7 inch singles collection: The Boomtown Rats - Diamond Smiles

Bringing us the glamorous side of suicide..

THE BOOMTOWN RATS

A-Side: Diamond Smiles
B-Side: Late Last Night
(Ensign 1979)      

Back to The Boomtown Rats then, and I'm not sure that I've got anything more to add to what I said about them last time they cropped up, which is probably just as well, as I wrote more than intended to about the Beach Boys in my last entry. So I'll gloss over any more preamble and get down to the business of this blog. 

Diamond Smiles is record that I really liked when I first got it. I played it a lot, it's got a staccato feel, Bob's voice goes from a sneer that is distant and disapproving commentary on events, to become something more involved and passionate over the progression of the song. It was only after many. many listens that it actually clicked what the subject matter of the song was. It is, if you didn't know, about a young woman who, seemingly fed up with life commits suicide. Is this a good choice for a catchy pop song? Well why not - taboos are made to be broken, and highlighting the issue of suicide amongst the disaffected youth by singing about it is as good a way to bring the issues under a mainstream spotlight as any other. On the other hand much of the rest of the lyrics seem to be about the style over substance of the burgeoning yuppie culture - a perfectly acceptable target. What this means, though is that this song is neither an in depth look at either subject, and so fails to have the necessary depth to make it hard-hitting on either issue. This is entirely fair enough - it is just a piece of pop music after all - but I get the feeling that Geldolf is wanting us to sit up and notice the objects of his anger. It doesn't quite work, yet, but, as we all know, he does eventually channel his righteous fury into something that millions of people take notice of.

The flipside, Late Last Night, is as generic a Boomtown Rats b-side as you could expect. If you know what the band sounds like, you can probably guess what this song is like. It's an upbeat piece of power punk pop. The words are about a nightmare, although any scares that could be put in the song are undercut by a line about "something I ate". It sounds like they're going for creepy but failing to get there. There's nothing else particularly distinctive about this song.

I still enjoy this record and still think that Diamond Smiles is a good song, but maybe I don't love it as much as I did once. Suicide is a complex and important issue that needs to discussed more openly, however this blog whic is meant to be trivial and lighthearted is probably not the place to that. Nevertheless, as an act of public service I'd like to say that if you are reading this blog and having been having suicidal feelings please, please, please go and talk to some one about it - it's the first step in a long and difficult journey, but it's a step in the right direction and less irrevocable than the alternative.

Next time something Scandinavian...

7 inch singles collection: The Beach Boys - California Dreamin'

Harmonies and California it must be

THE BEACH BOYS

A-Side: California Dreamin'
B-Side: Lady Liberty
(Capitol 1986)      

I reckon that most people would think that there are three distinct eras of The Beach Boys - the first when they released all the famous stuff about surfing, cars, and girls, the second era is when they were doing thing innovative and new, making Lennon & McCartney jealous, and being critical favourites. The third era that follows is basically everything else. This is possible a little harsh especially as the first two eras together make up no more than about 8 years, and the third era is coming on to at least 45 years. So let's look at this third era in a bit more detail, and I think this can again be neatly subdivided into 3 parts. The first of these I think we can label "The Seventies" without too much argument. The Beach Boys were still putting out new, and often interesting, and occasionally very good material. A lot of it veered off into soft rock, a genre which has always had limited critical or commercial cachet. After this period there were still original and new records - although with less frequency, and it has to be said less good records. It's during this period that there seems to start up a lot of in-fighting over who owns the name of the band, and whether it's better to just live off performing on the oldies, or doing new material - I'd say that this seems to be another 10 or so years. After that things fall apart Mike takes the name and Bruce Johnston and tours all the old hits, Brian goes off and does his own mercurial thing, Al's left touring with a band that may have contained people who were session musicians and part of the touring line-up of The Beach Boys at some point in the past, and Carl and Denis are deceased - this is the current period it seems to be made up of the band suing and counter-suing each other, then getting back together for brief friendly reunions, and one-off records, then falling apart again.

It's towards the latter end of the second of the periods in the "everything else" era that California Dreamin' was released. On paper it makes quite a bit of sense it's a song about California, and is all close harmony - two things that practically define The Beach Boys. Another thing that I think you will all agree with me on is that the original version of California Dreamin' is a most magnificent song - so deciding to cover it is going to take something special. The best cover versions always bring something new to a song, shake it up a bit, with new arrangements and stylings, and it's to The Beach Boys credit that they try to do it that here. They go for a rockier feel, with thudding drums, twanging guitars and a decent sax solo, they also up the tempo of the song slightly - and they nearly pull it off, but not quite; they've lost the melancholic, isolated feel of the original, and the absence of female voices as a counterpoint to the males harmonies is something that lets this version down. It's never going to match The Mamas and The Papas original version, but I've heard worse versions. (If I ever get through this blog plan in full I've got a delightfully bad disco version - something for you to look forward to!)

