Dire Straits: "Brothers in Arms"

25 September 1985

"Ten out of ten for any Dire Straits record."

— Susan Tully

"Who needs Pink Floyd, Dire Straits,
It's not our music, it's out of date."
— The Reynolds Girls, "I'd Rather Jack"

I first saw a CD player in my aunt and uncle's basement at some point in 1987. I knew nothing of formats at the time (still don't really) but I wasn't terribly impressed. Records were nice and big and were cool to look at and carry around with you. Cassettes were convenient and gave everyone the chance to make mixes and pretend to be their very own DJ. Eight track tapes may have been lousy but at least they looked a bit like Atari game cartridges. Like vinyl, reel-to-reel at least had bulk going for them, as well as perhaps the feeling that consumers were really investing in something (either that or the delusion that they were doing so). But CD's weren't nice to stare at, seemed very breakable for something supposedly indestructible and I for one couldn't look past the fact that you couldn't even flip them over to listen to the other side — and they were bloody expensive.

The Brothers in Arms album was one of those pop-rock mega-successes of the eighties and a unique one at that. It was the first big hit on the new format of compact disc and, perhaps as a result, got snapped up by everyone's parents. And why not? They certainly looked the part. They were either balding or wore yuppie perms and dressed in sharp, white suits. Kids didn't want to emulate them, didn't put posters up of them, didn't fancy any of them (though, to be fair, I highly doubt any mothers did either: Mark Knophler wasn't exactly Richard Dean Anderson, was he?) and didn't buy their bloody boring records — they were meant for yuppies throwing fondue parties and middle-class dads who reckoned Chris de Burgh was too soft. That lot.

Or that's what you'd be forgiven for thinking (except for the part about anyone fancying them). While Dire Straits were favourites of listeners in their thirties, it wasn't their exclusive audience, especially in 1985. The eighteen-year-old Susan Tully, star of English soap phenomenon Eastenders, didn't opt for the cool choice (The Jesus & Mary Chain), nor the supposed role-model for girls (Madonna) and not even the sort of vanilla, inoffensive cheery pop that you might think would appeal to young women with her choice of haircut and vaguely beatific smile (Bucks Fizz, maybe even Shaky). No, she digs ver Straits — and, indeed, so did many young people at the time. Their videos were neat (well, a couple of them at any rate), Knophler's guitar playing was brilliant — catchy and distinctive though played with a degree of modesty — and their songs seemed funny. Who else would sing about hauling appliances and colour TVs? They seemed to catch lightning in a bottle for at least that one year as they effectively tapped into the MTV market while proving their rockist bonefides at Live Aid, which then caused a shift away from Duran Duran and Wham! to the likes of Sting, Phil Collins and Dire Straits as British rock royalty. Play The Reynolds Girls' annoying 1989 hit "I'd Rather Jack" for audiences four years earlier and no one would have the foggiest what they're on about (though, I wasn't all that sure myself and I liked that abominable record).

But what did ver kids make of "Brothers in Arms", probably the least remembered of their run of hits? Well, Tully's fine with it but she also makes it clear that Knophler and co could've recorded the sound of them pissing into Dixie cups and she still would have made it SOTF (well, she doesn't say so but you know...). Youngsters likely weren't buying it on CD so they had the traditional LP and cassette formats that they either bought or — in the case of this writer — borrowed from their parents and it was an album we weren't flipping over. All the hits happened to be on the first side so what did we need with all that filler on the other side? (Yes, I'm aware that this flies in the face of what I said above about resenting CDs because they didn't have a side two but I've always been resistant to change and, anyway, I would have at least appreciated having the option of having a flip side to ignore) The single did all right spending a fortnight in the Top Twenty but it was sandwiched in between a pair of much bigger hits so it likely threw off their momentum a bit. The novelty of a CD single release (said to be the first of its kind) probably aided it a bit but this formatting quirk indicates that this was one mainly being snapped up the loyalists — curious kids with a couple bob to spare were probably looking elsewhere, even if there wasn't much out there for them.

Despite its lack of immediacy, "Brothers in Arms" is a high point of the album and one of Knophler's greatest compositions. Avoiding the mildly amusing character songs that made him wealthy ("Sultans of Swing", "Walk of Life", "Money for Nothing") as well as the overtly Dylanesque trickery of "Romeo and Juliet" (still a great song), Knophler attempts to engage in some human understanding. Every British songwriter of the time tried knocking out a tune following the Falklands War and he was no exception. There's nothing here that Siegfried Sassoon didn't put far more elegantly seventy years earlier but it is nonetheless an affecting tribute to young men caught up in a futile conflict. Americans had been dishing out Vietnam War numbers about veterans returning from Southeast Asia only to find themselves spurned by everyone but the troubles in the South Atlantic seemed to inspire Knophler to examine the nobility of British (and, by extension, Argentine) soldiers giving their lives for something trivial. There's nothing dazzling about his guitar playing but his sparse ax solos provide a pained resonance. It probably doesn't matter had it been a single or not (even though I applaud them for having done so given that they had more obvious candidates) as it seems more appropriate as one of those deep cuts that fans come to adore over time. I don't know why we never bothered flipping the album over since there was gold on that second side.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Matt Bianco: "Yeh Yeh"

