Bruce Springsteen: "Hungry Heart"

13 November 1980

"Taking it that Dylan can be temporarily listed as AWOL in Heaven, I rate Springsteen the greatest living and active rock artist."

— Mike Stand

"Bobby said he'd pull out, Bobby stayed in

Janey had a baby, there wasn't any sin

They were set to marry on a summer day

Bobby got scared and he ran away..."

"Spare Parts" is a track on Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel of Love, a masterpiece of love gone sour and loneliness. It isn't one of the albums highlights but it isn't mere filler either. For one thing, it's a welcome rocker in the midst of all these bleak acoustic guitar strums and/or synth wails. It's also nice to hear something that isn't first-person derived ("Spare Parts" is followed by the folksy "Cautious Man", the only other track that uses a narrative of other lost souls instead of Springsteen himself). It was an unlikely single — though beyond "Brilliant Disguise" there wasn't much chart potential for any of Tunnel of Love's dozen songs — and only performed modestly. It wasn't even released in the US where Born in the USA had resulted in a ridiculous number of hits, a feat that its predecessor couldn't come close to replicating.

"Spare Parts" is about a young couple and how each reacts differently to an unexpected pregnancy. Bobby is a coward, a rogue ("Bobby heard 'bout his song bein' born, swore he wasn't ever goin' back") and a loser. He doesn't Walk Like a Man. Janey's situation makes her despair and she seriously considers pulling an "Ode to Billie Joe" in order to rid herself of the child she has to care for. Instead, she ends up discarding remnants of her life with Bobby and  winds up with some "good cold cash" from the pawnshop. Her story is unresolved from there but the implication is she's going to be strong and that she'll raise her infant son to be more of a man than Bobby ever was. What goes unacknowledged here is that old Bobby had a Hungry Heart. After all, everybody's got a Hungry Heart.

Bruce Springsteen was already over thirty when he finished recording The River, a double album of maudlin reflections and balls-out comedy rockers — as well as a great deal in between. I don't know if it's many people's favourite Boss LP (the popular picks are Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska and Tunnel of Love) but it is perhaps the most representative of him. It was initially going to be a single disc known as The Ties That Bind until Springsteen changed his mind at the last minute. Manager Jon Landau suggested expanding it to encompass more of the diversity of his work and that's what eventually happened. Philip Larkin would put a great deal of care into how his collections of poems would be sequenced — "I treat them like a music hall bill: you know, contrast, difference in length, the comic, the Irish tenor, bring on the girls" — and that is not unlike how The River took shape.

Would-be title track and Heartland anthem "The Ties That Bind" opens the first disc in much the same way "Badlands" kicks off 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town. But it's the album's second track that indicates changes have been made. "Sherry Darling" is one of Springsteen's most engaging rockers and it must tear the house down whenever he performs it live but it is also funny. To have the earnest and painfully sincere Bruce Springsteen singing about being fed up with having to drive his irritating mother-in-law down to the unemployment agency every Monday makes for a refreshing change. The trope of the nagging in-law was probably more amusing then than it is now since it had been such an established as sitcom fodder. Members of Springsteen's E Street Band cheer and holler The Boss as he spins this yarn and it's as if they recreating the casual, good-natured vibes of The Beach Boys Party album.

Having "Sherry Darling" appear so early on The River turned out to be a canny move for Springsteen. The album's twenty cuts didn't necessarily need to be taken seriously even if some still did. The remainder of the first side of disc one is a return to a more straight laced Boss with the imploring "Jackson Cage" and the desperate "Two Hearts" and once the lovely closer "Independence Day" is done, it's time for a palate cleanser. Side two's opening track doesn't quite do the job as effectively as "Sherry Darling" but it does provide light relief.

"Hungry Heart" doesn't have to be taken as a lighthearted number but that's how I've always heard it. I will always remember how jarring it was the first time I listened to the album because of his voice. ("Is that even him or has another E Street Band member taken over the vocals for once?") He sounds younger and his throat is far less ravaged than normal. It's almost pure which makes the narrative easier to swallow. Oh, and about that narrative: there isn't much of one. As Mike Stand himself does, the song's opening lines ("got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack / I went out for a ride and I never went back") are often quoted because (a) it's so gloriously wrong and (b) it's the only thing anyone remembers of it. For such a popular Springsteen tune, it sure is lyrically slight. That said, it displays one of the finest recorded performances of the E Street Band with everyone in top form and raging.

