The Jam: "Absolute Beginners"

15 October 1981

"And if Paul Weller's lyrics won't see him installed as poet laureate in the next fortnight, they should at least help him grace the charts till his current supply of pocket money runs out."

— Fred Dellar

Poet laureate, Fred? Really? I mean, I love me some Weller — The Jam's Greatest Hits was one of the key albums in my musical explorations, I adore The Style Council and I even have plenty of time of much of his solo career — but he's hardly the first pop scribe I'd consider for the position. While there are poets who have used nonsense in order to craft their verse, at least it's possible to make out the nonsense; it is not so easy with Weller. His delivery is so fast, his enunciation so muddied that it is near impossible to make out what he is saying.

No one in pop has as many mondegreens as Paul Weller. "With my Cherry Coke, walls come tumbling down..." is a personal favourite of mine but there are dozens of them spread out over his lengthy career. Yet, "Absolute Beginners" isn't flush with them since it's damn near impossible to make out anything he's singing about at all!

1980 had been The Jam's year. They had two number one singles and released the critically acclaimed album Sound Affects but by far the clearest sign that their popularity had gone through the roof was the success of "That's Entertainment", a deep cut that they refused to issue as a single in the UK. Copies of the West German release were made available in Britain and sales were strong enough for it to nearly crack the Top 20. (It doesn't appear to have done anything in Germany at all: it must have sold more on import than domestically) That's an imperial period for you.

Yet, there wasn't much of an attempt to capitalize on their popularity. 1981 was a relatively quiet year with just two non-album singles following "That's Entertainment". Any new product would have been in demand but the chart performances for both "Funeral Pyre" and "Absolute Beginners" must have been a bit disappointing. While both peaked at a solid but unspectacular number four, they followed the path of the single that was only being snapped up by loyalists: they entered high, lingered for a couple weeks in the Top 10 and then promptly fell off.

The last time I blogged about this one I felt the need to point out (repeatedly) that Fred Deller failed to notice The Jam's change of direction but I now recognise that there's no way he would have detected much of a shift with just one new single to go on. Weller had been upfront about his debt to the sixties from the moment The Jam emerged back in 1977 (something that immediately set them apart from the punks, who were all doing a feeble job pretending that the swinging decade didn't matter) so using a section was no different than covering The Kinks or stealing basslines from The Beatles. Speaking of the Fab Four, the in unison horns give way near the end to a "Penny Lane"-esque trumpet solo. As was the case with the bulk of their post-"Going Underground" work, this tune is awash in the sixties.

Brit-funk and new wave-influenced soul were on the rise in the UK in the early eighties. Spandau Ballet were coming along, ABC were about to drop but this first shot of black music to emerge from Weller was not coming from the same place as these bands. The dual force of Joy Division and Chic presented whole careers for several British groups but Weller was far too much of a mod with Motown and northern soul records to have much in common with them. (He would eventually find the connection with the proto-baggy "Precious" which was an effective tails to its co-double A-side "Town Called Malice", a song that did for "You Can't Hurry Love" what the 1980 single "Start!" did for "Taxman") Contemporary influence was all well and good but it would never outstrip 

The song's Wikipedia page mentions that record label Polydor would have preferred to have "Tales from the Riverbank" as the A-side with "Absolute Beginners" demoted to the flip. Notably, there's a [citation needed] mark accompanying it and it's easy to see why. While it isn't quite one of their prime singles, there's no question that it had the far greater commercial potential of the two. Weller's B-sides seemed to exist in a world divorced from his current interests and obsessions and "Tales from the Riverbank" is one such example. The title might seem like a bouncy number by his protegees Ocean Colour Scene but it's abrasive, the product of The Jam continuing to follow their post-punk path from Sound Affects and "Funeral Pyre". It isn't exactly hook-filled either. Nope, I call bullshit on this claim.

It would be a slow year for The Jam — though they did tour a fair amount, even if their North American venues weren't exactly Shea Stadium (not that there's anything wrong with playing the Ottawa Technical High School Auditorium) — but a crucial one as they entered their final stage. While Dexys Midnight Runners had been soul revivalists, The Jam were dealing with yet another part of the past to put forth a case for their future. I just wish I didn't have to check the lyric sheets every time I give them a listen.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Associates: "Message Oblique Speech"

Oh, so Weller should be named poet laureate forthwith but The Associates "spin out seemingly nonsensical lyrics"? At least we're able to make out Billy Mckenzie's nonsense. Yet, Dellar isn't wrong. David Bowie was known for 'cut and paste' lyrics but Mckenzie seemed to take the practice a step further by doing so with multiple songs all at once. The production is rough, the music raw but the Mckenzie-Rankine partnership was already flourishing. They were mere months away from the pop charts but "Message Oblique Speech" and "Party Fears Two" might as well be separated by regime changes, world wars and the shift from silent films to digital. Talented folk operating on a shoestring: just think what they could accomplish with a pile of record company money?

(Click here to see my original review)

EMF: "I Believe"

9 January 1991

"Forest of Dean's biggest — nay, only — pop personages follow up "Unbelievable" with another just-back-from-the-rave-up classic."

— Caroline Sullivan

As a fourteen-year-old I thought that EMF were clever. Dead clever. They had first become popular with "Unbelievable" and then they eventually followed it with "Lies". Finally, they completed the trilogy with "I Believe". See what I mean? They had shown skepticism, had determined that everyone else was full of shit and then professed that in the end there were truths that they believed in. They couldn't have planned the release of their first three singles better. Clever, clever, clever. (And even cleverer four years later when they did a cover of The Monkees' "I'm a Believer" along with Vic Reeves, who we'll be encountering in this space before long, and Bob Mortimer, who we won't)

Only later did I discover that this was not the order in which they came out. "Unbelievable" — seemingly the only song of their's anyone remembers anymore — did indeed arrive first but it was "I Believe" that followed it into the UK Top 10. Then "Children", a track I had only known as a deep cut until very recently, gave them their third hit single. It was only then that "Lies" came out as the diminishing returns began to take their toll. In North America we got "Lies" right after "Unbelievable" which led me to believe it had been that way back in Britain.