In addition to Dire Straits, Tully also recommends new records from Hipsway, Tears for Fears and Matt Bianco. What do all these groups have in common? I think it's precision. Attention to detail. Bands influenced by blues, funk and soul with musicians who had honed their craft over years of practice and hopeless gigs. Of course it's impossible to picture the members of the louche Matt Bianco playing working man's clubs in tough industrial towns like Dire Straits but there's a no less dedicated graft. "Yeh Yeh" is an engaging sophisti-pop dance piece that nevertheless feels very thin next to the bleak and stately beauty of the SOTF. If this is the best that mainstream pop had to offer then it's no wonder the kids all began embracing Dire Straits.

Rachel Sweet: "I Go to Pieces"

5 April 1979

"To be played over and over when you're sitting forlornly on your own, and feeling like a good wallow in a lake of tears."

— Cliff White

Well, it had to happen, didn't it? After an impressive four top notch Singles of the Fortnight on the bounce, we were probably due a come down. A pair from that batch are simply outstanding — Blondie's "Heart of Glass", which topped the charts all over the world and is still immensely popular, and Rick James' "High on Your Love Suite/One Mo Hit (of Your Love)", which didn't do overly well at the time and isn't remembered today — while the other two — Lene Lovich's "Lucky Number" and Fischer-Z's "Remember Russia" — are just a notch below in quality but still excellent. In comparison, then, Rachel Sweet's "I Go to Pieces" isn't anything special: a countrified cover version of an inconsequential sixties pop song. Ho-hum.

That's not to say that there aren't elements to admire here. It's actually a marked improvement on the better known version by Peter & Gordon with the duo's typically bland vocals dragging things down quite a bit (composer Del Shannon's subsequent recording is preferred for his customary emotive restraint but it too lacks something). Sweet perhaps doesn't give it an ideal reading but her carefree, flirtatious singing gives the song a spark of life that never existed before. In contrast with Cliff White's observation above, it seems more effective as a record to be played when you're sitting forlornly on your own and feeling like you need nothing more than to get the hell out of that lake of tears you've been wallowing in.

Great break up songs should have their feet in two camps: one to wallow in self-pity, the other to guide you out of it. Grant McLennan and Robert Forster's compositions on The Go-Betweens' superb 16 Lovers Lane (the greatest relationship-gone-to-pot album of all time no matter what fans of Rumours and Blood on the Tracks would have you believe) are drenched in sorrow and contain bitterness and pain but it's also clear that they're going to get through these bust ups — and, by extension, so can we. The heartbreak Sweet's going through has shot her nerves but it's not about to let her curl up in a corner and die. She's tough — she wouldn't be sat on a motorbike in the promotional video just to show off, would she? — and has sass and doesn't care if anyone else happens to see her breakdown at the sight of her ex.

Despite being just sixteen-years-old at the time and hailing from Akron, Ohio, Sweet was part of Stiff, the renowned British record label home to grumpy singer-songwriters, music hall mavericks and so-called "performance artists" — not exactly where you'd expect a promising country singer to land. Still, the pub rockers who were the backbone of Stiff's early period were all country and western fans at heart and it's possible they were after another Tanya Tucker teen star. (And why fabricate a drawling, faux-hillbilly songstress in the UK when you can land a full-formed, authentic one in the US?) Unfortunately, the label wasn't iconoclastic enough to make Sweet truly interesting. Fed a bunch of old pop tunes and tasked with doing her thing, there are good intentions here but with a faint pointlessness to much of her material (she just about pulls off an awkward "And Then He Kissed Me/Be My Baby" medley in 1981). She may have been too young and not at all interested but it's a shame she couldn't have been given free reign on her creativity — not unlike Blondie, Lene Lovich, Fischer-Z and Rick James.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

M: "Pop Muzik"

Some songs sound better in your head than when you sit down and listen to them while others are so much better heard than imagined but few tunes are exactly the same in either state. "Pop Muzik" is one, even if I can never quite get the order of the cities quite right (though I do know it ends with 'Munich' which Robin Scott is somehow is able to rhyme with 'muzik'). Actually not a great song, it is nonetheless a terrific record which sums up the entire history of the rock 'n' roll era while being sonically futuristic. It would be as relevant today as it was then but for the fact that hardly anyone talks about pop music anymore...unless you host a podcast or have a blog or something.

Billy Idol: "Rebel Yell"

11 September 1985

"(well he did more or less invent rock 'n' roll)"

— Steve Bush

Part 2: Billiam Gets Another Chance

"Billiam? Billiam?"

He could sort of make out the gentle voice trying to rouse him but he was conscious enough not to give a toss. Whatever time it was, it was too early to be getting up.

