince umbrella though the tune is decked out in those fussy details which were a trademark of the Purple One. An influence, sure but it doesn't feel like Prince is all over this thing. Either way, it's pretty damn brilliant, as I thought then and still maintain today. Poor, old Vic should have listened to Sylvia Patterson, who vainly tried to cajole her colleague into anointing it SOTF. Turns out, it was one of the singles of the year and a song that the future Sananda Maitreya would have difficulty topping.

The Bolshoi: "Sunday Morning"

3 December 1986

"Friday is red, Saturday is white and "Sunday morning" is kind of sky blue and pale yellow."

— Vici MacDonald

It was announced in Bitz a fortnight earlier that yet another member of the Hits staff would be moving on. Editor Steve Bush had only departed a month earlier and now the head of design would be joining him on the dole queue. Well, not so much. Bush was off mastermind the success of other magazines and Vici MacDonald would even be "popping in from time to time to write horrible things about The Cocteau Twins and Mike Smith". Ver kids barely had enough time to make Nick Kamen collages on the front of their geography work books before she was back (BACK!) to handle reviewing the singles. Some people can't bring themselves to stay away.

Alas, there was no Cocteau Twins for her to slag off (and, indeed, she refrained from laying into Mike Smith) but MacDonald can always be trusted to take on some sacred cows in her reviews. It's likely that few would have taken notice of her penchant for giving the likes of Madonna, Prince and Bruce Springsteen a good critical duffing over but it might cause a few raised eyebrows now. They were all huge stars then but that's nothing compared with the reverence with which they're held more than thirty years hence. Madge even crops up in the singles page, with "Open Your Heart" sharing a review with "I'm All You Need" by Samantha Fox. MacDonald doesn't think much of the two lightweight numbers and takes the opportunity to point out the curious double standard that Madonna was taken seriously while Fox was dismissed as a "slag" ("either they're both slags or they both aren't", she rightly points out). 

MacDonald saves her harshest criticism this fortnight, however, for the likes of Paul McCartney's "Only Love Remains" ("compare this banal slush with almost anything he did with The Beatles and you really will weep"), Rod Stewart's cover of "In My Life" ("...sounds uncannily like the unsavoury old gent at Waterloo Station who tried to cage 10p off you for a "cuppa" and wheezes most disgustingly if you don't oblige"), Status Quo's "Dreamin'" ("...plonk this record on and you're straight back in 1974 which, as any "oldster" will tell you, was a very horrible year") and the Daryl Hall solo "I Wasn't Born Yesterday" ("why is it that all American mainstream pop songs sound much the same?"). The old farts aren't up to much but at least there are some young guns (and The Pretenders) with records that you'll want to listen to and that MacDonald might deign to give faint praise.

Delighting her most (or disappointing her least) is "Sunday Morning" by The Bolshoi. A pleasant surprise for MacDonald, the song's indie jangle pop contrasts with their supposed goth image. They don't appear especially Wagnerian to me, though this is mainly down to the group's casual demeanour in the accompanying promo. Direct predecessor "Away" (aka "A Way", the ambiguous little scamps) is much more in line with goth rock's spidery guitars, crashing drums, gaunt lead singer and creepy videos but, even then, there's this feeling that they don't quite fit it in — or if they do, shouldn't the umbrella of goth stretch further to include Suede? Either way, it's not as if they gave it all a big rethink since the two tracks both appear on the same album, 1986's Friends.

For her part, MacDonald doesn't even go into The Bolshoi's goth sound and I think her focusing on their look is instructive to understanding goth. The Cure had been through plenty of darkness but they also explored a much lighter side on "The Lovecats" and "The Caterpillar". The Sisters of Mercy were already incorporating dance elements into their sound and this was something that should have surprised no one given that Doktor Avalanche has been a permanent fixture on the drum machine. The Cult scarcely seemed goth at all and were typically little more than an updated and inferior version of The Doors. All About Eve were really just a folk group. The point is, pinning down The Bolshoi as goth is both tricky and easy: they don't really sound Teutonic so they don't qualify but, then, neither does anyone else so why not welcome them into the fold?