"Lies" had been a key track on EMF's debut album Schubert Dip. While others, particularly my fellow North Americans, had only got the CD for "Unbelievable", I was pretty heavily into the whole thing for a short period. (I got it from my sister for Christmas; by February I had lost interest in it in favour of The Wonder Stuff's Never Loved Elvis even though I hadn't given up completely on "Epsom Mad Funkers") I had heard that early copies had been deleted due to the use of Mark David Chapman quoting from the opening lines of John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" ("People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing. They give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin...") which Yoko Ono had objected to. It was, therefore, much to my surprise that the forbidden sample was included on my disc as a lead in to "Lies". The song was already unsettling enough but to have it open with the ghostly, southern drawl of Lennon's assassin made it even more disturbing. Yet it was gripping for me at the time. Its piano part is house-influenced (in fact, it's probably nicked from a rave tune) but for it to appear on a deeply disturbing indie record was something I had never experienced before. ("Fun" fact (those inverted commas are doing some awfully heavy lifting): "Lies" would soon lead me towards reading J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and, eventually, Albert Goldman's The Lives of John Lennon, both due to curiosity surrounding Lennon's killer and his obsessions)

But I only stayed for "Lies"; I came for "Unbelievable". While fellow Canadian youths undoubtedly heard it as a white boy reaction to hip hop, for me it was the next logical step in Madchester. EMF weren't directly associated with baggy groups like The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays but from my vantage point across the Atlantic they seemed like much the same thing: dance music with guitars — or, better yet, guitar rock with a DJ along for the ride. Everyone I liked was into "Unbelievable" and everyone I hated loved it too. We may have loved it for different reasons but at least there was a detente.

So, their first single hooked me and the second made me such a committed fan that I would eventually purchase EMF's second album Stigma (it's all right or at least it was all the way back in early '93 when I last gave it a listen). But "I Believe" slipped through the cracks somewhat. "Lies" had piggybacked off of the success of "Unbelievable" but the momentum wasn't strong enough to eek out a third hit in Canada and the US. But even as a young fan, it was a song that failed to make much of an impression as I got into the album. For one thing, expressing that they were not nihilists didn't do them any favours in my book as an angsty teen. More importantly, it was too much of a poor cousin to "Unbelievable". Obviously inferior but not even distinctive enough to lend them credibility. It was as if they knew they couldn't possibly ever follow their breakthrough hit and decided to phone in some shit that was kind of like it but nowhere close to as addictive or appealing.

Finally, it should be mentioned that this is the first singles review from 1991. Veteran pop critic Caroline Sullivan made her debut "doing" the singles in ver Hits and she proves to be right at home alongside your Chris Heaths, William Shaws and Sylvia Pattersons. (It only begs the question why she was bothered being at the Melody Maker for so as long as she did) Making her maiden voyage easier is the loaded selection of singles she had to deal with. Eschewing the notion that January is a dead month for new releases, some big names are on board here. Very few have their best material on offer but that's beside the point. 

Some were longtime chart favourites while others were emerging but the majority in either case were just about done. Rick Astley was back (and soon to be gone again), Gloria Estefan had returned from a horrible bus crash injury to a pop scene that had used her convalescence to move on from her, Bananarama had left the Stock Aitken Waterman stable but managed to sound tied to them more than ever before. The Go-Go's had returned with faculties intact and raging but hardly anyone remembered them anymore. Brother Beyond had just enjoyed an American breakthrough but the decision to go in the direction of a boy band doing new jack swing wasn't going to help them in the long run.

And yet, the new blood didn't have it any better. Vanilla Ice's novelty had mercifully vanished. Lindy Layton had milked her success from singing on Beats International's "Dub Be Good to Me" a year earlier but the udders were now dry. Oleta Adams' "Get Here" remains magnificent (it would've been my co-Single of the Fortnight along with the number below) but she was even more unable to follow her smash than EMF were with their's. Ultra cool acts A Tribe Called Quest ("Seriously, isn't rap getting a bit boring?") and Pop Will Eat Itself ("Pretty good, really": I beg to differ) had breakthrough hits with their offerings but how far were either of them going to go? As for Maureen, who? (Fun fact which is a good deal more fun than the supposed fun fact above: every act reviewed this fortnight by Sullivan had at least one Top 40 hit in Britain at some point which must be a first)

And back to EMF (I know I said "finally" about three paragraphs ago but bear with me). The Madchester urchins were all pushing thirty so it must have been nice to see some young groups take up the mantle. There's always room for some thrilling, youthful pop and EMF were the right sort of act to provide it in '91. It couldn't hope to last but at least they weren't as insufferable as fellow English alt-dance-rockers Jesus Jones, another younger group but one that seemed ready and willing to enter a premature middle age. I'm very happy to report that we still haven't had to deal with them in this space.

Yeah, about that...

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Queen: "Innuendo"

Whenever I think that Queen are massively overrated a song of their's comes along to remind me that they did have their moments. Operatic hard rock was their specialty which ensures that "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Somebody to Love", "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "Innuendo" are probably the best songs they ever did and I can give or take the rest. (All right fine, "You're My Best Friend" is a banger as well but that's it!) '91 looked to be yet another good year for Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and the other two: "Innuendo" gave them a number one smash and the album of the same name repeated the feat the following month. By the end of the year, however, Mercury's death would overshadow everything else, quickly rendering this single a forgotten gem. One that is definitely worth revisiting from what is still an overrated band.

Jimmy Somerville with Bronski Beat: "Smalltown Boy (1991 Remix)"

12 December 1990

"Most hits of old don't usually benefit from the twitchy hands of a second (or umpteenth, in some cases) going over. Sometimes, as in this case, a tune does triumph over a fairly pointless remix."

— Marc Andrews

1990 draws to a close with a barely remembered remix of a classic eighties' pop song. A bit of an anticlimactic way to finish off a year? Possibly but it is all too appropriate as well. It is the tenth Single of the Fortnight to be either a reissue, a remix/re-recording or a cover version — and that's not including Salt-n-Pepa's "Expression", which would go on to be remixed in order to give it further chart life, and FAB featuring Aqua Marina's "Stingray Megamix", which was crafted in the spirit of DJs tinkering with samples and the like. Looking to recall the fresh sounds of the early nineties? Don't go flipping through the singles reviews in Smash Hits from this time.

But things weren't any better on the charts. Of the seventeen UK number ones that year, four were covers, four more were reissues and one relied heavily upon the bassline of a familiar chart topper from nearly ten years' earlier. Yes, there were cutting edge artists out there but clearly the public weren't all that keen: they had loads of old stuff to be buying — and boy did the record companies who were gearing up for the 1990 Christmas rush know it. In addition to this 1991 remix of "Smalltown Boy", Marc Andrews has plenty of other shenanigans to deal with. Megamixes from Black Box and the cast of the 1978 movie Grease were just crying out to be reviewed as well as the pointless Robert Palmer medley of Marvin Gaye hits "What's Going On" and "I Want You". Somehow or other, two of these records did well (the one by Black Box didn't) so there was an appetite for such stuff.

Not that all that many purchased this one, even though so many did the first time round. "Smalltown Boy" had first emerged in June of 1984 and it must have seemed like a sure-fire number one smash. Unfortunately, its rightful place was denied by Frankie Goes to Hollywood's unstoppable "Two Tribes". (It was even kept from the runner up spot by Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" which was clinging on) The charts were loaded with quality at this time and so for Bronski Beat to get into the Top 3 with their debut single was no small accomplishment. Jimmy Somerville's falsetto was so affecting that it gave them a big hit all over the world, except for in the US where hints of it being a gay rights anthem likely turned off radio station programmers. 

