Thursday, 20 October 2011
67 Japanese Whispers - The Cure
Purchased : 29 September 1987
Tracks : Let's Go To Bed / The Dream / Just One Kiss / The Upstairs Room / The Walk / Speak My Language / Lament / The Lovecats
I'm surprised that I bought another LP the following day almost as if I was trying to wash away the disappointment of Strangeways Here We Come with an album of more certain reward.
"Japanese Whispers " was a stopgap mini-LP released at the end of 1983 to collect together the three singles released since the band's challenging last album "Pornography" in 1982. Bassist Simon Gallup had left the group ( temporarily as it turned out ) allowing mainman Robert Smith and drummer turned keyboards player Lol Tolhurst to pursue a more pop direction like so many of their peers in the New Pop era. They had been instantly rewarded with a real commercial breakthrough and this record neatly captures that turning point in the group's fortunes.
"Let's Go To Bed" snuck out as a single in late 1982 and came as a considerable surprise. Earlier in the year "Pornography" had been an album of unrelenting morose Goth- rock heroically out of step with the times and with Gallup jumping ship it had been widely assumed that the group was coming to an end. Instead Smith and Tolhurst came up with a catchy synth pop tune that sounded like no one else due to its complex stop-start bassline. Smith has subsequently said it was a sarcastic comment on the use of sexuality to sell music ( making Rihanna's steal of the keyboard hook for her S & M single highly ironic ) but to me it's always sounded more like a song about first time nervousness and one remembers that Smith and his wife's relationship goes back to their school days. Despite a seemingly irresistible earworm of a chorus and a reference to Christmas in the second verse it got overlooked in the December rush and peaked at 44.
"The Dream" was originally the B-side to the follow-up single which we'll come to shortly. The title of the LP seems particularly appropriate to this track as , Smith's voice apart , it sounds identical to Tin Drum-era Japan with its Oriental keyboard sounds and offbeat rhythms. The lyrics explore similar territory to the previous track starting out with images of childhood innocence then getting into more sexual territory as the song progresses. What it doesn't have is a strong melody and B-side seems about right.
" Just One Kiss " ( B side to "Let's Go To Bed" ) recycles the restless clatter of "Pornography"'s only single "The Hanging Garden" ( itself owing much to Joy Division's Atrocity Exhibition ) but whereas that was a defiantly unmelodic dirge , here we have a beautifully mournful song , perefectly delivered by Smith, about the ephemeral nature of nostalgia - "remember the sound that could wake the dead but nobody woke up at all" . The "haunting " keyboard contributions are showing their age a bit but in a way that's thematically appropriate.
"The Upstairs Room" was originally on the 12 inch single of the next track and is at least its equal. Tethered to a drum machine and discreet bass synth pulse it's an appealing mix of Japan-ish keyboard lines, melodic bass runs that can't fail to suggest Peter Hook and economic blasts of early Banshees guitar. The song concerns Smith's temporary sojourn in Steve Severin's living room when they were working together on The Glove project and seems to be an affectionate but mildly reproachful assurance to his partner Mary - "I thought you would know that I always sleep alone".
Side Two commences with that second "pop" single "The Walk" which finally cracked the Top 20 for them in July 1983. It has to be said straightaway that there's an unmistakable resemblance to Blue Monday in the pounding bass synth and frequent percussive breaks but the topline Oriental melody and morbid lyrics are the group's own . There are hints that this is a murder ballad but Smith kept it vague enough for radio play and reaped the reward.
"Speak My Language " was B-side to the third and biggest hit on the LP and by which time the band had expanded to include a new rhythm section of bassist Phil Thornalley and drummer Andy Anderson. Smith's desire to explore different musical territory is immediately obvious on this loose , jazzy track with Thornalley playing upright bass and a ragged piano picking out the melody. However Smith doesn't take much notice of the tune and is off-key throughout the song; his guitar is similarly atonal making it the most "difficult" track on the LP. The song is about communication failure and fittingly the chorus is a babble of mumbles before the title plea.
"Lament" , another track from the "The Walk" 12 inch, seems to have been inspired by the mysterious death of corrupt Italian banker Roberto Calvi in London the previous summer. Calvi was found hanging underneath Blackfriars Bridge after going on the run but the initial verdict of suicide has been widely challenged. Smith's sly references to Catholicism - "They talked of how they loved Our Lady and oh the smell as candles die" - and ice cream are big clues. It's another case of recycling elements from "Pornography" in a more commercial context , this time the nagging guitar riff from "One Hundred Years" ( the previous album's terminally bleak and attritional opening track) here used as an instrumental chorus between Smith's mournful but melodic verses. The synth sounds again sound a bit dated but it remains an affecting song.