MacDonald doesn't appreciate the Catholic guilt of the lyrics, feeling that they "don't suit the mood of the music at all", but I think she's failing to grasp how going to church can cloud an otherwise lovely Sunday. I was nine-years-old in 1986 and I much preferred the last day of the weekend to the first. Saturdays were bogged down by swimming lessons and basketball games: I wasn't able to watch all the Saturday morning cartoons that I wanted and I could never go to birthday parties because of other commitments. Sundays, on the other hand, were all about going for a drive with my family, visiting grandparents, going to the park. En route to wherever we were headed, we would catch the dour faces of people going to church. Spending a nice day at such a miserable place? No, thank you. The Bolshoi seem to have something similar in mind on "Sunday Morning": days that are indeed "sky blue and pale yellow" which end up wasted away in the pointless tedium of a worship service. The video puts singer Trevor Tanner and his band on a sofa in his flat that then ends up in various locations (a pub, adjacent to a swimming pool, on an ice rink) that they would rather be at than in some bloody church. Finally, Catholic "guilt" Vici? (inverted commas are her's) Trevor isn't feeling guilty of anything, he's just had enough pretending to feel guilty — and who can blame him?

"Sunday Morning" is a superb track and evidence that you can't go wrong with a bit of Byrdsian jangle. There may not be a more malleable basis for a song and these supposed goths get so much out of it. A dark bridge ("it's wrong to feel, it's wrong to care, you must not steal, you must not swear" delivered by a scarier Tanner) gives away their roots but it segues in and out so effortlessly that it hardly matters. Get a 12-string acoustic, some gentle piano chords and make it sound as light as a Sunday morning breeze and you've got yourself a hit — or a Single of the Fortnight that somehow misses the charts.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Heavy D & The Boyz: "Mister Big Stuff"

A hip hop throwback to the era of boasting all about how bloomin' wonderful rappers are, I was hoping to enjoy "Mister Big Stuff" as much as MacDonald. Alas, three-and-a-half decades' distance have failed to endear these ears to a sound that Public Enemy ought to have dispensed with not long after. She admits that it's little more than a novelty record (albeit a "happy and jolly and fun" one in her words) and that was always the trouble with groups like Heavy D & The Boyz: they could never get past the high jinks and the comedy couldn't last forever. A shame since Heavy D was a talented rapper who seemed capable of more.

Pete Shelley: "On Your Own"

4 June 1986

"Not surprising, coming from someone who, since his days with The Buzzcocks, has written more brilliant songs and influenced more people than...well, than someone else who's written tons of brilliant songs and influenced loads of people."

— Vici MacDonald

"Pete Shelley swaps his usual easy nonchalance for a vaguely menacing electronic growl on this rather sad and lonely little song which contrasts the satisfaction of being in control with the uncertainties of being alone."
— Ian Cranna

Two quotes from Smash Hits staff? What, did they tag team the singles this time round? No, only the comment at the top comes from the June 4 issue of ver Hits while the one below it is from a month earlier. Former Buzzcock (there's no definite article though if people can go on about 'Beatles', 'Who' and 'Jam' then there's no reason we can't say 'The Eagles', 'The Talking Heads' and, yes, 'The Buzzcocks) Pete Shelley's latest record was reviewed twice during this time. This oversight may be due to a delay in the release of the single, editorial carelessness or Vici MacDonald wanting to build up a recent favourite over some pretty so-so (at least in her judgment) new releases. Given how much she admires Shelley as well as her feeling that he hasn't received his due ("Fact: Pete Shelley is a genius and it's a crime that he seems doomed to obscurity"), I wouldn't be surprised to discover that it's the latter.

