The Cure: "In Between Days" / Colourbox: "The Moon Is Blue"

17 July 1985

"Just the thing for a hot day."

"This achingly great ballad tells a sad tale of lost love — grandiose synthesizers pound away while a woman sings lushly about the moon not being blue after all."

— William Shaw

One of the things I've been trying to do with this blog is to understand why different critics picked certain singles. Not to necessarily agree with their picks, just to get a grasp of what they must have seen in them. I feel that I've done so fairly well though with the nagging feeling that I've been apologising for some pretty duff records along the way.

There's little to apologise for this time, however. Last week, I dealt with joint Singles of the Fortnight as chosen by Tom Hibbert and this is the second issue on the bounce to have a pair of new releases sharing the crown. Just as Hibs handed out co-honours to one record he was very comfortable with (The Ramones: "ah, they don't make records like this anymore...") and a more left field pick as an act of contrition (Prefab Sprout: "having previously dismissed [them]...I now find myself having to eat my words"), top music journalist turned brilliant mystery novelist William Shaw is in a not dissimilar position, even if the pair of singles aren't as far apart stylistically (though they aren't all that similar either).

The safe pick for Shaw is The Cure. Admitting that they don't quite hit the mark every time ("every once in a while they turn out a completely and irresistably loveable tune..."), he nevertheless knows just what Robert Smith and whoever else happens to be part of his band are capable of. Having already toned down the gothic gloom of Seventeen Seconds and Pornography, a lightness had been added to their sound as well as an array of instruments heretofore unheard on a Cure record. "The Lovecats" and "The Caterpillar" and album The Top were the results of these experiments but it wasn't to last. By '85, percussionist Andy Anderson was out and Simon Gallup had returned to the fold and, as if acknowledging that they had to look back in order to go forward, a darker tone came back. Mixing the chiming whimsical nature of their work from the previous year with a more morose sound of old was the result.

The downside is that it's harder to appreciate now than back when it came out because it seems too much like a prototypical Cure single. It soars like "Just Like Heaven" and has the same sort of New Order-esque bass like "Pictures of You" and trips about like "High", records that all came after it. "The Lovecats" had been a one off but "In Between Days" sounds like a blueprint. Significantly, it became their first record to dent the American Hot 100 — albeit just barely — and feels like their journey to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame begins here. (None of this is intended to knock the record, only to show that when we think about music being 'dated' perhaps it means that we as listeners are the ones who haven't aged well and that we aren't able to listen to a song in a vacuum)

Shaw also makes a case for "The Moon Is Blue" by Colourbox. Not clouded by anything that would come later (a fairly easy task for a group that would promptly fold up shop), it is possible to listen in relative isolation. Their earlier stuff ("very obscure and pretty damn arty singles") is admirable indie pop of the time, a Cocteau Twins with easier to decipher lyrics, but nothing terribly brilliant either. Going the more pop route here may have alienated some of their fanbase (even though it still did well on the indie charts) but the group deserved compensation in the form of a massive hit single that never happened.

With traces of doo-wop and the classic girl groups, this is hardly a record without precedent. But the way it so effortlessly combines them with a beautiful synth-pop arrangement, a bit of indie rock darkness and even the sound of chanting monks in the backgroud makes this such a thrillingly original piece. Bits of Lorita Grahame's stupendous vocal and traces of the tune stay with you to hum at your leisure ("now you've let me down" is a line I've been repeating all week) but other elements come back upon relistening, revealing themselves covertly as if putting together one piece at a time of a sonic puzzle. Absolutely riveting.

But that's the thing: I'm so familiar with The Cure that their pretty great single seems like just another Cure song in a world packed to the brim with bloody Cure songs yet an out-of-nowhere work from Colourbox knocks me over. Three and a half decades ago it may have been easy to have been blown away by both, just as Shaw was. Still, it beats apologising for some duff singles which I'm afraid might be coming up.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Dentists: "Strawberries Are Growing in My Garden (and It's Wintertime)"

Not to be confused with the neo-Nazi punk band of the same name, The Dentists go full on sixties psyschedelic and nearly score a SOTF with "Strawberries Are Growning in My Garden". While you can't deny that they play with enthusiasm and their scholarship of Nuggets-era acid-garage is first rate, it feels too much like the throwback that it is. XTC's Dukes of Stratosphear project managed to pay homage to flower power pop while also sending it up but this sounds way too much like it's in love with the music of the past to bother with humour. But at least the combination of English tea-in-the-garden whimsy with some blistering American freak out Moby Grape energy makes for a fun listen. Destined for obscurity but worth seeking out.

Ramones: "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" / Prefab Sprout: "Faron Young"

3 July 1985

"Ah, they don't make records like this anymore — unless, of course, "they" are the Ramones who continue to thrash away in their leaky jeans and unhygenic [sic] sneakers as if it were still 1976."
— Tom Hibbert

It had been nearly ten years since the release of the first Ramones album, no great amount of time looking back now but lengthy enough while it was happening. During that time, they had overseen the invention of punk, played about in a New York scene featuring groups that couldn't have been more different from them, witnessed the UK punk revolution take off (then saw it rapidly crumble), saw off contemporaries who all went the pop and/or stadium rock and happened to be not too far away as hip hop began to take off. Everything changed but them.

