Sardonicus reviews a bunch of old 45s

Sardonicus said:
Soho - Hippychick b/w Taxi

UK chart peak - Number 8

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Yet another MISHEARD LYRICS CALAMITY - I spent years singing "got no flowers for your bonk" rather than "your gun" to the chorus of this long forgotten top 10 hit - not that the lyrics make much sense either way - & "I stopped loving you since the miner's strike" immediately places this as a record referencing then recentish events of GENERATIONS AGO now.

Hippychick is chiefly remembered, & likely took off as a hit, due to its sampling of How Soon Is Now by The Smiths. That shimmering, windy guitar solo did suggest something dancier on the original & Soho took that & put it to great use. It's not just a LAZY LIFT, it actually gives what would have been an otherwise indie-dance also ran a bit of DEPTH & HEFT, it fits in brilliantly with the beat & it gave people a bit of an ushering towards the dancefloor - but in a more chilled, easygoing manner than the likes of Black Box. It was catchy & twin front women Jacqueline & Pauline Cuff stood out too - there's not many identical twins out there fronting bands, & even less with haircuts that crossed snippets of curly hair with a shaved back & sides :D

Sampling was still in its early days when Hippychick was released in 1990, & lawsuits & discussions about royalties were still FLYING ABOUT left & right. Therefore it's credited to Johnny Marr despite the guitar sample forming only one part of the whole, & I imagine it's likely the band had to give up songwriting royalties on their only hit, which seems a bit unfair :( It scraped to number 67 on release & it wouldn't be surprising to hear if Soho were derided as lazy imitators ripping off another band's song. It's actually a little ahead of its time in that aspect, although the rest of its musical style places it firmly in the 1990/91 era - nonetheless though, a top tune, a nice amalgamation of dance, pop & indie, the girls sing some lovely harmonies & when I rediscovered it a couple of years ago I was delighted that it still maintained its CHARMS.

B side Taxi gives us more of the same chugging guitar dance but less memorable, which also goes for all of Soho's follow up singles - Love Generation, Out Of My Mind & Ride. None of these troubled the top 75, & although they're nothing STANDOUT, all are well sung & serviceable - a couple of appearances in the lower rungs of the top 40 should surely have been achievable.

I figured this might have been due to a lack of promotion due to Soho promoting Hippychick over in the USA - where it, rather stunningly, reached 14 on the Hot 100, 2 on the dance chart & 11 on the alternative chart. But no! It turns out that Hippychick actually took off there first after its initial UK flop. With The Smiths not being a major band over there, I'd assume it happened via DJs giving it a spin in the clubs without any backlash about the sample, & turned into a surprise smash. This success is obviously what led to its re-release in the UK, but it then doesn't explain why Soho couldn't buy even a minor hit after. Their only other chart appearance was as guest vocalists on a blah Adamski single, Born To Be Alive (no relation to the old Patrick Hernandez disco hit) peaking at 51.

The dumper BECKONED for the Sisters Cuff soon after, & despite the whole band collaborating on a 2017 electronic music group, Iklan, they've long disappeared into obscurity - with their only big success seeing the royalties go to Johnny Marr, & only one notable success making it difficult to try working the nostalgia circuits, I can only presume it was a return to the REAL WORLD, PROPER JOBS & PAYING BILLS. You deserved a little longer in the pop sunshine than this BRIEFEST of moments, girls.
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I remember being quite obsessed with ‘Love Generation’ at the time (one of the follow up singles). I remember buying tickets to go and see them at Warrington Parr Hall but I got cancelled most likely due to poor ticket sales.

I tried girls. I really tried.

 
The follow-ups were all decent, maybe not enough to replicate Hippychick but definitely good enough for a number 35 SMASH. I do think the SACRILEGE of sampling the HOLY SMITHS might have gotten backlash from people likely to have bought their stuff otherwise.
 
I was OBSESSED with Hippychick. It was another one of those songs around that time that just didn't sound like anything else, even though it pulled from about 16 different ideas/songs/samples etc. That was pretty much the music in 1990/1991. It was all very chaotic, experimental and exciting.
 
