Redhead Kingpin & The FBI: "Do the Right Thing"

12 July 1989

"He's one of the those rappers whose words trip of the tongue with such casual ease, it makes the point he's trying to put across sound utterly simple and totally and completely obvious."

— William Shaw

It was 1968 and pop music was going through yet another sea change. The Beatles released the so-called White Album. The Byrds put out the influential Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The Beach Boys delivered Wild Honey at the tail end of the '67 and followed it with Friends, both of which had dialled back from the days of 'pocket symphonies' "California Girls" and "Good Vibrations". The Kinks offered up The Village Green Preservation Society, their highly unsuccessful...

Wait, did I already go into all this? That's right, just last week I was going on about how the predominance of acid rock in the late-sixties had been exaggerated, especially given the fact that seemingly everyone at the time was doing against the supposed tide of psychedelic pop. This I then connected to rap having a reputation for being all about showing off and gold medallions and fancy cars and stuff when in actual fact most of the big names were busy creating hip hop records that dealt with a wide-variety of topics. Last week, comical hippies De La Soul proved they could be serious and fly in the face of all that rap posturing and this time it's the turn of a young man named David Guppy, who wished for everyone to Do the Right Thing.

De La Soul were part of a loose scene of playful hip hop artists who sampled from all kinds of sources, looked like hippies and appeared to be in it for a laugh. Other notable progressive rappers (aka The Daisy Age) included Monie Love, The Jungle Brothers and Dream Warriors (all of whom will be featured before long on this blog). Guppy and his mates (ie Redhead Kingpin & The F.B.I.) were not in this camp. They were as earnest as Chuck D but without his in-your-face attitude and forceful raps. Their music seemed to epitomize the idea of rap having a "message", one that was meant to be deep and meaningful. Stay away from drugs. Find alternatives to violence. Finish school. Respect yourself. All very noble and well-intended.

But is "Do the Right Thing" any good? Well, it's not bad and, as William Shaw says, the Kingpin has a facility with rolling verses off the tongue that not everyone can replicate. It doesn't exactly plant itself in the mind but at least I can get through the whole thing without turning it off. Not much of a recommendation but in a year with some extraordinary rap and house records, it's a surprisingly plain effort without much to make it stand out from the pack. Curiously, it's only the single's understated modesty that gives it a unique quality but that wouldn't suffice to make it a truly memorable cut. Getting that message out seemed to ensure that the quality of the music would be secondary. It's as if we're not even meant to enjoy it.

Guppy steered clear of the bling and boasting about what a righteous dude he was but "Do the Right Thing" is still something of a throwback. While Shaw praises the music — it "swings along with devil-may-care jollity — there's even an accordion twiddling away there" — it is unfortunately dragged down by an over-reliance on samples that were already cliches by the end of the eighties ("ah yeah" and "check this out" were they were both so 1987). Top DJ's of the time were able to utilize tried and tested bits of other records effectively in creating fresh works of their own but the Redhead's F.B.I. was not up to the task. A little Daisy Age fun would have been a welcome addition but I imagine it would have threatened to diminish the message — and you can't have that.

"Do the Right Thing" was supposed to be used in the influential Spike Lee picture of the same name but it got dropped prior to the film's release. (Rather unjustly, they didn't even bother to include it on the accompanying soundtrack album though it would eventually appear in Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs, which couldn't have been much of a consolation prize) Nevertheless, it became a Top 20 hit in Britain in the summer of 1989. This success would be fleeting but Redhead Kingpin will be back in this space soon enough. I just hope he didn't further sacrifice a good record in favour of his "message". We'll see.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Gloria Estefan: "Don't Wanna Lose You"

Miami Sound Machine → Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine → Gloria Estefan (Wendy James sure called it back at the end of 1988, didn't she?)

Easing her way into a "solo" career was probably a good strategy. Singles from final group album Anything for You were slow to take off in Britain and there wasn't much of a gap between "Can't Stay Away from You" and "comeback" "Don't Wanna Lose You". Two slow songs in a row went against the ver Sound Machine's policy of alternating between a weepie and a Latin dancefloor stormer but they seemed to get away with it all right. Estefan could sometimes be guilty of overdoing it on the vocal front but she does a commendable job of keeping her pipes in check. Earlier "ballads" could never quite measure up to the faster numbers but "Don't Wanna Lose You" placed her firmly in the realm material for teenagers awkwardly slow dancing. Adolescent lust had come roaring in and you can bet we didn't want to lose it.

Nash the Slash: "Dead Man's Curve"

22 January 1981

"At last! A hero for the walking wounded."

 — Ronnie Gurr

We're in a boardgame cafe on Toronto's Yonge Street. He chooses the Strawberry Shortcake game and I happily agree. As ever, I'm keen to sit on the bench with Orange Blossom. He kicks my ass and wants to play again. I agree so that I can return to my Platonic affair with the girl on the top left corner of the board. He tells me that he hates boardgames other than this one and Mastermind. I consider switching games but hesitate due to my loyalty to Orange Blossom. Besides, Mastermind makes me feel like an imbecile. Kids at a corner table are enjoying Popamatic Trouble and we roll our eyes. It's a best four out of seven Strawberry Shortcake game contest for us and he's looking at a sweep.

Nashville Thebodiah Slasher isn't interested in talking about music and I'm not interested in asking him any of the questions I have prepared. I jotted down a bunch of useless queries about the trademark bandages he has wrapped around his head at all times and if he thinks he's influenced by Captain Beefheart and The Residents but I figure he's been asked these a million times before. Instead, as we're getting set for the third game, I ask him about other bands and types of music. I decide we should do some word association. I start gingerly but it doesn't take long before we're rolling. (For his part, Nash scarcely looks up from our game)

PiL: burial

Lene Lovich: rumpus room

Hazel O'Connor: smalltown mayors

Blondie: helpless

Talking Heads: emotional

The Police: pea soup

The Jam: achievement

Squeeze: gum boots

The Pretenders: astro pops

Bruce Springsteen: manufacturing

ABBA: cotton

Paul McCartney: consituency

Gary Numan: funeral

Toyah: chain link fences

Queen: pigeon toes

Stevie Wonder: relationships

Kate Bush: bed pans

Adam & The Ants: inhabitable

XTC: braids

The Specials: back bacon

Ian Dury: bricklaying

Nash the Slash: Circle Square Rancher

Not much revealed there (though it is nice to discover that the Nasher is a strong Christian soldier). Deciding that we've had enough shenanigans, I finish up my visit with Orange Blossom and work up the courage to ask him about his latest record. It is what Smash Hits have flown me over to Canada for. So, Mr. Slash, what made you want to cover "Dead Man's Curve"? Do you like exploring the dark side of innocent pop?