But not really. They went through drummers, their sound got poppier, they had to endure the trauma of having Phil Spector produce them with firearms present (and possibly aimed in their direction), normal rock star shenanigans. But their core remained with each member retaining their distinctive traits (Joey's deadbeat guttural vocal, Johnny's whiplash buzzsaw power chords, Dee Dee's perceptively dumb lyrics). They were very much still the Ramones.

"Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" was seen as a huge departure because it dealt with Ronald Reagan's controversial trip to a German military cemetery in May of 1985. While the visit was reputedly to commemorate the end of the Second World War, the American president drew the ire of many for laying a wreath near the burial sites of actual war criminals. Surviving victims of the Nazis were upset, as were many in Israel, as well as veterans back in the States. And one Joey Ramone.

The Ramones didn't do politics. (For all of that "left wing entertainers" stuff you hear about, the only member of the group who happened to be open about his political tendencies was Johnny who was never shy of praising Reagan or George W. Bush) Their debut single "Blitzkrieg Bop" borrows from Nazi bombing raids but it's a song about idiots falling in line. Idiocy was their bag. They weren't idiots themselves but performed from the perspective of them. Though college kids would eventually become their core audience, they were really singing to lonely youths from broken homes who dropped out of school, committed petty crimes and were losers — people just like the Ramones.

A good thing, then, that "Bonzo..." isn't quite as political as you might think. In reality, it's about watching the evening news and being dumbfounded by it. Joey looked at Reagan giving a speech at Bitburg and asked himself, "what the fuck is he doing?" but didn't have an answer. Perhaps not knowing quite what to say, the song was co-written by Dee Dee and Jean Beauvoir of The Plasmatics. Having three authors could have reduced the impact of the song but I think they only ended up making it more disjointed. The verses focus on the absurdity of political home truths ("you watch the world complain but you do it anyway"), the chorus is focused on taking shots at that B movie actor currently in the White House and then there's its extension ("my brain is hanging upside down") that sums up a ludicrous situation that leaves everyone in a state of helpless stupidity.