Having two reviews to go on is nice. The thoughts of MacDonald and Ian Cranna diverge considerably even though they both appreciate "On Your Own". He considers it to be "unsettling" while she reckons it's "joyous" — and they're both right. There's a barely concealed dark heart to the song but the clipped new wave sound makes it seem less weighty. It's catchy but no less spooky. Borrowing big eighties production, a touch of synth-pop and even a bit of goth rock, it would seem to be very much a product of its time but for all these cliches of the eighties being delicately threaded together so they become tough to pick out. Shelley is so subtle that you'd never know he'd previously been involved in all that punk nonsense.

The punks were now entering their thirties and this left a lot of them in a bind. Many were enjoying success of late — John Lydon was at the helm of a new lineup at PiL, Mick Jones had formed Big Audio Dynamite, The Damned were at their commercial peak, Feargal Sharkey was doing well after leaving The Undertones, Siouxsie Sioux was still going strong with The Banshees and even former Generation X chums Sir Billiam of Idol and Tony James (of Sigue Sigue Sputnik) were having hit singles; the bulk of these acts were also getting Singles of the Fortnight so they had at least some critical support — but they weren't the youthful figures they'd been a decade earlier. Calling Bill Grundy a "dirty bastard" (among other niceties) may have been excusable when they were twenty (and because it was true) but now? Could these people still shock like they once did so effortlessly? Wouldn't it be embarrassing if they even tried?

Those who left their punk pasts behind came out of it better. Once The Clash had ditched Jones they went on to release the disastrous Cut the Crap in which Strummer, Simonon and Tory Crimes decided to rehash what they did when they were younger — only much crappier. Their spurned guitarist and creative force, however, went on to form a new group that made his old bandmates look ever sillier. Lydon continued to be the outspoken loudmouth that comes so naturally to him but he was utilizing funk, jazz and rock musicians to galvanize his hit and miss material. Pete Shelley kicked off his solo career by dabbling in some Numan-esque synth recordings, which did garner criticism, but what he always had was his songwriting talent to keep him afloat. It's just a shame that so few were listening by this time.

Shelley had departed Buzzcocks back in 1981 just as work on a fourth album was going off the rails. While his contemporaries were getting a second wind on the charts, he struggled, with the single "Homosapien" doing well in some Commonwealth countries but without much else to show for it. It's here that his relation to "On Your Own" must be discussed and speculated upon. Had it been a sizable hit Shelley would have been questioned about the song and if it happened to be about himself — and, failing that, who else it might have been about. His band didn't appear to have had that acrimonious a split and they'd reform by the end of the decade. Nevertheless, it's reasonable to assume that this is an account of his own solo career. Buzzcocks were a tight four piece, especially by punk standards, but it was his songs that made them special. Since he was already doing the bulk of the heavy lifting, why not go solo and enjoy the spoils further? But now he's on his own and the spoils are awfully thin. He has the creative final say that he has longed for but at the price of no more group camaraderie.

Pete Shelley passed away in his adopted hometown of Tallin, Estonia back in December of 2018. News of his death may have paled in comparison with David Bowie or Prince (both also reviewed this fortnight, as is a new release from Strange Cruise led by the late Steve Strange of Visage; the Grim Reaper has paid a visit to an awful lot of the pop stars here) but it garnered headlines in the music press and was much-discussed on social media. MacDonald is worried that few appreciate Shelley's talents but it seems people did come round to him in time. Now, that was almost entirely down to what he did with the Buzzcocks but there may have been some residual respect for his solo work. He never tried to cling to punk but didn't seem interested in latching himself onto a trendier genre either. All he could do was be Pete Shelley: to hell with people not getting him.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

a-ha: "Hunting High and Low"

1986 was a-ha's year: not only did "Take on Me" conquer the world but they also enjoyed further Top Ten success and Morten Harket had supplanted all the members of Duran Duran combined as the discerning teenage girl's pin up of choice. The law of diminishing returns did little to derail this souped up title track from their debut LP but it was just more of the same only not as good as their first two hits (though, as MacDonald says, it's a marked improvement on its predecessor "Train of Thought"). An early stab at a more dramatic sound that would be developed into singles such as "The Living Daylights" and "Stay on These Roads", "Hunting High and Low" indicates that there was a lot more to a-ha than cute videos and handsome Norsemen.