Somerville's career took off even after he left Bronski Beat. He quickly teamed up with Richard Coles to form The Communards, another highly successful synth-pop group. While they would go on to have a number on with "Don't Leave Me This Way", they were never able to top "Smalltown Boy". I've written before that The Communards were more in their element when they were doing cover versions than when they tried to go political but Somerville more than made up for it with "Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)". Although only a Top 30 hit in early 1990, it proved to be his finest gay rights anthem since "Smalltown Boy".

He was only in Bronski Beat and The Communards for short spells and had just one solo album under his belt but the decision was nevertheless made to put out a compilation. While I'm less keen on the likes of Bryan Ferry (he's guilty of trying to make his solo career appear to be on an equal footing with that of Roxy Music) and Sting (just sad) doing so, this is an instance in which I can understand putting out a greatest hits that mixes material from both group and solo artist. It's also a fine collection, ruined only slightly by a lousy cover of The Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody". Bronkski, Communards and Somerville albums are hit and miss affairs but they all had their moments on 45.

Not on The Singles Collection 1984/1990 is this remix of "Smalltown Boy", yet it was still released as a single to promote it. Andrews is so pleased that (a) an old favourite is back (BACK!!) and (b) it has only been remixed and not canabalized into a ghastly megamix he doesn't even bother mentioning the altered credits. If 'Jimmy Somerville with Bronski Beat' seems akin to issuing "Yesterday" by 'Paul McCartney with The Beatles', ver Hits only makes it that much more grievous by marking it down as a straight up Somerville solo outing. While relegating Bronski to a guest star role is unfortunate, the pop kids of the early nineties were more likely to flock to a product with Jimmy's name on it than an outfit that had become a bit of a relic.

Speaking of which, fellow eighties' pop veterans ABC had issued their first compilation album earlier that year. Titled Absolutely, it brought together their dozen Top 40 hits along with a few remixes. One of them was "The Look of Love". A highlight of their still remarkable Lexicon of Love album, it had been re-jigged into a depressing and tuneless mess. The group did not sanction its remixing and were said to be against its inclusion on Absolutely but record label priorities won out. The single failed to chart mostly because it sucks something awful.

It was perhaps with this disaster in mind that ace synth-pop producer Stephen Hague was commissioned to give a tasteful update to "Smalltown Boy" for the Somerville comp. The drum machines are sharper and Hague has transformed it into more of a floor-filler but the essence of the song remains. Unless you play it and the original back-to-back you probably wouldn't even notice the difference. The worst I can say for it is that it sounds like "Smalltown Boy" had it been recorded in 1990, rather than in '84. And this is the how the best remixes succeed: they may have been touched up by a producer and/or DJ but they retain what made them great all along and even manage to sound like the group or artist behind them could have recorded them in their remixed form.

"Smalltown Boy (1991 Remix)" only just hit the Top 40 for a couple weeks during the dead post-Yuletide period. It deserved better but at least it didn't spoil the original for everyone. And it would be followed by an equally nice remix of Soft Cell's eighties' classic "Tainted Love" which was done along much the same lines: a synth-pop producer at the helm (in this instance it was the great Julian Mendelsohn) to make sure that the life wasn't sucked out of it with just some subtle additions. It was even released to promote Marc Almond's compilation Memorabilia. A pity we won't be encountering it in this space as we dive into '91. Oh well.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Righteous Brothers: "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"

"If it's not a megamix or a remix, it's a re-release!" cries an exasperated Andrews. "Really, readers, just what are they playing at, eh?" "Unchained Melody" had been memorably featured in the Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore pic Ghost and it promptly became the biggest selling single of the year. So, why not give The Righteous Brothers' true masterpiece another try too? I'm not the biggest Phil Spector fan in the world but he sure hit it out of the park on "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling". While I'm more than satisfied by the remix of "Smaltown Boy", I'm glad they didn't bother updating this brilliant record. Why mess with a good thing — even if that's what everyone else was doing at the time.

The Police: "Invisible Sun"

1 October 1981

"These are the goods! After the most hypnotic intro of the week (Sting takes a leaf out of Bryan Ferry's book), the song develops the kind of creamy propulsion that might give psychedelia a good name."

— Ian Birch

Given that Sting would go on to compose "Every Breath You Take", "Russians" and "Shape of My Heart" and considering he rarely looks especially pleased with himself, you might assume that Gordon Sumner was always something of a grumpy old git. And, let's face it, that's probably what he always has been. Yet, there was a time when he knew how to play the pop game. While The Police were hardly the youngest act around, they took to promoting videos of themselves right from the beginning. They may have been the new wave act with the most baby boomer appeal but they weren't above appearing on the cover of Smash Hits.

But this wasn't to last. "Invisible Sun" commences their much more serious period. "I think it's your job to refine yourself out of existence," Sting told Mark Ellen in this fortnight's issue of ver Hits. Where the trio would normally prance about merrily in front of an airplane or lumber about awkwardly in the snow, in this instance they are barely visable. Black and white images of Belfast at its bleakest with just silhouettes, barely recognizable close-ups and snippets of their instruments being the only trace of The Police themselves. "[The video] is a rather crude way of saying 'forget about us, forget about three blonds, and just try and listen to the images that the song's about".

I as previously wrote, there is some debate as to which conflict inspired "Invisible Sun". The video obviously suggests Ulster which was something that British audiences could identify with. (The single didn't receive much attention outside of the British Isles; in most countries it was passed over in favour of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", which even Sting conceded was the more "obvious" hit) Drummer Stewart Copeland had been raised in Beirut and he considered it to be about the Lebanese capital. For my part, I live in the southwest corner of Korea and the first thing I think of is the nearby city of Gwangju and what its citizens went through in the spring of 1980. 

When the Korean military entered the city it was ostensibly to quash demonstrations by university students. Had hundreds of twentysomethings been the victims this would have been outrageous enough but there were children as young as five and people in the eighties who were among the dead. Government propaganda labelled protesters as North Korean sympathizers so is it any wonder troops felt that those they were going after were, in Sting's words, "not 'people' anymore, so we can kill them". This invisible sun should have brought hope to the citizens of Gwangju while renewing the humanity of those who entered the city and mowed people down with bullets. This is far too much to ask of a song but it is the fleeting sense of hope that is what matters.