And that's the genius of the Ramones — and I don't even like them all that much.

~~~~~

"This is an English truck-drivin' song about having to eat Yorkie Bars in the horrific surroundings of "service areas" and listening to the ghastly weepies of country crooner Faron Young on a crackling in-cab radio. At least, that's what I think it's about."
— Tom Hibbert

America, America, America. The British love America. Even when they tell you that, in fact, they're very anti-America, there's a sense that they just don't like the brand of America that's being currently forcing itself upon them or that they feel let down that the country they look to has lost its way and has left them adrift.

Pop stars from the UK tend to make no bones about their debt to the US. A lot of them move there (even when they've never attained Stateside success), they all jump at doing vast American tours of cities major and minor (my Law of Tour T-Shirts states that you'll always find the name of at least one town in Oklahoma or South Dakota that no one has ever heard of on it) and some even get into the dodgy business of mythologising it. Because nothing says stick to your roots like pretending to be part of a culture that you don't belong to while ignoring the one you come from.

One may never be more British than when they're to be trying to be American but if one is to do so then the best strategy is either to not be overwhelmed by the influence or to get it completely wrong. Don't go the route taken by U2 (yes, I know they're Irish but it still applies) and pull a Rattle & Hum: soak up Americana if you must but don't act like you're an integral part of it, steep yourself in old school soul and country and rhythm 'n' blues but don't lose your own sound in it, visit Muscle Shoals but don't forget you come from Melton Mowbray.

Paddy McAloon is a gifted figure and has gradually become recognised as one of the UK's finest musical talents after a few years there in the eighties in which he was considered to be, in Tom Hibbert's words, "flitty and too clever by half". Perfect pitch, prodigious talent, songwriting skills to die for are among his strengths. What he doesn't possess is an understanding of America and doesn't pretend otherwise. While he would later explore it in greater depth on the 1988 album From Langley Park to Memphis, "Faron Young" is an early example of coming to grips with not quite getting America. (Even earlier dry runs, such as "Cue Fanfare" and "I Never Play Basketball Now", appear on Prefab Sprout's first album Swoon)

The truck driver here may indeed scoff Yorkie Bars in service areas in the middle of Northumbria while listening to old country laments, as Hibbert states, but he's at a loss. Not because of his job or strife with his family but because the tunes on the radio that are supposed to mean something to him don't, as Morrissey would sing a year later, say anything to him about his life. Where's the disconnect? Hauling crates of orange squash all over the Britain is not unlike the American trucker on his way through the mid-west, shouldn't the very same songs move them? (Changing stations on the radio dial is obviously not an option in this narrative)

McAloon is projecting but it's more than a little condescending to assume that the working class will react to a careworn country ballad in the same way. Having grown up near the petrol station that his father ran, he may have known more than a little about the tastes of your average trucker and that they might fly in the face of our expectations. Speaking of which, the fact that he was raised in such a working class environment goes against the image of a cozy, middle class youth who studied to be a priest and listened to "Georgie" Gershwin and Stephen Sondheim. 

Expectations are further left like roadkill on the M6 by the song itself. Knocked for preciousness, being too bloody clever for their own good and some impenetrably hard to decypher lyrics, Swoon wasn't appreciated by many at the time. Determined to get people to appreciate what they were trying to do, the Sprouts delivered Steve McQueen, a lush album-of-the-year (well, probably the runner-up to Hounds of Love by Kate Bush) produced lovingly by Thomas Dolby. "When Love Breaks Down" impressed critics (though never quite enough to get them another SOTF) but failed so they doubled-down on the surprise factor with the hard hitting country swing of "Faron Young". It's hard to imagine McAloon and his chums really thought it stood a better chance than the gorgeous single that just flopped (even though it did enjoy a modest chart improvement, at least until its predecessor got released) but it does a great job of proving that they weren't wimps, weren't above doing supposed workingman's music and understood America. Only Prefab Sprout seemed to know that not understanding it is much more interesting.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Sparks: "Change"

I get the feeling it's much easier to get into Sparks retrospectively. You can dabble in various periods and phases and not feel much of an attachment to any one particular Mael sound. Hibbert seems to miss the Sparks of "Amateur Hour" and "This Town Ain't Bit Enough for the Both of Us" but their ambitions are way past that point. Cluttered, sure, but Ron and Russell Mael were never exactly minimalists and something like "Change" is all the better for being loaded with ideas. Perhaps knowing that their days as serious chart contenders were up, they throw together some sweet European synth-pop together with a bit of mid-eighties production and even a tasteful guitar solo. It's now thirty-five years on and they just  keep changing. All hail Sparks.

Lene Lovich: "Lucky Number"

22 February 1979

"Overloaded with quirky ideas on everyday situations, assorted extraordinary voices for each different mood and no mean talent as a sax player, she is more original than any half-dozen New Wavers put together."

— Cliff White

