(#319: 17 August 1985, 5 weeks)
Track Listing: A View To A Kill (Duran Duran)/The Word Girl (Scritti Politti)/Axel F (Harold Faltermeyer)/Johnny Come Home (Fine Young Cannibals)/In Too Deep (Dead Or Alive)/Icing On The Cake (Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy)/Cherish (Kool and the Gang)/Every Time You Go Away (Paul Young)/Kayleigh (Marillion)/Slave To Love (Bryan Ferry)/This Is Not America (David Bowie and The Pat Metheny Group)/Don't You (Forget About Me) (Simple Minds)/Get It On (The Power Station)/Black Man Ray (China Crisis)/One More Night (Phil Collins)/Frankie (Sister Sledge)/History (Mai Tai)/Money's Too Tight To Mention (Simply Red)/Feel So Real (Steve Arrington)/Round And Around (Jaki Graham)/Turn It Up (The Conway Brothers)/Magic Touch (Loose Ends)/N-N-Nineteen Not Out (The Commentators)/The Unforgettable Fire (U2)/Walls Come Tumbling Down! (The Style Council)/Walking On Sunshine (Katrina and the Waves)/Out In The Fields (Gary Moore and Phil Lynott)/The Shadow Of Love (The Damned)/Life In One Day (Howard Jones)/Love Don't Live Here Anymore (Jimmy Nail)
"Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire...To speak amorously is to expend without an end in sight..." Talking, A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes
Oh, the uncertainty of this time! I do not mean the near-perpetual worry of
nuclear war (I think now that Live Aid was such a success because it was
something people felt they could actually do
something about, instead of just worry about at night) but the uncertainty that
happens during the middle of any decade.
And few years were more uncertain than 1985, when there was enough going
on underground to satisfy the restless and yet there was also this sense of
ennui and vague post-Live Aid well-what-are-we-gonna-do-nowness that was in the
heat of August kind of exhausting.
And it was hot; I was a high school grad at last, having
survived summer school one more time, and had nothing to do but wait to start
at Sheridan College in September. I must
have listened to the radio quite a bit; gone to the mall; gone to the library
across the street or downtown. I wasn’t
bored, per se – the music on the radio was too good for that. But that
was CFNY, whereas this is the UK,
this is a big pig takin’ it easy by the pool, this is what compiler (he’s
called “Co-Ordinator” on the back) Ashley Abram was able to put together on
relatively short notice…
Some of these songs – I count six – have already been dealt
with on TPL elsewhere – if I was sitting in a booth with its own little jukebox
I wouldn’t choose any of them, as I’d know them already, and who wants to eat
onion rings to “The Unforgettable Fire” anyhow?
I know I don’t. As for the rest…
1985: I Didn’t See Any Movies, Darn It
As anyone who knows me knows, I am not a great moviegoer and
since I had no one to go see movies, even bad ones, with in the summer I didn’t
see a bunch of what are actually probably pretty good ones. To wit – A
View To A Kill. I have seen about
the last ten minutes of this and it is ridiculous and eyebrow-raising and camp
as anything could be with Roger Moore and Grace Jones; if only Grace Jones had
done the title song and not Duran Duran.
There is nothing wrong or bad with this song inherently, but once Simon
Le Bon starts his battle with Princess Metaphor, yelping and trying to sound
desperate/sexy, then it’s all “so you went to the top floor of the Eiffel Tower,
do you want a medal?” time and Roger Taylor, always my favorite of the two
Roger Taylors (we will get the other one, at the end – Abram’s got his ways,
you see) left to start a wine bar for the yuppies of Birmingham. God, can you blame him?
I also didn’t get to see Beverly
Hills Cop, though at some point I think I saw some of Eddie Murphy’s
stand-up movie Delirious, which was
(and is) funny. But I digress. “Axel F” sounds like what it is – a simple
ditty by a protégé of Giorgio Moroder, a kind of German response to “Planet
Rock.” Because it is simple and elegant
and even spare (oh, to have Metronomy cover this live) it survives.
The Falcon and The
Snowman wouldn’t have appealed to me at the time – though it might now; not
sure. But Bowie yelping “NOOOO!” on top
of an almost-too calm Metheny groove is a rough predictor of Radiohead, and
hey, where have we heard the America-Miracle word swap before? Culture Club, that’s where. Bowie was more than knee-deep in movies at
this time (“This Is Not America” sound more acted
than sung), and so Metheny takes this song emotionally to where it could go.