The current day issue that "Invisible Sun" addresses is the Russian invasion of Ukraine but there is also the genocide of the Uyghurs in China and Iranian women protesting their country's repressive regime. Even the issue of trans rights applies as conservatives try to paint them as groomers. When music buffs talk about songs and albums being "timeless" I'm not sure "Invisible Sun" being relevant to stories in the news forty years on is what they have in mind. But this is probably the only truly accurate way that a record is able to age well. It is timeless because the message is needed regardless of time.

"Dammit, Sting, sing about something that matters for once!" This was something I wrote the last time I blogged about this song. He put his melodic talents to good use on a hit-and-miss selection of earlier Police singles ("Message in a Bottle" is great,"Don't Stand So Close to Me" is all right and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" is balls) but his lyrical skills were mostly wasted. "Invisible Sun" ended up being a breakthrough for him — and something he took with him into his hugely successful solo career. While other groups lose something by going serious, it was when they began touching upon issues that The Police began to come into their own. Women may have always swooned over Sting's brooding good looks but he didn't really become the Sting of rainforest conservation, Tantra and "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" until he stopped writing with his mind on the "man in the factory floor" and began the search for "something else".

In truth, however, Sting never really bettered "Invisible Sun". The song is simply too good that even someone of his abilities couldn't quite deliver a similar triumph. It has never seemed especially 'psychedelic' to these ears but maybe that's because it's so phenomenal that it avoids comparisons of all kinds. I used to think that I never knew that The Police had it in them but now I'm just grateful that they got it out for us to be touched by it as we live in a world in which its lyrics never fail to ring true.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Toyah: "Thunder in the Mountains"

Few have been redeemed in recent years as much as Toyah Willcox. It would be nice to say that her music has been given a long overdue reappraisal but that is not the case. It was those charming home movies that she and hubby Robert Fripp posted on Twitter during the last two years of Covid that did it. And good for them. Her music isn't really to my taste but "Thunder in the Mountains" is about as strong a record as she ever cut, her voice only somewhat histrionic, the music propulsive as it guides her along. If any Toyah single deserved to be a big hit, "Thunder in the Mountains" was it. I'll never be much of a fan of either Toyah or The Police but their attempts this fortnight are as close as I'll ever get.

(Click here to read the original review)

F.A.B. featuring Aqua Marina: "Stingray Megamix"

28 November 1990 (with more highly unfunny remarks here)

"It's like that Thunderbrids record, isn't it?"

— Timmy Mallett

"I didn't know Eddie the Eagle had a TV show!"

This was my initial reaction to Timmy Mallett. Surely one bespectacled irritant with no discernible talent is enough for the British. But for all the many things I love about pop culture in the UK, they never quite mastered the art of finding tolerable people to host TV programs. At best, I was indifferent to Bruno Brookes and Simon Mayo hosting Top of the Pops and had nothing against Philip Schofield and Andy Crane because none of them made me cringe. The rest all seemed to do so — but none quite like Timmy Mallett. (Mercifully, I have no memory of the vile Jimmy Savile despite the fact that a run of Jim'll Fix It episodes were shown on Saturday evenings on BBC1 in the first part of 1989; I suppose we were too busy taking weekend trips during that period to bother tuning in to a predatory sex offender granting wishes to children) I was eleven-years-old back then and I still had a fondness for childish things but even I knew that this guy was intolerable. I made sure to avoid his show Wacaday from that point forward.

That first encounter with Mallett on the telly was probably in September of 1988, right about the same time that I first saw old re-runs of Thunderbirds. The expressionless puppets flying around in planes brought back fond memories for my dad who suggested we watch it for a bit. It was good fun but kitschy and I quickly guessed that if you've seen one episode you've seen them all. Thunderbirds are cool but I didn't need to see them again: I wouldn't turn them off if they came on the telly (it wasn't bloody Wacaday with Timmy bloody Mallett for god's sake) but I didn't seek it out either.

We would return to Canada after a year and I didn't give Timmy Mallett or Thunderbirds a second thought — until I discovered that they had both improbably become pop stars. Both jumped on the bandwagon of the era's sixties' revivalism. Mallett teamed up with Andrew Lloyd Weber under the name Bombalurina for a cover of the 1960 Brian Hyland smash "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" while a faceless unit under the name of F.A.B. put together a techno mix of theme song "Thunderbirds Are Go" with additional samples of dialog from the show. It's still difficult to figure which of the two climbing the charts was more unlikely though I will say that Aloysius Parker, Lady Penelope and Jeff Tracy all possessed oodles more charisma than Timmy Mallett — and their record wasn't nearly as terrible.

Nevertheless, that "Thunderbirds Are Go" isn't great. A lot of TV shows from the sixties had iconic themes but Thunderbirds wasn't one of them. What it did have was catchphrases, something that DJ's had already been exploiting in remixes and their own records. Bomb the Bass' breakthrough house hit "Beat Dis" is littered with Thunderbird references. Those blokes behind F.A.B. were astute enough to realise that they had the source, though it is possible that younger listeners might have assumed that they had been ripping off from house music rather than the other way around.

Probably because I never considered Thunderbirds to be anything more than all right, I never knew that the show spawned an empire of animated puppet programming, all of it from the brain of creator Gerry Anderson. Stingray might now be regarded as an underwater Thunderbirds but it actually predated its much more famous cousin by about a year. Watching it now on YouTube, I don't find there's a lot of difference between the two but you've got to think that British kids in the sixties found jets and space crafts far more enthralling than a submarine. But while one series left an imprint and the other disappeared, there's no question which of the two had the better theme tune.

It's no surprise then that "Stingray Megamix" is fun single, even for someone like myself who never watched the show. It could easily be the the theme to a sad reboot of the original and it would doubtless have been the highlight of it. The F.A.B. organization decked out previous singles "Thunderbirds Are Go" and "The Prisoner" (they even did theme songs with actual people in them!) with far too many DJ effects but they are kept to a minimum this time round. Rather than being a dated remnant of the nineties it was a good time period piece tribute to a sixties throwback. Timmy Mallett was certainly a prat but he didn't pick such a bad Single of the Fortnight.

Thunderbirds have been revived over the years, often to a distinct lack of success. By contrast, interest in Stingray has been minimal ever since its sixties' heyday. Thus, a single consisting of its theme song with added dialog would not have been in demand and its very modest chart performance reflected that. But at least "Stingray Megamix" wasn't harmed by modern trends: Captain Troy Tempest and Aqua Marina aren't given embarrassing updates like poor old Aloysius "MC" Parker in a hip hop track suit and baseball cap turned to the side. Thunderbirds became a victim of its success but Stingray remained unsullied in its obscurity.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Aztec Camera: "The Crying Scene"

Shameless right wingers like Timmy Mallett really like to tell everyone what pop music should be like. (Perhaps Roddy Frame had his own vision of it as well but who was asking him back then?) Apparently, it's "out of date to be political in your songs" and that "pop music should be entertaining, that's the prime thing". Leaving his nibs' own enjoyment of this single aside ("If I was still a DJ I'd be playing this"), the politics in "The Crying Scene" are clearly subtle enough that one could dig the tune without giving a toss about Frame's opinions on the state of the world. (I mean, we're not exactly talking about Rage Against the Machine here, are we?) Oddly, Mallett expresses admiration for Aztec Camera's previous hit "Good Morning Britain" which wasn't without a political bent of its own. Sadly, it failed to make the Top 40. As Frame sings in this very song, "you only get one hit": he deserved far more.