There's something condescending these days about labelling someone a 'performance artist'. It could be down to critics having to resort to such a descriptive because they can't fathom anything else. It may be due to right wing YouTube trolls like Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos being described as 'performance artists' by their allies defenders apologists (the very same people, incidentally, who complain incessantly about campus radicals who allegedly don't respect freedom of speech while refusing to acknowledge that these students might also be performance artists in their own right; I dare say a blue-haired nineteen-year-old collegian knows a thing or two more about performance art than a so-called "classical liberal" with a Patreon account). Or it could be just sexism: men express themselves, women are 'performance artists'.

The post-punk/new wave period of the late-seventies saw a spike in performance artists in pop — and, naturally, the bulk of them were of the fair sex. Much of it came from them having roots in glam rock but one that was dependent on the charity shop: one couldn't afford giant platform shoes and colourful face paint and, thus, had to rely upon dungarees and scarves and god knows whatever else happened to be available. Queue Lene Lovich, whose image of braided pig tails, black lace handkerchiefs and silk dresses was as DIY as any of her music.

This also happened to be a time in which women in pop either looked beatific, tough or were dripping in sex. Folk singers had their long hair and their jumpers and their cats and rockier types wore jeans and t-shirts and all looked like Suzy Quatro and the sex kittens all wished to be Debbie Harry or one of Charlie's Angels. But the generation coming out of punk wanted none of that (Chrissie Hynde and Patti Smith would be the exceptions) and went about trying to look alluring but not quite sexy, scary but not tough, independent but not cozy. Kate Bush wore leotards and frilly dresses but she did grotesque ballet routines in the promos of her great batch of early singles. Siousxie Sioux was never beautiful but you couldn't look away from her. The Slits got their kit out for the cover of their remarkable album Cut yet they look way too much like they don't care what you think to provide titlillation — and, indeed, the same goes for Bowwowwow's Annabella Lwin a couple years' later (which was for the best considering how worryingly young she was). All this got female artists the attention and respect they deserved until Toyah came along and ruined it for everyone. Male rock critics didn't know what to do with them and so they became 'performance artists'.

Lene Lovich wasn't selling sex, women's lib or happiness, just the concept of being Lene Lovich. She's in a state but plays to the camera in the video for "Lucky Number" without a shred of bashfulness. It appears at once greatly rehearsed and wholly natural: every little quirk — her eyes popping out, the way she pranced in the direction of the audience or camera — would have been honed over the previous decade as she developed her craft yet seems very much an extension of her unique personality.

Lost among all of Lovich's mannerisms and her appearance was "Lucky Number", a great pop song with hooks and everything. The early take which provided the flip side to her 1978 Charlie Gillett-produced cover of "I Think We're Alone Now" is an example of sturdy post-punk put together on a shoestring. Getting an advance from Stiff Records allowed Lovich and longtime personal and professional partner Les Chappell to add some bells and whistles and it comes across more like vintage new wave. Either way, it's a dynamic recording with Lovich in control with an expressive performance and a great madcap band to back her up. Handclaps,  a tambourine, surf guitar, tribal percussion, gentle backing vocals: had they not been careful there's no way it all would have worked. 

The one (minor) knock against it is that the song's narrative might be too swift. She moves from independence in its opening verses ("for me, myself and I is all I've ever known") to an uneasy feeling that she can't quite pin down ("an imminent attack upon my heart I fear") to finishing up with acknowledging that there's someone else out there for her ("I never want to be apart from you my dear") and it all progresses just a bit too easily. I'm all for brevity in pop but a more gradual progression in her feelings would make it more believable. But, then, why be believable when she's already so convincing?

Dressing up in S&M gear during the punk era may have been considered legit but when it came to Adam Ant dawning his famed 'dandy highwayman' look suddenly he was a sell out. But few would have thought to call him a 'performance artist'. Few were as shameless in their attempts to grasp pop stardom as Steve Strange and he, too, was never considered a performance artist. It's just the women from that time who had that label stuck to them. Maybe they were the only ones putting in the time to give a real performance and do something original with it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "Oliver's Army"

This is the old scamp's finest three minutes but Cliff White doesn't see it that way. My "giving it a clever slant on the state of war" is his "serious 'message' song"; my "tune you can never get enough of" is his "clapped-out old pop melody". He even considers Costello to be as "humourless as a stuffed trout" which is...well, okay, I'll give him that. While I'm not again hearing people rip into my most disliked of favourite singers, I can't listen to "Oliver's Army" and not hear it as anything but perfect — except for his use of the n-word but, then, I'm not a YouTube "classical liberal".

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.

Simply Red: "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" / Lone Justice: "Ways to Be Wicked"

5 June 1985

"Simply Red couldn't have chosen a better showcase for their obvious talents — social-comment lyrics attacked by really excellent soul vocals, making a record that's understated but powerful, and impossible to resist."

"Bury your bias and be prepared to fall in love."

— Maureen Rice