"Billiam," the voice continued. She wasn't about to stop trying so he might as well get up. He knew he could make the task of sending her on her way quick before he could get to more urgent matters.

"Morning," he gurgled, slowly sitting up. Tracey (he just remembered her name!) was getting dressed. She looked lovely in the morning light. He liked waking up to a girl that made him not regret the night before.

"I gotta go baby," she said sweetly, "I gotta be at work in a bit."

"Well, can I get you some breakfast?" Billiam responded feebly. He loved making offers he knew he wouldn't have to fulfill.

"Thanks, sweetie, but I'll get something on the way. Don't get up. I'll let myself out. Call me." She kissed him on the forehead and walked out of the bedroom.

"Right ho," he replied. He wasn't sure if he got her number but it didn't matter since he wasn't going to call her anyway.

~~~~~

Billiam never seemed to make a good first impression, especially with the ladies he was really after. A rock star of some note, he was bound to attract attention but he never seemed to want anyone willing to throw themselves at him. He always preferred the girls who paid him no mind. Girls who seemed above it all. Girls who always seemed to have someplace better to be, meeting far better people. Girls for whom rock 'n' roll glamour meant nothing. (Of course, Billiam also knew that this was just an act: why would they choose to be in the vicinity of fame if they weren't attracted to it?) He respected their supposed aloofness and it made him miss being young in London and having to chase down every opportunity no matter how much of a longshot it was.

Tracey claimed she had been dragged out by co-workers and did the usual "have I seen you someplace before?" routine when she got chatting with Billiam the night before. This was a variation on the same story he always heard: pushy friends or colleagues twisted their arms to go out, they never typically went to nightclubs and they didn't think about trying to meet guys. They never seemed impressed to be in his presence, didn't appear drawn to him in any way and only seemed to be talking to him as if to pass the time in a place they felt uncomfortable.

These girls may not have been taken by him at first but they would slowly come round. Billiam was charming and sweet and always made them feel like they were the only girls that mattered. It just took a little time but they never let him down. They just wanted more, more, more.

~~~~~

He didn't awaken until the early afternoon and only then because the phone was ringing. It  was Glenn, his manager, calling from London.

"It's another flop, mate," Glenn began without a greeting. Billiam didn't reply. "I'm sorry."

"'S aw-right, mate," Billiam responded nonchalantly.

"The record label isn't happy. I'm worried they might drop you."

The conversation continued for a bit with Glenn doing all the talking and Billiam giving token replies. He told his manager that he didn't care and that he'd made America his home and he didn't care what the English thought anymore. He was pretty sure he'd convinced Glenn but hadn't quite been able to convince himself. He knew there was something a bit strange about those British groups who hit big in the States but weren't able to cut it back home. He always chalked it up to Americans taking him seriously while being treated like a joke in his homeland but it still gnawed at him.

Putting down the phone, he got himself ready to head out. A tour was coming up and he had to get started on rehearsals. And he was looking to hit the clubs later.

~~~~~

He invited his touring band out after a productive rehearsal and they readily agreed. Jobbing musicians always knew that one of the perks of backing a popular solo artist was the chance of meeting women. Billiam led the fivesome into the club and they began scoping the joint but the singer made a bee line for the bar. Women would come to him, they figured.

It didn't seem like Billiam was looking around but he knew where everyone was. The women he had no interest in were the easiest to spot: they tended to stick closest to him. Beyond them, he had to check out the groups of friends enjoying their drinks and laughing. There was always one he had his eye on.

He first noticed Layla standing with a group who had given up looking for a table. She didn't seem to mind even as others in her pack kept searching for a place to sit down. Billiam tried not to stare, only glancing in her direction in short spurts. He would have to wait a bit to make his move and decided to get a round in for his bandmates. They weren't having too much luck but as soon as Billiam joined them they began attracting attention.

"I thought you were already with a girl," Larry the affable drummer commented.

"Nah," Billiam dismissed, "there's lots of time for that." Few knew how to play the long game as well as he did.

"Got anyone in mind?" inquired Rick the rhythm guitarist.

"Dunno," said Billiam as he looked around the room, trying his best to seem as noncommittal as possible. He wanted to make sure his chums were spoken for before he made his move.

He eventually approached Layla. She didn't appear surprised that he'd chosen her.

"'Ello. I'm Billiam."

"Yeah, I know. It's nice to meet you."

Billiam was impressed. She wasn't pretending not to know him like the girls he typically chatted up — but neither was she fawning all over him like the girls he didn't want. They spoke for a while and she agreed to have a drink with him. Their conversation continued for over an hour: she asked him about living in America compared to England, where he liked to go on holiday, hobbies and keeping his apartment tidy; he asked her about her job, family, books she's been reading and how she handled the pressures of being an independent woman in the eighties. This was going well and it was just about time to ask her if she wanted to get going.

"Listen, it's been great meeting you but I have to get going," Layla said suddenly. Billiam was surprised but he didn't panic. Girls often pulled out the old 'I gotta go' line but it never worked on him.

"You don't 'ave time for one mo' drink?"

"I'm sorry, my friends are waiting for me. But maybe we'll see each other again." Billiam still wasn't completely worried. As she stood up to go, he gave her a smoldering, 'come hither' look, the kind he had perfected over years of magazine shoots, the kind you could only pull off if it was perfectly natural, anyone who tried to hard wound up looking ridiculous.

"Take care," she smiled, not the least bit moved by his sex appeal. Billiam didn't move as she turned away. That night the members of his backing band all went home with women they met at the club but Billiam headed home by himself. Joey, his doorman, was stunned: he couldn't recall a time when he witnessed Billiam returning home all by himself.