The Stranglers - Duchess

UK chart peak - Number 14

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I was going to start this review off by WAXING LYRICAL about how Hugh Cornwell is the most underrated SEX SYMBOL ever in British music but this sleeve isn't really helping with that ASSERTION :D

Perhaps the reasons Handsome Hugh & bassist/co- vocalist JJ Burnel didn't reach full HEARTTHROB status at the time is a) being slightly older than their punk contemporaries when the band took off & b) The Stranglers seemed, more than almost any other band, to give off an air of genuine rebellion & DANGER. From being kicked out of Sweden to allegedly inciting riots, accusations of misogyny & consuming a quite ASTONISHING amount of drugs, these were definitely not the sort of boys you took home to meet the parents.

Despite hitching themselves to the PUNK BANDWAGON, The Stranglers weren't really punk at all. They brought in pub rock & prog influences, they kept mixing in keyboards & synths, & their songs rarely confirmed to your expected punk formula. Debut hit Peaches was banned for its pervy lyrics, & its lolloping bassline remains instantly recognisable 50 years on. Signature hit Golden Brown (about both a woman & THE SKAG) has a wistful, almost medieval, hypnotic harpsichord melody. Always The Sun & Skin Deep mashed together 80s synths & catchy choruses,& there's countless other examples of some great & very interesting music that showcases a band that didn't want to be put in a box or repeat themselves.

Duchess, from 1979, is an early example of this constant musical progression. With a whirligig keyboard sound & its storytelling style of an old eccentric lady in a council house with DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR, it's a far cry from the snotty, brash style of the likes of The Sex Pistols & while not amongst their greats, it's still a nice little DITTY that sounds like it accidentally invents a fair amount of Britpop. Indeed, it was covered by Britpop footnotes My Life Story in 1997, & the Manics were clearly listening to the backing vocals when recording If You Tolerate This. In typical contrary fashion though, The Stranglers made a video designed to cause a furore & offset the gentler sound - they dressed up as choirboys & earned themselves another BBC ban for BLASPHEMY :disco:

B side Fools Rush Out is more on the new wave side of things, another musical AVENUE the band explored, although it PLODS a bit IMO. Ten albums in by 1990 & Hugh upped & left for a solo career, claiming he was out of ideas & things ran their course. It was a bit ACRIMONIOUS & none of the rest of the band spoke to him again, although he did pay tribute when founder members Jet Black & Dave Greenwood passed a few years back. I always figured that Hugh & JJ Burnel had an intense but healthily competitive rivalry as writers & performers that kept the band moving forward, but once it ended, it was like the end of a long, serious relationship - the bitterness was real & they couldn't ever stay JUST FRIENDS. I keep meaning to read his autobiography to find more out.

The Stranglers carried on after Hugh, still performing & releasing new music, although only JJ remains from the original lineup. Hugh has released solo albums, books, does podcasts, is currently touring live - still energetic & creative as in the 70s & looking good for a man pushing 80 soon. The only reason I can think as to why The Stranglers aren't as REVERED as say, The Clash, is that the one thing missing from their REPERTOIRE is that all-time, transcendent, classic masterpiece album like London Calling - but still cracking band, cracking tunes & they never, ever gave a fuck or conformed.
 
What's the Moopy CONSENSUS on signature hit Golden Brown?

I've grown to really love it over the years & it's a shame it narrowly missed Number 1. The only issue I have is that I always find myself singing THERE'S NEVER A FROWN WITH GORDON BROWN instead.
 
They had quite the decent run of album chart placings didnt they!

I remember '96 Tears' at the time. Shocked that 'Always the sun' only got to #30.

I might know more if I heard them, but I think those two plus Gordon Brown are my reference points.
 
jyxz said:
They had quite the decent run of album chart placings didnt they!

I remember '96 Tears' at the time. Shocked that 'Always the sun' only got to #30.