Three pop acts, a Radio 1 presenter, a soap actor and a very critical schoolboy: yeah, you might say that Smash Hits went a little overboard with the guest singles reviewers (only one of the past seven editions being done by a regular Hits scribe). I have wondered on here previously if they may have been going through a staff shake up at the time but they could just as easily have been experimenting with going the Number One route of nothing but famous guest reviewers. In any event, order has been restored with some proper music journalists taking back control as we approach the midway point of 1985. It's nice to have you lot back!

Or is it? Frequent guest critics are gone (for now) but there's a new fad going and that's joint Singles of the Fortnight. This issue is merely the first of several in which the reviewer is unable to pick a favourite and ends up going for a pair. (Actually, the following issue sees just one pick but then co-winners are chosen for the next three on the bounce) Perhaps they were happy to use pop stars and others since the critics they had in house couldn't make up their bloody minds! But let's look on the bright side: this just gives me more music to listen to and write about

I must say I'm glad that Maureen Rice has chosen a pair of singles that couldn't be more different in style but which also share a bit in common. One comes from the emerging British soul revival of the mid-eighties while the other is rooted in cowpunk from the heartland of, er, LA. But they were both up-and-coming acts that were looking to a pair of relatively obscure cover versions in order to help them make a mark.

It isn't difficult comparing Simply Red's effort to the original since we've already dealt with it on this blog. The Valentine Brothers wrote and recorded "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" a couple years' earlier and it had been a critical favourite in spite of some modest sales. Picked up by a then-unknown Mancunian new soul act Simply Red, it fared considerably better, getting them into both the UK and US charts. And they don't do a bad job of it but it doesn't quite measure up to the source material. While the production has been spruced up, it isn't as funky and Mick Hucknall's reading goes a little heavy on the passion next to the much more restrained Valentines. There's a sense that they understand the predicament everyone is in when they go their brother, their father ("almighty father": that big predatory lender in the sky perhaps?), even the sleazy turkey round the bank seeking a loan: money's too tight for everyone to mention in this world (being fed the same line even gives it a bit of dark humour). Hucknall seems to be caught up in his own point of view as a penniless blue-eyed soulster and a degree of understanding for what everyone in society is going through loses out. Thus, it lacks depth and it's overwrought but that boy sure can sing.

So, ver Red didn't add anything but at least they didn't cock it up too much to drag the song down. Trouble was, the Valentine original is too good to improve upon. Lone Justice didn't have that potential albatross to weigh them down as they were using an unknown Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers song as a source. (Not simply unknown but also unremarkable enough not to see official release until an extensive Petty boxset years later) Even by Petty's workmanlike standards, his vocals aren't up to much and it all sounds tossed off. In effect, a demo. I'm not terribly fond of Tom Petty but he obviously had much better songs in him than this.

It is, therefore, startling to hear what Lone Justice were able to do with it. The bulk of the praise should be saved for Maria McKee, who simply shreds the lyrics apart with her powerful country and western voice. Where Hucknall can't stop himself from emoting, she knows when to hold back and when, to quote the song, "to stick it in". She sounds confident, flippant and just a bit vulnerable. Remarkable. A shout out, too, for the band who have clearly put a lot more thought into the recording than the Heartbreakers did. Not flashy but disciplined and powerful and I can only wonder just what a treat they must have been live back in the day.

With all due respect to Maureen Rice, I can't imagine seeing these as equals. One's quite good, the other's a blinder. One succeeds by not ruining the song, the other blows apart the original. One manages to make you admire their taste in records (good on Hucknall for picking a Valentine Brothers song), the other leaves you spellbound by the moment that all great songs do: it doesn't matter who wrote it, it doesn't matter what the original sounds like, it only matters what's playing and that you just have to hear it again. Not a tough choice.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Miles Davis: "Time After Time"

Continuing our look at covers, jazz's prince of darkness was more than familiar with interpreting the work of others (to the extent that he would occasionally usurp writing credit from some poor schmoes). Miles Davis was by this point nearly 59 and a long way past his lengthy great period which resulted in works like Sketches of Spain and In a Silent Way. He outlived old colleagues Charlie Parker and John Coltrane but was doing subpar work compared to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington at roughly the same age. Still, there's nothing wrong with his playing here. He makes so much of Cyndi Lauper's hit from a year earlier that you'd hardly recognise where it came from. What lets it down is the very rudimentary backing that feels like jazz musicians resentfully snoozing their way through some filler before they can get to a real tune. I guess he was too old to be the badass he once was in order to whip those cats into shape.

Blondie: "Heart of Glass"

8 February 1979

"Surely you've heard and bought it by now? Brilliantly demonstrating why Smash Hits has dropped all the nonsense of segregating music into different categories, a 'rock' group has made what will undoubtedly turn out to be one of the best, ahem, 'disco' records of 1979".

— Cliff White