Lady Liberty on the flip-side is based on a piece of music by J.S.Bach, I'm sure Bach purists will see this as a bit of sacrilege, however I'm not being a Bach purist so I have no problem on this front. I am however a Beach Boys purist and the fact that this is a re-write of possibly the best track from their 1979 album L.A.(The Light Album). [I'd strongly recommend you go out and listen to this album, because if I can't abuse my position as a trusted blogger by trying to get my readers to listen to a hard to find mediocre Beach Boys album, then what's the point]. Anyway Lady Lynda is a heartfelt and tender love song, Lady Liberty is a song of jingoism going on about the stuff that we should identify with America - you know the sort of the thing truth, justice, apple pie, high school massacres, etc. Even going as far as to quote, in a spoken word bit, the old "Give me you tired..." bit of polemic that's written on the Statue of Liberty. Tunewise it's a nice little number - not entirely down to Bach - it's got an engaging bassline, and a lightness of tone that is quite sweet - but with the re-written patriotic lyrics it goes beyond sweet and into saccharine

All in all an odd record that takes two better songs and makes them worse - one slightly, one even more so. A shame, but probably seemed like a good idea at the time, a cry to the general public that The Beach Boys were still around.

Next time something about suicide...

7 inch singles collection: Sally Oldfield - Silver Dagger

It's not Tubular Bells it's,

SALLY OLDFIELD

A-Side: Silver Dagger
B-Side: Sometimes I'm A Woman
(CBS 1987)      

I discussed the reasons for buying records before, especially for those records that were bought unheard. The reason for this purchase was simply because Sally Oldfield is Mike Oldfield's sister. Now, I know full well that just because one person creates something you enjoy, it doesn't mean that their sibling will produce something good or even something in the same oeuvre*. Nevertheless when you're in a record shop and there's a number of cheap bargain bin singles all screaming "BUY ME!" at you, then some arbitrary decisions have to be made. This purchase was the result of one such decision. No video link for this one as all the links on YouTube have been removed for copyright reasons - there does seem to be one on a German site, but I'll let you hunt that down yourselves.

I thought that this was going to fall into the singer/songwriter territory that we found ourselves in for the previous blog entry, so I was surprised when Silver Dagger turned out to be much more of pop sound. Although the kind of pop that is aimed at grown-ups, so it's all twinkly synths, and a glossy overproduction. It's that production that lets the side down here - because structurally Silver Dagger sounds like a traditional folk song, and Sally Oldfield has the kind of warbly voice that sits well with folk - like Maddy Prior or June Tabor. The lyrics are dark and about jealousy and infidelity and a "Gypsy's Curse", if the arrangement had been fiddles and mandolins instead of synthesizers this may have worked more to the songs advantage.

The opposite problem is true on the flipside - there's not enough production. Sometimes I'm A Woman, should be a big diva-esque number the kind that belongs to your Whitneys, Mariahs and Celines - but instead the production is a bit dowdier. It wouldn't particularly be my cup of tea, but it would have a spark. Come back with me to the mid 1980's - it's Saturday evening and you're watching The Two Ronnie. It's come to the part where Ronnie Corbett leans forward in his chair and says "Now it's our very special guest, Barbara Dickson..." This song is just like one of those songs that's she would have sung, only slightly browner. For those of you wondering about the title of this song, Sometimes I'm A Woman, the lyrics make it clear that when she's not a woman she's a child - a fairly dull answer which matches the rest of the song. I wish she'd sung that "sometimes I'm a woman, but sometimes I'm a dinosaur"- it would have given the song a bit of a lift.

Two songs then that are neither here nor there, sung by a singer that can't decide between folk singer or diva and so settles, unsatisfying somewhere between the two.

*Yes I do have an album by Chris Jagger, why do you ask?

Next time were California bound...

7 inch singles collection: Toni Childs - Zimbabwe

Into Africa...

TONI CHILDS

A-Side: Zimbabwe
B-Side: Where's The Ocean?
(A&M 1988)      

There was a glut of female singer/songwriters in the late 80's and early 90's, but rather than languish in the folk tradition of many of their forebears, like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, they expanded their horizons and encapsulated the sounds of rock and pop as well, establishing a new tradition, which in all likelihood can be traced back to Kate Bush as a point of origin. One of the things, though, that does connect back to their folky antecedents is many of their songs were very serious and definitely about something and not just love songs. Toni Childs is one of these performers. As you can tell from the above preamble I know little else about her. All I can say is that I may have bought this single under the assumption that she sounded a little bit like Melissa Etheridge, an assumption gained from a review read in, most likely, Melody Maker. Whether or not there are any similarities with Melissa Etheridge is a moot point now, as I've not listened to anything by her for years and can't remember what she sounds like.

It was very trendy at this point in time to indulge in a bit of ethno-musical tourism and incorporate the music of other cultures into the western sound. Paul Simon had done it incredibly successfully only a year or two before this record with Graceland. Whether this cultural appropriation of sounds is good because it spreads the music wider, or is actually a bit patronising is a debate that can rumble on indefinitely. I'm a bit on the fence myself, I've heard some fine music from non-western cultures because I've investigated sounds I've heard from records like this, but there is also the feeling of being in thrall to the spectacle what the the great white hunter has brought back from exotic climes. Having said all that in a record called Zimbabwe it does seem like a no-brainer to include elements of that country's music. There is some obviously African style chanting and instrumentation on the background of what is otherwise a bit of dullish AOR. As you probably could have guessed this song is about the recurrent and still ongoing problems of Zimbabwe, at least I'm guessing that, because Toni Childs appears to have a strained, and gravelly way of singing that actually obscures half the lyrics. This fact and the lack of any real hook or melody makes me feel like this has all been a wasted effort.