"No", he says while rolling the dice, "it was already dark. I gave it some much needed sunshine".

I suppose you could argue that's what he did. So how much of your public persona matches your private self?

"Nash and Nashville are mostly the same but I try to tone it down a little when I'm out in public. If people think I wear too many bandages they should see me at home".

Does he wrap certain "appendages" in bandages at home?

"You mean my arms and legs? Or the outsized skin tag under my arms pits?"

Yeah, those ones. So, is it true you won't use guitars on your records?

"I'd use a guitar if I could get some different sounds of them. Other instruments are able to sound like guitars but guitars only sound like themselves."

Do you reckon you're cut out for the pop life?

"I must be since my last job was decorating birthday cakes. I got fired after just a few weeks but I still haven't been canned from this one."

All these questions have thrown off his nibs and we're neck and neck in the fourth game. I hope Orange Blossom won't leave me in for him. His strategy of playing hard to get with her appears to be paying off. I'll have to make it up to her somehow. I'm beginning to suspect that the Slasher has found my weakness. I'd better try to get into his head with some more questions. What does he think of making music videos?

"I love making videos. They're much more fun than most of the records. I suggested to my record label that we do a silent music video but they said no."

A silent music video???

"Yeah, like a silent movie but without the music playing. Most songs sound better in my head anyway."

What does Nash like to do for fun?

"Oh, the usual. Cooking shows on TV, slurpees and walking away in the middle of conversations. I'm a simple guy with simple pleasures."

Try as I might, Nash the Slash sweeps me in Strawberry Shortcake game. I ask him if he'd like to play Mille Bornes but he politely declines. He's got a doctor's appointment prior to his concert here in Toronto. The man is one of a kind and he doesn't even know it.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

John Lennon: "Woman"

"Everyone thinks it's about my woman but it's really about 99% of the women, alive or half dead". This is not something John Lennon uttered in his lifetime but he might have done had he lived longer. One of his strengths was to make the personal seem so universal and he did it here just as he did on "Girl" and "Mother" years earlier. ("Julia" is perhaps his one personal statement to a woman that could never have been masked as something else) It probably did seem like pablum in November of 1980 but it has never not been poignant ever since. Lennon detractors will predictably trot out stuff about him beating women but he did try to atone for his sinful past. Well done.

De La Soul: "Say No Go"

28 June 1989

"Forget bragging about who's got the fattest wallet, and the most Louis Vuitton accessories for their swank mobiles — these boys rap peace and love."

— Harriet Dell

It was 1968 and pop music was going through yet another sea change. The Beatles released the so-called White Album. The Byrds put out the influential Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The Beach Boys delivered Wild Honey at the tail end of the '67 and followed it with Friends, both of which had dialled back from the days of 'pocket symphonies' "California Girls" and "Good Vibrations". The Kinks offered up The Village Green Preservation Society, their highly unsuccessful masterpiece. The Band emerged from the shadow of Bob Dylan with Music from the Big Pink. Dylan himself ended '67 with the sparse and Biblical John Wesley Harding. Meanwhile, Elvis Presley was returning to relevance with his hugely popular comeback.

These albums (and, in Elvis' case, performance) don't share much in common with each other but they are typically described today in a similar manner. All of these acts, the story goes, were going against the psychedelic grain of the time by serving up gritty roots rock, passionate R&B and/or simpler folk and country-influenced material. This, then, begs the question: if all of these rock giants were turning their backs on acid rock by this time, who was still persisting with it? (Actually, there were plenty but that's not the point)

Hip hop acts faced a not dissimilar reputational disadvantage in the late-eighties. The image of rappers as proudly showing off their bling and boasting of how great they and their money are was difficult to shake. Thinking off the top of my head, I can recall a lot of groups signed to Def Jam and most of them failed to fit in with that image of the narcissistic rap star. Public Enemy (see below) and NWA put out some extraordinary records that also placed them as hard hitting civil rights spokesmen. LL Cool J was cut from a similar cloth only he chose to be a more positive voice. Run-DMC were entertainers, Erik B & Rakim were artists and the Beastie Boys were clowns sending up macho rap posing. If they were all going against the bling grain, just who was keeping it going?

And, yet, this idea of rappers being obnoxious show-offs wouldn't go away. Graeme Kay named Run-DMC's "Mary, Mary" the Single of the Fortnight, praising it as "refreshingly free of all that guff that rappers usually go on about i.e. "Look how tough, wonderful and fabulously rich I am"". Ten months later and it's the same scenario: De La Soul were supposedly flouting the conventions of a hip hop movement that wasn't nearly as commonplace as people believed.

Still, even alongside the likes of LL Cool J and Run-DMC, De La Soul stood out. If rap had a downside it was in its near-universal earnestness. Hip hop had a message and its purveyors would be damned if they weren't going to express it. Kelvin Mercer, Dave Jolicoeur and Vincent Mason took on stage names but they eschewed the usual M.C. prefix, initial suffix and none of them claimed to be a professor. In choosing to go with the monikers Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo respectively, De La Soul were marked out as playful and silly — and even as hippies, even if the trio denied themselves.

Their first hit came out in the UK in the spring of 1989. "Me, Myself and I" was a head turning single but one that listeners didn't know quite what to make of. British rap had been the preserve of more boastful types who at least had pop hooks to make their records — Derek B's "Bad Young Brother", the Wee Papa Girl Rappers' "Wee Rule" — appear to be better than they were; "Me, Myself and I" had something to it but it lacked the immediacy of these lightweight hip hop affairs. It was going to take the kids time to get used to De La Soul.

As if acknowledging that their previous hit was a bit of a throwaway, the trio got serious for follow-up "Say No Go". Normally whenever a band goes from lighthearted to painfully glum it becomes clear that they're heading for the dumper but the opposite happens in this case. While "Me, Myself and I" tried a little too hard to be witty, the serious subject matter of hardcore drugs on the streets better suits the rapping talents of both Posdnuos and Turgoy. Much more earnest individuals have tackled narcotics in song but their achievement is to deal with it in a fashion that is relatable but never hectoring. Verses roll off their tongues in a manner that few in rap could hope to replicate. They don't trivialize the experience nor do they go over-serious. It's all very matter-of-fact.

