CLASSIC OVER 60 REVIEWS

CLASSIC POP

eighties
Giorgio New mode,

DEC 2014/JAN 2015

electronic
Moroder
JUNE/JULY 2015

eclectic new music

On Britney, Kylie MARTIN
and Daft Punk GORE
A-HA • GIORGIO MORODER • BASILDON • BERNARD SUMNER • TRACEY THORN • LLOYD COLE • HOWARD JONES • VICE VERSA

E X C L U S I V E

LLOYD COLE
“People wanted to
f*ck me or fight me.”
SOFT CELL
The art of
drawing a band

HOT CHIP
On Scritti, Queen
and Prince
THE HIGHS AND LOWS, THE FAREWELL...
...a nd the u nexpECteD
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 WELCOME TO
CLASSIC
eighties
electronic
eclectic

A-HA? A-HAAA! I’LL ADMIT, IT CAN BE

HARD TO WRITE A HEADLINE ABOUT
THE NORWEGIAN TRIO WITHOUT
CHANNELLING ALAN PARTRIDGE. BUT
WITH THAT OUT OF MY SYSTEM, WE 17
CAN GET SERIOUS, BECAUSE WHEN HAS
THERE EVER BEEN A

I
SERIOUS LOOK AT THEIR recently spoke to the author The playing field may have been
Greg Lansdowne for his wide open, and Morten, Paul and
MUSIC? STARTING forthcoming book on A-ha, Magne may have had the perfect
YOUR CAREER ON and his questions revolved formula – yet it’s still breathtaking
A HIGH, WITH A around them being one of a few to think that not only did their
select groups who have managed debut album Hunting High And
STRIKING LOOK AND to achieve both immeasurable Low sell 10 million copies, but that
A GROUNDBREAKING teen mania and bone fide critical it did so in a year which saw the
acclaim. “After a period of release of Kate Bush’s Hounds Of
VIDEO, CAN BE A struggle, A-ha finally made their Love and Tears For Fears’ ...The
CURSE RATHER THAN breakthrough in 1985 – based Big Chair, as well as albums from
A BLESSING – SUCH in London,” he asked, “but what other groups that exemplified
kind of a music scene were they the same self-assured, self-styled
THAT, FOR SOME, entering and why do you think sophistication of the post-New
THREE DECADES LATER, they appealed in that time?” Wave: Associates’ Perhaps, Scritti
THE MUSIC STILL TAKES For me, the answer was clear: Politti’s Cupid & Psyche ‘85 and
at that time in the UK, New Wave Propaganda’s A Secret Wish.
SECOND PLACE. BUT was pretty much done and dusted, Paul Lester says it best in his
NOT FOR US… and New Romanticism was on its review of Hunting… on page 100
way out too. But both had shaped of this issue: “a boy band before
a music market where artists the term became grotesquely
could be self-styled, sophisticated devalued, A-ha appeared as
and different; no shock values gorgeous, exotic, windswept
needed, other than the power of boys from the frozen wastelands
their songs and production. Some of the north who could play their
good examples from that year instruments and write songs full of
were Eurythmics moving from the desperate sorrow and yearning.”
leftfield to the arenas with There And the good news is, they never
Must Be An Angel and Midge Ure stopped...
dropping the EDM of Ultravox for Ian Peel, Editor
the crooning If I Was.

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Giorgio New mode,
DEC 2014/JAN 2015

electronic
Moroder
JUNE/JULY 2015

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A-HA • GIORGIO MORODER • BASILDON • BERNARD SUMNER • TRACEY THORN • LLOYD COLE • HOWARD JONES • VICE VERSA

E X C L U S I V E

LLOYD COLE
“People wanted to
fancy, playlists and reviews, Classic Pop
is unmissable. Get yours delivered to your
f*ck me or fight me.”