The gravelly voice is apparently not and affectation for the first track, because it's her on the flipside too. To be fair the lyrics are easier to make out on Where's The Ocean? I really hope that's a rhetorical question because on a planet that's 2/3rds it's a bit of a daft question. Acutally I got bored with the song and couldn't really be bothered listening to carefully. It could be about the environment, it could be about drought, it could be a soppy love song - I was just waiting for her to sing the words "Where's The Ocean?" so I could shout back "It's over there", pointing generally oceanwards. Sorry about that. It's a slow, synth heavy ballad, which ultimately bored me.

When I don't like a record by the likes of One Direction or Boyzone, it doesn't bother me, in fact it's something I take delight in. However disliking this record feels a bit like kicking a puppy, because Toni Childs sings so seriously and earnestly, (earnestness is the key feeling that I get from this record), that you can't help but feel she's passionate and committed to cause.

Next time the sister of a more famous musician...

7 inch singles collection: Jools Holland - Holy Cow

Later with...

JOOLS HOLLAND

A-Side: Holy Cow
B-Side: Biggy Wiggy
(IRS 1990)      

It seems like Jools Holland has been the smiling, enthusiastic, if a little sardonic host of Later... on BBC2 forever, (an entertaining, eclectic, but often frustrating programme), and whilst he often backs his guests on the piano, it's sometime easy to forget that he is a musician in his own right. Through the years he has spoardically released a variety of his own releases, much of which tend towards the jazzier end of the musical spectrum.

Holy Cow is a well known composition - in fact I probably bought it because I'd heard several different versions of it before, so I knew that I actually liked the song itself. It was written by Allen Toussaint - a name that may not be generally familiar, but is well regarded by aficionados of New Orleans style boogie woogie and R'n'B. Holy Cow has a light jazz bounce and a rhythm that bobs up and down like riding a horse - in this version that rhythm has an almost Ska-like feel to it. This isn't a one man show either, Jools is generous and lets both saxophonist and guitarist have good solos, keeping his piano down in the mix, and not letting it come forward until the end of the song. The vocals are low-key and unobtrusive, and oddly enough the backing vocals are performed by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. This should be good, but there's something a little lacking, any energy here comes from the song itself and not the performance - it's not without charm, but there are plenty of better versions of this song around.

Jools has committed one of his own compositions to the flip-side - Biggy Wiggy. With a title like that I think we all know that we're not getting something deep and serious, but it's not an entirely throwaway frivolity either. Biggy Wiggy has a bit more of that piano boogie that drums up the gets the body moving. I was unable to stop myself from moving about to the beat of this one - which means that it must be doing something right. A different vocalist, sorry forgot to check the name, has been drafted in on this, and he has a fine jazz voice, that adds to the song without overwhelming it.

Jools Holland should rightly be regarded as a bit of a national treasure for his constant curatorship and propagation of all varieties and styles of music, but respect is due to for his own musical skills, especially when he's letting loose with his own stuff.

Next time a trip to the dark continent...

7 inch singles collection: The Beatles - Something

Inevitably it's...

THE BEATLES

A-Side: Something
AA-Side: Come Together
(Capitol 1969)      

It's not easy to write about The Beatles - I'm guessing that everything that can be written about them has probably already been written, and any attempt that I make will be a poor rehash of thoughts and ideas better expressed elsewhere. They are the very cornerstone of modern rock and pop, and as such the cornerstone of modern pop and rock criticism. They were there because they were good (a lot of the time - there are many mediocre Beatles songs and several poor ones), they were there because the were early (they weren't the first doing this kind of thing, but they had the attention worldwide). They were an ultimate affirmation of right place, right time with a huge lump of right talent thrown in.

For me there are two choices when looking at The Beatles records that fall under the auspices of this blog. Firstly I can take all the received wisdom as read, and then go on and have a look at historical context and that kind of stuff, or secondly I could just pretend the records aren't significant and aren't by The Beatles and attempt to judge them on their own merits. Ideally I'd like to do the latter, but the former will have to happen sometimes, and having said that that's the way this entry will largely play. This is because this is one of the later Beatles singles and there's something (pun not intended) extra around context that we need to delve into when looking at this record.

It was apparently Frank Sinatra, who when covering this song at a concert, introduced it as the best song that Lennon & McCartney ever wrote. He is of course mistaken because this song was written by George Harrison. However it may well be the best song that Lennon & McCartney never wrote. This is end stage Beatles career - they were (according to legend) falling apart, not agreeing on stuff and generally not happy being Beatles - however accurate the details on this kind of thing are, one thing we can be sure of is that Something is the very first Beatles single with a George Harrison song as the a-side. It's a bit late in the game too - from their final album to be recorded (if not released) - it seems like George never had the chance before. He had done songs on previous albums - many of which were good and the equal of songs that were the a-sides of singles, so why had they not been released as such before. Was there a sinister plot to keep George (always the quiet one remember) in the sidelines and to make sure that John and Paul were the faces and voices of the group, was there a worry that maybe songs by George wouldn't sell? Maybe they thought things are going south anyway and let George have a go as a sop to ease tensions in the group. I don't know and I'm not sure that I care particularly either. What is important is that George stepped up and delivered - not just here, but in these later years also providing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on The White Album and "Here Comes The Sun" from "Abbey Road" (as was Something). These three songs could easily make top 10 Beatles song lists for many fans, and indeed I'm sure there's plenty of people that would have these in their top 3 Beatles songs list. The greatest of these songs though is Something.