Madonna: "Justify My Love" / MC Tunes: "Primary Rhyming"

14 November 1990

"And the video will no doubt be riddled with sauciness and we'll probably never get to see it. Hmf."

"Tunes himself sounds as menacing as usual, and as usual you can't make out a word he's saying but who cares when he comes out with tracks as vicious as this one?"

— Miranda "Boon-Eh" Sawyer

Two new releases in this issue of Smash Hits came with arty black and white videos that my mum would describe as "racey". One of them includes a gentleman naked right down to his bare ass going for a swim, a couple getting up to all sorts of capers in a bubble bath and another amourous pair getting it on outside in the rain, their bodies covered in leaves and dirt but not in any clothing to speak of. The other has a narrative of a troubled woman wandering about in a hotel corridor who quickly gets seduced by a handsome fellow. Only one these promos was deemed unfit for TV and it wasn't the one featuring pools and baths and rain. Everyone was upset about Madonna's "Justify My Love" while no one seemed to care about Pet Shop Boys' "Being Boring". Curious.

Sex and nudity in music videos has long been issue — and one that has long been beset by double standards. George Michael's supposedly controversial short for "I Want Your Sex" is surprisingly free of titillation yet it ended up being censored. Meanwhile U2's promo for "With or Without You" managed to escape the wrath of the prudes in spite of shots of a naked woman. But it was in 1990 and '91 that this reached its peak. Not much of a fuss was made over Chris Isaak's vid for "Wicked Game" which made prominent use of a clothing-deprived Helena Christensen. In Canada, Francophone singer Mitsou got into some trouble when she and some models disrobed for her hit "Dis-mois, dis-mois". Not only did people get way too upset about some pop videos but they managed to do so in such a maddeningly selective fashion. In the early part of '91, Canadian music video channel MuchMusic did a panel discussion centred around Madonna and Mitsou that only mentioned Pet Shop Boys in passing and failed to bring up Chris Isaak at all.

It should go without saying that the release of a new Madonna single was an event. This wasn't always the case — I don't recall anyone being excited by "Hanky Panky" hitting the shops the previous summer — but it certainly was at the tail end of 1990. Not only did "Justify My Love" come with a very naughty video but it came out to promote The Immaculate Collection, her hotly anticipated greatest hits set. While new tracks off a best of are generally unremarkable, the sort of recording that artists fart out with minimal effort since it's intended to be tacked on to a compilation that is meant to sell like crazy either way, but to Madge's credit, she certainly tried to do something new in this instance. (Not so much with the other new track, the forgettable "Rescue Me" which shouldn't have been good enough for inclusion since "Who's That Girl" and "True Blue" both got left off)

"Justify My Love" is the kind of single that is better as a concept than as a listening experience. Madonna had long been a sex symbol and I like the idea of her throwing it all back in the face of her critics with such a steamy recording (and, indeed, video). Played once, it's a startling experience but on subsequent listens it just sort of glides by. The Immaculate Collection is full of hits that my generation had grown up with and it's only right that she would do something so explicit at a time when we were also getting interested in sex. With AIDS panic all over the place, it was also refreshing to hear someone crying out for a good, hard shag. It just ain't much fun to listen to. Not a blot on her discography but by no means a highlight.

Thus, the ultra pervy Madonna had arrived. She had already exposed plenty of skin in the "Express Yourself" video a year-and-a-half earlier but this was a whole new level of sexual naughtiness. The Truth or Dare (aka In Bed with Madonna, a much better title even if it was also a shameless rip off of In Bed with Chris Needham) documentary would come along the following year, as would her notorious Sex book. She looked to be going family friendly with her appearance in the women's baseball movie A League of Their Own but that was swiftly followed by the Erotica album and her starring role in the pitiful Body of Evidence. Once formidable, now a bit of a joke. But she'd be back — possibly even in this space though that remains to be seen.