~~~~~

The tour went well and Billiam hadn't lost a step, neither as a performer nor with the ladies. There were women available to him every evening in every city they visited and he usually took them up on their hospitality — it would be rude not to.

His records were also doing well. He now had Top 10 hits in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and he was finally beginning to make inroads back in Britain. Critics who had always been hostile were beginning to warm up to him too. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was a joke back home. It would show them if one of those singles they spurned could make a comeback and prove them all wrong.

Getting back to New York after several months on the road, Billiam was unsure about going to the nightclubs and discotheques. The English pub round the corner suited him for the moment but he was also happy just to lie low at home with mates coming round for small gatherings. There were still plenty of women to choose from and he didn't have to revisit his failure from his previous night out.

"Why aren'cha comin' out anymore, man?" asked his buddy Lance, a restaurateur Billiam had known since first moving to New York four years earlier.

"I been on tour so long and I'm still knackered. It's nice t' be at 'ome, mate," he shrugged his shoulders. "I jus' wanna party 'ere!"

The phone rang. Billiam didn't feel like answering it and didn't want to take the call so he asked his chum Dave to take a message.

"It's your manager," Dave shouted. "He says your single is in the Top 10 in England."

Billiam didn't shoot and scream but everyone could tell he was excited. His mood perked up even though he assured everyone that he didn't care beyond the royalties he'd be getting.