~~~~~

Welcome to the one hundredth post on VER HITS! And on a Saturday too! And with a single from six years prior to where we're currently at! How very odd.

But this is no mere one off. I started off this blog with a splendid record from the middle of '81 and pointed out in the introduction a week earlier that very few prior singles were picked out for special attention the way they would be from around that point on. I acknowledged the smattering that had been chosen from previous issues but I've subsequently come to realise that there are quite a few more that passed me by. I've also been finding myself having to infer Singles of the Fortnight from time to time — even up to this past week — and it occured to me that I might as well go back and do so for those that I missed. We'll "start" in February of 1979 when Smash Hits went from monthly to fortnightly and when they ditched the "nonsense of segregating" between disco/soul and rock/pop records. And what a record to kick it all off with!

Weekly posts — currently at the beginning of June '85 — will continue on Wednesdays with these earlier pieces once a fortnight on Saturdays or Sundays. If critics state a favourite then it will be written about; otherwise, I will attempt to infer a SOTF based on how much praise it gets but it will be down to my own discretion. If you disagree then please post a comment below or find me on Twitter in order to give me the telling off I deserve.

~~~~~

I wonder if the person who coined the expression "to sell out" is proud of themselves. He or she really did us all a service by giving us a term in which we could all jealously knock an artist for the crime of being successful. Well done, douchebag.

Also, are music purists content up there on their high horses? Are they pleased with themselves for bashing former favourites who had the gall to stretch out with something different?

I ought to be at the age now where I don't care about such people harping on about "selling out" and I mostly don't but I do pity them for being foolish in denying themselves great music. If a rethink results in something better than what's the point in getting all worked up about it?

Coming off a peerless run of singles — "Denis", "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear", "Picture This", "Hanging on the Telephone" — Blondie were at the peak of their powers but success at home in America continued to allude them. (Did they knock their heads together like The Beatles, T-Rex, Duran Duran, Oasis and generations of UK groups who puzzled over a similar dilemma? There's something comical about a US group wondering how to go about cracking the States) To those who weren't in the know and/or didn't care to find out, it might seem like leeching off of disco would be a perfect way to get themselves that hit they needed. But there's more to it than that.

The purists might have had more of a case had Blondie not held "Heart of Glass" back as the third single from landmark album Parallel Lines in favour of rockier numbers "Picture This" and "Hanging on the Telephone" and well after the LP had hit the shops. Doesn't seem like they had that much faith in its commercial potential, does it? (Either that or they were worried about alienating their New York CBGB's following though you'd think the millions of punters over in Britain, the rest of Europe and Down Under might have been a bigger priority) Of course, there have been plenty of instances of tracks that have been ignored as potential singles that end up busting the charts wide open ("Don't You Want Me" being a classic example) but sell outs are supposed to be far more calculating, aren't they?

And speaking of being held back, it's odd that Debbie Harry and Chris Stein would have sat on this goldmine for as long as they did. Already aware that they had something — gasp — with a beat you could get down to, they even named this mid-seventies composition "The Disco Song". An early recording features some pretty sweet (if overly busy) guitar playing but has little else to recommend it (Harry's vocal being uncharacteristically bland). So poor were its prospects that it didn't make it onto their patchy second album Plastic Letters. 

Finally, Blondie didn't exactly rush to go full-on disco once "Heart of Glass" took off. Follow-up "Sunday Girl" is a return to a rockier sound — as, indeed, is the bulk of Parallel Lines — as are the first pair of singles taken from their next LP Eat to the Beat, "Dreaming" and "Union City Blue", before going all Studio 54 with the brilliant "Atomic". As the group's popularity "became more selective" in the early eighties they only opened themselves up to more styles which they didn't always pull off well; their last swing at NY club sound being "Rapture" which have worked a lot better had it not been for Harry's awful rap "skills".

All of the above, though, is useless but for the fact that "Heart of Glass" is an astonishing piece of work that deserved to be the gigantic worldwide hit that it became. A vocal turning point for Harry, she veers between her "usual Sweet Little Sixteen" sound that Cliff White makes note of and a more mature and relaxed performance ("...in between, what I find is pleasing and I cannot hide...") which really sets up the duality of a relationship gone wrong while looking back with some fondness. It also hints that, yes, she was in her thirties by this time and there was no point in pretending otherwise. Stein's guitar parts have been dialed back in favour of some superb production pyrotechnics and a solid but simple rhythm backing.

I like to think that had I been a committed Blondie fan and was few years older than my nine months old I would have reacted in disgust at the thought of the best group in the world going disco. I might even have resisted purchasing their latest record and tried avoiding it as best as possible. But I would have succumbed eventually. How couldn't I have?

And how do purists who are so obsessed with selling out manage to resist something so wonderful? I'd rather not understand.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Pretenders: "Stop Your Sobbing"

A cover of a deep cut filler on The Kinks' debut album, The Pretenders don't have a lot to work with here but they do all right and manage to top the original. There's a callousness to the way Ray Davies sings it (something you never normally find in a Kinks record) that makes Chrissie Hynde's more understanding reading the preferred version — plus there's something about the words to a song about how you shouldn't be such a baby that sound far more effective being sung by a woman. The group also puts in some much needed post-punk muscle into the recording. They had much better material in them but you gotta start somewhere.

Madonna: "Crazy for You"

22 May 1985

"After this she may be taken seriously and not just ogled at by moronic men (such as me)."

— Simon O'Brien

In a largely negative retrospective look at Blur's Parklife, critic Taylor Parkes mentions a quote from fellow Quietus writer Luke Turner that "you can't trust a band whose best songs are their ballads". Now, I disagree somewhat with the group he's talking about (I'd say it applies more to someone like Neil Young) but I have to say there's something to the overall point. I dig "The Universal" and "To the End" but I'd sooner listen to "There's No Other Way" or "Caramel". I'm glad The Beatles had room for the likes of "And I Love Her" and "Something" but I'd opt for "Eight Days a Week" or "I Am the Walrus" any day. Abba's mastery of romantic fallout in a glossy pop hit is much more effectively done in "Knowing Me, Knowing You" than in their supposed classic "The Winner Takes It All".