Which leaves us with "The Love Cats" which took them into the Top Ten for the first time aided by a Tim Pope video which fixed Smith's enduring and paradoxical public image as the court jester of Goth. It's been suggested that Smith's inspiration was the Australian novel The Vivisector by Patrick White although I suspect The Aristocats ( my own childhood favourite film ) was a rather bigger influence particularly as only the French cat's accordion is missing from the alley cats' instrumental line-up here. That's a better thought to dwell on than the unfortunate association the lyrics now have with Galloway and Lenska. It's a skilfully executed pastiche particularly the milk bottle percussion and cat crow guitar wails but I can't say it's one of my favourites.
All in all you have a pretty good album ; indeed some fans rate it their best. Certainly it's the most accessible; on all their subsequent albums ( some of which we'll be covering ) Smith would aim for a balance between pop nuggets and less easy on the ear material. I prefer one of its predecessors but you'll have to wait a bit for that one.
Monday, 10 October 2011
66 Strangeways Here We Come - The Smiths
Purchased : 28th September 1987
Tracks : A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours / I Started Something I Couldn't Finish / Death Of A Disco Dancer / Girlfriend In A Coma / Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before / Last Night I Dreamed Somebody Loved Me / Unhappy Birthday / Paint A Vulgar Picture / Death At One's Elbow / I Won't Share You
This was bought as soon as it came out from Woolworths' in Ashton-under-Lyne on a Monday afternoon.
I was looking forward to revisiting this one because it's had a good press in recent years whereas I'd always assumed my disappointment with it was generally shared.
Let's get the history right first . This is The Smiths' final original studio LP but it wasn't intended as such. Recording it was not a particularly painful process; the tensions in the band only really erupted during the later recording sessions for the B-sides to its lead single. It was intended to be the final record under their contract with Rough Trade with the band having signed for EMI earlier in the year. It wasn't actually released until after the band's split was announced with Morrissey abandoning his futile attempt to keep the group going after the departure of Johnny Marr. I think that's unduly influenced people's ( including my own ) perceptions of it ever since.
My expectations of it had been lowered by the sub-standard singles that had preceded it in 1987 although their singles had rarely represented the best of their work. The prevalence of long unwieldy titles was another danger sign, "A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours" betrays Morrissey's Irish roots, the title being a slightly mistranslated version of a traditional Gaelic battle cry. There's no political content in the song which is delivered by the ghost of a young suicide victim who, beyond a few disconnected musings about love, appears to have no real message for the living ( by coincidence, an observation you could also make about the ghost in a Douglas Coupland novel inspired by another track on this LP ) . By this time Johnny Marr had gone on record as being disenchanted with his guitar hero status and was trying to broaden out The Smiths ' sound so here he's replaced the guitar with music hall piano and glockenspiel. The result is that bar not having a sax solo and cockney-accented vocal it sounds like the also recently deceased Madness which probably wasn't the intention.
With "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" it's brass that infiltrates the sound blaring away behind Marr's glam rock swagger and Mike Joyce's sledgehammer snare. Morrissey contributes a risky lyric seemingly about regretting a sexual assault. Amusingly this was thought to be more appropriate to be a second single than track five which has a throwaway line about mass murder ( this being shortly after the Hungerford massacre ). The whole thing anticipates Suede a few years down the line but it's melodically weak and Morrissey's vocal is over-mannered.
"Death Of A Disco Dancer" has a late night feel with Rourke's prowling bass and Marr's echo-laden guitar ( suggestive of The Edge). The actual song is rather slight, possibly about a suicide before demolishing the hippie ideal with the subtlety of a sledgehammer - love peace and harmony well maybe in the next world ". It makes you think that the similarity of Marr's main riff to Dear Prudence is deliberate. After three minutes Morrissey stops singing and starts some atonal piuano plonking - his one and only instrumental contribution to the band's music - heralding a lengthy instrumental coda which is much better than the song it' s decorating , Joyce brewing up a storm over Marr's corruscating guitar and eerie Farfisa .
The lead single "Girlfriend In A Coma" follows . It's an interesting combination of elements, a propulsive bassline , dainty acoustic guitar and heavy ELO-strings on the chorus. Inspired by the cause celebre of Karen Ann Quinlan , the first great right -to - die test case it in turn led to Douglas Coupland's 1997 novel of the same name ( two thirds brilliant, last third terrible ). It's Achilles heel is its brevity - just over two minutes - which makes it seem glib and heartless.
"Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before " is the stand-out track, the only one that really measures up to the music on their other LPs. Despite the defensive title the song is a catalogue of physical mishaps incurred in pursuit of a loved one with Morrissey singing in his most plaintive tones and Marr consenting to play the guitar hero once more. The only criticism is that his stinging guitar solo at the end is too short.
Side One is patchy but the second side is simply poor. "Last Night I Dreamed Somebody Loved Me " ( released as the third single ) begins with an over-long irrelevant intro setting mob screams ( strangely reminiscent of the start of The Plastic Age on the previous entry ) against doomy grand piano chords. It's nearly two minutes before Morrissey comes in accompanied by strings. The song isn't strong enough to support all this melodrama, a lachrymose reiteration of the themes on "How Soon Is Now " delivered drowsily by Morrissey. There's a brief spark of life from Marr's guitar towards the end but too little too late.
"Unhappy Birthday" is weaker still with its bluntly spiteful lyric. Marr seems content to just strum along on acoustic with only an occasional background sigh from his electric. Rourke does his best to move things along with a cajoling bassline but it's an umemorable song to say the least.
The problematic "Paint A Vulgar Picture " is a five-and-a-half minute diatribe against the music business in general and Geoff Travis and Rough Trade in particular. Marr and the rhythm boys set it up nicely with a fine tumbling riff over which Morrissey sometimes has difficulty cramming in all his bilious words.Nevertheless there's a fine instrumental break halfway through and if that had closed the song it would be a good'un. Unfortunately Morrissey picks up his rant where he left off and it just gets boring. It hasn't aged well either in the light of Morrissey's collusion with EM|I's constant re-packaging of the archive since the group's demise.
The final two tracks pass by in a blur of disappointment. The sound effect of a coffee percolator is the best thing about "Death At One's Elbow" ( my nomination as the worst song in the group's canon ) a tuneless rockabilly thrash in which Morrissey exhorts someone called Glenn not to go in a house or face being murdered with an axe. This is a clear reference to the murder of Edward Evans - yes we have heard this one before ! It's less than two minutes long but still outstays its welcome.
"I Won't Share You " is also forgettable, a limp acoustic strum on which Joyce is absent and nobody else does anything interesting . It's been universally assumed to refer to Marr's desire to work with other musicians but you'd think if that was the case Morrissey would come up with better lyrics than "Life tends to come and go , just as long as you know." There again it does fade out just as it seems Marr's about to begin a solo so there may be some truth in it. Whatever it sounds unfinished and a very poor note on which to make your exit as a group.
Sharp-eyed readers will have realised that there was still one Smiths LP missing from my collection at this point in time so this isn't really the end of the story for me. Nevertheless the group's relatively sudden exit was a profound shock to me as to many others and cast a long shadow over the British music scene for some years to come. In a way this LP's obvious deficiencies went some way to tempering that sense of loss; maybe it was for the best if the magic had gone ( something I'd bet Noel Gallagher ruefully ponders from time to time) . I'm not revising my opinion of it but it's a chapter in one of music's great stories and so will endure for all time.
Saturday, 1 October 2011
65 The Age of Plastic - The Buggles
Purchased : September 1987
Tracks : The Plastic Age / Video Killed The Radio Star / Kid Dynamo / I Love You ( Miss Robot ) / Clean Clean / Elstree / Astroboy / Johnny On The Monorail
This was a long-desired item from the heyday of the Travelling Society and was conveniently available at mid-price as part of Island's 25th Birthday celebrations. It was bought in Manchester on a Saturday morning. I also visited the North West Museum of Science and Industry for the first time in its new location at Castlefield which made for an interesting connection as this album's most well-known track was riding high in the singles charts when I last visited the museum's humbler previous home on Grosvenor St in 1979.
This LP was released in February 1980 but it is essentially a product of the 1970s, the decade that looked both forward and back, that loved Dad's Army and American Graffiti but also thrilled to Star Wars and the potential of the silicon chip. These two musicians from the backing band of portly disco singer Tina Charles refract that dichotomy with an album that uses state of the art studio technology on songs which, even when set in the future , ache with nostalgia and loss.
"The Plastic Age " ( their second and final Top 20 hit ) sets out the stall perfectly. It proclaims the shiny and new but the observer is ageing and needs surgery both medical and plastic. This is not the Ballardian nightmare of Numan's Replicas but our own world where human vulnerability will endure whatever delights technology has in store for us. Despite that it begins with the external sounds of an actual nightmare, disturbed sleep cries amid bleeping phones before the srt of bass synth pulse that would shortly characterise the work of Midge Ure's Ultravox leads into the song proper. Geoff Downes's keyboard work is phenomenal, finding a new sound to match every twist of the lyric , the quizzical phrase before the pay-off line in the chorus absolutely nailing the ambivalence at the heart of the song.