"Come on," commanded Lance, "we gotta go out and celebrate!" Billiam still wasn't in much of a mood but he agreed. He didn't want to spoil everyone's fun.

~~~~~

"Good morning." Billiam awoke to a soft voice. He turned and looked at Layla.

"Morning."

"I had a great time last night."

"Yeah, me too."

"I'm so glad I bumped into you again. I wasn't sure if I would ever see you after our last encounter."

"Oh really?" Billiam asked, pretending not to know what she was on about.

"Yeah, I didn't want you to think of me as a cheesy rock groupie chick."

"Oh, come on love, I'd never think that. You're special."

She offered to make him breakfast but they ended up doing bacon and eggs together. He was going to be sorry to see her go.

Layla kissed him and went to leave.

"Call me."

"Right ho," he replied. He didn't get her number but it didn't matter since he wasn't going to call her anyway.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Freddie Mercury: "Living on My Own"

Part 6: Billiam in the Shadows

Billiam loves rock 'n' roll but he looks down upon a lot of older stars, especially if they stand in the way of his old school punk values. British stars in New York often form cliques but he won't just hang out with anyone, especially if they're older and are coming out of prog or hippie music or pomp rock. Then he meets Tanya, a vivacious girl who kind of digs him but who also seems to favour those hoary old rock geezers that he doesn't care for. She's hoping Billiam might be able to introduce her to one or two legends but he doesn't want them to steal his thunder. Then he remembers an old Queen who just happens to be in town. Can he get a rock god to lend a hand?

Blancmange: "What's Your Problem"

28 August 1985

"Thought this sounded sadly weedy at first, like a poor cross between a dated Abba job and a very old Eno song ("St. Elmo's Fire", actually) but I was wrong. So very wrong."

— Dave Rimmer

Oh yes, Blank Mange: heavy metal veterans from Leeds, still searching for a hit and a national following. Not so much to my taste but I hear their live shows "rock" if you happen to like their brand of boozy power chords and songs about having rumpo with women and all that denim and long, greasy hair. I'd be surprised to be having to cover them in this space but nothing shocks me anymore — except for the Mange themselves.

What's that? We're not discussing Blank Mange but Blancmange? Not manly heavy "rawk" but spiritual synths drenched in exotic Indian instruments? Not dole queue long hairs in need of a wash but a short back and sides cropped duo who burn joss sticks and eat nothing but dal and nan? Not records about chatting up the lady folk over a few pints but meditation and the "mind's eye"? Not invisible scars left on dogs from parasitic bugs but a creamy gelatin dish made in a mould? Oh, that Blancmange!

Dave Rimmer is one of the most prolific critics for Smash Hits but it's been a while since we've encountered him in this space. (He was likely preoccupied by finishing off his outstanding account of Culture Club and the rise of British new pop — Like Punk Never Happened — and a move to Germany; his absence from the pages of the magazine at around this time may go some way to explaining why they had so many damn guest reviewers in early part of 1985) He hadn't "done" the singles in about eight months since he gave Single of the Fortnight "honours" to "Ave Maria" by West India Company. Picking up from right where he left off, he opts this time for "What's Your Problem" by Blancmange. The connection? Both projects were set within the musical vision of Stephen Luscombe, a synth-pop swami.

Never a major act, Blancmange nevertheless did decent business with their first two albums and a succession of singles that included three Top 10 hits. And they weren't just also-rans, even if that's how they may be remembered today. Once you move past major groups like Kraftwerk and the Pet Shop Boys, there's a tendency among synth acts to create superb records that seem anonymous (*cough, cough* Information Society) but Luscombe and vocalist Neil Arthur got past this by squeezing Indian music into their sound. Far from the kind of experimentalism that comes with years in the studio and on the road, this Asian influence was there from the off and is the main element behind what makes them stand out to this day. Their biggest hits featured sitars and tablas and the production and programming have an eye on the Subcontinent. Where other synth acts were fraying or trying to augment their sound with "proper" instruments, Blancmange were doing something new with electronics and it was beginning to catch on not only in Britain but in parts of Germany as well as Canada and New Zealand.

Luscombe's love for all things Indian (to the point of absurdity: in the video for their brave but failed cover of ABBA's extraordinary "The Day Before You Came", Arthur sings of how "there's not, I think, an episode of Dallas that I didn't see", which is either purposely or accidentally sent up by the TV screen showing a Bollywood movie) was such that he got sideman Pandit Dinesh to help him form the on again, off again "supergroup" West India Company. "Ave Maria" didn't sell but it was where his heart lay. His day job became an afterthought.

All that Indian stuff channeled in a side project, Blancmange regrouped with little left in the cupboard. "The Day Before You Came" hadn't been very good but it also managed to set a bad precedent — and it really exposed Arthur's vocal limitations. Thus, "What's Your Problem", a song that seems so much like a law-of-diminishing-returns fourth single off an album that it seems sad to be kicking off their third L.P. It has grown on Rimmer but he probably should have trusted his critical instincts. Sure, the tune is sturdier than you might think but it's also the first Blancmange original to sound so utterly ordinary. I didn't know groups could develop into something so boring. 'Scuse me while I go put on some Blank Mange.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Dream Academy: "The Love Parade"

The follow-up to the surprise worldwide smash "Life in a Northern Town" (a song you either know or just didn't know that you know) and I'm suddenly feeling well-disposed towards "What's Your Problem". I mean, at least Blancmange had a couple good years worth of material and their latest isn't terrible but this? Someone's running out of ideas. "Northern Town" had that ineffable quality of a song that you wake up to on your alarm clock and which stays with you throughout the day but this supposedly naughty account of polyamourous shenanigans leaves the mind as soon as it has finished up. Nothing to see here. (Also, where did Rimmer get his copy from? I can't find any trace of a Dream Academy cover of The Beatles' "Things We Said Today" on YouTube and Discogs doesn't have any record of it either. Strange. UPDATE: Found it! Not much cop for a pretty great Macca composition, is it?)