But what about the opposite, artists who are unable to do a passable romantic softy and stick to dancefloor favourites and/or rockin' anthems? (This may or may not apply to a group like New Order but at least they deserve props for not bothering with something that they either weren't capable of or not interested in doing) Should they be knocked for lacking a standout slurpsome tune?

So-called ballads have long been the refuge of those seeking acclaim and/or a potential hit single but they're not to be overdone and are best avoided if if they can't be pulled off well. I grew up in the early-nineties when all that dying breed of heavy metallers had left was a "More Than Words", a "Silent Lucidity" or a "To Be with You" just to stay afloat. They all stunk, as did power ballads, r & b smoochers and all that crap that soundtracked films at the time — but more on that later. And, yet, this stuff makes a pop star legit?

It's strange to imagine a time when Madonna wasn't taken seriously but it stands to reason that in the midst of her early run of buoyant pop hits that she'd be dismissed as a passing fad with inconsequential songs and a sexed-up image smacking of desperation. Frequently described as a most calculating songstress, it's likely that she had to feel her way around the machinations of stardom before she could begin to manipulate the industry. How to be taken seriously? Well, slow songs can do the trick - and what about a nice movie career on the side too! (But, again, more on that in a bit)

The only trouble was Madonna's voice was never able to pull off a good love song the way someone like Anita Baker did effortlessly. Simon O'Brien is impressed by her vocal chops on "Crazy for You" but I respectfully disagree. This is where her irritating habit of using that deep, almost guttural inflection begins ("...you feel it in my kiss"), a quirk which smacks of her being unable to hit a more appropriate note. Her limitations aren't as obvious on "Lucky Star" and it's something I think she even began to make a virtue out of as she really hit her stride: I'd argue that one aspect of "Cherish" that makes it so adorable is that she sounds so normal and relatable and it's easy to convince yourself that you're singing along with it just as well as she is. But the slower numbers really do expose what a mediocre singer she's always been.

The other problem here is that it all feels very generic and not from the singer's own life. Previous singles all tapped into that old disco trope of leading a depressingly ordinary life before becoming a star in the clubs at night (Madonna even expanded upon it by becoming the one disco urchin who then made something of herself by day) but "Crazy for You" is just another love song. She didn't meet this guy at The Fun House and they didn't light the place on fire with as they cut a rug; he's just some dude she's hung up on. Well, good for her but I'm not convinced that the material here matters to her.

Appearing in the eighties film Vision Quest (not a sci-fi flick, much to my surprise) starring a very mid-twenties Matthew Modine playing a high schooler and a supposedly older Linda Fiorentino in a very unflattering perm, "Crazy for You" probably does a good job of providing some pathos for the doomed lovers. (I say "probably" because I haven't actually seen it but I think the accompanying video gives away enough clues) It even got Madonna a role as a singer in a bar, perhaps enhancing her film ambitions. But it also had the effect of putting a record at the service of a film, a trend we'll see a lot more of going forward.

Madonna would quickly figure out the key to be taken seriously but she couldn't quite shake the desire to do more ill-considered love songs. "Crazy for You" is poor when held up against the likes of "Into the Groove" and "Borderline" but it's actually superior to future wheepies "Live to Tell", "Dear Jessie" and "This Used to Be My Playground". Ballads and films weren't going to do the trick and it's only right that such an unconventional pop star would have to take an unconventional route to legitimacy. Time to start thinking about being ambitious and clever, Madge.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark: "So in Love"

Long unique both for being an act not widely known for hailing from Liverpool (O'Brien doesn't seem aware of it as he praises both China Crisis and The Icicle Works due to local "bias" but is dismissive of this: is Wirral not Merseyside enough?) and being pilloried for becoming less pretentious (this is the group that had two singles in tribute to Joan of Arc), OMD were entering the mid-eighties having gone through some ups and downs but seemed to be weathering the changes in pop better than most. "So in Love" deserved better than its modest top thirty position but it could be that many agreed with O'Brien's take that they needed another "Enola Gay". On the other hand, it earned them their first American hit, setting them up for a breakthrough the following year. It's no "Souvenir" but a worthy single nonetheless. 

Bryan Ferry: "Slave to Love"

8 May 1985

"This single sounds very similar to "Avalon", but I suppose it's only natural to take up where you left off."

— Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy

Stephen Duffy offers up a brief mea culpa to begin his review. Admitting that he doesn't have a record player (an emerging pop star in the mid-eighties without any sort of hi-fi system at home? A bit hard to believe but okay), the singer explains that he went into a recording studio, played the new singles on high volume and subsequently "got very depressed" but neglects to explain why. In the end what he managed to eek out are a "few notes in the style of a guest record reviewer for Smash Hits circa 1982". So, just who might our Steve be referring to? Certainly not Martin Fry's carefully thought out critiques from the 29 April edition — which, fact fiends, was the only guest review from the entire year (something of a stark contrast to '85 and its half-dozen-or-so from just the first half of the year alone). Now he did say "circa" so I guess I ought to do my due diligence and check on other one-off pop star appearances from the years bookending it and, oh, look what we have! Gary Kemp! He must be the one old "Tin Tin" is alluding to. Except the Spandau guitarist did a more-than commendable job. Maybe he's thinking of George Michael and Andrew Ridegly of Wham! who admittedly didn't seem to put a great deal of consideration into their analysis but much of their attempt is conversational with a music expert throwing out theories and his ne'er-do-well mate happily going along with him — not quite what Duffy seems to be thinking of.

But what does it matter anyway? Duffy's just being modest. His reviews are fine and certainly good enough by pop star standards. But one throwback to earlier days is he failed to pick a winner. Going by recent precedent, the record below should be our Single of the Fortnight (it is the one he saves the most praise for and it's the first one listed) but his admission that "Slave to Love" is the "only single in the pile I'll definitely play again" seals it for me (although the question must be asked: just what device will you be playing said record on, eh Duff?).

Bryan Ferry has managed to get away with an awful lot over the years. No, this isn't about his admiration for Nazi imagery nor his staunch defence of the fox hunt (two subjects that plenty of people have already taken him to task on) but how he has deftly managed to avoid the creative pitfalls of many of his contemporaries. Sacking Brian Eno at the height of Roxy Music's powers should have set the group back but it didn't. Going increasingly middle-of-the-road should have hindered their popularity but if anything they got bigger than ever. Putting his band on ice in the mid-seventies should have been impossible to recover from but they came back to enjoy some of their biggest hits. Increased attention to his up-and-down solo career minus key Roxy contributors Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay should have had left him sputtering but the success kept coming. His post-Country Life work within and without his band is patchy but none of it's an embarrassment.