The heavy subject matter of the lyrics is nicely contrasted by a relentlessly catchy tune, complimented by a memorable sample of "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" by Hall & Oates, with added touches from the likes of Sly Stone and The Detroit Emeralds. The practice of borrowing from sources outside of hip hop and its antecedents was still relatively new at the time and it showed that De La Soul had catholic interests. If they had wanted to prove that they could go against the grain of macho hip hop head games then using smooth eighties' white soulsters was a genius move.

"Say No Go" showed a modest improvement on "Me, Myself and I" and gave De La Soul their first UK Top 20 hit and set a trend by which they turned the law of decreasing returns on its head with the four singles taken from the 3 Feet High and Rising album. The LP was getting very encouraging reviews and the public were beginning to accept them. They were so much more than comedy goofballs and nutty hippies — and, indeed, much more than chroniclers of strife in the ghetto. They were able to do whatever they wanted within rap and they weren't even above a bit of posing, even at a time when hardly anyone was doing it anymore.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Public Enemy: "Fight the Power"

Hip hop wasn't my cup of tea back in '89 which only makes me wonder why not. (Oh right, it was all the obnoxious white people hung up on its "message" that turned me off) Public Enemy are perhaps the most well-remembered rap act of the time but they manage to combine all that is wonderful and annoying about the genre. Their early work is the most effective and by the time of "Fight the Power" it was as if Chuck D was far too caught up in his role as a voice for his generation to be bothered much with crafting great records. The more spotlight-friendly Flava Flav joins his nibs in a display of unity but it isn't quite enough to inject some much needed fun. Exciting but it could've been so much more. But, hey, it has a message!

London Boys: "London Nights"

14 June 1989

"Neither Spagna nor Milli Vanilli can hold a candle against this."

— Mike Soutar

There aren't many left but if you ever happen to browse around a South Korean record store there's a decent chance you'll come upon a copy of The Twelve Commandments of Dance by London Boys. I began noticing this a few years ago and wondered why music shops were choosing to stock this album when it was clear that no one wanted. Then, I happened to be speaking to a couple I know well about music. They both liked Michael Jackson, vaguely remembered Madonna and hadn't heard of either George Michael or Prince. Then, the woman mentioned that she really liked the London Boys and her husband concurred. Based on this admittedly slim bit of polling, I can conclude that there had once been a demand for their work even if there no longer was any. But such is the way of popular music.

When The Beatles left Liverpool for Hamburg they were unknown by most and disliked by the rest. Howie Casey, sax player for Merseyside group Derry and the Seniors, begged Alan Williams not to send that "bum group" over to Germany, fearing that they were going to ruin it for everyone. Nothing of the sort happened and the Fab Four returned to England a markedly better band, one that was a step closer to world conquest. John Lennon recalled that everyone thought they were German and that they "[spoke] good English".

Confusing Die Beatles for Germans wouldn't last long (especially after they made such a hash of both "Sie leibt dich" and "Komm, gib mir deine Hand") but there's no question that their time in Hamburg did them a world of good. Over the years, Germany became a place where pop stars of different stripes and various levels of success could go to turn their fortunes around or just get themselves together. Donna Summer spent most of her twenties in Munich where she would first meet fellow transplants Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte; she wouldn't move back to her native United States until after becoming a global superstar. David Bowie and Iggy Pop famously lived in West Berlin in the late-seventies which resulted in a creative flowering for both of them. The influence of American and British artists on German pop was such that English became the lingua franca of domestic acts from Boney M. to Propaganda.

So, a trajectory of The Beatles to Donna Summer to David Bowie and Iggy Pop to...the London Boys. (One of them is not like the others) Edem Ephraim and Dennis Fuller were German residents but they had originally been from, well, London. Being based in Hamburg, a name like 'London Boys' must have carried more weight than it would have back in their homeland (they were so-named because "everyone in Germany called us two boys from London"). Indeed, a group called Londonbeat had recently been on the charts with the single "9 A.M. (The Comfort Zone)" and it had been obvious that the group's three American vocalists and guitarist who everyone assumed to be German (turns out he was in fact from the UK) had next to nothing to do with the British capital. Bands from London didn't need to advertise where they hailed from; only those who came from elsewhere felt the need to tell everyone about it — something that Dennis and Edem doubled down on by titling their second hit single "London Nights".

When London Boys emerged in the spring of 1989 it was with "Requiem", an over-the-top dancefloor stormer that gave them a Top 5 hit. Its chart progress had been slow with the single drifting around the lower reaches of the flop side of the hit parade in December and January before returning in the spring when it would eventually peak. The momentum it generated was strong enough that its follow-up came in with a bang, being that week's second highest new entry (behind a still widely popular if increasingly stale Queen). "Requiem had only just dropped off the Top 40 a week earlier which would give London Boys an impressive nineteen straight weeks of chart action spread over a pair of singles.

But if we had assumed that Dennis and Edem's second hit was just going to be more of the same from the first, we were mistaken. Sure, "London Nights" is good fun with plenty of Euro-stomp energy but it's streets ahead of "Requiem". I had dug their first hit but found the pleading chorus ("this is the story now, the story of our love") utterly unconvincing. The duo drew upon religious imagery from time to time but in a very artificial fashion (even as a unaware twelve-year-old I knew that The Twelve Commandments of Dance was a lame title).

By contrast, "London Nights" felt the real thing. Being expats, they had memories of London to rely on but it feels like they'd been away for long enough that that they were able to pull off romanticizing it. With West Germany thriving, they weren't necessarily privy to the worst of the Thatcher years. There's a certain darkness in the verses but it's counteracted by an ecstatic chorus. Showing that they'd picked up more than a little from their adopted country, it's not unlike Propaganda's wonderful singles "Dr. Mabuse" and "Duel". On the other hand, it also draws upon Pet Shop Boys, who had already immortalized London as a hotbed of sleaze in "West End Girls".

London Boys had hits in Britain and throughout Europe (and, presumably, South Korea) but where they remained unknowns was in North America. While Milli Vanilli ran off a succession of Top 5 hits, Dennis and Edem remained an obscurity, something I could never comprehend. Their records were unavailable to me but the bulk of "London Nights" had permanently squatted in my brain. It became one of those songs I most associated with the end of my year in England and one that would lead me to over-romanticize this period of my life. I had enjoyed our many visits to London but it had never been a place I experienced at two or three in the morning when "the party's out and the fever [drove me] wild" but that's the kind of London I created in my mind. Again, such is the power of pop.