I might know more if I heard them, but I think those two plus Gordon Brown are my reference points.
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I'd be STUNNED if you didn't know Peaches - later featured in Britflick Sexy Beast.

 
Ach, I dunno, funny bunch. Some good choons and some stuff that was quite weird for a 'chart' band but they were rough as arses and just a bit too casually sexist. (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) is a good 'un, so is Always The Sun and I am pro-Golden Brown.
 
Sardonicus said:
Octy I don't know what you're talking about :D



(Also - was Get A Grip On Yourself about having a WANK? I can only presume so.)
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I had no idea this existed, bloody hell, you can tell it was a different time, eh?
 
octophone said:
I had no idea this existed, bloody hell, you can tell it was a different time, eh?
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There's probably something to be said about the media being UP IN ARMS about The Stranglers, who never pretended to be nice or PC, while the musical "establishment" consisted of the likes of Savile, Glitter, Rolf, King, DLT etc, who all proved to be MUCH WORSE in the long run.
 
I'd be most inclined to have had a go on Jean-Jacques Burnel as far The Stranglers were concerned. Those lovely heavy eyelids and blow job lips.
 
Freddie Mercury - Living On My Own (Radio Mix b/w Album Version)

UK chart peak - Number 1

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Only John Lennon & Elvis (or perhaps Eva Cassidy, but then her whole SCHTICK was BEING DEAD) can rival Freddie for posthumous chart success in the UK. After scoring the 1991 Christmas number 1 with Queen's double A side tribute Bohemian Rhapsody/These Are The Days Of Our Lives, a solo career that had seen middling success in the mid 80s got him 2 top 10 hits in 1992 (In My Defence & a re-release of Barcelona to tie in with the Olympics peaking at number 2) & then going all the way to the top in 1993 with a remix of a minor number 50 hit from 1985.

With the shock of Freddie's death reverberating throughout 1992 (it's forgotten he only announced he only had AIDS, the day before he died, despite a flurry of urgent rumours over 1991), & the summer 1992 tribute concert, his & Queen's stock was probably riding higher than at any time since 1984 or so, & it's not a shock that the vaults were RAIDED for a cash-in outside the Greatest Hits albums. Living On My Own in its original version is a mid-paced synthy number that takes all the ski-bop-da-bop-da-bop bits to a quite LUDICROUS extent, so the album version included here from a 1992 compilation takes some of these out & gives things a pacey dance beat, before it was handed again to Belgian producers NO MORE BROTHERS (who I've never heard of before or since) to try get a more radio friendly sound for the single release.

NMB kept it dancey but slowed down to a more leisurely, introspective beat & dare I say it inadvertently may have invented the subgenre of the SAD DANCE BANGER. Freddie's vocal performance is of course impeccable, but its given an added poignancy after his death with its ponderous, Greta Garbo inspired lyrics, while still remaining a BANGING CHOON. It was propelled to the top as much on the quality of the song & a remix that suited the song & brought out the best of it than the SYMPATHY VOTE. The video consisted of black & white footage of Freddie's fabulously camp 1985 birthday party, which I've always found incredibly haunting. Watching these people dance & party with no idea of the horrors that lay ahead has a disquieting effect that again suits the song's theme perfectly. With no further releases afterwards, Freddie's solo career ended on his only solo number 1, & what a deserving one it was.

His final studio album with Queen, Made In Heaven, was released in 1995, & if some of the quality of the material felt a little lacking, that's more than likely due to the very limited time the band had to get the work done - & the 1996 remixes of You Don't Fool Me are bit of a :disco: later sequel to Living On My Own. Still a huge popular culture icon, with Rami Malek winning an Oscar for playing him in Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen still touring with a new singer, & loads of songs still charting ON THE REGULAR, this one is one of Freddie's greatest moments.
 
I've never quite got into Queen. I don't dislike them but I can't call myself a fan at any real level. I find them easy to appreciate but hard to love.
 
octophone said:
I've never quite got into Queen. I don't dislike them but I can't call myself a fan at any real level. I find them easy to appreciate but hard to love.
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Always been a band that the 2 Greatest Hits collections have been enough for me, although there are some gems in the singles back catalogue - Don't Stop Me Now can go away forever though.
 