The Long Ryders: "Looking for Lewis and Clark"

9 October 1985

"Yee haw! Git on down thar! If you've ever listened to Andy "here's a rare deleted import by legendary one-legged bluesman Blind 'Quite Angry' Joe Scroggins recorded on a wax cylinder in 1872 shortly before he was taken into slavery eee bah goom it's reet gradely" Kershaw's Radio 1 show, you'll know that twangy waxings by long-haired "geetar-totin" cowboy bands are rather "hip". 99% of them are fantastically depressing and horrible, but this one's absolutely brilliant."

— Vici MacDonald

It was lunchtime and I was sitting private meeting room that we'd reserved. It was just my second day as bassist for Stereotype and I was being introduced to my bandmates, many of whom I would never end up jamming with. I think everyone knew me or knew of me and I knew all of them but there was a nice formality about the whole thing. All we had to do was wait for Jeff, Stereotype's singer, drummer (though he never got round to acquiring a drum kit which, needless to say, held us back somewhat) and leader who was late. Ethan had only just (unilaterally, or so I thought at the time) let me into the band and it was only right that we should all hash out just what we were going to do. We hadn't the faintest idea about how to actually go about making great records but we had all cottoned on to a revolutionary idea that was sure to make us stand out from every other band that ever existed: we were going to play almost every genre of music. Genius. The door opened.

"Okay," Jeff swaggered in. He had probably been trying to chat up a girl just before coming in but now he was all business. "No country and no rap."

Everyone nodded. No country, no rap. You weren't going to hear any arguments from me (I did quickly chime in with a "and no jazz" which I now find funny considering how much I like it) particularly when it came to the former. Rap was too current and a diverse to be discounted completely even if none of us wanted to have anything to do with playing it. I liked The Dream Warriors, Urban Dance Squad and Monie Love but there was also plenty I disliked. Truthfully, the only thing I really couldn't stand about hip hop was my white classmates who swore by it, made idiotic yet condescending proclamations ("rap has a message") and decked themselves out in LA Raider caps and Chicago White Sox jackets. I knew nothing of cultural appropriation but I did know that these people sucked.

Country music, however, was the real enemy. While many complained (and still do) that it was too depressing that was never a concern of mine — growing up with Morrissey and The Cure and even my beloved Pet Shops (they didn't smile in pictures, you know), I was hardly in any position to critique anyone else listening to sorrowful music. No, it just sounded awful. Weedy, corny, cliched and a parody of the culture it was supposed to represent. My great aunt and uncle were farmers in southern Alberta and they were nothing like the people portrayed in country songs, even though they loved listening to it. And that was the other thing: it was for old people. We all loved The Beatles and we were all into a variety of acts from the sixties and seventies but country music preceded all of them, even current stars like Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood were relics because only the old folk (or, worse, very dull, very sad youths) seemed to like them. Hating country and western music is probably a necessary stage in a young person's musical development. That said, what would have become of Stereotype had we been exposed to something like The Long Ryders at around this time?

Vici MacDonald is no fan of country music — as the above quote makes very clear — but one needn't be a devotee of the Nashville sound to dig The Long Ryders. If anything, it's best if you don't. These guys weren't doing a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (standard rock group who suddenly become country purists), rather they filtered their love of Gram Parsons records through their debt to sixties rock and seventies punk. Such is their devotion to the former Byrd/Flying Burrito Brother that they name drop him in "Looking for Lewis and Clark". Imagining that the "late Tim Hardin" has ascended to heaven, they contemplate a possible conversation between the old folkie and Parsons and wonder if they might have discussed The Long Ryders. (Did Hardin know them himself? He had already been dead for nearly five years by the autumn of 1985 but whatever, I'll go along with it) The song's pounding energy is far more in line with the rock side of their sound and it's hard to imagine someone like Randy Travis singing about "Mubute anthems in Johannesburg" or "diplomats hawking secrets". One of the joys of the Paisley Underground was that it was maybe the first time there was an equivalent to British art school pop stars in the US: young musicians from small towns and often with working class roots who had read some books in university and were fusing down home music with a liberal education.