 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Prince: "Batdance"

Half-Prince, half-Joker, the Purple Perv manages to look like Two-Face in the video of "Batdance". Even more confused is the record itself. It seemed cool at the time until the soundtrack came out when it was revealed that it was just a glorified megamix of the album and, indeed, a condescended six-minute summing up of the Batman film that was on its way. A mess and, as Mike Soutar says, "very odd indeed" but a just-past-peak Prince managed to tie it all up into a great party record to rival "London Nights".  Obviously he accomplished far more elsewhere but you'd be hard pressed to find another record of his that is this much fun. And I still quote "This town needs an enema!" on occasion without even thinking of Jack Nicholson or Tim Burton: as far as I'm concerned, this was all Prince's doing too. Shame I bought that soundtrack album though.

Joe Jackson Band: "Beat Crazy"

8 January 1981

"It's wise to ignore Joe's caustic jibes about the slaves of fashion and just succumb to the forceful reggae-boned attack. It's hard to tell if he's serious anyway."

— Mark Ellen

When it comes to Joe Jackson's chart fortunes it was either sink or swim. The new wave classic "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" took its time but it eventually made the Top 20, even if it deserved better. As if to overcompensate, the inferior "It's Different for Girls" did brisk enough business to end up all the way in the UK Top 5. Solid, encouraging performances for Jackson but there was little else to show for it. Stellar (if sometimes unlikeable) singles  "Sunday Papers", "One More Time" and "I'm the Man" all failed to capitalize on his success and it wouldn't be until 1982 that he had a belated return to the charts — and one that proved to be yet another one off.

Even with all that in mind, his early-eighties' commercial fall off seems difficult to comprehend. Jackson's first two albums — Look Sharp and I'm the Man, both from a very productive 1979 — were critically acclaimed and their respective chart peaks showed an upward trend. Then it all came undone with Beat Crazy. Credited to the Joe Jackson Band, it appropriately allowed the spotlight to shine a bit more on the largely overlooked trio that backed his nibs. Bassist Graham Maby even takes the bulk of the lead vocal on the title track, a fact Mark Ellen fails to point out in his review. (Not that I blame him, I always assumed it was Jackson himself trying to be a little more vocally dexterous) Nevertheless, there's no question who's in charge. Fans and critics may have wanted more of the same but he was not about to grant them that wish.

It probably didn't help that this is a song that goes after the very people who were potential Joe Jackson fans. Ellen advises that we should take no notice of him and that's probably wise counsel when dealing with him in general. His fans may have seen it otherwise but his wit failed to register to the same extent as fellow late-seventies songsmiths Elvis Costello, Chris Difford, Nick Lowe and Andy Partridge; indeed, they could all give Jackson a serious run in the 'grumpiest man in pop' stakes yet they all possessed a charm that he never had. XTC were often content to explore the generational gulf the way Jackson does here in songs such as "This Is Pop", "Respectable Street" and "No Thugs in Our House" but their efforts didn't leave listeners questioning their motives to nearly the same extent.

That said, Ellen is correct that the tune is what we should be focused on. Shifting between hard-hitting ska and a wistful, swaying waltz, it is far more musically advanced than your average new waver or Birmingham-based reggae outfit. Time shifts, tempo changes, these aren't the hallmarks of an oik hiding behind punk. And this makes me wonder that he might have agreed with more than a little of the sentiments in "Beat Crazy". The kids were persisting with wasting their time ("it's such a crime") in a subgenre that had long become tired. And for the sartorial Jackson, his observations on their distinct lack of style ("they say the world is in a mess / but they can talk the way they dress") rings more than a little true.

Ellen is especially taken by the flip side of "Beat Crazy" and this live version of "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" is a wonderful slice of where Jackson had been and where he was headed, if not where he stood at the moment. The song's sparse, new wave arrangement obscured just what a perfect pop song it always was and this quality shines all the more in this live rendition that, in Ellen's words, recalls The Nolans — and which still manages to remain outstanding! Largely a cappella, it suggests a much more easy listening sound on the horizon and that's no bad thing. His musical gifts had been languishing behind being in a rock band and it was time for the real Joe Jackson to emgerge. Sure, this meant the blossoming of a curmudgeon but so too did "Steppin' Out", "Real Men" and "Breaking Us in Two" and this is the Joe Jackson that matters to me — pop stardom be damned.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Lincoln Thompson & The Rasses: "Spaceship"

Marrying Jamaican music with space rock may not seem like the greatest idea but Joe Meek and Scratch Perry have always had more than a little in common: both made studio limitations into playgrounds for a kind of Blue Peter, cobbled-together futurism. (Dub classics such as The Upsetters' Super Ape and Augustus Pablo's King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown owed at least as much to "Telstar" as they did to "My Boy Lollipop") Within this context, "Spaceship" is a triumph and doesn't even feature any of the major players mentioned above (though it does include contributions from the Joe Jackson Band). Well worth checking out.

Madonna: "Express Yourself"

31 May 1989

"She doesn't hold up for one second as she bellows the advice that every girl should immediately dump their boyfriend if he's an uncaring slob or a dirty two-faced rotter."

— Tom Doyle

"Do you have a message for your young fans?"

Their 1991 single "Where the Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off You" returned the Pet Shop Boys to the UK Top 10 and trolled everyone in pop — if Tennant and Lowe really are the grand ironists they're purported to be, they would have considered this to be the ultimate coup. It got the airtime, appeared on their amazing greatest hits Discography and is still spoken of either lovingly or with derision to this day but it shared space with another song. "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" was originally a new jack swing track on the Pet Shops' 1990 magnum opus Behaviour (a certain humble blogger's favourite album of all time) but it had been remixed to appear on a double A-side with the unique mash-up of a U2 hit and a Four Seasons classic.

"How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" is one of a lone line of ironic numbers from Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, stretching from "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" on 1986's Please to "Your Early Stuff" and "Ego Music" from their overlooked 2012 album Elysium. Tennant chafed at the claim that they made "pop records about pop records" but his track record typically failed to back him up. Nevertheless, their attempts at ironic pop resulted in some brilliant songs, the best of which (the B-sides "Miserablism" and "Shameless") even manage to evoke some empathy with the subjects they were mocking.

There isn't much empathy in "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" and fans have often wondered who it's about. Given their open disregard for U2, it could easily be assumed to be about the Irish foursome but there were others hinted at. I've always thought it was about Bros, who were the inspirations the song's line about "longevity". At any rate, it's about the do-gooder nature of pop stars at the end of the eighties — and how everyone was expected to have a message for their young fans.