But hey, isn't Madonna clever?

~~~~~

Meanwhile on the fully-clothed end of the spectrum, MC Tunes is Miranda Sawyer's other Single of the Fortnight. Given that they've already taken home SOTF honours on five occasions (with at least one more to come!), I'm not terribly upset by the injustice of denying Pet Shop Boys. Sure, "Being Boring" is their finest moment and it buries both "Justify My Love" and "Primary Rhyming" (not to mention everything else on offer here, even the worthy contender below) but I will say that Sawyer is correct in one sense: it never had to be a single and is better off as an album cut. "So Hard" aside, Behaviour is an LP that might as well not have any 45's culled from it. Fans adore it but Sawyer's indifference was reflective of the public's reaction to it. It only just limped into the Top 20, ending their streak of Top 10 hits going all the way back to "Suburbia" in 1986.  

"Primary Rhyming" isn't up to much, even by Tunes' modest standards. "The Only Rhyme That Bites" (pretentiously credited to 'MC Tunes vs. 808 State'; apparently dance and hip hop artists don't collaborate so much as they are in a fight to the death with one another) was a pretty nice stab at that early-nineties lightning-fast rap style with some seriously scary 808 State production work backing it. The novelty wears off quickly and it's distracting the way he gasps for breath between lines but it was potent for a time. Tunes and 808 slowed things down considerably for follow-up "Tunes Splits the Atom" but that only gave away that he was a third rate rapper and that they had better things to do on their own (or "vs." UB40). Two singles in an everyone was already sick of him.

A good thing, then, that he doesn't factor much into "Primary Rhyming". The pointless 'vs.' credit was done away with but replaced by 'MC Tunes presents...', an acknowledgement that he was stepping aside and let others annoy the public with their raps rather than his. Oh Paul, don't be such a bitch! Okay, let me say that the first part helmed by 'The Microphoness' (aka 'The First Mancunian Lady; "snatching the title from Modom Vera Duckworth", as Sawyer amusingly notes) is rather good. She handles herself well, finding her way around a rap with an easy, effortless style. Had she not wound up on such an otherwise useless record she might well have had a chance at a recording career of some note. Sadly, much of "Primary Rhyming"'s running time is taken by a very youthful, very horrible Dewiz. Young boys never rap well and he proves to be worse than normal. Somehow, he returns for more near the end, with The Mircophoness not heard from again (she must've ducked out of the studio as soon as she heard who'd she be guesting with). Tunes himself only pops in for a twenty second appearance midway through. Sawyer may well be frightened but I am disinterested by the results. The appeal of MC Tunes was narrow enough but having some youngsters spell for him clearly wasn't helping.

You know what? Forget it. Sawyer made a huge mistake passing up on Pet Shop Boys' "Being Boring". That song kills. It's like "In My Life" only more mature and individual. I wish I could have been blogging about it this week. I could've even gone into how much the video turned me on, especially the couple rolling around in the rain. Hmf indeed.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Farm: "All Together Now"

Lad culture was just starting and the football terraces were being phased out so I suppose it makes sense that it never occurred to either The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays to create an anthem for mobs of youths to sing along with. A shame since the indie-dance of baggy was suited to just such a number. Luckily those silly sods The Farm were there to pick up the slack. I wonder if everyone who has chanted it in stadiums and in pubs in the thirty-plus years since has realised that it's about First World War troops laying down their lives in no man's land. Then again, football players all about sacrifice so they're no different than canon fodder at the Somme, right? All kidding aside, "All Together Now" is a stirring tune that does its job as well as can be expected. Amazingly, it didn't soundtrack an international tourney until the horribly boring Euro 2004; Greece improbably won by putting their opponents to sleep but at least there was a great song to sing while welcoming Rooney and Ronaldo to the scene. And, alas, bidding a fond farewell to Luis Figo.

Bob Dylan: "Lenny Bruce"

17 September 1981

"There can be few people in any walk of life who are getting a worse press than Bob Dylan. No-one ever has a good word for him; mainly, it seems, because of his religious views."

— Tim de Lisle

Bob Dylan has spent the bulk of his sixty years as a recording artist being praised as a genius spokesperson of his generation while also being trashed for changes in style, unexpected creative u-turns and the odd time he misspoke. Some of his fiercest critics also happen to be some of his biggest fans. Part of getting into the man involves dealing with some ghastly compositions, poor production work and an acceptance of the fact that there's no way to like all of it.

So, Tim de Lisle's observation about Dylan's evangelical Christianity being the main source of people's derision to his Bobness is missing something. Had he not found the Lord some three years earlier, fans would've surely found something else to howl with protest over. Had he not subjected secular audiences to nothing but devotional material then the press would've found other avenues with which to crap all over him. Dylan couldn't win except for the fact that he was Dylan and had been winning all along.

It may not have been apparent at the time but Dylan was moving away from Christianity by 1982. Shot of Love was the third of his religious trilogy but it was the first to include material with no connection to Jesus. I previously wrote in this space that it was his evangelical material that was much more convincing — with, as I have said before, "Every Grain of Sand" the  stand-out — and I stand by this but with a minor caveat: in "Lenny Bruce" he expresses a sacredness hitherto unheard since his conversion.

I'm still not a big fan of this song. I hated its inane lyrics like "never did get any Golden Globe awards, never made it to Synanon" then and time and maturity haven't warmed me to them in the last four years. I observed that the "whole thing reads like random jottings" and I suppose I wasn't wrong considering he admitted to having written it in five minutes. It's safe to say that the Bard didn't put his usual amount of care into this piece.

Still, the gospel influence makes it one of the more devotional works of the era. If Dylan did achieve peace and contentment after joining the Vineyard Movement he didn't express it through the medium of his songs. His passion had returned but he seemed angrier than ever. It was only when paying tribute to a foul-mouthed, drug-addicted Jewish comedian that he could demonstrate a loving, charitable side that, notably, he seemed incapable of giving even to Christ.

Which just goes to show that while Christianity was able to rescue him from the depths of despair and self-loathing, it wasn't destined to be a long-term priority in his life. It was at around the time of Shot of Love that Dylan began to re-introduce old favourites of the non-devotional variety to his live shows. "Lenny Bruce" represents him trying to reclaim that same territory in his freshly recorded work. To make it about a figure who was at his peak while the young "Song and Dance Man" was on the rise is of no small significance.

But who is he alluding to with the line "more of an outlaw than you ever were"? Is he attacking himself for being a middle-class boy who dressed up, affected an accent and fooled the patrons of every New York City cafe by pretending to be a rebel from the old west? Even if he had once been an outlaw in his youth, he was now over forty, a millionaire and had been cramming Jesus down the throats of everyone who paid good money to see him: hardly the kind of behaviour befitting a fugitive from the law. 

And this is where we begin to see a return to the Dylan of old. He had always run away from the 'voice of a generation' tag with songs such as "All I Really Want to Do", "Mr Tambourine Man" and "My Back Pages" (it's a cliche I know but my interest in Dylan is intrinsically linked to The Byrds) address his desire to be regarded as an artist rather than as a spokesperson. With "Lenny Bruce" he informs his audience — a good twenty years too late if should be noted — that the real deal had been there all along while they had been following a false idol. Bruce better represented all those things that they had seen in Dylan. "It Ain't Me Babe" was something he tried explaining to his fans all the way back in the sixties; and now in the eighties he was gently reminding them that it still wasn't him.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Depche Mode: "Just Can't Get Enough"