"There's something in the way she moves that attracts me like no other" - a great line in and of itself, but also because it's descriptive of the song it's from. There is something about this song that attracts, it has a coy charisma that charms and seduces whilst the music is dizzying and mellifluous, twisting and turning, longing and yearning. Something is George Harrison, in his own quiet way, saying to John and Paul, "don't worry about breaking up the band, lads, I can manage on my own", and then deftly pulling out this song - equal to anything, if not better than anything, in the whole Lennon/McCartney songbook. The real tragedy is that here, in England, it didn't get to number on in the charts.

Of course George doesn't get his own way completely on this record because there on the other side is Come Together - they can't relegate John to the B-side of a George record, so this song shares top billing as a double a-side.There are plenty of people who think that John Lennon can do no wrong, and I'd be the first to say that he made many many wonderful records in his lifetime. Come Together isn't one of them. I'm not saying it's really bad, it's just not that great. It feels to me that Lennon is experimenting with form, sound, and style in this song - that's great; Lennon experimenting is better than Lennon on autopilot. The shapes that the sounds and rhythms of this song make in you're head are great, they're fresh and different. The lyrics however are a stream of consciousness gibberish that really don't cut the mustard. I'm sure that they're deep and meaningful if your on an altered plane of consciousness (or really pretentious), but otherwise they do do it for me. Good songs can be made from random word put together where the sound and rhythms of the words make their own music - I don't think that they do that in Come Together, instead they're just riding atop the melody like a barnacle stuck to a whale.

I didn't mean to write that much on this record - I'm sure I'll have less and less to say about The Beatles each time one of their records come up. One final thing that I want to point out about my copy of the record is that it's not a 70's/80's/90's re-release, it's an original  issue, and not only that as you can see from the picture it's a US import too, the reason I want to point this out is so that I can feel smug and self-satisfied for buying this from a charity shop for 30p.

Next time a song about a sacred bovine...

7 Inch Singles Collection: Castanarc - This Island Love

Another obscure one...

CASTANARC

A-Side: This Island Love

B-Side: Heroes

(Pyramid 1989)          

Well here's another one - a record that I know nothing about and can't remember what it sounds like. This one was definitely bought very cheap somewhere because someone has taken a hole punch to the sleeve (I've done a digital repair on my scan - so much for authenticity, eh?) I almost certainly bought it because of that slightly defaced sleeve. The shade of green is pleasing to the eye, and the picture is intriguing. I enjoy the way the bands name interleaves with picture and also the typography of it. These are probably not usual, and possibly not entirely valid reasons for buying a record - but it adds a bit of chance and risk to the whole listening process.

Before settling down to listen to this I was absolutely certain that I didn't like it that much and it was piano-pounding piece of House. It turns out that the memory cheats because This Island Love isn't remotely like that at all. Instead there's a slow soft sax start, it has hints of soul - but very much blue-eyed soul as the singer sounds very English and very white. It's quite light and poppy the pace picks up a bit in the chorus. It is a largely unremarkable love song. Only distinguished by the saxophone and something that sounds like a clarinet or at least a synthesizer pretending to be a clarinet at the end. I was right about one thing though - I don't like This Island Love very much.

A quick look at the credits on the b-side lets me know that this isn't a cover version of the Bowie song Heroes, but is an original piece. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. This has a rocky upbeat start - it's all drum machines and stabby keyboards - it's like on of those very earnest 80's AOR bands with big perms. Lots of synths being pressed into the service of rock when maybe they could be creating something more original. It doesn't really have any hooks or catches, or indeed anything mush to grab hold of. It's different to the a-side, but in now way is it better than the a-side.

I feel that this was a triumph of packing over content. It still looks nice, and it still sounds poor.

Next time four lads from Liverpool...     

7 Inch Singles Collection: The Badgeman - Crystals

Psychedelic noise from...

THE BADGEMAN

A-Side: Crystals

B-Side: P.A.F.

(Paperhouse 1990)

There is absolutely nothing I can tell you about The Badgeman. I simply have no idea of who they were or where they were from, or even (before re-listening to this record what they sounded like). I suppose I could go and look it up on the net, but that feels like cheating and against the vaguely nostalgic ethos of this blog. History is those things that we remember an idea that should be familiar to those of you who've read Sellar & Yeatman's "1066 and all that". Anyway after that digression I can tell you what led me to buy this record - it's a combination of the sleeve and the label. I had a small number of other singles on the Paperhouse labels - which I liked - and they all have this lovely blue die-cut sleeve with a lovely picture on the label (oh and it was probably cheap too).

Crystals starts off with a slowish beat which is enjoyed by full-on psychedelic swirling guitars. The singer comes in and kind of mumble-sings over the top of this mid-tempo psych-rocker. The whole thing is punctuated by guitar wails and shrieks, then slowly the guitar riffing starts to fade out and the record ends.

P.A.F. is the name of the b-side - I don't know what it's short for - it may have been alluded to in the lyrics, but to be honest I wasn't following them that closely. This is harder, heavier and faster than the a-side feels like something from the rockier end of 60's psychedelia. It's a driving rock song, it's got attacking sound with no showing off and no showboating, with plenty of riffage throughout.

I quite enjoyed listening to this record because I had no recollection at all of what it sounded like. I think I'll quite enjoy listening to next time I listen to it because, if it weren't for the notes I took whilst listening, I'd still have no recollection of it. It's pretty much the epitome of unmemorable.

Next time another record that I don't remember...