/classicpop SOFT CELL

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CLASSIC
eighties
electronic
eclectic
2
CONTENTS
38
17
56 44
Follow us F E A T U R E S THE LOWDOWN: A-HA 38 the masks, the neon and the tears
Search Classic Pop MARTIN GORE 24 After the news that A-ha are back with BASILDON 64
magazine After 35 years with Depeche Mode it’s little a new album, we celebrate the band’s It’s not even a city but Vince Clarke and his
wonder that Martin Gore takes occasional 30 years of highs, lows and hits commandos stamped Basildon on the synth
@classicpop
solo trips to space. His latest, as MG, sees VICE VERSA 44 map with more hits than any town deserves
magazine
him explore instrumental soundscapes while Before the success, many artists boast a HOT CHIP 72
@classicpop creative past, none more so than these It makes sense not to make sense. It’s
he looks back over a career as one of the
magazine
finest songwriters of his generation, noting: former members of ABC, part of the the world of Hot Chip, and after 10
“It’s crazy. There’s just no time…” first cool wave of Sheffield steelers years who are we to demand logic?
GIORGIO MORODER 30 CLASSIC ALBUM 50 HOWARD JONES 76
It would take a roster of A-list stars Roxy Music’s Avalon was the sound With an interactive show under his belt,
to tempt one of the most iconic of a band which, after a decade of few artists manage to balance nostalgia
producers of the last four decades indulgence, had discovered perfection. with new pastures better than Mr Jones
out of retirement and away from the Then it all went pear-shaped… LLOYD COLE 86
golf course, and that’s exactly what POP ART: HUW FEATHER 56 As his own harshest critic Lloyd Cole can
happened when Giorgio met Kylie and Soft Cell’s artwork was almost as striking as look at the past with some pride but
Britney before going Gaga for Pharrell the music. We meet the man responsible for still regrets not enjoying it more…

4
24
76
19 17

30 72
N E W S LONG LIVE VINYL 80 The Wake, 23 Skidoo, Level 42, Echo & The Subscribe
POP-UP 08 A-ha, OMD, Madness and Lennon are Bunnymen, Close Lobsters, Section 25, Lloyd Subscribe to Classic
When Franz met Sparks, Le Bon went among the best of the vinyl crop Cole, Lisa Stansfield, Bee Gees… Pop, save 25% and
biking, and plenty more pop news… COMPETITIONS 82 COMPILATIONS 105 choose your bundle.
Chances to won tickets and merch! New collections of funk from the Seventies, Turn to Page 70
BURIED TREASURES 12
Do you own these by Martin Gore, TOP 10 84 synth pop from the Eighties, anthems from
A-ha, OMD or Soft Cell? When Wet Wet Wet joined Billy Bragg the Nineties, plus R&B from the Noughties
RADAR 14 R E V I E W S DVDS & BOOKS 106 CLASSIC OVER 60 REVIEWS SAVE
25%
CLASSIC POP

Upcoming new releases The best releases and live concerts Kylie, Annie Lennox and Peter Gabriel DVDs eighties
Giorgio New mode,
DEC 2014/JAN 2015

electronic

and Tracy Thorn and Marc Almond books plus

Moroder
JUNE/JULY 2015

eclectic new music

BERNARD SUMNER 17 NEW RELEASES 94

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A-HA • GIORGIO MORODER • BASILDON • BERNARD SUMNER • TRACEY THORN • LLOYD COLE • HOWARD JONES • VICE VERSA

Why New Order’s next album will be a New albums from Blur, Hot Chip, Martin our very own Wyndham Wallace in print
Gore, FFS, Giorgio Moroder, Leftfield, Black,
E X C L U S I V E

hard-edged, crude masterpiece LIVE 110 LLOYD COLE

“People wanted to
f*ck me or fight me.”

TRACY THORN 19 The Orb, Sarah Cracknell … and the mighty Simple Minds play a two-part blinder SOFT CELL
The art of
drawing a band
Everything about the art of singing Jah Wobble takes on the new singles while Spandau compete for the best HOT CHIP
On Scritti, Queen
R E G U L A R S REISSUES 100 gig of the month, plus performances THE HIGHS AND LOWS, THE FAREWELL...
...and the unexpECteD
and Prince

Re-releases from A-ha, Grace Jones, Paul by Claudia Brucken, Paloma Faith,
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 CLASSIC CLASSIC OVER 60 REVIEWS

CLASSIC POP
eighties
Giorgio New mode,

DEC 2014/JAN 2015

electronic
Moroder

JUNE/JULY 2015
eclectic new music
On Britney, Kylie MARTIN
and Daft Punk GORE

A-HA • GIORGIO MORODER • BASILDON • BERNARD SUMNER • TRACEY THORN • LLOYD COLE • HOWARD JONES • VICE VERSA
E X C L U S I V E

LLOYD COLE
“People wanted to
eighties f*ck me or fight me.”
electronic SOFT CELL
eclectic The art of
drawing a band Anthem Publishing
HOT CHIP Suite 6, Piccadilly House,
On Scritti, Queen
and Prince
London Road, Bath, BA1 6PL

WHO’S WHO
THE HIGHS AND LOWS, THE FAREWELL...
...and the unexpECteD
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THE CLASSIC POP TEAM, AND THEIR FAVOURITE GIORGIO WATERCOOLER