By the mid-eighties Bryan Ferry seems to have boxed himself into a corner and what choice did he have but to "take up where [he] left off" as Duffy puts it. This is by no means a bad thing: what he did he did well and there was still enough of a market for this type of material to take recent solo album Boys and Girls to the top of the charts and put "Slave to Love" into the top ten. It probably also didn't hurt that British music had come to be defined by soul music-loving crooners playing in groups that relied as much on synths as they did "real" instruments. With the likes of Bowie and Macca and Elton all looking foolish with increasingly duff records, who could blame Ferry for wanting to stay the course?

Yet, works like "Slave to Love" expose a talented figure who was slacking and starting to parody himself. Those same slick vocal gestures he began perfecting around the time of Manifesto are present and correct, as are those vaguely wistful Manzanera-aping guitar licks which are so prevalent on Avalon. The song goes exactly as you would imagine. But for the artist credit, you'd swear this was the latest from what was left of Roxy Music. (In effect, Ferry was what was left of his old group and it's only right — if also pretty bloody cheeky — that he began releasing a series of joint Roxy-Ferry compilations beginning with the hugely popular Street Life: 20 Great Hits in 1986) But the very fact that it fits in so seamlessly with latter day Roxy material is not a point in its favour. It might have done Ferry some good to have had a lousy howler of an album at around this time. It might have allowed him to shake things up a bit, get some real collaborators in who weren't just intent to go along with his every whim and to grow creatively. Better to stumble and learn from the experience than to grow stale.

Not something I'll definitely play again; more the kind of thing I never need to hear again for the rest of my life. Because what would be the point? I'll just stick with early Roxy Music, thank you very much.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Power Station: "Get It On (Bang a Gong)"

Duffy's depression may well have been down to having to sit down and listen to some of his old bandmates. Having once been the vocalist of a pre-worldwide fame Duran Duran, it must have been hard to swallow hearing John Taylor's bass rip its way through a brave but misguided cover of the T-Rex classic "Get It On" by supergroup The Power Station. (Elsewhere, he dryly observes that the Duranie James Bond theme "A View to a Kill" is "interesting"; hopefully ver Hits held back the latest release from Arcadia because that would've just been cruel) I can only speculate. Nevertheless, he's impressed with what Robert Palmer and a pair of Taylors and Chic's Tony "outrageous drumming" Thompson have done with it and not just because it will "offend many Marc Bolan fans". I'm not quite so willing to rave over it even if it's nowhere near as bad as I'd been expecting. Palmer's perv-hunger vocal seems a little too on the nose, lacking the breathy subtlety of the original, and it could very well be that everyone present is far too in awe of the song to have some fun or do something different. They must have known they weren't going to come close to equalling the source so why bother even trying?

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.

Propaganda: "Duel"

11 April 1985

"ZTT describe them as "Abba in Hell" — therefore "Duel" must be Abba in Heaven."

— Peter Martin

This blog is now nearly two years old and is approaching its one hundredth entry and, probably as such, I've been thinking a lot lately about some of my favourites. Not the posts I've written, mind you (there's really only the one I'm still really happy about), but the songs themselves. Having The Human League's brilliant "Love Action (I Believe in Love)" come up so soon may have given me the false impression that I was in for nothing but top quality records but the relative detritus that followed only emphasizes what an extraordinary work it is — and one they never quite managed to top. The Associates' "Party Fears Two" ably merges lyrical melancholy with sprightly jangle-pop to irresistible levels while Elvis Costello's "Man Out of Time" captures his nibs at the top of his game. Terry Hall took a pretty good song that he had stakes in and added vulnerability and unease to create "Our Lips Are Sealed", which is probably the greatest Smash Hits Single of the Fortnight of all time. Some lofty company, then.

Joining this big four is Propaganda's "Duel", which is right at home with the upper tier of SOTF. Having previously appeared with "Dr. Mabuse", the German foursome seemed set to conjure up many more similarly unsettling cinematic epics. To return a year later, then, with the far more straightforward "Duel" may seem like either a lapse in quality, a drastic and premature rethink or an acknowledgement that they've already run out of ideas but it is in fact a stunning work. Tying together some funk bass with some simple yet effective synth chords, the tune is impossible dislike and one that will doubtless soon prove be very likely to remove from the listener's mind. Helping the earworm along is a terrific vocal from Claudia Brücken, which manages to convey a pained air while still keeping its distance. It's a lovely performance but a curious one: her voice isn't conventionally strong and may even get on the wick of some but to these ears she's putting everything into it and holding just enough back. Plus, I'm intrigued by the fact that something so catchy is also damn-near impossible to sing along with — even if that says at least as much about my limited vocal "range" as it does the song itself.

Peter Martin is as fond of this as "Dr. Mabuse" but he blushes from going too far with his praise. Though he exclaims that "Duel" is the "greatest song ever made", he then qualifies it by admitting that "I might change my mind tomorrow". He shouldn't have fretted so much and should have trusted his instincts. Of course it isn't the greatest song ever made but that's beside the point; pop music at its best encourages us to abandon all the great works we've heard before so that we may be caught up in the moment of nowness. Who cares about "Telstar" and "Virginia Plain" and "Heart of Glass" when we have "Duel" right now and it's fresh and alive? And why worry about tomorrow?

Taking the dramatics of its predecessor and tacking a real song onto it should have been the moment Propaganda began a ride on the Giddy Carousel of Pop but it was not to be, the single stalling just outside of the top twenty. It's impossible to say why such a sure-fire smash only managed to perform modestly but hopefully it got to others just as it got to Martin then and gets to me now. The best pop may not always sell like it should but there's always an audience out there looking for yet another greatest song ever.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Simple Minds: "Don't You (Forget About Me)"

Dear Mr. Margach,

We accept the fact that you're going to slag us off for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy for expecting us to apologise for it. You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is an earnest singer, an earnest guitarist, an earnest keyboardist, an earnest bass player and an earnest drummer. Does this answer your question?

Sincerely, 

The Deep-Fried Scots Breakfast Club