7 Inch Singles Collection: The Shadows - Love Deluxe

Stepping back into the shadows...

THE SHADOWS

A-Side: Love Deluxe

B-Side: Sweet Saturday Night

(EMI 1978)

Here we find the Shadows in 1978 in something of a limbo position, three years earlier they'd been on the relative high of representing the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. (You can read that sentence with as much or as little irony as you like), they'd also recently had a number one album in the shape of "20 Golden Greats" - a best of package. So you'd maybe expect them to have some kind of public profile - but no their last few singles had failed to get anywhere near the charts. It looked like all that was left was the greatest hits circuits - this was to change, but not with this record, but the one after (which is another story for another time). This record is quite possibly The Shadows single that has been least heard, and least heard of. Neither tracks were from albums and neither make it to compilations very often.

It's easy to see why Love Deluxe is not a great song. It's a vocal track - The Shadows have always been a fine adequate vocal group - but it's not the vocals that are the problem. Bruce sings well, although he doesn't seem to be doing much guitar playing, and neither does Hank. That's part of the problem - if you're listening to The Shadows you kind of expect thto hear Hank Marvin's distinctive guitar playing - there are guitars present here, but there way down in the mix, and it could be anyone playing them. As a song it's a keyboard heavy piece of uptempo pop, bouncy enough but not particularly memorable. Just to add insult to injury there are some light disco woven throughout the record, particularly nasty are the synth drums that pop in and out of the song. I'm not dissing disco, but it needs to be performed by seasoned disco professionals not shoehorned into a light piece of AOR. Love Deluxe is not the worst vocal track that The Shadows have recorded, (for my money that honour goes to The Bandit off their second album), it is however probably their worst single*.

It's a relief to flip this record over and discover Sweet Saturday Night nestling there. It's not that it's brilliant, but it's more of what I expect. There's no singing, and the guitar noises coming out are unmistakably Hank B. Marvin. Sweet Saturday Night has a soft funky groove, there's still a hint of trying to surf the disco zeitgeist, but it's a bit more restrained. Little synth twinkles actually accent, rather than distract from the tune. It's rather mellow with a yearning quality to it. Where most pop/rock songs break out into a guitar solo about 2/3 of the way through this has a little percussion solo - long enough to engage and short enough not to bore before Hank effortless glides back in with a couple of smooth riffs and then settles back into the main groove before the song fades away. It's not great but it is pleasant enough to make up for the a-side.

There you go then, a horrible record from my favourite band - these things happen, but it should be all uphill with every other Shadows record from now on**.

*There's one other that we'll come across that is a strong contender for this title.
**See above footnote.

Next time some early 90's indie psychedelia...

7 inch singles collection: Scritti Politti - The Word Girl

Green is the colour...

SCRITTI POLITTI

A-Side: The Word Girl (Flesh & Blood)
B-Side: Flesh & Blood

(Virgin 1985)

Scritti Politti is a name that to me promises something other than it delivers. The name, apparently, means political writing - so what I expected from Scritti Politti when I first heard the name was some kind of agit-pop political diatribists - all angry shouting and choppy guitars, not the more melodious dance-pop that they delivered. Of course it being dancey stuff initially set my teenage self against it - as with many different genres that I was set against during my youth I've come to appreciate more as I've aged. My excellent wife has a couple of Scritti Politti albums and I feel a better understanding of them now than I ever did, and also a realisation that amongst the soft dance tunes there are writings of political import as well.

Notwithstanding the above The Word Girl was a song that I quite liked at the time - it has a sweet lilting reggae melody that feels light and airy. Green Gartside's voice is quiet and precise, and captures the essence of dreamy adoration that he feels to the girl in question. there's a the coming to terms with the fact that she's not just ideal, or a word, but she is "Flesh and Blood" as well. There's not much more that I can say about The Word Girl - it's a pleasant song that seems lightweight and throwaway, but ends up ensnaring you in it's charms.

Flesh And Blood is a recurring theme here - not only is it the subtitle and lyrical coda to the a-side, it's here in full glory as the b-side. During the course of this blog we will encounter records with different songs as b-sides, records where the b-side is an instrumental version of the a-side, and b-sides which are remixes of the a-side, but here is a unique example of a b-side that has exactly the same tune as the a-side, bu different words and a different singer. Flesh And Blood is rapped by a female with a Caribbean accent - Ranking Ann. Her tone is more aggressive and confrontational than Gartside's singing - and well it should be as she's rapping about how she (and all other women) are actually flesh and blood human beings - not just objects (for adoration or abuse). Not sure that it's as successful as the a-side. The contrast between the style of singing and the music doesn't really work for me, on the other hand the mirroring between the two sides of the record is nice idea and executed well.

Ultimately though, for me, there's little more to this than one good song that passes a few moments pleasantly. Oh, and I enjoy the fact that the singer's first name is Green.

Next time it's probably about time for another Shadows record...

7 inch singles collection: Prefab Sprout - The Golden Calf

Another Golden record...