It started off with Live Aid and it would only snowball from there. Because of abject poverty in Africa, because of the rainforests, because of Apartheid, because of, because of, because of. Pop stars became expected to have a cause and, as such, they were all supposed to have a message for their young fans. Hip hop artists were quick to jump on this, prompting fans to self-righteously proclaim that rap had a "message", while implying that other genres didn't.

Madonna never fully embraced the idea of having a message or a fashionable cause to get behind — unless, of course, you count her later embrace of Kabbalism as a "cause" — but the new found maturity of her late-eighties work had her more invested in issues. While it was clear to see that the likes of Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, k.d. lang and Cyndi Lauper were all feminists to one extent or another, few would have thought to use the term to describe Madonna. That is until "Express Yourself".

"Like a Prayer" had been a mammoth single both in terms of its success and the way it positioned Madonna as a creative force. The album of the same name proved to be a breakthrough (even if I personally see it as no better than predecessor True Blue) but it wasn't exactly packed with potential hit singles. (A curiosity of the time is that she never managed to pull off the extravagant seven-or-eight-singles-off-the-same-album approach that Michael Jackson had perfected) In truth, there were only two to choose from and they would follow one another back into the higher reaches of the charts around the world. One was a magical song that demonstrated her innate understanding of current pop and the other was "Express Yourself".

In fairness, it did well at the time and remains a firm favourite among her fanbase. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, even if its message remains much more potent than the song itself. Sonically, it's a return to the "wave pool pop" of "Open Your Heart" and "Papa Don't Preach" albeit lacking their catchiness and charm. It doesn't help that Madonna relies way too much on her husky vocal style, never one of my preferred characteristics of her's. Still, I'm not crazy about it but I suppose it works in the context of a song about female empowerment. The David Fincher-directed video is one of the more memorable promos of the time but the image of a chained up Madge starkers on a bed doesn't really wash with the wise, big sisterly advice in the lyrics.

As I said above, Madonna wasn't one for heavy-handed message songs and "Express Yourself" is a good example of why. The message is a positive one but there's not much to the record otherwise. And that's the trouble with getting caught up in having a message for your young fans since the pop music typically suffers. Luckily, Madonna pushed through and she followed with "Cherish", a magnificent single that displayed all of her patented pop flash while leaving the message well behind. A good move.

 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Baby Ford: "Children of the Revolution"

The idea of fusing glam rock with acid house is a good one but how well did Baby Ford pull it off? Cover versions of classic pop and rock songs were notoriously dodgy during this time, though the success of S'Express' "Hey Music Lover" (originally by Sly & The Family Stone, though it was a relatively obscure number) must have been encouraging. So, what of Baby Ford's interpretation of T-Rex's "Children of the Revolution"? Well, it's better than it deserves to be and ver Babe expertly mimics Marc Bolan's sultry whispered style of singing. Yet, why would anyone bother with this facsimile when they could put on the original instead? Or listen to something else? Or doing something else? Or get on with your life?

Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: "Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)"

17 May 1989

"I don't have to listen to this one. I know it really well already."

— Pat Sharp

It was July and our year in England was slipping away — though given my lethargy at the time, you'd hardly know it. The novelty of spending weekends in a host of British cities and towns had worn off and if I never saw another full English breakfast again I would have been a happy twelve-year-old. I didn't want to leave the UK but I didn't especially want to see any more of it either. I wanted to spend weekends at home watching the telly and listening to music — even if it happened to be in our uninspiring little hovel in Laindon, Basildon.

We had neighbours who we could see and/or hear quite easily. My sister and I would spy on an amourous couple across the square from us and noises of varying volume were easy to listen to. The bedroom we shared was separated by a thin wall with teenagers we never met but whose tastes in music dovetailed with our own. It was during this scorching summer that they came home one day with "Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)" and put it on their hi-fi. We nodded approvingly and didn't complain when they promptly put it on again. And again. And again. It didn't stop. Had it been a lesser song, we would've gotten sick of it.

"Back to Life" was unavoidable that summer. In my memories of those waning days before our return to Canada in August, it soundtracked everything. Shops played it, pub jukeboxes had it on an endless loop, schoolmates sang it as they pranced around the playground. Almost everyone seemed to love it and those that didn't still couldn't avoid it. The song of the summer a year earlier had been "The Only Way Is Up" by Yazz but I only became aware of it as it as sliding down the charts; I wasn't about to miss out this time round — and, indeed, its ubiquity ensured that there was no danger of that happening anyway.

Soul II Soul were seemingly a 1989 creation but they were sowing the seeds of their success a year earlier. Their debut single didn't exactly storm the charts on a national level but it got a good word-of-mouth and people in the know were impressed. "Fairplay" must have seemed too relax to fit in longside acid house and techno but it did well enough for a first try. Rose Windross gives a charming vocal performance and her girlish "Okay!" near the beginning never fails to put a smile on my face. It did so well that its slightly inferior follow-up, "Feel Free" with guest vocalist Do'reen, did about as well on the charts. While not as good, it set the London collective up for a big year ahead.

Caron Wheeler subsequently came aboard for third single "Keep on Movin'". It wasn't a big favourite of guest reviewer Pat Sharp but itdid well enough to give them a Top 10 breakthrough and it was even able to linger on the listings for longer than your average hit single. Relaxed but active enough to become a dancefloor staple, it was like Chic's "Everybody Dance" but for a generation more accustomed to the more chilled out Second Summer of Love (and all its requisite drugs) than to coke-fuelled Studio 54 disco vibes. With a better song and a stronger promotional push, there was every reason to expect that the next single would continue the upward trend.

But is "Back to Life" that much better than "Keep on Movin'"? As pairings go they were not unlike fellow label mate Inner City's outstanding one-two punch of "Big Fun" and "Good Life", albeit in vastly different forms. In both cases, leaders Jazzie B and Kevin Sauderson created a unique sound with their first hit singles and then replicated them beautifully for their respective follow-ups. (It didn't hurt as well that Wheeler had returned for "Back to Life" just as Paris Gray was on vocal duty for "Good Life"; Soul II Soul had always dubbed themselves a "collective" but having the same singer on back-to-back records suddenly made it seem like they were a proper group) Inner City, however, amped up the pop hooks but minimized the subtleties that helped make "Big Fun" so glorious; Soul II Soul refined the swaying dancefloor cool of "Keep on Movin'" into something even more extraordinary.