So, just what does this song mean anyway? Well, I have no idea and, judging by lines like "In a world of love where they burn like Nero / You write a check and you add a zero", I'm not overly sure they know either. But what does it tell you about the state of the world that they must go about searching for people to do the exploring? Meriwether Lewis and William Clark took a lengthy and arduous journey across the Continental Divide but who was there to do likewise nearly two centuries later? Was there anything left to explore? What else was left to do in rock or country music except just variations on everything that came before? For people who name drop themselves in their own song, The Long Ryders are remarkably modest in their aspirations. Still, even if they never amounted to anything more than rehashing what came before with their own spin on it then their recorded output cannot be considered anything else than a success.

Country rock is often seen as a gateway to an appreciation of proper country and western music but what if country music fans were able to better appreciate indie rock through it too? It's possible but the influence does tend to travel in one direction. It isn't likely, however, that MacDonald began to discover Buck Owens and Merle Haggard as a result of this record. As for Stereotype, we, too, wouldn't have gone seeking out The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo — much less Hank Williams' 40 Greatest Hits —  but at least we might have found trace elements on the country periphery to admire, much as I did with Daisy Age hip hop. And at least there weren't any obnoxious classmates claiming that "country has a message" to alienate me further.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Arcadia: "Election Day"

Lardo Le Bon and Nick "Nick" Rhodes (and Ken Taylor on drums) weren't about to let that good looking Taylor and that not-quite-so-dishy Taylor steal all the headlines with The Power Station. Nope, they went off and dyed their hair black and got all artsy and formed Arcadia. MacDonald dismisses this as merely further evidence of the coming dumper for the Duranies and their various spin-offs (something they would manage to stave off until 1990) but, while "Election Day" is a lesser work, the Arcadia project may have been valuable for retrenchment. A stylish, soulful side would eventually be explored to some success — which, incidentally, MacDonald won't be quite as harsh on — and this is probably the first evidence of it. Not a bad record and I doubt the seminal Duran five piece could have made anything more of it but it doesn't quite work. Still, it's a welcome reminder that Le Bon aspired to intellectualism: he seldom pulled it off but it was worth a try.

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.

Culture Club: "The War Song"

27 September 1984

"Whether I'll feel quite the same when everyone from the neighbour's budgie to the weird bloke downstairs is whistling it too is another matter, of course."

— Vici MacDonald

On the last Sunday of November, 1984, about forty mostly British and Irish pop stars gathered at a recording studio in Notting Hill, London to hastily record a single for the Christmas market to benefit victims of the appalling famine in Ethiopia. Band Aid was to be a coming together of UK music royalty and seemingly everyone on it was at peak popularity and worldwide fame. The resultant "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was an instant success, triumphing in one of the most hotly contested seasonal number one showdowns ever. The holiday having already come and gone, it nevertheless topped the charts in Canada for the first two weeks of January '85. Though I liked the record (and still do to this day in spite of the many legit criticisms leveled against it), the real delight was the video. I was just seven but I could already identify plenty of the central figures involved. Well, vaguely recognize at least. I probably knew Sting and Phil Collins and was aware of the lead singers of Duran Duran and Wham! Okay, that's almost all of 'em but I did begin spotting others when I would see the video every year from that point on. (Oddly, the individual I took longest to pick out was a thin and sullen Paul Weller, by far my favourite of the lot) But there was one more figure who I definitely would have known right away: Boy George, probably the most recognizable pop star in the world.

But it seems this wasn't the same Boy George. His brief solo vocal on "Do They Know It's Christmas?" — "and in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy / throw your arms around the world at Christmas time" — comes nearly two months after the release of "The War Song", a chronological fact that I've been having difficulty squaring over the last several days. Band Aid was, as I already stated above, a convergence of everyone who was anyone (and Marilyn) in the British music scene, not a bunch of also-ran's and has been's (especially Marilyn) headed for the dumper. For that's what "The War Song" did to Culture Club's momentum.