It was famously supposed to be for the Ramones, which is yet more evidence that "Hungry Heart" is much more of a comedy number than it may appear. While it's hard to imagine the sneering Joey Ramone singing it at all, there's no way he would have taken as anything but a joke. And he would have been right to. Springsteen could have done with treating it a little less seriously.

None of this is to condemn "Hungry Heart", only to make a case that it's lighter than it's typically thought of. Springsteen wrote far more convincing songs about unsatisfied souls dreaming of better lives for themselves than one with some glaring contradictions. In a way, it's a number that isn't quite sure of itself. It doesn't completely convince as a song of a restless soul and neither does it engage nearly as well as "Sherry Darling". Bruce could occasionally be guilty of trying to be all things to all people in his songcraft and that's what's going on here.

Theory time: "Hungry Heart" and "Spare Parts" are about the same couple. If this is the case, Bobby comes out of it looking even worse. In "Spare Parts", he's a character that Janey and their infant son are best rid of; in "Hungry Heart", he makes a rather feeble case for being such a free spirit: there's something inside of him that makes him crave the road but we aren't meant to understand why. I guess it just goes to show how Bruce Springsteen was still improving as a songwriter. By the time he got to Tunnel of Love, no one could touch him — not even the earthly/heavenly Bob Dylan.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Devo: "Whip It"

There was something so utterly cool about discovering Devo for the first time. To find out that there happens to have been a group of nerds who wore flowerpot hats and did creatively oddball tunes is revelatory at any age and at any time — and that's before even getting to their outstanding music videos and their still-brilliant and original concept of wrap-around themes for their home video releases. The world is a much better place for having Devo as a part of it. That said, I'm more than twenty years out of university and their music no longer has that same thrill as when I was younger. Everyone should have a Devo period even if they end up outgrowing it eventually. "Whip It" is indeed great but it just doesn't sound the same as it used to. But I'm sure that's at least as much on me as them — if not much more so.

Dusty Springfield: "Nothing Has Been Proved"

8 February 1989

"It's been written and put together by the Pet Shop Boys and it's extremely slow and moody and is a bit of a "grower" (i.e. everyone declares that it's "useless" the first time they hear it then change their minds pretty sharpish)."

— Chris Heath

At the conclusion of a lengthy piece in the Smash Hits Yearbook 1989, Neil Tennant is asked how they foresee the future of the Pet Shop Boys when they finally wind up going down the dumper:

"Everyone thinks it's a joke but it's serious. The Pet Shop Boys will carry on, but we'll stop being the front men. Instead we'll change the line-up every year or so — suddenly there will be four sixteen year old boys as the Pet Shop Boys and the next thing you know they'll be replaced by two thirty-five year old Elaine Page types. We'll be fed up with it all by then so we'll just write the music. We'll be able to spend our time doing nice things like going to bed early. We won't have to have our photograph taken or be asked why we're called the Pet Shop Boys. We can just make the records. And make lots of money."

It has now been nearly a third of a century since this article was published and the Pet Shop Boys of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe remains. The Pet Shop Boy Band has yet to materialise and neither have the Pet Shopettes. If they didn't quite crash into the dumper, then they certainly witnessed their popularity begin to tail off over the course of the nineties though their aging fanbase remains loyal enough that their great-to-indifferent albums still sell well and they're a strong concert attraction. (Not bad for a group that once described themselves as "not a live band, really" while on tour) Their back catalog is one of the most admired in British pop. They've even written a musical together.

Yet, composing for others has always garnered more mixed results for the Pet Shop Boys. They've written for Dusty Springfield, Liza Minnelli, Tina Turner and Kylie Minogue albeit in rather forgettable fashion and they have wisely saved their best material for themselves. The relatively trivial "Heart" had originally been earmarked for Hazel Dean and, later, Madonna but in the end it wound up on their second album Please with a remix of it giving them their fourth UK number one hit. "One in a Million", a deep cut from 1993's Very and theme tune to long-running South Korean sketch comedy show Gag Concert, had an eye on rising boy band Pet Shop Boys Take That. Even those tracks they gave away to others were generally better when done in one form or another by the pair themselves.