The one movie that I really should have seen at the time was
The Breakfast Club – I feel at a loss
when I read anything about the movies of John Hughes, and as a minor delinquent
in high school I would identify with the characters, for sure. “Don’t You Forget About Me” is a swoon of a
song, Jim Kerr singing low and sweet, not loud and sweaty as he had sounded on Sparkle In The Rain; it’s a Keith Forsey
song, produced by him as well, so it’s not on Once Upon A Time, but it went to #1 in the US long before it got
anywhere in the UK other than as an import, and why is that? It’s “Pretty Woman” without the growling and
martial beat, more or less. This is the
high school romance song I sadly never got to participate in, the one where the
sweethearts actually do stay in touch….
1985: Chic, the Wilderness Years
Or, ow, my head. How
can you take something sexy and make it leering? I mean, already there’s Duran Duran trying
their best to be Chic (and apparently pissing off John Barry at the time); but
then there’s this inexplicably awful cover version of T. Rex’s “Get It
On.” I don’t even want to talk about the
physical functions it sounds like, there is something brutal and frankly
non-sexual happening here, however the participants are convinced otherwise,
and I blame drugs entirely. The Power
Station were produced by Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson played the drums and
yet there is nothing Chic about this whatsoever. Andy Taylor and John Taylor play in a “manly”
way that causes headaches and heading this Group of Death is Robert Palmer, who
is always at his best when he is subtle, insinuating. This is as come-hither as a wet towel and I’m
just glad Marc Bolan never lived to hear this.
I’m also not sure who Sister Sledge’s “Frankie” is supposed
to be – Frank Sinatra? Frankie Goes To
Hollywood? Nile Rodgers produced this
and Denise Rich wrote it, having dreamt it up on a cross-Atlantic flight. To his credit Rodgers didn’t like it at
first, and yet it was an earworm for him, and then he insisted that Sister
Sledge (who had brought it to his attention in the first place) record it. Again, I can only blame drugs, and the
times. I mean, “I said to myself, we could
have had twins”?
SIGH.
1985: The Birth Of So(ul)cialism
These days it is a little bit forgotten, the So(ul)cialist
movement, but if you were a conscientious objector to Thatcher and didn’t think
New Pop was quite connecting with The People TM, then this was the thing. Direct lyrics, danceable beats, Definite
Attitude: sharp dressing as well (paging
The Style Council) was de rigueur as well, because, altogether now, there’s
nothing wrong with being cool and going against the Live Aid hegemonic
grain.
Straight out of Birmingham, Fine Young Cannibals were the
rhythm section of The (English) Beat and their old pal Roland Gift, and this
sharp ska lament of a runaway son by his father echoes the lament that starts Our Favourite Shop – only he is missing,
his father gets drunk every night, the world is turned upside down, and the
cold Thatcher dawn is evoked as a place which has no place for runaway
children. No fingers are pointed, as
such, but the ache in Gift’s voice is real, and the sparseness of this song is
again very welcome, especially in the light
of the all-too-produced likes of Bryan Ferry, Phil Collins, etc.
It is now that I should mention, in passing, that there was
a riot in Handsworth, Birmingham when Now 5 was at #1; I can’t imagine that the
good people of Handsworth really cared much for, oh, “Life In One Day” by
Howard Jones (who isn’t part of the So(ul)cialist movement, though I’m sure he
thought he was). This flute-driven/don’t-worry-be-happy
tune would be enough to make anyone feel like rioting, if only to run over to
the radio/stereo, turn it off and put on Felt’s “Primitive Painters” or R.E.M.’s
“Can’t Get There From Here” in order to restore some actual sense of human
feeling. How could anyone live their life in one day, anyhow?
My other favorite member of Duran Duran left before they
became famous; Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy made a joy of a single with “Kiss Me”
and this is his So(ul)cialist response to class snobbism – “Icing On The Cake.” Be part of those who live on council estates
or housing and be proud, says Duffy; “They
want to break you, they want to make you unhappy.” I don’t think I need to underline how this
could be a hit today, or how a young Robbie Williams probably bought it – again
a warm hug of a song – with his pocket money.
Unlike the previous song this didn’t get played on CFNY as I recall, as
no one in North America knows what a council estate is (if he’d used the US
term “the projects” then it would’ve been understood).
And now to Manchester, where Mick Hucknall has stopped being
post-punk and is now a full-time So(ul)cialist, covering The Valentine Brothers’
hit from ’82 and all but willing Bobby Womack (R.I.P. Big Man) to come out and
sing with him. By now the
Thatcher-Reagan love-in vibes were well known, so singing about “Reaganomics”
is a transatlantic howl of righteousness that everybody could understand. Simply Red may have, as I once read it
somewhere, ended up making music “for stewardesses” but this is just as tough
as it needs to be, with the question “Did the earth move for you Nancy?” at the
end as “Huh, what, he said that?” as
ever.