A supposed classic of the eighties but I'm not sure what it has done to deserve this status beyond the annoyingly memorable chorus. Then again, de Lisle doesn't consider it to be as memorable as predecessor hit "New Life" (how does that one go again?). Vince Clarke's final single with the group (he must not have had his imminent departure in mind when he composed it), the Basildonians were getting the remnants of pure pop out of their systems so they were able to move towards darker material in the years ahead, which would be a welcome change. Leaving their old sound behind to those with a better grasp of it was for the best since repeating the words 'just can't get enough' ad nauseam does not a great pop song make. As Patrick Humphries famously summed it up in his review in the Melody Maker, "I can, you will".

(Click here to read the original review)

Oleta Adams: "Rhythm of Life"

31 October 1990

"You may well remember this rather sweet, mystical, pulsating ballad from then and wonder why it wasn't successful then, because it's such a delightfully simple tune it deserves to be ginormous."

— William Shaw

Vanilla Ice. The Little Mermaid. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Gazza. Prince struggling with (gasp!) trying to be original. Old indie faves doing more bangwagoning. Younger acts going through the motions. No bloody wonder William Shaw is so taken by some good old soul music this fortnight. Low on flash but about as far from novelty pop as one could hope to get.

Oleta Adams is one of those struggled-until-most-of-us-would've-given-up stories that pop is surprisingly low on. It has long been said that rock is a young man's game, even though such a concept is now laughably out-of-date. She was already pushing thirty when she released her debut album which only received attention around Kansas City where she had been based. Her income came playing clubs in her adopted hometown. One night she was performing at the Peppercorn Duck Club at KC's Hyatt Hotel before an audience that included Roland Orzbal and Curt Smith of Tears for Fears. The rest would've have been history but success wouldn't arrive for another four years.

Ver Fears returned in 1989 with "Sowing the Seeds of Love", a song that owed at least as much to XTC's offshoot project The Dukes of Stratosphear than it did to The Beatles. While some pretended to feign indifference, it was and remains a splendid single, every bit as good as "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" or the now more ballyhooed "Mad World". The Seeds of Love album was strong but it didn't have anything that could follow its flagship record. Yet, the duo had a hidden gem that the world needed to acquaint itself with.

"Woman in Chains" was the group's second single from The Seeds of Love. Orzbal and Smith had their difficulties during the album's recording sessions and Smith looks like a disinterested sessioner in the song's accompanying video. Seemingly much more a part of the group is singer Oleta Adams, there to make an accomplished but moody tune that much more accomplished and moodier. It only did modestly on the charts compared with its predecessor but the guest had nevertheless turned in a star-making performance. She was promptly signed up by Tears for Fears' label Fontana.

Somehow or other solo success would continue to elude her. As William Shaw notes, this is a second crack at the Top 40 for "Rhythm of Life". (It would eventually make a belated appearance on the UK charts, albeit only just, at the end of 1995) While it did deserve to be "ginormous" (or least "gi-medium-ish"), I can understand why the public took a pass — and, indeed, passed on it again. Her vocal chops are outstanding but the production and arrangement are understated. Its four-and-a-half minutes could glide by with potential listeners scarcely noticing. I've been playing it on a regular basis this past week and sometimes I barely notice much beyond that fabulous Adams voice. Some tunes get stuck in your head the first time you play them but this isn't one of them.

Orzbal co-wrote and co-produced it but his stamp isn't apparent. I suppose this is noble of him since he doesn't steal the spotlight from the singer. He pops up in the video but only briefly, not quite cutting the figure that Adams had in the "Woman in Chains" promo. If you weren't aware of his involvement, you'd never guess from the results. 

As a vehicle for her astonishing voice "Rhythm of Life" works very well but as an overall pop song it is merely quite good. Superior to any of the detritus Shaw was tasked with evaluating but not nearly as magnificent as "Woman in Chains" or the song that would break her all over the world. The hit she had with Tears for Fears was slow and grand and that was just the sort of thing she needed to give her a smash of her own. "Get Here" proved the perfect choice. A stately slow song, Adams' delivery is perfect as she refrains from using the sort of vocal gymnastics that were becoming popular at the time with the likes of Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Whitney Houston. You could ignore "Rhythm of Life" but there was no ignoring the follow-up. So very ginormous.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Gazza & Lindisfarne: "Fog on the Tyne"

The tears hadn't yet dried from his penalty kick failure at the World Cup and already everyone must have known that Paul Gascoigne was going to translate his sorrow into pop stardom. What I didn't guess correctly was who he'd be working with. Ailing in terms of potential new recruits, Stock Aitken Waterman seemed the logical place for Gazza to have ended up. Instead, he opted to collaborate with Lindisfarne (a band with a name that could only have played (a) metal, (b) folk or (c) worse yet, a mix of the two) who hailed from his native Newcastle. (Oh why didn't he go with Prefab Sprout instead?) A celebration of the northern city, his nibs does the predictable thing by knocking "London town". He was aware that he was still under contract to Tottenham at the time? "They'll spur you out..." may or not have been a a dig at his current side, their perpetual underachievement and their fickle fanbase. All would be forgiven, however, had his pop record been any good but it was anything but. Gazza can't rap, can't sing and his Lindisfarne chums contribute almost nothing. Jimmy Nail has never been this wan.

Happy Mondays: "Kinky Afro"

17 October 1990

"At least they're thieving stuff with a bit of humour."

— Robert Smith

By the autumn of 1990 I had become a full-on Anglophile. My TV viewing was made up of Coronation St, Home & Away (an Aussie soap but one that I first encountered in Britain so it was close enough) and any British sit-com new and old that I could find. I drank tea everyday, wore my Tottenham Hotspur and Norwich City scarves regularly and began reading Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole novels. And the music I listened to was almost entirely from the UK.

There were, however, gaps. I have still never seen an episode of Only Fools & Horses, imported British chocolates were prohibitively expensive and as a result were only consumed at Christmas and The Stone Roses somehow completely passed me by until I sought them out in 1995. I also lacked context for what was going on. I didn't have access to Smash Hits (I now wonder why I didn't get a subscription but the thought never occurred to me at the time) which ensured that I'd be permanently out of the loop. When baggy emerged it took time working its way across the Atlantic. I suddenly became aware of a whole new generation of indie guitar bands and I figured they all came packaged together. If it now seems odd putting Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets (a group who have never come close to prompting me to want to dance) under one umbrella, Madchester had become even more of an odd ball assortment when they were teamed up with Candy Flip, Jesus Jones, EMF, Blur, The Beloved and even The Cure.

While most acts put out remix albums because of record label pressure, Robert Smith and whoever else happened to be in his band at the time seemed to do so as an artistic statement. Mixed Up came out that fall and if it is "complete bandwagoning" as Smith admits, at least they did so in a timely manner. Like most remix LPs it isn't very good, consisting mainly of extended mixes that fail to add anything to the originals. The highlights are new track "Never Enough", which is as baggy as they ever got, and a Paul Oakenfold reworking of their 1985 single "Close to Me".

Smith must have been happy with the results as he nearly made it his Single of the Fortnight in his second go at reviewing the new releases for Smash Hits. I suspect that not wanting to be seen as a total prat prevented him from doing so. Instead, he goes with Happy Mondays and their latest offering "Kinky Afro". Where The Cure busy were doing their "bandwagoning", Smith praises ver Mondays for sounding "refreshingly unlike [their] and it hasn't got that "Manchester beat" on it".