Or perhaps not. Though disinterested in the "trite" lyrics, the tune is catchy enough to warrant a SOTF from Vici MacDonald and, not being simply a critical favourite, it quickly shot to number two on the charts, just missing out on the top spot by Stevie Wonder's monster syrup-fest "I Just Called to Say I Love You" (in what was, I must say, a pretty loaded top ten). While it did fade away almost as quickly, spending just two more weeks in the charts' top quadrant, it was hardly the career-stalling disaster that plagued ABC two years earlier with their brave reinvention "That Was Then but This Is Now". "The War Song" proved yet another hit single in several other countries and likely the last Club single to be familiar enough with the public that many a neighbour's budgie or weird bloke downstairs may have hummed along with it.

Yet the bloom was off and though the single sold it has been described by Boy George as the song that "ruined" his career. Reappraisal has led to it being described as naff which is apt considering the chorus. I've always suspected, however, that they probably knew it was ludicrous as well, which doesn't suddenly make it a brilliant record but does help explain their intent. Consciously singing about how "war, war is stupid / and people are stupid" and knowing the banality behind it gives Boy and Jon Moss and the other two an excuse but thinking that they had something profound to say with these words just makes it all seem pathetic — and I like to think that we're still a ways away from Boy George sinking that low.

How do I know? Well, I don't really. But common sense tells me that if I was able to gauge the lame juvenailia of my teenage poetry with some accuracy — at least some of the time —then a quartet of towering pop stars must have at least a similar filer. More importantly, I reckon that "The War Song" is a response to the group that had stolen most of their thunder over the previous year and one who also wasn't shy about exposing blunt but basic sentiments to the masses. Frankie Goes to Hollywood first hit the charts with the sexually explicit "Relax" and followed that up with taking a shot at the arms race in "Two Tribes". Both were absolutely massive singles in the UK and may have made groups like Culture Club look passe. Probably not keen on getting into raunchiness — Boy George having said famously that he wasn't "really all that keen on sex" — it fell to Reagan and Chernenko and the threat of nuclear war as a topic for Boy George to grapple with. Though the record itself is superb, the lyrics in "Two Tribes" are hardly loaded with high level ideas. Holly Johnson's delivery of "when two tribes go to war" is powerful but it reads poorly, particularly followed by "a point is all that you can score". So, war is like sport, huh? Wow, I guess all those field marshals and generals in the First World War were correct and good on Frankie to restate some seventy-year-old sentiments. 

The point is not to bash "Two Tribes", just to put "The War Song" in context. Boy George was a vastly superior lyricist to Johnson or Mark O'Toole (or Nasher or whoever handled works for Frankie) and this trite simplicity was a low hanging fruit that he should have avoided. But when you go from tabloid stars and teen idols to being asked to sing on the Band Aid single, you might feel like you've been neutered. Of course that brings us right back to the whole thing about my screwed up chronology and that, ultimately, this record really didn't kill off their careers or any of that nonsense. It was a misstep that they could have corrected going forward but they chose not to. Just be more like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and you'll never screw things up.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Prince & The Revolution: "Purple Rain"

MacDonald admits that she's "unconvinced" by the latest from the Purple Perv and I'm right with her (although it is possible she became convinced at some point over the last thirty-five years). Having always liked everything about Prince except for the bulk of his music, "Purple Rain" is especially troublesome for us few skeptics out there. Where "1999" and "When Does Cry" and "Raspberry Beret" usually sound better in my head (and, thus, give me the false impression that they're better than they are), this, the title track from his breakthrough '84 album, is as underwhelming and over-long in my imagination as it is in reality. What does everyone else on Earth see in it? Okay, it's heartfelt but it's not quite poignant and the dull faces on the concert goers in the video says it all (not to mention an awfully awkward peck on the cheek he gives to an annoyed-looking Wendy Melvoin). I guess it must work as an album closer and it's better than virtually every other single on offer here but, as classics go, not up to much.