Fat Bottomed Girls has aged like warm yoghurt. I mean, I assume it was always terrible but it was still considered entirely reasonable when I was at school in the 80s.
 
octophone said:
I've never quite got into Queen. I don't dislike them but I can't call myself a fan at any real level. I find them easy to appreciate but hard to love.
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That's about it. Lot's of good songs, but lots of really horrible songs. Me and Mr Ag listened to their GHs a while ago and ranked and rated them.

1. Somebody To Love
2. Radio Ga Ga
3. I Want To Break Free
4. Who Wants To Live Forever
5. The Show Must Go On
6. Bohemian Rhapsody
7. A Kind of Magic
8. We Are The Champions
9. Under Pressure
10. Don't Stop Me Now

11. I'm Going Slightly Mad
12. Flash
13. Innuendo
14. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
15. I Want It All
16. It's A Hard Life
17. Breakthru
18. Another One Bites The Dust
19. We Will Rock You
20. The Invisible Man

21. Save Me
22. Hammer To Fall
23. Killer Queen
24. Now I'm Here
25. Bicycle Race
26. Play the Game
27. Seven Seas of Rhye
28. The Miracle
29. Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
30. You're My Best Friend

31. Headlong
32. Fat Bottomed Girls
33. Friends Will Be Friends
 
I appreciate Queen and I marvel at their incredible success. But apart from the odd track, I just can’t enjoy their music. Every big hit sounds like a football terrace chant, which is probably why, now, every song is a football terrace chant
 
Bananarama - Do Not Disturb b/w Ghost

UK chart peak - Number 31

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Picked up this one because it drew a BLANK - it's from early 1985, before they began working with SAW the next year, it wasn't on the Greatest Hits Collection & it came at a point when the Nanas looked to be experiencing a permanent decline in their chart fortunes - after Robert De Niro's Waiting became their biggest hit so far in early 1984, follow-up singles Rough Justice & Hotline To Heaven peaked at 23 & 58 respectively. It looked as though the girls were on the edge of the dumper, with the poor performance of Rough Justice a real disappointment to the group, as it was about their road manager being shot dead by a British soldier in Belfast in 1983. It was also an attempt to show the girls were about more than just upbeat pop goodness & could write & sing about serious subjects, & the low placing likely felt a rejection of this.

Looked at in this context, Do Not Disturb, written solely by their then production team Jolley & Swain, can be seen as a bit of a face-saving exercise to get another hit. It was released as a standalone single (although later added to album 3), & its mid-tempo 80s style is a decent stab at a contemporary sound - if somewhat bland. Therein lies the problem - it could be any number of other girl groups. That unique Bananarama approach - sometimes endearingly amateur & messy but always distinctly them - is instead all too polished & professional. It's nice enough but it's just NOT THEM. The girls agreed - they didn't like the song either, hence its later exclusion from the Greatest Hits, & they comes across as all rather bored on the record. The public also didn't take, as it struggled to 31, & at this point, serious questions must have been asked about if the band would be able to get another hit.

Ghost, the B side, is co-written by the band with Phil Bishop & Patrick Seymour, & is a ballad that again seems to want the band to be taken seriously, but misses the point of what they're all about. It's just dull. There's a marked difference between a song like this & Rough Justice, which seemed to have genuine passion behind it, & the chart performance just didn't reflect that.

I'd never realised before that the Nanas were at such a LOW POINT before they roared back to huge success with SAW & Venus in 1986 - I can view that now as a TRIUMPHANT return to form & a rediscovery of what made the band so good. I'm sure we all know what happened after - lots of SAW classics, Siobhan off after 1987 to form Shakespears Sister, Jacqui in for a couple of albums before OFF SHE POPPED & Sara & Keren were left to continue as a duo.