1985: Miscellaneous, Inc.
In any year where basically no one knows (or seems to care)
exactly what is going on, where the flux of things is too strong to pull
against and people end up in a kind of daze, all sorts of things can and do pop
up in the chart, as harbingers or signs of life.
Dead Or Alive – led by the frightening, imperious Pete Burns
– is kind of hard to believe in “In Too Deep” – how could anything be too much
for him? And yet it works as he says he could “steal a
car” to get away from his ever-demanding Other, the sort of Other who could
have “ten diamond rings” and still want more.
You could be straight and say this was a song about an impossible lover,
or be Situationist and say it’s about capitalism. No doubt about it, though, that Stock, Aitken
and Waterman were revving up their collective gears here to take over the
charts with hooks and shamelessness, and Dead Or Alive were the perfect band
for that mission.
Also from Liverpool, China Crisis were everything Dead Or
Alive was against – serious, quiet, studious, the sort of band that purportedly
put the producer here, Walter Becker, to sleep.
This song, about Man Ray, is a dull pacifier of a tune, ambling along
helplessly, questioning whether Art or Danger or Life are worth essentially
giving a damn about, when “God only knows in the end.” “We the people” vs. “the heavenly” – the doubt
is always there, but with this there’s no actual sense that anything could ever
change; this is audible static, a lament of those who cannot, as they say in
the UK, be bothered. UGH.
Kool and the Gang, blessedly, exist to remind us all that
everything we have is precious, and if this is as smooth as silk and helps to
invent Easy Rock type stations, I don’t care.
It’s always a good reminder to have, that the one you love may “receive”
his/her calling in the night, and that what matters is here and now. Not many songs refer openly to this intense
and humble feeling in relationships, of sheer gratitude. I’d better stop here before I get too
emotional, folks.
On the definitely chirpier side of things is “Walking On
Sunshine” – a personal fave of Johnny Carson, as I recall – and dammit why aren’t
more power pop songs hits? That this paraphrases “Roadrunner” is just
perfect, that this song refers openly to letters might make it seem quaint
nowadays but letters are still sexy, worth yelping and jumping around about, with
the joy (that word again, but it is the right one) unbounded by anything, even
itself.
There is no way my limited knowledge of cricket could help
me understand “N-N-Nineteen Not Out” by The Commentators (aka Rory Bremner) but
it’s charming anyway – mention of a cucumber sandwich (I was hoping for cake,
but, oh well, close enough), the 1984 tour of the West Indies and the priceless
and still appropriate “none of them received a standing ovation” were enough to
make me laugh. Produced by Joe Quick,
who must be Paul Hardcastle himself…
And what to make of The Damned sounding like a Goth
Smiths? “The Shadow of Love” has a bass
and drums so much like them I got distracted and kept thinking of Rourke and
Joyce, haplessly. “Nowhere Fast”? “Still
Ill”? The drums come straight from “Ballroom
Blitz” and I am not sure their take on Goth is always straight, but they’re the
Damned, why should it be? Again, not
played on CFNY, as “Grimly Fiendish” suited the station better…
Also not played – “Out In The Fields” by Gary Moore and Phil
Lynott, nor “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” by Jimmy Nail. The former is a rock lament to those who have
to fight, sung by both men, the fight being maybe post-nuclear or
pre-holocaust, hard to tell which. But
it’s done with more oomph than Dire Straits could imagine, and it’s likely one
of the last things Lynott recorded before his death. And it has “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”
at the end, so it’s unequivocally against war, in its gruff way.
I don’t know exactly why Roger Taylor of Queen worked with Nail to do this song, but it comes off fine, Nail’s voice sounding properly wounded and upset and the drums are bang-bang without being Collinsesque. Now compilations often end with ballads, emotional ones, as if to say, that’s it, the party’s over…
…and as I understand it, this was at the time supposed to be
the last of the Now
compilations. It was only supposed to be
a fad, a teaser sampler for the albums, a way to get the singles and not have
an awkward pile of singles around to organize.
There was, in the same week this was released, another compilation
called Out Now! (not forthcoming on TPL) and I suspect the
ever-expanding pig on the cover was due to explode, that his time was up. But no…
1985: Britfunk Lives!
Part of the underground movement I mentioned above was
pirate or “unlicenced” radio, which certainly existed and played what I think
wasn’t called “urban” music. KISS FM was
about to start and songs like “Round And Around” by Jaki Graham, “Turn It Up”
by The Conway Brothers and “Magic Touch” by Loose Ends were just the sort of
thing they would play; no doubt LWR (London Weekend Radio, where Tim Westwood
got his start) were already playing them.