PREFAB SPROUT

A-Side: The Golden Calf
B-Side: Venus of the Soup Kitchen

(Kitchenware 1989)

Prefab Sprout are a band that I've always had a soft spot for, and yet although always easy to like, I find them hard to love. Their music often seems to come pre-filtered through a haze of wistfulness and melancholy. Soft is the word that springs to mind when I think of them, and I don't mean that in any kind of pejorative way either. Soft, like a duvet, or like cumulus clouds sky high in the summertime, gentle like a spring breeze, and so often full of yearning. Part of this is down to frontman, Paddy McAloon's voice. He seems to sing in a commanding whisper, that is both fleeting and captivating. The rest of the band plays their part too - instruments are coaxed and caressed rather than thrashed and pounded, melody reigns over riff - in short them seem such sensitive souls. This is deceptive because often McAloon's lyrics are dense and intense with as much passion as they have romance.

Having written all that The Golden Calf is actual a rocky number, but that doesn't invalidate the previous paragraph, because it rocks out in a considered, thoughtful manner, lyrics are lyrical rather than just words that rhyme and fit song. It's got a rock 'n' roll bassline and rhythm section that make it chug along nicely, but somehow it doesn't quite feel right. It may have worked better in context on the album - this was the fifth single from the album (the b-side is also from the album too), which sounds to me like the record company trying milk that Golden Calf dry. Just because it's rocky and upbeat doesn't mean it should be single, particularly when those of us who were hooked in by earlier songs have already got the album. Listening to The Golden Calf I get the feeling that it's not quite all there, there's something incomplete about it, part of that incompleteness, I think, comes from not having the rest of the album around it.

Venus of the Soup Kitchen also shows us something that's missing from the A-side, and that's Wendy Smith's vocal contributions - I didn't really notice them not being there on The Golden Calf, but here where she has something to sing it really helps fill the song out. Although usually her vocals are confined to oohs and ahhs and choruses and other backing vocal duties her tone is helps round out the sound. If Paddy McAloon's voice is like velvet then Wendy Smith's voice is like air - it's light and imperceptible but you notice when it's not there. Venus of the Soup Kitchen is a more complex song, with added choral backing, and following less obvious pop song structures than the norm. It's more like a little character vignette of a show tune. Lyrically it is less obscure, and although about homelessness and destitution it's never maudlin or mawkish, and it never preaches. However it feels one paced removed and you I can stand back and admire it and appreciate the skill and the craft that's gone into it without it ever really connecting with me.

A good band with a record that is likable but ultimately adrift, cut off from the parent album and struggling without that support.

Next time some White (or possibly Green) reggae...

                                                                       

7 inch singles collection: The Stranglers - Golden Brown

A punk waltz?

THE STRANGLERS

A-Side: Golden Brown
B-Side: Love-30

(Liberty 1982)

So, were The Stranglers punk, or not? Certainly they were initially lumped in with that scene despite them being older, and less angry than many of their contemporaries. They had the sneering attitude all right, but they also had something else that set them apart from the others. Dave Greenfield’s organ playing is part of this in a landscape that is normally harsh and often discordant guitars it brings an other-worldy patina to Stranglers records. Beyond this, though, there’s a feeling in their records that they’re men playing at being boys, rather than boys playing at being men like most punk bands. Their maturity comes to the fore quite soon in their career, and songs like Peaches and Grip, (with their “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” style), disappear for more complex pieces, both lyrically and musically. Not that I’m saying that the rest of the punk upper echelons weren’t literate and intelligent, many were as we will find out later, it’s just that they kept to the basic thrash it out sound explosion for much longer than The Stranglers did.

All of which leads me to Golden Brown – for a few years The Stranglers singles had been not reaching the higher chart places of their earlier material, then suddenly this record appeared and managed to earn them their highest ever chart placing (a number 2 no less).  It’s unusual time signature (almost but not quite waltz time) rises and falls, it catches your hand as it waltzes pass and sends you spinning into the song. It feels simultaneously both pretty and subversive – we now know that it’s probably about Heroin, but that doesn’t detract from the record in any way, because the lyrics are non-specific enough for it actually to be about anything you want, some dusky exotic maiden or a new colour of non-drip gloss from Dulux. Take your pick, and let the music take you on a heady magic carpet ride.

Tennis and The Stranglers seem to be an unlikely combination, but they are brought together on Love-30. This is a largely instrumental track that’s full of echo and effect like backwards guitars. The drums provide the most consistent sound, emphasised by the occasional bass twang. Every now and then there’s the sound of a tennis ball being hit, and “out” being called. The pace is quite languid, and none of the frenetic energy that you would normal associate with a tennis match. In truth Love-30 is an inconsequential bit of noise that doesn’t last long enough to be annoying.

So were The Stranglers punk? Probably not, but they were certainly canny enough to allow themselves to flow with that particular stream for their advantage.

Next time another Golden record…

7 inch singles collection: Fairground Attraction - Clare

Folky acoustic, mariachi jazz...

FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION

A-Side: Clare
B-Side: The Game of Love

(RCA 1989)

Fairground Attraction popped up at the tail-end of the 80's with a huge number one record - Perfect - seeming from nowhere. All acoustic with a strange instrument providing the bass sound (a guitarron, the bass instrument favoured by Mariachi bands). Perfect seemed to have come from nowhere, and was inescapable in 1988. It certainly didn't sound much like anything else in the charts. It wasn't following a scene, and didn't create one in it's wake, then suddenly Fairground Attraction disappeared as suddenly as they had arisen leaving behind one great album, a handful of singles and a collection of b-sides. The constituent members of the group went off to have solo careers with a variety of success. Maybe there are more groups who should do this kind of suddenly be big, then disappear thing, rather than go on and on and on subjecting us to more of he same thing over and over again. 

