Sardonicus
HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE
Transvision Vamp - Baby I Don't Care b/w Time For Change & Strings Of My Heart
UK chart peak - Number 3
A snotty blend of pop punk & the image of a SULTRY SEX SIREN in lead singer Wendy James, Transvision Vamp formed in the mid 80s & after a couple of false starts, saw top 5 success in the UK in 1988 with a top 5 single in I Want Your Love & accompanying album Pop Art bubbling up the charts to Number 4, despite being dismissed as "decidedly average" by Patsy Kensit, of all people.
Ignoring this blatant attempt at BAITING from a POP RIVAL, Wend & the boys struck while the IRON WAS HOT & followed it up with second album Velveteen a year later along with a handful of hits, of which this one was biggest (& later covered in the early 2000s by Scouse actress Jennifer Ellison, but let's SWIFTLY MOVE ON from that.) It's the Vamp sound encapsulated in one 3 minutes ish single with a chorus designed to stick in your head & screech along to, lots of loud crunchy guitars & a LOUD vocal performance from Wendy, that I actually think they needed to spend a bit more time on - I find the screaming at the start unpleasant & ear-splitting, & her voice cracks here & there & seems to meander out of tune at times. I can only guess that they wanted to capture a raw, punky energy with it, & it made little difference to its success, getting a ton of radio play & reaching the top 3, with Velveteen giving them a number 1 album shortly after. Wendy cultivated a sexy image along with an eye for a quotable line (she once bet a music magazine that she'd win an Oscar within 10 years) & things were all going so well she was mentioned as the British answer to that CONNIVING TROLLOP MARGE. I'll also give the band extra credit for providing 2 different B sides on the single, both quieter & somewhat "lesser" songs than Baby I Don't Care, but also decent & giving the fans some proper VALUE FOR MONEY.
You'd think the next step for Wend & the boys to be an album that CONQUERED THE GLOBE, but here's where it all went wrong. Single I Just Wanna Be With You kept their signature sound, but with clear influences of the likes of Jesus Jones & The Happy Mondays - very ON TREND for 1991, but it struggled to number 30. Follow up If Looks Could Kill (recently shared by Vamp fan @BoysForSeles on the great songs passed their peak thread) was also good but flopped at 41, the band imploded & split in February 1992, & album 3 was never even released in the UK. One thing the record company SHOULD have done is insisted upon a different album title - Little Magnets vs The Bubble of Babble is an all-time WORST title & won't have helped with the snooty & sexist music press who became increasingly hostile (& somewhat misogynistic) towards Wendy & her sexually charged image.
It was actually guitarist Dave Parsons that went on to greater fame in the 90s as he joined grunge band Bush to huge American & reasonable British success. Wendy, meanwhile, wrote to Elvis Costello in 1992 asking what she should do, & was rewarded with him writing a full album just for her. Opening single The Nameless One has a class video (she looks as beautiful as ever) plus is a quality mix of grunge & Britpop - sadly it again struggled to number 34, the follow-up flopped, & after once having an IRON FOCUS on fame, Wendy disappeared from the public eye for years on end. I believe she's also effectively disowned this album & it ain't available on Spotify.
She re-emerged with a new group, Racine, in the 2000s & some solo albums up to the present day, but she's also been rather vague & circumspect about why she went away for so long - I suspect there might be more to the story than she's telling, or perhaps she got fed up with the music press trashing her as a talentless bimbo. Posing for her 2018 album with her tits out on the cover shows she still likes using her sex appeal to shock, & last year she reformed the Vamp with Dave & 2 new members - but rather like Lady Miss Kier of Deee-Lite, she's a pop icon that deserved more success & time in the spotlight than she got.
UK chart peak - Number 3
A snotty blend of pop punk & the image of a SULTRY SEX SIREN in lead singer Wendy James, Transvision Vamp formed in the mid 80s & after a couple of false starts, saw top 5 success in the UK in 1988 with a top 5 single in I Want Your Love & accompanying album Pop Art bubbling up the charts to Number 4, despite being dismissed as "decidedly average" by Patsy Kensit, of all people.