Rick James: "High on Your Love Suite/One Mo Hit (of Your Love)"

22 March 1979

"All the 'Fs': fabulous, fast, freaky, funky...bamalamalooning along for over seven exhilarating minutes."

— Cliff White

I have a soft spot for the era but even I have to admit that the late eighties have a lot to answer for. Big hair, big drums, big shoulderpads: it's all been critiqued before but one aspect that seldom gets picked over is how it ruined the 12" single. Records that either had no business being lengthened to seven minutes  or had been mixed in such a ghastly fashion or had been "spruced" up by the current dance sound were all guilty of taking a once specialty medium and rendering it lousy and mundane. As a result, I did all I could to avoid the 12": I never bought them and if I happened to purchase a cassette or CD featuring one as a "bonus" I'd torture myself by playing it once before henceforth pressing fast forward or skipping over it.

It hadn't always been this way. Dance music paved the way for extended mixes, first in Jamaica and then once the disco boom took hold in the United States. (It could be argued that the tradition goes back even further to Duke Ellington taking his pristine three minute marvels from the late-thirties and early forties and having his band "extend" them for both the new format of long playing discs and live concert hall settings) Producers, mixers and DJ's began to become stars in their own right and the 12" mix of a single was a good opportunity for them to put their stamp on a record. Paced by cocaine, it also allowed for self-indulgence. But some of the finest disco and funk recordings of the era by the likes of Chic ("I Want Your Love", "Good Times"), Donna Summer ("Love to Love You Baby" and "I Feel Love") and Stevie Wonder (the fifteen minute double act of "As" and "Another Star" that magnificently concludes the second disc of Songs in the Key of Life) perform better in stretched out form and manage to make a mockery out of connoisseurs of pop brevity.

Cliff White reviews the 12" version of "High on Your Love Suite" and doesn't even bother to mention that that there's a condensed 7" mix also available (and this was at a time when the Smash Hits singles review would give helpful info on available formats). Quite right too. Rick James may have been making a name for himself in the US but he wasn't much of a factor in Britain so curious penny-pinching purchasers of singles probably weren't on the lookout for his latest release anyway. At best, the shorter mix would have been an adequate radio-friendly replacement for the real deal. But even that doesn't hide the fact that it sounds neutered next to the more fleshed-out extended version. I don't even like referring to it as "extended" because there's the implication that we have a three-minute tune that's been remixed into something much longer, much the way many subsequent 12" singles would be put together in the eighties.

Opening with a ten second intro that swiftly shifts course, the "High on Your Love Suite" part is a typically thrilling high-octane funk attack driven by a James and his crack band of jazz and R&B veterans. Any song that's about an orgasm being not unlike a coke binge shouldn't let up and it doesn't. Being a medley, the fragments of "High on Your Love" and "High on the Funk" segue so beautifully that you scarcely notice. Funk stars are required to mythologize their style of music and James is no exception but where someone like Bootsy Collins may lapse into gimmickry or self-parody, he stays within its limits while being as flagrant a show-off as any of his George Clinton-Sly Stone-James Brown forefathers.

We then reach the mid-point "break", a still-relentless boogie with a spiraling sax solo, some percussion pyrotechnics and some jazz fusion fretless bass (I was half expecting to see Jaco Pastorius' name in the credits) and Return to Forever spacey synth bits. The original single release includes so-called Eye-Cue programme times (I assume for the convenience of DJs and mixers) but for the average listener it's hardly needed: as I've been trying to follow along, I only find myself caught up in the sounds. Those seven minutes just fly by when you can't stop listening — it's just a shame it couldn't have gone on for longer.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Billy Preston: "Get Back"

The one member of the notorious Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie cast to appear on a Fab Four recording, the umpteenth "fifth Beatle" probably should have known better but at least he lends an expertise that the Gibb brothers and Peter Frampton and George "just pretend to laugh till he goes away" Burns didn't have. Covers by Aerosmith and Earth, Wind & Fire are generally regarded as the two saving graces of such a horrible enterprise but Preston's "Get Back" is faithful and his organ playing rivals that of the original even if it doesn't offer much else. Paul McCartney's charming vocal and John Lennon's sweet lead guitar playing are nowhere to be found which only confirms that while the original "Get Back" wouldn't have been up to much without Preston's superlative keyboard playing, this one is in dire need of the first, second, third and fourth Beatles to join him.

Kate Bush: "Running Up That Hill"

14 August 1985

"It's definitely, um, what's the expression? Uh, er — look, I'll come back to you on this one..."

"Er, amazing? No — too obvious. Uh, hang on a mo..."

"...appetising? No — hey don't go away..."

"...provocative? piquant? tantalising?..."

"...interesting? Yes, that's it — interesting!"

— Ian "Jocky" Cranna

Interesting? Interesting? Well, that's some hefty praise from Red Starr Ian "Jocky" Cranna. Perhaps years of being decencitised to this particular adjective as an ESL instructor (sample teacher-student exchange: "Why do you like horror movies?" "Interesting") leaves me with the feeling that His Nibs doesn't really mean it. Or he's baiting us readers (or "viewers" as ver Hits liked to label the increasing number of young people who shelled out 43p to "view" every fortnightly issue) by using increasingly flowery language to get us to follow along with him to the end of the page only to finish with something so trite. Whatever his intentions, who can blame him? How does go about describing such an extraordinary record as "Running Up That Hill"?

Cranna has put together one of the most "interesting" of reviews this issue. The SOTF isn't in its by now customary spot at the top of the page on the left and it's being presented as if he's going through the records while doing his write up. Early favourites ("God bless Marc Almond!", "God bless Propaganda!", "God bless Shakatak!": he sure wants to keep ver Lord busy blessing moderately popular "stars") are quickly dispensed with, each one failing to live up to Cranna's lofty expectations. Bland offerings from The Thompson Twins and a Mike Barson-free Madness are similarly dispensed with before he comes to the latest single by Kate Bush. "Now this is how to return in style!" he enthuses.