"Nothing Has Been Proved" is a special case for the Pet Shop Boys because it hadn't been composed with anyone in particular in mind and wasn't even initially intended to be used in a film. Tennant wrote it on a guitar in the seventies when he was a struggling young musician and the song languished as his prospects began to take off after meeting Lowe and then hooking up with Bobby O. The group became interested in film soundtracks and had even been approached with the possibility of doing a Bond theme. While Norwegian pop group A-ha would go on to do the theme to The Living Daylights, they remained interested in doing film work. (Disappointingly, they didn't bother recording any fresh music for the soundtrack to their own cinematic project It Couldn't Happen Here) Producer Stephen Wooley then requested a song from them for the film Scandal about the Profumo affair of the early sixties. How serendipitous that Tennant already had such a song.

(Critics frequently cite Tennant as one of pop's great purveyors of irony but few give him credit for his historiography, perhaps in part due to the relative obscurity of these numbers of his. "Nothing Has Been Proved" is a rare case of one of his historical songs receiving the prominence of a single; "Jack the Lad" and "Don Juan" were both B-sides while "My October Symphony" and "Dreaming of the Queen" were deep cuts. All, however, remain firm fan favourites)

In an age when politicians will not step down from their positions under any circumstances (at a time, ironically, of supposedly rampant cancel culture) it's hard to believe that the Profumo affair was such a big deal. Conservative member of parliament John Profumo had been engaged in an extra-martial tryst with nineteen-year-old Christine Keeler. The Tory Secretary of State for War was asked about it and he denied any involvement on his part. His lie was exposed and it ended up bringing down the government of prime minister Harold MacMillan. All of this happened but it isn't what "Nothing Has Been Proved" is about; what we have, instead, is individuals on the periphery whose names weren't in the papers as much — if at all — and aren't remembered but who were affected by this scandal all the same. At least one took much more of a fall than the names that were on everyone's lips.

In a way, "Nothing Has Been Proved" is Tennant's equivalent of The Smiths' "Suffer Little Children" from the group's 1984 debut album. Both songs recount shocking events from the sixties, one a political scandal, the other a series horrific child killings. Tennant and Morrissey were just kids themselves when news of these events broke and it's natural to assume that they didn't really understand what was going on. Whispers, rumours, stuff they each heard on the playgrounds of their schools. Obviously its impossible to compete with the sorrowful content of "Suffer Little Children", in which Morrissey identifies with the innocent victims, but "Nothing Has Been Proved" has pathos in its own right. While Moz quotes Myra Hindley's infamous line "whatever he has done, I have done", Tennant doesn't bother repeating the famous words of Keeler's friend Mandy Rice-Davies, "well he would, wouldn't he?" and opts for quoting from Stephen Ward's suicide note instead ("I'm guilty till proved innocent in the public eye and press"). Most importantly, the two songs give a voice to those who aren't able to speak for themselves but who we should be trying to remember.

Chris Heath alludes to the song's peculiar nature of name-dropping people that hardly anyone knows but it's one of its most beguiling elements. I've never seen Scandal but I know a bit about the affair and so I have a vague idea who 'Christine', 'Mandy' and 'Stephen' are; as for 'Vicki' and 'Johnny', I haven't the faintest idea, though I guess the latter was played by Roland Gift of the Fine Young Cannibals (there's a clip of him shooting at someone or something in the video just as Dusty utters the line "Johnny's got a gun" so I think it's a safe assumption). But, again, these aren't celebrities, they're ordinary people caught up in something extraordinary. Profumo would end up getting hounded out of political life but he would live long enough to witness his rehabilitation. Keeler and Rice-Davies would be tabloid fodder for years but they both lived to their seventies and had families. Ward ended up committing suicide on the eve of being sentenced for the crime of "living off immoral earnings". (Profumo and others paid those "immoral earnings" but they all somehow got off scot free) By using their Christian names, Dusty Springfield is passing rumours about them on to those of us listening, making all of us culpable.

One part of the song that has always stood out for me is the repeated reference to The Beatles, a line that either captures the mood of the times or intrudes upon the narrative, depending on how I'm feeling. "Please Please Me's number one": it is said to be about the Fab Four's debut album which had been dominating the LP charts but I'm convinced it's really about the single of the same name. Not technically a number one, it had nevertheless topped several unofficial charts and would have been widely accepted as a number one regardless of singles chart rules. More importantly, it was rumoured to be about fellatio, with John Lennon supposedly promising a fair and equitable exchange of head. Buttoned-down, gentlemanly English society was being rocked by a pair of beautiful call girls and a quartet of Scouse lads, all of whom were from humble backgrounds. All of this is appropriate to consider within the context of the song but it is used twice which feels a bit lazy and what's it even doing there among all these references to 'Mandy' and 'Johnny' and 'Stephen in his dressing gown' anyway?