On the BBC only Tony Blackburn, a stalwart supporter of soul and funk
and swinging pop played them. This is a
shame, and that these songs – all very fine – still don’t get played enough on,
oh, R2 is a boggler; Jaki Graham shows she can get with the S.O.S. Band groove
just as well as anyone, The Conway Brothers are asking for the song to be
turned up before Public Enemy, and Loose Ends talk about magic, true love and
tragedy in a way that is delicate and pure and of course it was a hit in the US
as well as the UK.
“History” by Mai Tai is at least heartfelt (“burn, burn,
burn them up!”) and even if it’s basic stuff, it’s still based on – yep, again –
that S.O.S. Band groove. Still, as
Marcello says, Control can’t arrive
soon enough.
This leaves us with the two supreme songs on this compilation…
…Steve Arrington’s gospel pop of “Feel So Real” is so fresh,
so generous, so open-hearted…that Freddie Hubbard comes in for a solo seems
like the most natural and inevitable of things. “Freedom from the chains that hold us back”
is what the song promises and delivers.
Was there really a prime time radio program once at this time that was
nothing but gospel? Why can’t something
like that happen now?
1985: It Hits You, And Then It Hits You
There is no point in even my talking coherently here – Cupid
& Psyche ’85 is by far my favorite album of the year*. “The Word Girl” I probably didn’t even get at
the time, but such a simple song carries such complex lyrics, lyrics that still
look at the rest of pop music askance.
What are you doing? What kind of
language are you using? The lightest of
skanks had the biggest impact; and the whole album is one pulse and pull of
language and what it may or may not be any use for. The song halts itself, as if to say, wait a
minute, this is a pop song too. And
it sighs and continues, just as Green dou-dou-do-doo-doodle-doos; and the song is about Cupid in the dark, Psyche being realized, Cupid being realized…but you
don’t need to know the story to get the song.
Just about every story that comes from this is known – Pride and Prejudice,
Jane Eyre, Beauty and the Beast; but Cupid has the arrow, the punctum, and
Psyche has the soul; and this album
takes those opposites and makes them whole.
The wink and confidence of “Perfect Way” caught Miles Davis’ ear; “Wood
Beez” (those tumbling down the stairs
beats, that “including doing nothing” that leaps
to prayer) did more for Aretha Franklin than the entire soulboy contingent at
the NME and “The Word Girl” left me
quietly wondering when, where could I find anyone who could do that, who could like this, as much as me. This is the album I didn't even know I needed so much manifest; hearing it was somehow as much a reward for graduating as my certificate, and even now it sounds ahead, or rather outside, of its time.
I would walk in my plastic shoes on weekends back from the
mall, the small pebbles on the rough way getting in my shoes, smelling of
Essence Rare and oh that ORANGE, that deep intense orange after the already strong
first whiff, and along with this album the nothingness of August 1985 was
forgotten, irrelevant. That it could
exist in the first place was proof that someone
would find me, or I’d find them (out of restlessness) and this album has more
genuine understanding of love than Bryan Ferry could ever have; that love is
something to enjoy, not suffer, and even in suffering there is hope – the astonishing “Hypnotize”
– oh, that I could go back and play this for my father and say, see, it swings!
This is taking all those love lyrics and making them come to life; and
that line…”it’s so hard to tell to you that I love you” which is the center of
the whole album…revealed at the end, only to send you back to “The Word Girl”
and how hard it is to understand the flesh and blood, the real, but necessary
too…
Clearly, 1985 from the point of view of this album is
something of a mess; but there are enough good things here to suggest that the
underground, that So(ul)cialism, and that New Pop were going to win out, that
the dullness and inertia and anesthetic qualities were not always going to
hold. Through the humid languid haze something was sustained, and the seed of something else was sprouting. It is too easy, sometimes, to dislike 1985 because of the hegemony it represents; every time you hear something from it on the radio, it sounds so cut off from everything else, or it seems to.
But beyond there was a push back, a defiance, a girl walking along eating wild raspberries and feeling like there is something beyond the washed-out pastels and florals of the day, something of phosphorescent and profound intensity. Oh let me feel the pebbles in my shoes, the wind that bends the trees, that...OH...pause...between the notes, the vivid things that are beyond the reaches of the mall, the library, the home.
*Yes, I know, I know. Get it on cassette, to get the versions, including the divine one of "Absolute" that sparkles like my pink pearlescent shoes did.