It looked like the (rather nothingy) cover of More More More in 1993 would be the last time we'd see them on the charts, with the next album, Ultra Violet, not even given a UK release. But come 2005 there they were again with a couple of late career BOPS in the top 20, they're still releasing new stuff & touring & Siobhan has joined for numerous reunions too. I'd never realised how close they may have come to chart oblivion by the mid 80s - I wonder how we'd view them now if so.
 
I liked Do Not Disturb, it was mostly Siobhan who disliked it according to Sara recently. ‘A Trick Of The Night’ also had a similar chart position in the UK, #32 which was a surprise, I think more was expected from it. The album they’re both from was Top 20 in the US, top 10 in Canada and performed relatively solidly across Europe which kept them afloat at the time, as well as Venus having done so well.
 
I do not remember this one at all, I assume radio swerved it and it just sold to fans.
 
I love Do Not Disturb and I remember at the time being surprised it bombed. It was released as a stop gap single really- they realised they weren’t getting more hits off Bananarama and so pushed this out. It got added to True Confessions a year later, but they were entirely against it.

Lovely picture discs of each of the girls, though, if you can find them.
 
ABC - The Look Of Love (Part 1 b/w Part 2)

UK chart peak - Number 4

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It's a shame ABC don't have the same sort of hook into the public consciousness like their peers such as Duran Duran or Depeche Mode do, as I'll die on the hill that they're one of the best bands this country has produced & Martin Fry, as well as bring a SUAVE, besuited, Bryan Ferry-esque frontman, is a genius songwriter, producer & arranger. Take a song, any song, from any time in ABC's long career, even the flop era stuff, & anyone with even half a musical ear can tell how much care has been lavished on the sound & the production, always keeping to a coherent sound & theme, & often changing according to the prevailing musical trends.

This willingness to keep things fresh & ever evolving may well be one reason ABC didn't maintain a career of chart SMASHES, often flopping or getting minor success here & there after their chart topping debut album, The Lexicon Of Love. It soared to the top of the charts, 3 of its singles going top 10, & 40 odd years on it's still one of the most perfect pop albums ever made, running the gamut of all the highs & lows of romance, from the despair of a break up to the wide eyed wonder of a new love, best exemplified by this single. The public wanted more of the same, but ABC didn't want to give it to them.

The Look Of Love itself is almost certainly still their most well-known song, getting a fair amount of radio play on the 80s stations & it's kinda deserving of that status. It's sheer pop EXUBERANCE, with a JUBILANT vocal performance from Fry, glittery synths & harmonies with HEAVENLY trills, dramatic sweeping strings & magical touches such as the drums kicking in when Martin sings "me I go from one extreme to another" - Part 2 is just an instrumental version, but it's an enjoyable listen in itself as it gives you the chance to hear all these standout bits of production wizardry. It's one of the most joyous & uplifting records ever made, & it's never lost its LUSTRE for me, it still gets me smiling & feeling full of OPTIMISM. If anyone reading this hasn't listened to the full Lexicon Of Love album, stop what you are doing IMMEDIATELY & correct that. The phrase "pop perfection" can be overused, but here, it's entirely fitting.

It would have been easy for Martin & the boys to follow up the album with similar work that would have kept selling well, albeit keeping them trapped in a musical amber to tie them in to a specific time. Instead, the second album, Beauty Stab, went for a much butcher, harder & more cynical sound & it confounded critics & public alike. It was a commercial failure, but no less expertly constructed than its predecessor, just from a different musical angle. It's aged well, but it's easy to see why it wasn't a success back then. ABC kept up the pop magic throughout the decade, achieving the occasional transatlantic hit with the likes of Be Near Me & When Smokey Sings, bringing in soul & house music influences & even the commercial low point of the 90s still has some decent tunes here & there. I've always got time for a group willing to keep innovating & progressing & ABC deserve more credit than they get for doing so.

They're still touring the hits, but there's been no new albums since The Lexicon Of Love II in 2016 - & that album actually works as a perfect bookend to their career - from the sparkly eyed romantic on the debut to a wiser, more world weary older group on the sequel. A fine & fitting musical closing note from a fine, fine band.
 
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