So, I've gone this far without mentioning Dusty Springfield which is simply unforgivable. She was pushing fifty by this time (Heath notes that she was "quite a lot older than Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan put together") but her voice still oozes that same mix of lust, melancholy and wisdom. There are cracks here and there and she's even more nasal that ever but no one listens to Dusty expecting a technically flawless performance. It's her limits as a singer that make her one of the all-time greats. I don't know how much of an effect her living through early-sixties' Britain has on her performance here but certainly her years of being in the public eye, of stardom and a faltering career, lends itself to the subject matter of the song. She experienced rumours surrounding her private life and faced deep depression of her own. This isn't the story of her life by any means but it's one she understood all too well.

"Nothing Has Been Proved" is yet another masterful Pet Shop Boys' work and hints that the Tennant-Lowe songwriting team had a future composing for others full time. This has yet to happen as they continue to focus on their own recordings. With both of them being in their sixites, it seems unlikely that they'll ever choose to farm out the duties of being pop stars to anyone else at this point. It's no great loss: Dusty aside, they never found anyone to compose for who could match or exceed Tennant's role as vocalist (although the guest performances by Frances Barber, Rufus Wainwright and Robbie Williams on the wonderful live album Concrete suggest that there are vocalists out there who are able to do Pet Shop's songs justice). If finding replacement Pet Shop Boys wasn't a joke, it definitely should have been.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: "Help!"

Heath tips it to be Bananarama's first number one but it came up just short, even though this humble blogger did his part by buying a copy of the 7". The umpteenth cover version the Bananas had done but "Help!" is quite easily the best source material for a reinterpretation. There's none of Lennon's vocal power but they're as faithful to The Beatles as one would expect for something cut in 1989. It's still quite funny even now probably because Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Kathy Burke ham up the backing vocals but don't bulldoze their comedy chops all over the recording. The video spoofs all those cheesy Bananarama promos of the time and makes fun of Help, The Beatles' very pointless, very boring film. I like to think that had he survived, Lennon would have adopted the Lananeeneenoonoo backing vocals ("down-down-down!", "dow-ow-ow-own") when playing live. He was perverse enough to have been into it.

Awake Me!: VER HITS on a 10

(I haven't published a non-review on here in ages and I think it's long past time I did so)

Toms Ewing and Breihan both run entertaining blogs covering the UK and US number ones. The former was even a big influence on my decision to get back into music blogging. They both rate the hits they write about which is something I've never given much thought to doing for this blog. Yet, a recent post led me to think about personal favourites and those I would wish to give a score of 10.

Please note that I won't be scoring any other records beyond the 10's. I was tempted do likewise for the absolute dreck but I couldn't be bothered doing so and, in any case, I don't think there are any I'd give a 1 to other than Limahl's abominable "Love in Your Eyes", a dubious SOTF from the trolling imagination of the great Tom Hibbert. Let's just keep it to those killer singles that I adore as much as the reviewers did back in the day.

~~~~~

Year	“Artist”	Single
1979	Blondie	“Heart of Glass”
	Rick James	“High on Your Love Suite/One Mo Hit (of Your Love)”
	Squeeze	“Up the Junction”
	Buzzcocks	Spiral Scratch
1980	The Jam	“Going Underground”/”Dreams of Children”
	XTC	“Generals and Majors”
1981	The Human League	“Love Action (I Believe in Love)”
	The Police	“Invisible Sun”
1982	The Associates	“Party Fears Two
	Scritti Politti	“Faithless”
	Elvis Costello & The Attractions	“Man Out of Time”
	ABC	“All of My Heart”
1983	Prince	“1999”
	Fun Boy Three	“Our Lips Are Sealed”
	Madness	“Wings of a Dove”
	The Cure	“The Lovecats”
1984	Cocteau Twins	“Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops”
1985	Propaganda	“Duel”
	Prefab Sprout	“Faron Young”
	Kate Bush	“Running Up That Hill”
	Dire Straits	“Brothers in Arms”
1986	The Jesus & Mary Chain	Some Candy Talking
1987	Duran Duran	“Skin Trade”
	U2	“With or Without You”
	The Housemartins	“Me and the Farmer”
	Pet Shop Boys	“Rent”
1988	S’Express	“Theme from S’Express”
	Deacon Blue	“Real Gone Kid”
	Pet Shop Boys	“Left to My Own Devices”
1989	Nick Heyward	“Tell Me Why”