Clare is not Perfect, in fact it is better then Perfect. The guitarron provides a bouncy swing to the melody that carries you along with it. It already has a jazzy feel to with Eddi Reader's voice swooping up to the high notes before gently floating down to the meat of the song. The clarinet - another highly unlikely instrument for the 80's charts - adds a proper jazz sound to this and adds a layer of melancholy as only a clarinet can. The mournfulness of the clarinet sound is needed because the rest of the tune is so jolly that it is in danger of swamping the meaning of the rest of the lyrics. The titular Clare is a "serpentine seductress" from New Orleans who has stolen the narrators lover away from her.Although the narrator comes across as a little unstable - she can "hear them making love" - if that's metaphorical then that's creepy, if that's not metaphorical than that's probably grounds for a restraining order. Fortunately the swing, the clarinet, the voice, and the lyrics all fuse together to make something that is greater than you would expect.

The Game of Love is not a cover of the Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders song of the same same name (more's the pity). Not that this Game Of Love is not interesting in it's own right. It's a low key affair - during the singing the main instrumentation backing Eddi Reader is a snare drum, intermittently punctuated by trumpets and clarinets, on the instrumental break and on the tail end of the record these take over, and what we've got is a slow and smokey trad jazz number. As a song it's slight, but charming, and it knows just when to finish - so I can't really criticize it.

Overall this is a record that is different from the norm, and succeeds almost effortlessly. I was going to say that it dares to be different - but that would be wrong, it's not in itself a showy daredevil of a record, instead it charms and seduces just like the Clare of the a-side by using all of it's natural talents to draw the audience in.

Next time a punk waltz..?

7 inch singles collection: The Godfathers - Cause I Said So

How I should respond when anyone asks why my opinion matters...

THE GODFATHERS

A-Side: 'Cause I Said So
B-Side: When Am I Coming Down

(Epic 1988)

Maybe it's appropriate that this record comes hot on the heals of The Animals (see previous entry), because although 25 years separate them both bands are cut from the same cloth. Both has a no nonsense, back-to-basics sound that is reliant upon years of tradition, both have strong, passionate vocalists, both have a well-groomed, and suited look belying much of the aggression within. The sound of alternative music in 1988 was (if you looked in the NME, Melody Maker or Sounds) was quite fuzzy, often drowned in layers of sound with frequently fey and airy vocals, against this backdrop The Godfathers were a breath of fresh air, and their album of 1988 "Birth, School, Work, Death" was a particular favourite of mine. They provided a hard blast of uncomplicated that didn't wander of into the more self-indulgent sides of hard rock and metal.

'Cause I Said So is self-confidant and arrogant, and with a title like that it needs to be, or it just wouldn't work. There's an argument that this record is anti-intellectualism and pro-ignorance, positing that the school-of-hard-knocks education is the one that matters. I don't see it this way - much more they are criticising those who spend all their time on detailed over-analysis on things like "Baudelaire's poetry", and aren't using their intelligence on the practicalities of life. In the end though this is a moot point, because, ultimately 'Cause I Said So rocks! Peter Coyne's vocals area an audible sneer, and in the end it really does't matter if we like this record - he knows it's great and that's all that matters.

It's an entirely different story on the b-side and the brashness has become an uneasy question - When Am I Coming Down? I'm going to go ahead and assume that that is a drugs reference - but I don't know if the narrator has taken them willingly, or has had them forced upon him. It's an odd feeling because, just from the a-side of this record we've become used to a confidant, arrogant voice, now here he is sounding lost and confused. It really doesn't suit him at all. When Am I Coming Down has all the vague musical trappings of many late 60's hippy songs - but doesn't go all out for them I suppose you could call it Slightlydelic. It's the wrong sound for this band though - especially in isolation as a b-side. It worked better on the original album where it finished the first side, and then you could come out of the fog into more songs like 'Cause I Said So. But here it feels wrong.

In the end this record has a great a-side which more than compensates for the misjudged b-side.

Next time something a bit jazzier...

7 inch Singles collection: The Animals - House of the Rising Sun

Old blues songs never die...


THE ANIMALS

A-Side: House of The Rising Sun
B-Side: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
              I'm Crying

(RAK 1964)

Obviously this isn't the original 1964 pressing, but something from the late 70's/early 80's to act as a kind of a 3 hit mini-compilation.
Let's talk about definitions briefly R'n'B seems to be something different today that what it was in the 1960's. I'm about to make some sweeping generalisations here, but R'n'B now seems to refer to sassy black American women singing slickly-produced soul-based dance numbers, whereas the 60's version was very much about middle-class white British boys with guitars, bashing out the blues with attitude. I know which I prefer, an in the context of this record it's the latter of the two definitions I'll be working to in this piece. 

Whilst the early Stones, the Yardbirds, Them, The Zombies, Manfred Mann and The Pretty Things, (more of all of them later!) may well represent the cream of the crop of R'n'B, I reckon that The Animals may well have the sound and attitude of te quintisesstial R'n'B group. They chose their name well having a naturalistic, animalistic, raw feel. 