MOMENTS
MORODER MOMENTS… *1 “Plus the occasional delve into the
Midnight Express soundtrack and, when I’m
EDITOR feeling brave, Adam Ant’s What’s Going On.”
Ian Peel Mark Lindores
ian.peel@anthem-publishing.com Berlin’s Take My Breath Away *4 *2 “Classic karaoke and the soundtrack from
Sputnik, every time *1 Andy Saunders, Art Editor a brilliant Eighties film.”
Him speaking on Daft Punk’s Giorgio by Moroder
ART DIRECTOR Rick Batey *3 “It unites fans, from hipsters to disco
Jenny Cook Utopia – Me Giorgio casuals, in ensuring dancefloor mayhem.”
jenny.cook@anthem-publishing.com Rudy Bolly
Giorgio by Moroder from Random Access Memories Night Drive – perfect for my regular Jane Fonda *4 “With Top Gun, Flashdance, American
workout Gigolo, Electric Dreams and The NeverEnding
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Story, he soundtracked the Eighties.”
Rik Flynn All content copyright of Anthem Publishing
Pierre Perrone
richard.flynn@anthem-publishing.com Ltd 2014, all rights reserved. While we make
Mark Frith
Love To Love You Bab(ies) every effort to ensure that the factual content
Miles Picard
of Classic Pop magazine is correct, we cannot
ADVERTISING MANAGER Dave Freak
take any responsibility nor be held account-
Leah Fitz-Henry Barney Hunter able for any factual errors printed. No part
leah.fitz-henry@anthem-publishing.com Em Irvine of this publication may be reproduced, stored
Together In Electric Dreams *2 Marc Pinder in a retrieval system or resold without prior
Andy Jones consent of Anthem Publishing Ltd. Classic Pop
DIGITAL EDITOR recognises all copyrights contained within the
Chiara Braggion MANAGING DIRECTOR issue. Where possible, we acknowledge the
chiara.braggion@anthem-publishing.com Jon Bickley copyright holder.
jon.bickley@anthem-publishing.com
CONTRIBUTORS With Phil Oakey on Together In Electric Dreams
John Earls
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Blondie’s Call Me *3
Paul Pettengale
paul.pettengale@anthem-publishing.com
Wyndham Wallace
My Name Is Giovani Giorgio, But Everybody Calls Me
If I can’t have Love To Love You, then it has to be Donna
Giorgio. Best track on Random Access Memories
Summer’s MacArthur Park
PUBLISHER
Paul Lester Simon Lewis
I’d go for What A Night from E=MC2, or Chase from simon.lewis@anthem-publishing.com
Midnight Express Call Me, Blondie

O U R C O N T R I B U T O R S
A fan of Nick Kent, Julie Best known for editing Formerly a publicist, label
Burchill and Paul Morley, Teletext’s music pages representative and artist
Paul Lester always wanted Planet Sound throughout manager, Wyndham
to be a music journalist. He the Noughties, John Earls Wallace is a Berlin-based
became Features Editor of has also done pop for The writer whose first book,
Melody Maker, and later Sunday People, News Of Lee, Myself & I – about Lee
Deputy Editor of Uncut. Since 2007 he has The World and, currently, NME and the Hazlewood, the man behind These Boots
freelanced for The Guardian, The Sunday Daily Star. John also lectures in journalism, Are Made For Walking – is out now. He’s
Times, The Independent, MOJO, Classic writes about football for When Saturday also subtitled German films for English
Rock, Prog… and Classic Pop, where this Comes and will one day get that David audiences, written guidebooks about
month he writes about The Blow Monkeys. Bowie interview. Norway, and sung with Morcheeba.

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6
AbrokenFrameAd.indd 2 06/05/15 12:08
N E W S & O B S E S S I O N S
UP
CAST IRON GUARANTEES?
H
aving been introduced by a blushing ambassador
in the suitably diplomatic surroundings of Berlin’s
Norwegian Embassy, the three members of A-ha
reunited at a press conference in late March
before a scrum of photographers to announce
that their previously reported one-off show at Brazil’s Rock In
Rio Festival this coming September will in fact mark the start
of a new burst of activity. The band had previously stated
that their 2009 Foot Of The Mountain album, and their
8
subsequent, perhaps hastily-titled Ending On A High Note
Tour, would be the last time they’d work together.
In front of a backdrop that revealed that their new album
– to be released in most of the world by Universal on
September 4, though UK details were still unconfirmed as
Classic Pop went to press – would be called Cast In Steel,
the trio shifted nervously in their seats when confronted by
questions about their decision to reunite. “It should have
been called Cast In Clay, really,” singer Morten Harket
grinned, before Paul Waaktaar-Savoy conceded that, “at
least you know never to trust us when we go away”. He
was, however, quick to defend the decision more seriously:
“If a band has more to say, why wouldn’t they say it?”

