— Boy George
By my count, this is the twenty-ninth time a pop star (or pop stars) have reviewed the singles in Smash Hits. (There are many, many more on the way as the eighties draw to a close, with staff deciding they had better things to do and a new generation of sing and dance types who were more than happy to take on such tasks so long as it kept them in the spotlight). For the most part, they've been relevant chart wise at the time of their guest critic spots. Early examples — Andy Partridge, Chris Difford, Martin Fry, Gary Kemp, Martyn Ware — seemed to take the role seriously almost as if they had an eye on being pop journalists themselves but they were all part of groups that were either emerging or attempting to sustain their success. Limahl (who appears just four weeks after Ware) seemed to be the first one there in order to prop himself up, his solo career having just launched to some promise in spite of being without the accomplished musicians who had backed him in Kajagoogoo. He may not have been a student of pop the way Difford and Fry and the like were but the former Christopher Hamill still meant something to the scene in 1984.
This fortnight, however, we get an artist who has passed his prime and is trying to once again to get back into the chart "game". Boy George had been one of British pop's most recognizable figures and had become so well known that he had basically become 'famous for being famous' once his band began going downhill. The cross-dressing garnered headlines but he wouldn't have been half the notable figure if not for Culture Club's brief period as a top group. The pleasant lover's rock song "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" is probably their most played number today but "Church of the Poison Mind", "Karma Chameleon" and "Time (Clock of the Heart)" are the best examples of what made them such a fine group. Yeah, they were re-doing Motown and there was little about them beyond the Boy's image that seemed cutting edge but they understood great pop, there were hooks aplenty and that lad who looked like a lass sure could sing.
Boy George had last been relevant a year earlier when his solo career commenced. His soft-reggae cover of "Everything I Own" seemed to mirror "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" and was a UK number one (and SOTF) but things didn't go much further. George was still a beloved figure with the public, possibly even a national treasure, and people showed their loyalty to him by buying up his comeback record but the novelty would quickly subside. Fame, wealth and drug abuse dulled his songwriting and there was very little left in the tank past that one big hit.
George's choice of Age of Chance reflects his struggle to tap into the zeitgeist of late-eighties popular culture. He argues that "Take It" is "probably the only attempt at originality on this page". There's some truth to this — it isn't an especially stellar fortnight for singles — but I'm not so sure that even in 1988 mixing rap and rock was still a fresh proposition. It was back in 1984 that hip hop had its first Smash Hits SOTF and that was with the still awesome "Hip-Hop-Bommi-Bop" by The Incredible T*H* Scratchers and Freddy Love, a barely disguised Die Totenhosen and Fab Five Freddy collaboration. Now, it sadly didn't catch on in spite of Ian Cranna's recommendation but Run-DMC's reworking of "Walk This Way" with Aerosmith in '86 was when everyone would have cottoned on to the great crossover.
To be fair, "Hip-Hop-Bommi-Bop" and "Walk This Way" came along because of cross-genre team-ups and there is more than a little of the novelty about both of them. The idea of a group that organically produced their own in-house brand of rap-rock was in its infancy. Groups like Happy Mondays and the Soup Dragons were slowly taking off with vocalists that rapped at least as much as they sang but who nevertheless remained tied to indie rock, even if they were open to what was going on in hip hop. North American groups like Living Color and Bootsauce would soon emerge, though funk was much more a part of their sound than rap itself. It was only with the so-called 'Daisy Age' movement of De La Soul, Monie Love and The Jungle Brothers that rappers seemed to show much interest in the sound of guitars — at least until The Beastie Boys began learning how to play their own instruments.
So, choosing Age of Chance may have seemed like something new and exciting but they had already been around for a while and "Take It" feels too much like they're going through the motions. They gained some notoriety a year earlier with their unique take on Prince's "Kiss" and whatever appeal they must have had rests from around this time. John Peel supported them and they were briefly indie favourites. Signing with major label Virgin should have put them into the charts but for the unfortunate fact that their output had little commercial potential — and it wasn't even all that good anymore. Comparing some of their early singles to the material that would end up on album One Thousand Years of Trouble, there isn't the same zip and pop. It was not unlike the way future rock-rap combo EMF would devolve from the rush of breakthrough single "Unbelievable" to just another indie band little over a year later. But at least they had a nice little run of hits along the way.
"Take It" doesn't really work but at least they were doing something worthwhile that others would build upon. Pop Will Eat Itself did a lot more with sample-heavy industrial dance rock and they never really lost their edge. Jesus Jones cut an outrageously good debut single "Info Freako" that buries anything Age of Chance ever did (even if they suddenly morphed into bland stadium rockers soon after). U2 would eventually follow suit as they ditched Americana in favour of glamourous European goth-dance. Age of Chance were just a minor footnote in a new movement.
Boy George had been a regular at the clubs and was keen on where music was going and it's decent of him to give his nod of approval to this "attempt at originality" but it's too little, too late. They needed champions a year or two earlier when there was still something exciting about them. But by 1988, they were already making lesser records and their promise was fading away. Not unlike Boy George himself.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Voice of the Beehive: "I Walk the Earth"
A group that George likes even if the record doesn't do anything for him. Maybe I'm really longing to go travelling but "I Walk the Earth" sounds great to these ears. There's some bad eighties' production in there but the Bees' harmonies soar, there's some crunchy guitar parts and it'll make you want to hit the road as soon as we can all get vaccinated and start removing these damn masks. Australian travel writer Peter Moore reckons it's the greatest song about travel ever cut and he's not wrong. I guess Boy George never went backpacking around Southeast Asia, huh?