~~~~~

Some fun facts about this list:

• “High on Your Love Suite/One Mo Hit (of Your Love)” and “Tell Me Why” are the only singles listed that failed to reach the Top 100. At least two hundred other records were more popular than either of these magnificent songs which beggars belief. But if the masses didn’t have time for Rick James and Nick Heyward, at there’s a small number of people out there who are aware of how special they are. Hopefully that’s more than just cold comfort.
• To the surprise of precisely no one who knows me even a little, the Pet Shop Boys appear twice and are the only act with more than a single entry. It’s probable that they will back for a third time before long. The inevitable Pet Shops backlash won’t be here for a while.
• The Police, Dire Straits and U2 are perhaps the most surprising inclusions. They aren’t my favourite groups in the world though it’s worth mentioning that I don’t have anything against any of them either. The Police have never impressed me much so it was a pleasant surprise to discover how brilliant “Invisible Sun’ is. Too bad it doesn’t get more love. The other two are fine albeit in a having-the-greatest-hits-is-enough kind of way. All three benefit from having the right songs chosen: “Walking on the Moon”, “Walk of Life” and “Pride (in the Name of Love)” wouldn’t have done so well.
• 1984 and 1986 have just one single apiece. The class of ’84 was a particular slog to get through with even decent bands coming up short (Robert “Bobby Bluebell” Hudgens wanted to go for Aztec Camera’s overrated cover of “Jump” in favour of its superior A-side “All I Need Is Everything”, which might have been a 10) while ’86 wasn’t quite as poor as I had been expecting but suffered compared to the years on either side of it. But, yeah, Cocteau Twins and The Jesus & Mary Chain are the standouts from a pair of grim years, which is a reminder of just how wonderful indie music was while pop and rock were rapidly descending into an abyss of wretchedness during this time (even if ’85 was quite good).
• Deacon Blue’s “Real Gone Kid” is one people will take issue with. As I said in its write up, I have long ago accepted that very few will see eye-to-eye with me on the Scots sextet and their breakthrough hit. There aren’t many songs which make me swoon and it is one. There’s no accounting for taste and I’m not about to try to do so here.
• As the above suggests, these scores of 10 are based purely on my own tastes in the latter part of 2021. I may not necessarily have awarded the same score to each single when I wrote about them even if I’ve always rated them highly. The Human League’s “Love Action”, Fun Boy Three’s “Our Lips Are Sealed” and Propaganda’s “Duel” are among those that would’ve certainly received a score of 10 at the time. I will not be changing them in the future even if I change my mind.
• Any further Smash Hits Singles of the Fortnight that I deem 10 worthy will be added. We’re fast approaching the nineties, which isn’t a favourite decade of mine, so I suspect the totals will gradually begin to slow down. Still, ’89 and ’90 each have some solid candidates awaiting and there’s at least one more sure-fire 10 coming up when I finish off the ’81 batch next year. Keep following for more!

Squeezebrain & The Machine featuring J.J. Jones: "Lovegroove"

25 January 1989

"In fact, it's a work of unparalleled genius."

— Tom Doyle

Back in my days as an undergraduate, I took a handful of music history classes as options. They were all taught by Victor Coelho, an urbane American who played lute recitals and was a passionate fan of The Rolling Stones. Quickly realising this was someone I could learn a lot from, I showed up early and stayed late for class just on the outside chance of having a chat with him. I took so many of these courses — I did four or five — that on the first day of one of them he came galavanting into the lecture theatre, spotted me and shook my hand. Coelho's teaching assistant for every one of these classes was a unkempt, balding guy called Paul, who I had previously known as my bass guitar instructor a few years' earlier.