Magne Furuholmen also indulged his playful side after
Harket commented that working together as a band remained
great fun. “We have to say that,” he stated wryly. “It’s in the
contract.” Furuholmen went on, however, to explain that, “what
was right in 2010 is wrong in 2015. I’m prepared to admit it,”
before adding, “We had a career of 30 years without sex and
drugs. Without rock and roll, what have we got left?”
Harket, sat to his right in a blue leather jacket and
sunglasses, turned to him to point out in mock exasperation,
“You promised us we’d be junkies!”
Despite the mild awkwardness of the reconciliation, the
band seemed genuinely excited by the thought of writing and
playing songs together after five years apart. “We’re doing this
Just Loomis
because there’s still magic in music,” Harket said. “We always
get excited about new material.”
After joking that he’d been “super busy” in the intervening
period – “I’ve released one song!” – Waaktaar-Savoy
suggested that working together again reminded him of the
band’s early days ”when we were kids”, and pointed out that
no material was re-purposed, but that everything on the album
was “made from scratch. It’s all about the song.”
After the album’s release, A-ha will embark upon a tour
in 2016, beginning with dates in Germany, Austria and
Switzerland, though more will be announced. “We always
have to go away to get bigger,” Harket concluded, before
ending on a warning: “We’ll be gone again soon.”
9

No.17
NATASHA
IKO IKO
After working for David Bowie’s
management, Natasha England
helped discover Chas & Dave and
Darts when she and her husband
Bob England set up their own
management company. England’s
own girlband The Flirts landed
Radio 1 airplay in 1979 with
their single He’s The Kind Of Boy
You Can’t Forget, but it wasn’t
until England went solo that she
became a serious contender. After
her first two singles flopped,
Darts singer Rita Ray suggested
England cover The Dixie Cups’
1965 hit Iko Iko.
By coincidence, England’s cover
was released in the same week
in 1982 as one by The Belle
Stars, who had yet to have a
hit. England’s more mysterious
version, made with Tubular Bells
producer Tom Newman, triumphed
in the UK. It reached No. 10, 25
places higher than The Belle Stars,
though their cover was a US
Billboard Top 20 hit in 1989.
England’s next single The
Boom Boom Room missed the Top
40, and her manager/husband
Bob’s insistence on more covers
led to professional and personal
problems. They divorced by the
time of her self-penned second
album Don’t Walk Away. She
quit music, becoming a horse-
breeder, but after overcoming
breast cancer in 2004 she was
determined to reissue her music,
and the 42-song Back Into The
Mists Of Time showed there was
more to her than just Iko Iko.
10
UP
Franz take Sparks out
F
orget McBusted – the most important pop supergroup of the new millennium
has to be the coming together Franz Ferdinand and Sparks under the FFS
banner. The seeds for FFS was sewn around the time of Franz’s debut album
when word got back to the Maels that the band were big Sparks fans. “We
thought Take Me Out was very cool, and wouldn’t it be nice to say hello when
they came to LA?” recalls Russell Mael. “We met and decided then it would be great
to do something together. We put forward a couple demos, one was Piss Off. But
they got swept up by everything, and it didn’t happen at that time.”
The project finally came together 10 years later when both Sparks and Franz
Ferdinand appeared at Coachella in 2013. “The real motivation was to make
something new, not ‘Franz featuring Russell Mael’, or ‘Sparks with Franz Ferdinand
backing them’,” says Alex Kapranos. “You can’t chart what is Sparks and what is
Franz Ferdinand,” suggests Ron Mael. “I think each band unconsciously relinquished
a little of who they were in order to enter new territory.”
The self-titled FFS album lands June 8th via Domino, and they plan to tour Europe
throughout the summer, including a date at Glastonbury in June.
K I E S Z A’ S R E - F L E X I N G
HER MUSCLES
Canadian pop belle Kiesza unexpectedly
found herself involved with the new
Duran Duran album. How? The former
Navy Seal turned chart-topper with
2014’s Hideaway simply bumped into
Eighties tempted Simon Le Bon while working out. “Simon
was in a gym and I guess he was running
back by iPods when my song came on the video screen,”
she reveals. “He liked it and reached out
Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player: that was British to me, saying he
scientist Kane Kramer back in 1979, while the first had a song that
successful commercial model was the SaeHan MPMan he wanted me
of 1997. But Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware is convinced to sing on. Later,
that Apple’s iPod of 2001 is what kickstarted the we all met up in
global interest in Eighties musical nostalgia. “Because the studio. I went
fans can listen in private on their iPods, we’ve lost the to one of their
age boundaries we used to have on music,” Ware shows, and I
explains. “And these are very good songs. It was the believe I’m going
last golden era of songwriting, when innovation was to be on their
encouraged, not frowned upon.” next album.”
 N E W S & O B S E S S I O N S