Ignoring this blatant attempt at BAITING from a POP RIVAL, Wend & the boys struck while the IRON WAS HOT & followed it up with second album Velveteen a year later along with a handful of hits, of which this one was biggest (& later covered in the early 2000s by Scouse actress Jennifer Ellison, but let's SWIFTLY MOVE ON from that.) It's the Vamp sound encapsulated in one 3 minutes ish single with a chorus designed to stick in your head & screech along to, lots of loud crunchy guitars & a LOUD vocal performance from Wendy, that I actually think they needed to spend a bit more time on - I find the screaming at the start unpleasant & ear-splitting, & her voice cracks here & there & seems to meander out of tune at times. I can only guess that they wanted to capture a raw, punky energy with it, & it made little difference to its success, getting a ton of radio play & reaching the top 3, with Velveteen giving them a number 1 album shortly after. Wendy cultivated a sexy image along with an eye for a quotable line (she once bet a music magazine that she'd win an Oscar within 10 years) & things were all going so well she was mentioned as the British answer to that CONNIVING TROLLOP MARGE. I'll also give the band extra credit for providing 2 different B sides on the single, both quieter & somewhat "lesser" songs than Baby I Don't Care, but also decent & giving the fans some proper VALUE FOR MONEY.
You'd think the next step for Wend & the boys to be an album that CONQUERED THE GLOBE, but here's where it all went wrong. Single I Just Wanna Be With You kept their signature sound, but with clear influences of the likes of Jesus Jones & The Happy Mondays - very ON TREND for 1991, but it struggled to number 30. Follow up If Looks Could Kill (recently shared by Vamp fan @BoysForSeles on the great songs passed their peak thread) was also good but flopped at 41, the band imploded & split in February 1992, & album 3 was never even released in the UK. One thing the record company SHOULD have done is insisted upon a different album title - Little Magnets vs The Bubble of Babble is an all-time WORST title & won't have helped with the snooty & sexist music press who became increasingly hostile (& somewhat misogynistic) towards Wendy & her sexually charged image.
It was actually guitarist Dave Parsons that went on to greater fame in the 90s as he joined grunge band Bush to huge American & reasonable British success. Wendy, meanwhile, wrote to Elvis Costello in 1992 asking what she should do, & was rewarded with him writing a full album just for her. Opening single The Nameless One has a class video (she looks as beautiful as ever) plus is a quality mix of grunge & Britpop - sadly it again struggled to number 34, the follow-up flopped, & after once having an IRON FOCUS on fame, Wendy disappeared from the public eye for years on end. I believe she's also effectively disowned this album & it ain't available on Spotify.
She re-emerged with a new group, Racine, in the 2000s & some solo albums up to the present day, but she's also been rather vague & circumspect about why she went away for so long - I suspect there might be more to the story than she's telling, or perhaps she got fed up with the music press trashing her as a talentless bimbo. Posing for her 2018 album with her tits out on the cover shows she still likes using her sex appeal to shock, & last year she reformed the Vamp with Dave & 2 new members - but rather like Lady Miss Kier of Deee-Lite, she's a pop icon that deserved more success & time in the spotlight than she got.
Michelle Visage) - after huge success on both sides of the Atlantic in its original, AOR form by writer Gerry Rafferty, Undercover did, indeed, undercover the song's bouncier, dancier side with this none more 1992 dance version, kept off the top spot only by an even more 1992 dance classic in Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap!
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act of their time, with SAW using their streetwise attitudes & sayings to create some of their earliest crossovers from R&B/dancey stuff with the likes of Princess & Dead Or Alive to more out & out pure pop stuff that'd be perfected later with everyone from Rick Astley to Kylie, Jason, Sonia & countless others.
lyrics, but despite a top 10 showing, it didn't get near the airplay abroad that Saturday Night had, & I do remember feeling like that was her moment passing already. A couple of lesser hits later (including a godawful cover of Wham's Last Christmas) & OFF SHE POPPED, although she's doing your Prides & 90s circuits to this day, & was releasing the odd single to an - entirely disinterested - public as recently as 2018. She was never going to match the cultural impact of her debut, but she doesn't need to - it's POP PERFECTION.