Tom Ewing likes "Back to Life" a lot but he can't quite muster the same kind of enthusiasm for it that he has for Massive Attack's phenomenal 1991 single "Unfinished Sympathy". I can see what he means but I respectfully disagree. While the Bristol trio would smartly tap into indie angst in order to bridge it with the ascending trip hop movement, Jazzie B and co. invited all into their diverse realm without barriers. Everyone seemed to love "Back to Life", even baby boomers who normally wouldn't have had anything to do with such stuff. And it still sounds great to this day (though, in fairness, so does "Unfinished Sympathy"): the easy answer would be to say that it has aged well but I suspect that the world has never aged out of it. Jazzie's promise of a "happy face and a funky face for a loving race" should have been cringe-inducing but it's something we all still need.

A few months after "Back to Life" had its memorable four week run at the top of the British charts, I was back in Canada. The song wasn't all over the place but it had successfully crossed the Atlantic and it even got played on the debut episode of the Will Smith sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. By this point, I had given up on the current music scene in my homeland and I was content to simply relive the previous year by listening to my collection of tapes from the UK as well as a handful that I subsequently picked up. One was Keep on Movin' (retitled in North America because Club Classics Vol.1 wouldn't do in a land that typically didn't have much use for British dance music). I had previously only been familiar with their two hit singles and this was my introduction to Jazzie B's world of house music, funk, jazz and world beat. I was impressed by much of it (and I love it even more now) but the stripped down, acapella version of "Back to Life" proved to be a disappointment. The thrill of those strings, that beat and that tune that refused to exit my brain was replaced by a shell of the song's "However Do You Want Me" section. This wasn't the "Back to Life" that I knew and remembered and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. But that's what makes this amazing record even more of a triumph: Jazzie B cobbled together parts of songs, samples and a Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra backing track into something utterly remarkable and addictive. An easy Single of the Fortnight, Single of the Year and, hell, Single of the Century. Any century.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Beautiful South: "Song for Whoever"

The Housemartins were by now long gone but The Beautiful South had taken their place. So, was the music scene jubilant? Not especially. Fans cried out for ver Martins and Paul Heaton's newest band reacted back in drunken vengeance. It would take another five years before people fully began to accept The Beautiful South — by which point they had already begun to decline creatively. "Song for Whoever" still did well as people either enjoyed the joke or for whatever reason became convinced that it was a sincere statement. A backlash was already brewing but it was one ver South managed to thrive under. The Housemartins would quickly become Heaton's second best band no matter what the nay sayers claimed.

Neneh Cherry: "Manchild"

3 May 1989

"There's loads of floaty "Pshoooo!" noises and curious keyboard wizardries and it's highly creepy and mesmerising and makes you go all funny in the head."

— Sylvia Patterson

1989 produced some nifty Singles of the Fortnight — for the moment anyway — but many have been lacking serious competition. With all due respect to the likes of Yazz, Chaka Khan and Elvis Costello, they weren't exactly up against a selection of stellar records. Which makes Neneh Cherry's "triumph" in this issue's singles review all the more impressive. Between Fuzzbox (see below) tapping into pop glory, the sound of Bobby Brown making the most of his imperial period, Paul McCartney happily doing what Macca does best, Sinitta with a throwaway earworm, Elvis Costello not letting himself get tripped up in his clever-clever wordplay and Tone Loc at his drrrty peak, there's some good stuff that came up short in the mind of review Sylvia Patterson. (Mind you, she picked the right song) Sure, there's some glum numbers from a duetting Aretha Franklin and Elton John, Sam Brown and Mandy Smith but the good stuff outweighs crap this fortnight.

For whatever reason, jazz is a style of music that hasn't produced a lot of dynastic families. The giants of the genre produced their fair share of offspring but a surprisingly small number of them followed their famous parents into Dixieland, swing, be-bop and fusion. Those few that did — Mercer Ellington, T.S. Monk, Ravi Coltrane, the Brubeck brothers — were destined to be stuck in the shadows of their renowned fathers.

Some, however, chose to spurn improvised music in favour of something closer to pop. Mike Melvoin toiled as a jobbing session pianist for the likes of John Lennon and The Beach Boys but his heart was in jazz, playing on some first rate recordings with Stan Getz, Milt Jackson and Leroy Vinnegar. His son Jonathon was an accomplish keyboardist in his own right and toured with Smashing Pumpkins prior to his untimely death in 1996 while twin daughters Susannah and Wendy were both involved with Prince in various capacities. Wendy would later form Wendy & Lisa with fellow erstwhile Revolution member Lisa Coleman and they appeared in this blog a few months back (and they'll be returning in a few weeks). Charlie Haden hailed from the midwest and, as such, had a background in country and folk but left them behind in order to pursue jazz. He eventually ended up as bassist for Ornette Coleman's influential piano-less quartet that released a series of remarkable albums including The Shape of Jazz to Come and Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. He would later spearhead the brilliant Liberation Music Orchestra and he would go to the grave in 2014 having recorded dozens of top notch LPs. His son Josh is a talented songwriter who formed the critically acclaimed slow core group Spain and their 1995 debut The Blue Moods of Spain rivals many of his father's masterworks. Triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya Haden have all had careers in music as well.

One of Haden's mates in the Ornette Coleman group was the trumpet player Don Cherry. His full time association with the saxophonist was prolific but short lived. He would subsequently go solo and release some superb albums on Blue Note such as Complete Communion and Symphony for Improvisers. He remained tight with his old bandmates and would join Haden on the 1970 Liberation Music Orchestra LP. From there, his recordings became increasingly wild and he began exploring so-called world music. Taking a page from his mentor, who would sometimes take a break from the sax by picking up the trumpet or violin, Cherry began playing a wide variety of instruments from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Indonesia. I've only tapped the surface of this period of his career but I can say that the first two Codona albums (the not-very-imaginatively-titled Codona and Codona 2) are masterpieces of free jazz, world beat and new age. Along the way, he married a Swedish woman and became one of many expat American jazz musicians who chose to settle in Europe. It was there that he raised a musical family of his own.

The Melvoins, The Hadens, The Cherrys. They're all outstanding musical families but no one emerged from the second generation like Neneh Cherry. Her father's name didn't carry a lot of weight (when Smash Hits would bring up her lineage it was meant to be just a fun fact — pop kids weren't heading out to explore Symphony for Improvisers or Codona 2...at least not yet) and she seemed to be making it on her own. Though only in her mid-twenties, she had been around for nearly ten years, first appearing as vocalist for post-punk jazzers Rip, Rig + Panic before branching out in the direction of dance and house music. She was linked with Bristol's the Wild Bunch (soon to become Massive Attack) and had chums in acid house (in addition to namedropping the Wild Bunch, solo debut "Buffalo Stance" also referenced Bomb the Bass). Yet her own considerable talents and musical pedigree led her to success before most of her associates.