It was quite a return for Kate Bush. A star since her late teens when all of Britain fell for "Wuthering Heights" (and who could blame them?), she began losing momentum with 1982's The Dreaming. Many critics didn't think it was much cop (though David Hepworth reckoned it was rather good, commenting that "it's good to see someone go over the top and come back in one piece"), it didn't sell as well as its predecessors and only one accompanying single, "Sat in Your Lap", managed to "dent" the hit parade. Then, she promptly disappeared. Rumours began spreading that she had fled to the south of France or she'd been using her layover to binge on junk food and had ballooned to two hundred and fifty pounds. Whatever else may have been going on, the dumper beckoned.

Not that that mattered in the slightest to Kate Bush. The Dreaming didn't sell but it strengthened her resolve. While the gossipers were having a field day, she was busy starting her own recording studio and perfecting the material that would return her to the top of the charts and fully establish her reputation as a major figure.

"Running Up That Hill" kicks it all off with clearly her most astonishing piece since "Wuthering Heights". Cryptically singing about gender issues and the need to swap roles, she brings up making a "deal with God" (the song's original title until she was strongarmed into changing it for fear of offending some — possibly some of the very same folk who are always whining about political correctness) to allow the sexes to understand each other better. Fine intentions, of course, but in less capable hands this could be dangerous territory to tread upon, issues having the tendency to overwhelm the songs they're utilized in. Bush being too much of an individualist to make this a feminist lament, she acknowledges not really being able to comprehend being male any better than a man can understand being a woman. She doesn’t expound upon much — just what she’s offering God in this deal, is her beau likely to agree to a sex swap — but what would be a Kate Bush track without leaving more questions unanswered in the end?

Vocals, instruments, production are all tied together beautifully with every detail immaculately thought out. Elements of prog rock, art rock and so-called world music have all been stirred up (Bush’s musical open-mindedness was such that Chris Heath had to admit in his glowing review a month later in Smash Hits that “it’s the sort of record your parents will probably like too and will pinch off you to play”) and talented multi-instrumentalist brother Paddy’s balalaika playing is a particular highlight, giving it the feel of Eastern European peasants digging ditches and cooking up cast iron pots of borscht.

The only problem is that "Running Up That Hill" is almost on its own, with just the gorgeous piano ballad "Under the Ivy" on the record's flip to accompany it. It's a sparkling single but an even better opener to her masterpiece Hounds of Love. Then again, releasing the first cut as a teaser could only have made everyone salivate over what was to come — and they wouldn't be disappointed. Amazing? Appetising? Provocative? Piquant? Tantalising? Interesting? All of those — and so much more.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Woodentops: "Well Well Well"

A London quintet with a musical debt to The Smiths and one Animal Jesus (XTC's Andy Partridge in yet another in-no-way on the nose alias) doing production duties, The Woodentops looked like the next indie darlings when the emerged in the summer of '85. This lot weren't watching Paul Young croon at Live Aid a month earlier. Energetic and raw, "Well Well Well" is good sketch of where they were but it seems a long way off from the superb Giant album they would release a year later. A pity I know what is to come which prevents me from fully enjoying what they've done here but at least they didn't piss their promise away.

Tracie Young: "I Can't Leave You Alone" / Sunset Gun: "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"

31 July 1985

"Brusting brass, thumping piano, Tracie's voice sounding suddenly grown-up and one of those layered intros that gives you just enough time to down a Snowball and leap onto the dancefloor in time for the chorus."

"This is one of those hopelessly romantic ballads you keep in a special pile to play in the dark when you're feeling really down in the dumps."

— Kimberley Leston

So, you're a promising young vocalist with a mentor who is a rather bigger "player" on the "scene", you've guested on his new band's debut single and it did swimmingly and it helped launch your solo career which resulted in a pair of records that made the hit parade. But you're not yet a chart regular and taking risks at this stage is, well, risky. You're in need of another hit single to maintain the momentum.

Or you're part of a trio from up north fronted by angelic-voiced sisters playing the sort of sophisticated, jazzy pop that's popular at the time but maybe you're not quite able to stand out from all those other groups doing much the same thing and your own material might not yet be up to breaking you through. You're in need of a hit single so people might start paying attention.

Sounds like it's cover version time.

"I Can't Leave You Alone" was written by Sunshine Band frontman KC and bassist Richard Finch for singer George McCrae and had been the follow up to his chart topping hit "Rock Your Baby". Not as familiar — though not as outstanding — as its predecessor, the groove-heavy song could be ideal for reinterpretation. Sadly, Tracie Young doesn't lend it much. Where McCrae is smooth and effortless and with just a hint of the stalker about him, Young sounds just happy to be there, her vocal confident but unwilling or unable to add anything. Generic, really. Earlier hits — her backing vocals on The Style Council's "Speak Like a Child", her lone Top 10 single "The House That Jack Built" — have a youthful shine to them but this just seems like boring adult pop.

Still, it's a record you won't be screaming to turn off which is more than can be said for "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart". One of the Bee Gees first recordings following the return of disgruntled Robin Gibb, it may be about brotherly reconciliation but the over-emoted vocals on the original do it no favours. Sisters Deirdre and Louise Rutkowski of Sunset Gun (so named, I presume, in honour of the Dorothy Parker collection of poems) follow suit, their admittedly fine vocals attempting to wreak every last ounce of pain and sorrow out of an already melodramatic song (they would have done better to follow Al Green's much more soulful rendition that actually encourages the listener to care about the singer's anguish rather than wishing he'd stop). They may be doing their best with an awfully wet song but it just ain't good enough.