Then we have the big hit. "Video Killed The Radio Star" gave Island their first number one and led directly to ZTT and Mr Carlin's beloved New Pop but those are the least of its triumphs. It predicted the future for music for the next three decades and was my suggestion for greatest number one when The Guardian invited nominations in the nineties ( as their man picked I Just Called To Say I Love You we needn't discuss that any further) . And yet it's a song that looks back not forwards ; the narrator is lamenting the eclipse of a musician from his 1950s childhood listening to the radio. I'm reminded of Charlie mourning the death of Mantovani ( who died a few weeks after this album's release ) in Tim Lott's Rumours Of A Hurricane . The music again is fabulous from the mock classical intro with Trevor Horn's sighing bass to the completely unexpected rock guitar break that heralds the final chorus. The bubblegum female vocals would be irritating on a lesser song but this is an undeniable classic.
"Kid Dynamo" is a similar tale, the singer ( with Horn treating his vocal to sound deeper ) recalling the exploits of his youthful role model now working in the mainstream. This is much more of a driving rock song with Horn's guitar racing against Downes's keyboards and again prefigures Ultravox. Talking of which there is some disagreement on who played drums on this album a man called Paul Robinson or Warren Cann. It certainly sounds like the latter on this track at least. The quiet bits are again suffused with an exquisite melancholy especially the spoken bit about the media building stars.
"I Love You ( Miss Robot) " is rather risque, its lyrics recalling Numan or even the lovably daft Automatic Lover ( a hit for Dee Dee Jackson some 18 months earlier ) . It's the most overtly futuristic track with its mostly vocodered vocals although the most prominent instrument is Horn's steely bass, its metallic tone perfectly in sync with the subject matter. Again the tone is mourful ; when the inevitable question- "Do you love me ? " - is posed we don't need to hear the answer.
"Clean Clean" just made it into the Top 40 as the album's third single. Apart from "Video" it's the only track co-written with erstwhile collaborator Bruce Woolley. An ironic look at warfare it would make the perfect soundtrack for NATO's modern "heroes" , wreaking destruction from their unreachable cockpits without breaking sweat. There are clues to later hits here, the synth rock pulse of the verses suggests the thematically similar Dancing With Tears In My Eyes and the melodic hook in the chorus calls to mind Depeche Mode's A Question Of Time . It's effective but lacks the melodic warmth and emotional potency of the better tracks.
"Elstree" is perhaps my favourite. An elegy to the original British film studios from a former employee now working for the BBC ( ironically the BBC purchased the studios just four years later ) it's a poignant melody-fest from start to finish. The lovely instrumental coda has the best sound effect in my collection as a horse gallops from one speaker to the other. As a late fourth single released when they were already part of Yes, it isn't that surprising that it stalled in the 50s but a shame nonetheless.
Time and again this album astonishes with its prescience. The mellow and wistful "Astroboy" could be written today about teenage screen slaves and policing by CCTV. Horn again shows what an under-rated bassist he is from the foreboding intro onwards. He also slips in another lament for the golden age of radio -"Radio stations they fade as in dust, all their transmitters are crumbling with rust".
"Johnny On The Monorail" picks up on the period's fascination for Japanese technological progress with a hint of Ballardian fetishism. This lengthy track interweaves dark and urgent verses with a breezy chorus restating the fear/hope dichotomy when faced with the future theme that has run through the whole LP. The acoustic guitar passage before the final chorus captures all that apprehension that something valuable will be lost in the rush to leisured nirvana ( a promise yet to be delivered of course).
The final irony of course is that The Buggles as a band didn't reap much reward from the new musical age they were heralding. At the time this LP was only a moderate commercial success and received mixed reviews ; it seemed that many people were reluctant to see them as anything more than one hit wonders. Like other electronic pioneers of the time ( New Musik, M, John Foxx ) they were unable to take advantage when the New Romantic scene broke big just a year later and the more photogenic likes of Spandau Ballet ( whom Horn had to rescue when their singles chart positions began to nosedive in 1982 ) came to the fore. It probably didn't help when they became subsumed in Yes; the contradictions of a shiny new post-punk outfit helping out the least well-regarded of prog-rock dinosaurs are obvious. Downes bailed out early on their second LP ( which will feature here but you'll have to be patient ! ) and it was completely ignored despite Horn's burgeoning success as a producer. Nevertheless this LP's critical stock has risen over the years and deservedly so. We all share the same mixture of hope and dread at what lies ahead and these guys articulated better than most.
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