"Buffalo Stance" had been her memorable first hit single. While its quality turned heads, few recognized something previously unheard of in it. It was a hip hop single and a great one at that and that's all there was to it. "Manchild", therefore, became the Neneh Cherry record that sounded like nothing else. Where she rapped the verses and sort of sang the chorus on "Buffalo Stance", she does mostly some nice R&B vocalisms here and strategically saves the spoken word bits: the track opens with a bit of a rap but you assume that's all there is to it once the song gets going proper. You float along with the laid back rhythm that would eventually come to be known as 'trip hop' only to be jarred by another aggressive Neneh rap. It probably shouldn't work but it somehow does. It isn't as well-remembered as "Buffalo Stance" these days but it certainly deserves to be.

"Manchild" became Cherry's second big UK hit on the bounce and it did similarly well on the Continent but it failed to get much attention in North America. The merging of R&B and hip hope was well under way on the other side of the Atlantic (led by Bobby Brown, also reviewed this fortnight) but there wasn't much room for women to break through. It was left to the poppy but unremarkable "Kisses on the Wind" to struggle along as a makeshift follow-up and this may have done her reputation in the US more harm than good. ("Heart" would be a similarly blasse single release in North America and it convinced no one) "Buffalo Stance" had been at the forefront of Cherry's musical revolution but "Manchild" had been right there with it and, if anything, it pointed the way forward much more. British and European hip hop had languished but it was poised to take its rightful place on the charts. Cherry had done her part but her chums the Wild Bunch weren't ready. It would be left to a London-based collective to further move the needle.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Fuzzbox: "Pink Sunshine"

Those of us who seldom bought singles really ought to have stepped up to the plate. (And I was one of them: buying bargain bin 7" records for 50p wasn't helping) The newly remade/remodelled Fuzzbox enjoyed a pair of Top 20 hits in the first few months of 1989 but they should've done much better. They had the tunes, choruses you just couldn't shake, excellent promos and they all looked great. (If Susanna Hoffs mastered the side glance, no one did the comedy eye roll quite like the Fuzzies) I actually liked "International Rescue" a bit more but "Pink Sunshine" became an anthem for those of us who were knocking on the door of the teens and we were the sort of fanbase that was happy to record their hits off of Radio 1 and/or to tape their vids off of Top of the Pops or Saturday morning kids telly. We put up posters of them, we dreamed of forming bands just like their's and some of us even dreamed of snogging them — it's just too bad we didn't get round to buying their records in sufficient quantity.

Chaka Khan: "I'm Every Woman"

19 April 1989

""Climb Every Woman" — classic! Oh! I mean "I'm Every Woman"!"

— Holly Johnson

Some pop stars who sit in as a guest Smash Hits singles reviewer put a great deal of thought into the task they've been given (Martin Fry, Gary Kemp, a surprisingly insightful Zodiac Mindwarp). Others do it in as basic a "I like/don't like this" format as possible. Some used it as a pulpit to self-righteously yammer on (yes, I'm thinking of you, Gary Numan), while others just moaned the entire time (Erasure). But I will say that all managed to make a good faith attempt to listen to as many records as possible — until now. Holly Johnson wasn't about to waste a whole hour on doing the task that was asked of him.

Of the fourteen new releases in this fortnight's Hits, Johnson either outright refuses or demands immediate removal of six of them (considering they consist of a Cher/Peter Cetera duet, Bon Jovi, a still-rootsy Texas, a washed-up Pretenders and ho-hum efforts from both Kylie Minogue and Cyndi Lauper, I can't say as I blame him but it still wouldn't have killed him to have given them all a go). The ex-Frankie Goes to Hollywood frontman's lack of interest is even amusingly remarked upon in the 'Also not reviewed by Holly this fortnight!' sidebar.

But he isn't simply apatheic, he's largely unimpressed even by most of what he bothered listening to. Diana Ross? Edie Brickell? Paul Abdul? He's not having any of it. The Cure's "Lullaby" is perhaps the one true classic here and even it fails to spark much out of his nibs. While he digs the violins, he also admits that there isn't "much of a song hidden beneath" the arrangements (No doubt he hadn't seen the song's video because that would've made it a dead cert Single of the Fortnight) and doubts its chart potential. Considering that far more radio-friendly Cure singles like "In Between Days" and "Just Like Heaven" only performed modestly on the Top 40, it's probably no surprise that he didn't think this spooky nightmare about being devoured by a spider man stood much of a chance. And yet, it proved to be their biggest UK hit of all time.

In the end, we're left with a remix of Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" to take the Single of the Fortnight almost by default. This being Holly Johnson, he still finds things to complain about with elements of the spruced up house sound jarring on him. Though he does acknowledge that it's "better than usual" compared to most remixes out there, he still dislikes the piano and the "deadful" drum infills. Even a great record can't please the most slovenly of curmudgeons.

Remixing older hits had been a popular trend among DJ's in the late-eighties and, as Holly suggests, they had this knack for sucking the life out of the original. Old Motown gems "Reach Out I'll Be There" by the Four Tops and "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5 (later credited to 'Michael Jackson with The Jackson 5') ended up getting re-released in 1988 with more modern sounds added that only detracted from what a pair of brilliant songs they always have been. Bill Withers had some of his oldies rejigged at around the same time to somewhat better results even if they still seemed faintly pointless. If it's neigh on impossible for a cover version to top its source, what hope did a remix have?

I won't say for sure if the '89 mix of "I'm Every Woman" tops Chaka Khan's original from 1979 but just the fact that I have to think about it says all you need to know. Listening to her first post-Rufus outing now, I'm struck by how disco records always seemed to be flooded in strings. Ten years on, there was less of a demand for violins on dance music and Danny D's remix smartly pushes the chamber orchestra to the background. The other instruments remain and it gives the remix a brighter sound. Khan's voice also seems more dynamic under these conditions. While you'd never confuse "Reach Out I'll Be There" or "I Want You Back" for modern pop, if you weren't aware of "I'm Every Woman"'s past life, you'd be convinced it was a current slice of late-eighties' dance pop.