Kimberley Leston is obviously taken by these singles but few others were, Young's effort only managing a lower entry on the flop side of the charts and Sunset Gun's missing out entirely — with both also offering up proof that a crisp cover doesn't a hit single make. Some originality might be of the order, something unique, something bold, something daring, something that isn't afraid to fail and knows it can be so much more. 

Wait...what's that? It's in the trees...it's coming!

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bryan Adams: "Summer of '69"

Leston does a bit of mental mathematics to try to work out just how old Bryan Adams must be to be doing a song reminiscing about growing up in the summer of Woodstock and Charles Manson. We've all been there. Indeed, "he must be old!" is but one of two theories, along with it really being about the sex act, that listeners come up with when considering this song. We needn't have wasted our collective time. Truth is, old Bry' doesn't put that much thought into his lyrics as these confused verses clearly indicate (he seems to be about fourteen as he's teaching himself how to play the guitar but suddenly one of his bandmates goes and gets married...I know people married younger back then but still). Either way, "Summer of '69" is vintage Adams: a stomper that makes you feel great being alive. Also, a nice reminder of just how great Bryan Adams was before he became such a parody of himself.

Fischer-Z: "Remember Russia"

8 March 1979

"Dr. Who meets future shock victims in the scarred wastes where radioactive debris rains on mankind."

— Cliff White

It was still a couple months prior to John F. Kennedy's famous "We choose to go to the Moon" speech but the launch of the first Telstar satellite in 1962 was a key moment in the Space Race. Having been embarrassed by the Soviets with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin (and even Laika), the first NATO-friendly communications satellite was a coup and was probably even looked upon favourably even by those who considered lunar travel a waste of time and resources. We were now upon an era of instant communication, even if the mail remained slow and it could take months or even years for a pop hit to cross the Atlantic.

Just twelve days later, nutcase genius producer Joe Meek gathered with his wards The Tornados to record "Telstar". As extraordinary as its namesake, it is three minutes of instrumental surf rock with effects that still dazzle, particularly with its distinctive use of the clavioline. Though obviously futuristic, it retains a charming primitive quality and one can practically see the string holding up the spaceship as it hurtles its way through space. The music wasn't made by computers, it was cut and mixed by dour men in lab coats and, indeed, so too were the shuttles being sent out to orbit the Earth. Rather than being built by robots or 3D printers, they were very hands on projects with music critic Neil Kulkarni observing that last year's fiftieth anniversary footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing showed a ship that was very "Blue Peter".

If we then jump ahead to the late seventies the landscape has altered. Space exploration has been culled, the glory days of space rock — from The Byrds' "Mr. Spaceman" to Pink Floyd's "Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and on to all kinds of prog rock nonsense — have been and gone and, yet, machines are beginning to take over as man becomes redundant. Young children had Star Wars figurines to maintain the illusion but to many technology was showing its ugly side and it wouldn't be for another three or four years as families began buying up home computers and VCRs that the average citizen could at least be placated by a sense that they were getting something out of it.

This void of progress leaving everyone behind is the backbone of "Remember Russia" by Berkshire group Fischer-Z. This being 1979, it's tempting to take the skeletal reggae, hyper-dramatic vocals and tight, choppy group performance as being not unlike The Police, albeit with the added attraction of an unsettling organ as an add on. Repeated listenings, however, begin to expose the differences. Where Sting could never quite remove tongue from cheek, lead "Fish's Head" John Watts means every word he sings. I've belittled earnestness in the likes of Jim Kerr but here it works well. Watts refuses to spell out the incidence and one YouTube comment helpfully points out that "this song is amazing and has real meaning to those that understand" but even that misses the point. You don't have to have lived through some sort of technological wasteland to feel moved by this song. When Watts screams "damn those satellites to hell!" you're right there with him.

It's easy to take "Remember Russia" on face value, that it's a diatribe against Communism and the planned economy, but there's nothing to suggest that's what Watts had in mind. Instead, I propose that he's arguing that the Soviets place little value on human life and, while we in the West are meant to be against everything our Iron Curtain counterparts stand for, it's beginning to spread throughout the world. Tech is leaving us all behind and we're even letting it happen. We're now more than forty years on from then but this is still relevant, if not more so. And it still sounds great. Maybe it's every bit as futuristic as "Telstar".

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Joe Jackson: "Sunday Papers"

Wags didn't know what to do with disco and punk but at least they had pub rock that they could wrap their heads around. Elvis Costello and Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe and Graham Parker & The Rumour: they all wrote classic pop-rock with just enough chords and they all had humour. Joe Jackson never quite fit in with this lot but he got lumped in with them all the same. More strident and with a knack for taking empathetic situations and making you side with whoever did him wrong, he churned out some great but unlikable tunes over the years. "Sunday Papers" is a prime example: nicely played and sung (assuming you can stomach Jackson's voice) but with an undeserved smarminess, like that guy on Twitter who makes hackneyed observations but is convinced they're original thoughts. And for all his bluster about press, I'm sure he's right there with them when they go on about the nanny state and how political correctness is the greatest blight currently facing humanity.

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.