At one point in the early part of 1998, they both asked me about the state of current music and if it was possible for groups to affect change the way people like The Beatles and Bob Dylan had back in the sixties. I had been occupying myself with discovering the works of Miles Davis and The Byrds at the time so I didn't have much of an idea but I chose to bluff rather than risk them going to some other young student for such information. I was still listening to some current stuff a year earlier so I dug out Radiohead's OK Computer and The Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole so they could sample a bit of the newish stuff. They both liked Radiohead but questioned the idea that the Oxford quintet were accomplishing anything particularly fresh, which they weren't wrong about, even if I didn't want to be told so at the time. The Chemical Brothers, however, were a non-starter for both them. "It's just that same old dance thing," Paul observed; I was confident that he didn't even manage to get past opening track "Block Rockin' Beats". (I never heard what, if anything, Coelho had to say about them but I wouldn't have been surprised if he ended up passing on them completely)

That same old dance thing. It's not unlike when old timers used to dismiss rock 'n' roll as 'noise'. Yet, what made the comment from an individual I liked and respected so irritating was that there was a ring of truth to it. Dance music can be samey and it's often better off whenever it is. Club DJ's play what will keep people on the dance floor, shifting up their setlist with clever choices isn't going to do so. When EDM came along this past decade (or was it earlier?) it smacked of a cynical corporate rebrand: this stuff was just techno under another name. The labels changed while the music remained much the same. There have always been innovators but your Goldies and your Roni Sizes tended to be listened to much more than played in that trendy club with that cute but surly coat check girl. That same old dance thing did well precisely because it was that same old dance thing.

There had been a time, however, when it was incumbent upon dance music boffins to craft something that might excite people as well. To make recordings that didn't rely upon cliches but which utilized "fresh" samples that had never been heard on a single before. One of the defining albums of 1989 was De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, a radical take on hip hop with flower power imagery, playful verses and raps that were accessible to those of us who weren't quite ready for the likes of Public Enemy and NWA. It was also awash in sampling and not just from that James Brown "Funky Drummer" bit and those all-too-common "ooh's" and "ah's" you hear from early house and rap. There was even the hint that De La Soul were fans of all kinds of music. Soon enough this approach would be adopted by Saint Etienne and then it all came to be associated with irony but there's every indication sampling would have gone that way without them.

Indeed, "Lovegroove" could almost have been an early Saint Etienne recording. There are plenty of chugging guitar samples, the various sources used to cobble it together come from all over the place and it's mercifully free of the usual suspects that house DJ's relied upon. Again, like De La Soul and Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, James Brett and Richard Symons of Squeezebrain & The Machine are clearly music obsessed rather than just mad for that same old dance thing. But their catholocism meant that "Lovegroove" was an island and it wasn't able to communicate with other dance records that "know you gonna dig this" while they "pump up the volume". Dance music had that trajectory of familiar samples and there wasn't room for a record that spoke in a parlance free of common syntax.

Acid house had been the culturally dominant type of dance music in 1988 but the new year brought about a desire to move on. An acid house mentally remained as rave culture continued to thrive and the 'Madchester' groups grew in popularity but there was little interest in recreating "Stakker Humanoid". Perhaps with this in mind, a more easy going dance music began to take hold, while pop groups like Pet Shop Boys, The Style Council and The Blow Monkeys started to dabble in deep house. Within this landscape, an active but chilled out "Lovegroove" should have found a home — and it may well have found one had it come out closer to the summer when nouveau hippie chic was peaking.

Squeezebrain & The Machine was a short-lived project and, in spite of Tom Doyle's best efforts, "Lovegroove" failed to get much attention in the early part of the year. A fortnight earlier, Nick Heyward had been jobbed out of a hit with the wonderful "Tell Me Why" but this track's lack of success is much easier to explain. It could easily have done well but it isn't a crime that didn't. I can't bring myself to get nearly as thrilled by it as Doyle but I appreciate the effort. J.J. Jones has a wonderfully elastic voice but she lacks the flirtatious playfulness of Yazz or Lisa Stansfield and probably isn't on the same eclectic page as Brett or Symons. (I've long suspected that the tastes of Saint Etienne's Sarah Cracknell are as diverse as Stanley and Wiggs)

This is the second straight non-charting single to get a Single of the Fortnight but a January of flops would give way to a lengthy and unprecedented streak of hit singles recommended by Smash Hits critics and guest pop star reviewers. For the next thirteen issues, the SOTF would belong exclusively to relevant chart acts. And they're a diverse bunch and represent several different genres: pop, rock, hip hop and even that same old dance thing.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Morrissey: "The Last of the Famous International Playboys"

A third glorious solo hit on the bounce for Moz, even if its Top 40 "run" of 6, 8 and 21 was worringly suggestive of a record only his fans were purchasing. ("The Last of the Famous International Playboys" had such a brief lifespan that it passed me by completely since I was on a ferry to Ireland while he was performing it on Top of the Pops) It may not have sold any newbies on Morrissey but it's a phenomenal record and one that give no indication that a rot would soon begin to set in. The Smiths were supposedly a thing of the past, yet here was his nibs being backed by Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce and unofficial fifth member Craig Gannon just to remind everyone of what might have been — something he's continued to unknowingly jog the collective memory of ever since.

Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls: "Mr. X"

30 October 1980

"This is marvellous; a richly-produced synthesizer backcloth that gives words like "haunting" a new lease on life."

— Mark Ellen

So, the likes of the great Mark Ellen were weary of the same old punk nonsense three years on (those old reliable fossils The UK Subs have a new release in this issue!) but what of "new" wave and post-punk? If those noisy old one-chord wonders had become tired by 1980 what about all those gloomy five-piece groups with a deadpan vocalist, rumbling guitar and bass and admittedly quite wonderful drumming who cut records that all sounded the same? In such a bleak landscape, is it any wonder the New Pop revolution couldn't have come fast enough?

"Mr. X" was a single recorded by former punk Pauline Murray alongside supergroup adjacent The Invisible Girls (notably, an all-male outfit: I suppose those "girls" would not have been easy to spot). It bears many of the hallmarks of that familiar post-punk sound but has enough little tweaks that it is able to stand out. First, as Ellen suggests, there's Murray's voice: if not quite expressive then certainly not flat either, grounded and one that suggests that it's not far off from the way she speaks as well. With so few genuinely outstanding singers during this period, I am glad that Ellen is able to spot one.

A Manchester-area band that had previously backed the legendary cult figure John Cooper Clarke, The Invisible Girls was a sort of Warehouse city equivalent to Merseyside's Big in Japan with virtually everyone involved being of some importance musically. Factory Records producer Martin Hannett, keyboardist Steve Hopkins and guitarist Vini Reilly of The Durutti Column were the group's backbone and they were joined by Buzzcocks drummer John Maher on the album Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls. (Bernard Sumner and future Mission frontman Wayne Hussey also appear though not on "Mr. X") While the industrial grime of Joy Division is clearly an influence, there's enough musical diversity going on that it fails to end up conveniently slotted into a category.

Hannett's role is especially crucial. His production on Joy Division's groundbreaking albums Unknown Pleasures and Closer had been a key to the group's short-lived acclaim and success and it's why they remain such potent records to this day. Ian Curtis' suicide put all that to an abrupt end — for the moment anyway — but working with Murray gave him a greater opportunity to utilize synthesizers in his recordings, which would come in handy when the surviving members of Joy Division reconvened the following year as New Order. But this is no mere stepping stone: "Mr. X" has a surprisingly full sound and whoever had the idea to add bongos to the mix is to be commended.

Despite the high quality of the finished product, "Mr. X" failed to chart in a year that may not have been ready for it. Manchester in its post-punk boom period had a lot of time for genuinely charismatic lead singers (Ian Curtis, Howard Devoto, even Mark E. Smith in his own unique fashion) but it, and the country in general, may not have been quite as prepared for such a flamboyant song. A shift would gradually take place with a new generation of Mancunian vocalists who combined the stage presence of their forefathers with a new found pop audacity. Morrissey, Bernard Sumner, Ian Brown and Shaun Ryder would be at the centre of a movement that would make the city a musical flagship. I hope they thanked the singer from Newcastle, and not just the renowned group of musicians she'd been working with, for pushing them forward.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Attractions: "Arms Race"

"Arms Race", huh? Sounds like a track that had been left off of Armed Forces; did the Attractions "borrow" it from their boss Elvis Costello? Apparently not. Some of the selections this fortnight are the result of extracurricular projects with XTC's rhythm section masking as The Colonel on "Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen" and Blockhead veteran Chas Jankel with something called "Ai No Corrida" and this is also where Steve Nieve, Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas fit in without their famous leader. As probably the best backing band in the business along with the E-Street Band, one would expect some distinguished playing but the apparent desire to distance themselves from their day job results in "Arms Race" being a triumph in production effects while not quite working as an overall tune. I wasn't aware that something so fresh and unusual could also be so forgettable. Nevertheless, they also happened to be at work on Trust, the superlative 1981 Costello album that would really give this group of musicians a chance to shine properly.