Khan's original doesn't typically get cited as a feminist anthem possibly because it could just as easily be taken as a song about begging a man by being, er, every woman. Either way, the remix underscores the point of the song because she was able to be as relevant as ever in spite of changing fashions. Just as I had written a few weeks' ago about Elvis Costello, I was similarly certain that Chaka Khan was much older than she was back in 1989. Donna Summer had just returned with the triumphant collaboration with Stock Aitken Waterman "This Time I Know It's for Real" and this gave her a youthful quality in spite of her pushing forty. Khan had an oldie (which you could tell by the video) and this seemed to make her even more advanced in years, despite being four years Summer's junior. And yet, this too makes the song more empowering. She's no longer a young singer with her life ahead of her but a grizzled veteran who still boasts of being all that. She had only just turned thirty-six but she might as well have been one of the Golden Girls to me.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

The Funky Worm: "You + Me = Love"

The Funky Worm were probably the flop act most familiar to me due to them being included on both The Hits Album 9 (with "The Spell", which didn't even make the Top 60) and The Hits Album 10 (with this, a modest chart improvement on its predecessor), despite "Hustle (To the Music)" being a hit and failing to make it on to The Hits Album 7 or 8 (those Hits comps used the word 'hit' quite liberally). Disco and funk revivalists long before the likes of Brand New Heavies and Jamiroquai, there's something charmingly unpolished about them. Vocalist Julie Stewart probably didn't have the vocal chops to overdo it but that's for the best. "The Spell" was the better of the two but the cheery blandness of "You + Me = Love" has aged better than I would have thought and there's more going on in the background than I ever gave it credit for. A shame they didn't last longer, they might have even made it on to The Hits Album 11. 

Neil Young: "Hawks and Doves"

11 December 1980

"The old country waltz updated. Young has class enough to urinate all over the field here."

— Ronnie Gurr

As I suggested previously, there didn't appear to be a lot of quality material vying for the 1980 Christmas number one. There were a fair share of big names (the now-sadly deceased John Lennon being the biggest of them all) but few were offering their best work. Yet, here we are just two weeks away from the big day and the singles review page in Smash Hits is teeming with quality. Sure, The Police's "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" is as rubbish as ever and I will never comprehend the appeal of Adam & The Ants — even if "Ant Music" is one of their better efforts — but there are some excellent, if relatively minor, singles on offer as well. 

XTC were coming off a year that should have broken them big but their creative momentum was such that the seemingly tossed off "Take This Town" from the Times Square film soundtrack is nevertheless quite wonderful. The Clash's "The Call Up" was largely ignored by record buyers and is generally forgotten today but it ought to be ranked in the top flight of their singles. Dexys Midnight Runners were already moving on from their Searching for the Young Soul Rebels album with the brand new release "Keep It Part Two (Inferiority Part One)", which Kevin Rowland must have known was destined to be a chart longshot despite being as good as anything they'd done up to that point. Ronnie Gurr puts all seasonal releases together in a mass round up which give short shrift to Kate Bush's lovely "December Will Be Magic Again", which probably should have performed much better than it did. And then there was yet more fresh product from one of the leading groups of 1980 who were only just hitting their peak.

The Specials had only emerged as a national concern in 1979 with the brilliant "Gangsters" and they went on a run of unbeatable singles — "A Message to You Rudy"/"Nite Club", The Special AKA Live!, "Rat Race", "Stereotype". With The Specials and More Specials being similarly outstanding albums, with some fine B-sides to boot, there wasn't a better group in Britain during their two year prime. A flash in the pan they may have been but, as a certain wise old songsmith once said, it's better to burn out than fade away. (They left the fading away to their second incarnation following the departures of Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple six months later) Their fans would have become accustomed to their exceptionally high standards by this point and "Do Nothing" didn't let them down.

Like most Smash Hits reviewers of the time, Ronnie Gurr doesn't specify a Single of the Fortnight and I had assumed that this latest single from The Specials was is his pick of the litter here, and not just because it would certainly have been my choice. "Great Reginald Dixon sound from Jerry Dammers and more exemplary trombone etchings from Rico," Gurr coos. "A truly excellent single". High praise to edge it above Adam Ant ("Pretty irresistible actually"), XTC ("...a great single") and The Clash ("In which The Clash prove that they really are the failure creeps you suspected all along": he likes this record, right?) and that was good enough for me. Then, I happened to read the entire singles page and discovered that he likes it when whiny Canadians take a giant piss all over their competitors. Classy indeed.

I often think of Neil Young as the ultimate example of an artist who only does slow songs. Of course, he has recorded countless faster-paced rockers over his lengthy career but are the bulk of them any good? (I've heard plenty of them in my time but I can't think of a single one that managed to make any kind of impression on me) Certainly it's not the louder material that makes me think of the so-called Godfather of Grunge. I associate Young with "Expecting to Fly", "After the Goldrush", "Helpless", "Heart of Gold", "Old Man", "Like a Hurricane", "Harvest Moon" and "Philadelphia" and I can give or take the faster and the harder stuff — even the updated country waltz stuff.

That's not to say that "Hawks and Doves" is poor. It's well made and he has one of those backing bands that everyone describes as "crack". As is typical, Neil Young doesn't exactly bowl you over with his vocal prowess but he does sound more self-assured and even a bit playful here. And there's a message about accepting people in there somewhere. The US had just elected Ronald Regan into the White House so it was timely to have a blue-collar anthem that tried to reach out across the aisle. (It could easily find a home in our current climate as well with all that culture war nonsense) 

But after a week of listening, I still haven't warmed fully to it nor has it gotten on my nerves to any real extent. It doesn't enhance my appreciation for Young not does it lower my opinion of him. I never need to hear "Hawks and Doves" again nor will I actively try to avoid it. He did some good country-ish recordings in his day (I'd take the decidedly more mellow Comes a Time over the roughhouse country rock of the Hawks & Doves album) often because gentler styles tended to bring out his more reflective side. This is why the "ballads" tend to stand out and why they're the numbers I'll keep revisiting.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Steely Dan: "Hey Nineteen"

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were in their early thirties when Steely Dan's seventh album Gaucho came out. They had previously been on an album-a-year streak from 1972's Can't Buy a Thrill to 1977's Aja but this one took a lot longer to finish. As a result, the duo may well have still been in their twenties when they composed this paean to midlife crisis. The Dan of old would have been happy to make "Hey Nineteen" into an amusing romp but there's real loneliness and desperation. How many fifty-year-old men have left their wives for a pretty young thing only to realise that they, too, got nothing in common. The surprisingly poignant "the Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian" section could be about being all alone but even if "Nineteen" is present, it seems likely that this gentleman feels much more of a connection with his selection of narcotics than any human company. Another classic Steely Dan single — and the closest competition for The Specials.