This is the third SOTF for Shaun Ryder, Bez and the rest which reaffirms that 1990 was their year. It wasn't quite an imperial period (while "Step On" and "Kinky Afro" would both become big hits, their remix of "Lazyitis" failed to grace the Top 40; album Thrills 'n' Pills and Bellyaches got a lot of critical acclaim but it failed to top the charts) but impressive nonetheless for a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who hadn't sniffed a hit single prior to a year earlier. While there are a small number of singles and albums from that year that I prefer, no one better represented the first year of the nineties like the Mondays.

As I have previously mentioned, there was a lengthy gap between the Top 5 success of "Step On" and the release of their third album. More acid house/indie rock rave ups were expected of them (which probably goes at least some way to explaining the failure of "Lazyitis") but the Mondays were surprisingly musically diverse in their own warped fashion: they weren't about to try to master one sub-genre when there were several more they could butcher in their own unique way.

Smith makes note of Ryder's memorable "yippie-yippie ey-ey ay-yay-yay" in the chorus being nicked from Labelle's classic seventies' hit "Lady Marmalade" (even if he initially thinks it came from Sister Sledge) and this something that older listeners would have been aware of. To those of us of a more tender age it wasn't borrowed at all, it was something new and cool. Now it seems cool that they chose to pinch a bit of nonsense from an R&B trio that dabbled in funk and glam rock.

"Kinky Afro" proved to be an apt opener to their breakthrough album. Are you expecting loads and loads of Madchester beats? Look elsewhere. But if you want something grubby, loutish, sexy, moronic, funny and wise? This is the place. It was also an effective single to move them away from the baggy scene. Who knows which direction they were going but it was certain to be someplace mad and unique.

While it doesn't have quite the thrill of "Step On", "Kinky Afro" is still an ace number in its own right. Robert Smith is impressed that they returned with something so unexpected and this is a quality that few would credit Happy Mondays with. All ten tracks stand out on their own but it manages to be an effective taster for Thrills 'n' Pills and Bellyaches because it opens up listeners to a host of possibilities, not unlike the way "Taxman" got The Beatles' Revolver going. 

Meanwhile, I had grouped all these indie dance bands from Britain together when most of them had nothing to do with one another. In my isolated world, Madchester was alive and well throughout 1991 and '92, the groups that were using hip hop influences or were Shoegazers or were ushering in the Britpop era or were typically classified as 'grebo' were in my mind all extensions of baggy. And I think I proved correct because very few of them had anything in common beyond being unruly youths with crappy haircuts and bad clothes — and that's precisely what Madchester had always been. As Brian Eno said, only 10,000 people bought the first Happy Mondays album but everyone who did grew a mushroom cut, dropped acid and formed a band.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Seal: "Crazy"

The man who sang on Adamski's "Killer" didn't get a featured artist credit but being on one of the singles of the year must have raised his stock. "Crazy" was nothing like its predecessor but vocalists venturing out on their own have put out far worse. Smith doesn't give it all of his attention, his thoughts diverging to crapping on rap and Adamski's "bloody ugly" dog, with only the observation that it sounds like "half the groups in the charts" being directed at the song itself. Surely Seal's voice alone gave it a fresh air, right? It sure seemed like a might good record at the time but the singer's subsequent move towards more mainstream pop has undermined it a bit. He could do well to go a little crazy himself from time to time.

Ian Dury: "Spasticus Autisticus"

3 September 1981

"Personally, my flesh crawls each time I hear him shout "I Spasticus". And it hurts so good."

— Pete Silverton

I last blogged about this Single of the Fortnight way back in May of 2018 when VER HITS was just over a month old. I have to admit that I didn't really know what I was doing at that stage and it shows. Basically, I read Pete Silverton's review a couple of times, I listened to "Spasticus Autisticus" repeatedly and I took a look at the song's Wikipedia article: my piece on it just sort of wrote itself. Looking at it now, I have to say that it isn't one of the more hopeless posts I've made on this blog. I like that I related the disabled supposedly being patronised to the then-current issue of Me Too but I made the mistake of not looking into it a bit more. It might have helped had I flipped through this very same issue of ver Hits, one that included an interview with Ian Dury. How did I manage to miss it?

Titled 'Body Language', this feature is a single page spread which includes the lyrics to "Spasticus Autisticus', a short write-up by Mike Stand and a photo of his nibs. In addition to Dury himself, Stand also speaks with Carolyn Keen, press officer for the International Year of the Disabled People campaign. While the singer is said to have been critical of the IYDP, he doesn't express such feelings here. Instead, his target is people who fail to see the humanity in the inflicted. Dury relates meeting a fan backstage with cerebral palsy who happened to be well educated. People judged him on his condition, failing to see that there could be a thoughtful, sensitive person inside. This, more than Dury's bad leg caused by childhood polio, spurred him into composing perhaps the greatest song about having a disability.

The single caused offence in some circles. DJ's didn't want to have anything to do with it, which no doubt aided its chart failure. As Keen told Stand, "I would have thought the thing for radio stations to do would be to play it and then ask whether it was offending anyone and if so why?" As this quote indicates, the IYDP was supportive of Dury's statement. They understood that it was about how the public should "judge on my abilities, not my disabilities". Yet reaction to it was so poor that the single would end up being quickly withdrawn.

Those who were offended and those who didn't get the chance to hear because of those who were offended ended up missing out. Dury's creative spark was on the wane with the soon-to-be-released album Lord Upminster a disappointment. The eighties wasn't as receptive to a music hall punk, though it should be noted that he was never exactly a hit machine even when he was at his peak. While "Spasticus Autisticus" might have nabbed a spot somewhere in the Top 75, sufficient airplay would not have guaranteed that it would have joined "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick", "What a Waste" and "Reasons to Be Cheerful Part 3" in the Top 10. The public had always been selective when it came to the chief Blockhead — "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" must have missed the charts because it was also deemed too offensive — and this was no exception.

In a way, this is vintage Dury. That facility with words, that louche English charm, that penchant for shifting from one style to another: all are present and correct. But this is a protest song, something that "Billericay Dickie" was not. As Silverton notes, it's harder edged than anything he had done in a long time. If he was a minor national treasure in Britain (something that I brought up the last time), he wasn't languishing in that Sid James-Michael Parkinson cheerful entertainer to the masses mode. His "courage and bull-headed determination to be himself at all costs" was put to the test in a song that laid everything painfully bare.

Not many are able to take such graphic content and turn it into something so thrilling and listenable but that is one of Dury's more underrated qualities. It's just such a shame that very few had the opportunity to give it a listen. Luckily, it has since been given more recognition. It was even performed at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. I previously wondered what Dury, who passed away back twelve years earlier, would have made of this but I suspect he would have approved. An important statement about accepting disabled people for who they are got had an audience of thousands in a section of the proceedings appropriately named 'Empowerment'. That says it all.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

OMD: "Souvenir"

I was crushed when I decided not to include my thoughts on the shimmering loveliness of "Souvenir" the last time I blogged about "Spasticus Autisticus" so I am very pleased to be doing so this time round. Silverton seems to think it's a bad thing that the "futurist gag [has gone] lush life" but that's exactly what's so wonderful about it. If he thinks OMD were becoming too precious, I would have liked to have seen his reaction to the coming deluge of McCluskey and Humphreys tunes about Joan of Arc. In any case, "Souvenir" is absolutely brilliant and sign that they were on creative roll that would eventually result in one of the finest collections of singles in eighties pop. There are a lot of strong singles reviewed in this issue but "Souvenir" is the only one that gives "Spasticus" a serious challenge.

(Click here to read the original review)