You probably know House of the Rising Sun already, if not from this then maybe Bob Dylan's folky version, or Frijid Pink's bizarre hard rock version, or any number of hundreds of different versions going back well over at least a hundred years - all with slightly different lyrics.Having said that when I think of this song it's always The Animals take on it that comes to mind first. The rise and fall of the guitar arpeggios (performed by the magnificently named Hilton Valentine) overlayed by Eric Burdon's impassioned blues shouting sticks in the memory. One of the the things that distinguishes the sound of The Animals is Alan Price's organ (stop sniggering at the back), I know it's not a church organ, but it still feels reverent and gives the whole song a hymnal quality. What's it about? Well about 4 and half minutes (ba-dum-tisch!) - that seems like a bit of a flippant answer, but it's important because despite being about two minutes longer than most of it's contemporary competitors it still managed to rise to the top of the heap, both in the UK and the USA (and many other places across the globe). This make it a significant record historically as one of the first stepping stones towards rock (as oppose to 50's style rock 'n' roll). The fact that it is really about destitution, degradation and desolation as the result of alcoholism just makes it even more astonishing. House of the Rising Sun by the Animals is truly not just a fantastic record but an important one too.

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood seems like another old standard too, but actually was fairly fresh at the time having only been written a year or two earlier for Nina Simone. Again so many people have covered this track, and once again it's The Animals who, for me, have provided us with the definitive version. All the stuff that make House of the Rising Sun great is here, but the real key to this song, the reason why this makes an impression is Eric Burdon's singing - he has a great blues rock voice, and what makes it special is the passion the is in the performance of the lyrics - he's not just singing the words of the song - he really is pleading not to be misunderstood. You really feel for him, he sounds like man who's been pushed to the edge and only has one chance left. I heard a story about Eric Burdon many years ago which may or may not be true, but it illustrates the point I'm making. Apparently he didn't like doing television appearances to promote the records because he wasn't good at miming to the record (as many TV promo slots were wont to be). The reason he wasn't good at miming was that every time he sang a song he put a lot of emotion into it so every time he performed it was different and he couldn't recreate that spirit through miming. Which is pretty much one of the best arguments for letting musicians play live on the telly I've heard.

The third track on this record may be the lesser of them, but it's still a great piece. If you were to look for the most typical piece of music to illustrate the British R'n'B boom, then you could do worse than picking I'm Crying. The organ drives across the blues backbone of the record, never letting up the pace. It's very of it's time - almost from the opening chords this record says "This is 1964" - it could come from nowhere else. Compared to the other tracks on this record it's a lightweight bit of sneering bluesy froth, however taken away from the other songs it's still good enough to stand on it's own. Whilst lyrically it seems as bleak and mournful as the other two songs, musically it's an aggressive juggernaut that is made for dancing.

I know I like The Animals and I think they're a fantastic band, but they are a group that I don't listen to that much these days - so I'm glad that I've listened to this and reminded myself that I need to listen to them much more.

Next time I may answer the question why am I bothering with this...

7 inch singles collection: Katrina And The Waves - Que Te Quiero

Something vaguely Tex-Mex...

KATRINA AND THE WAVES

A-Side: Que Te Quiero
B-Side: Machine Gun Smith

(Silvertown 1983)

An Anglo-American group (guitarist and drummer the Brits, bassist and vocalist the Yanks), best known for their big summer hit Walking On Sunshine. I have several singles by Katrina & The Waves but not that one - but I'm sure it's something you've probably been overexposed to already, and so you'll have a ready made opinion on that. One of my abiding memories of Katrina & The Waves is seeing them live at Gloucester Park, and them singing Walking on Sunshine during a gray and miserable drizzle. Anyway enough of that song and onto this record. 

Just as an aside I've noticed that many of these singles have a pleasing weight to them and they feel just right and nicely balanced to hold - there are some later singles that feel flimsier - almost flexible - but not this one. This record feels is physically much weightier than almost all of my other singles. This is neither good or bad thing per se (although there is something satisfying in that little bit of extra weight - it makes the record feel more substantial somehow).

Que Te Quiero is from earlier in the career of the band, but the sunny feeling is still here - albeit in a more muted form. The adjective which most immediately comes to mind is bouncy. It starts of with a bass lead bounce that carries on through the verses of the song, this is punctuated by occasional, enjoyable castanet trills. The chorus is comes in a big blossoming shower of brightness, that contrasts well with the more subdued verses. The story is simple it's about the captain's daughter who is in love with "the boy from Mexico", much to the disapproval of others. The chorus in sung in Spanish, another little thing that lifts this offering out from the mundane. Of course my Spanish is limited-to-non-existent. I've got a vague feeling that Que Te Quiero means something to do with love, and that's about it, but the story is simple enough that you don't need to understand the words to get the meaning.

An ode to a terrorist, especially one that seems to paint the terrorist in a good light, is an odd thing to do, but Machine Gun Smith is just that very thing. To be fair we don't know from the song whether he's IRA, Basque separatist, PLO, Hezbollah or any other, but it does explicitly state that he is a terrorist. Although the description of how he "stalks a little country with a machine gun in his fist" makes him sound more like a soldier of fortune to me - but I suppose that's not exactly mush higher on the evolutionary ladder. Maybe it's meant to be ironic - but there's nothing in the lyrics that suggest anything in the way of that. It's lower and muddier in sound that most Katrina & The Waves - but not by much. It still has a vibrant, poppy bounce that is at odds with the lyric. There's also some artificial stuttering introduced in the chorus that makes the whole production sound so defiantly 80's.

A record that I enjoy the a-side of even if it is slight, and that I would like to enjoy the b-side of, but it just doesn't quite reconcile. Maybe in the end this record is better to hold than to hear!

Next time some beasts of Burdon (sic)...