Pop heroes P H I L’ S S O N G F O R
EUROPE
Pop stars have long been Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera has
worshipped like superheroes, been named Maestro Concertatore
and now one faithful fan for the 2015 La Notte della Taranta.
has finally found a way to The guitarist will take centre stage at
make them wear Spandex for Italy’s largest annual free orchestral
real. Brazilian artist Billy The concert on 22nd August in the
Butcher began re-imagining beautiful town of Melpignano, Puglia.
his favourite music artists as “I am honoured to become part of
comic book characters a few the rich musical tradition of pizzica
years ago, and now his work music that has evolved over 2,000
has become so popular that years, and I’m looking forward to
he’s been forced to expand reinterpreting its classics,” Manzanera
his strange universe of musical says. “It’s been a thrilling experience
avengers. His latest creations to discover the history of pizzica
include Siouxsie Sioux, Billy and trace its origins from all parts of
Idol, Morrissey, Gary Numan, the Mediterranean region. I’m really
Ian Curtis, Howard Devoto and looking forward to working with
– pictured right – The Cure’s the Popular Orchestra and also some
Robert Smith. very special guests.” Manzanera will
Billy says, “While people still be working with over 20 musicians,
debate on what really makes a dancers and singers, with the
pop culture icon, now it’s time tamburello, the dominant instrument,
for good old Earth 616 to host providing the characteristic percussive
a gang of All-New, Almighty beat of pizzica.
Post-Punk Heroes we know and Manzanera has released new solo
love.” Check out his work at album The Sound Of Blue and will be
butcherbilly.tumblr.com. on tour with David Gilmour.

Le Bon to be wild

S
imon Le Bon got on his bike in aid of the Bike4Life Festival earlier this year
to raise money for the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity. Le Bon has been
a keen biker for many years; “Two of my biggest passions in life, next to
music, have long been sailing and motorbikes, so I’m thrilled.”
Having signed to Warner Bros, Duran Duran’s new album will be out in
September. Produced by Nile Rodgers, Mark Ronson and Mr Hudson, the first single
Pressure Off features soul girl Janelle Monáe. John Taylor adds, “This deal means we
will be reunited with our catalogue after years apart, and in that
sense it feels a little like
coming home.” Duran A L L T H AT W E WA N T
Duran will also headline
Dry those eyes, kids: an Ace Of Base
Bestival in the Isle Of
reunion isn’t on the cards, though there’s
Wight this summer.
a new collection of hits, B-sides and
rarities, Hidden Gems. But one question
for Jonas Berggren: did the lyrics to All
That She Wants refer to a woman, or
infant? “A lover,” he confirms. “Those
[types of] women can be fantastic. But
not all the time. It depends how you
suffer from it.” Hmm. Any clearer?

11
 UP
BURIED TREASURES

R
ooting around those boxes of junk in your loft may turn up more
than you hoped for. While many vinyl releases from the Seventies,
1What is Rihanna’s surname?
Eighties and Nineties are worth next to nothing – nostalgic value
aside, of course – some could land you a small fortune, should you
2 What is Madonna’s middle
name?
choose to part with them. Here, we take four rare artefacts to the
experts at 991.com and ask them for a valuation. Browse their online store at

3Which of the following has

Paloma Faith not co-written
with: Gary Barlow, Kevin
www.991.com... and get 15% off using voucher code CP150115.

MARTIN GORE A-HA

Rowland, Pharrell, Betty Boo? IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING TAKE ON ME
This single was only issued in France and This is the rare original 1984 issue German
4 Antmusic, Kings Of The Wild
Frontier and which other song
were the singles from Adam And
Germany as a promo pressing. French copies
had an ‘Extrait De Counterfeit’ EP picture
3-track 12" vinyl single featuring the 3:44
Long Version & And You Tell Me & Stop! And
ANSWERS 1) Fenty 2) Louise 3) Kevin Rowland 4) Dog Eat Dog 5) Janelle Monae 6) Visage 7) Trio 8) Chic 9) Replicas 10) Boy George 11) 3am Eternal 12) The Tourists 13) Leeds 14) Derek Jarman 15) The Man Who Fell To Earth

The Ants’ album Kings Of The sleeve; German ones had a rare ‘Airplay Make Your Mind Up in the genuine silver and
Wild Frontier? Only’ artist and title printed sleeve. Either, blue picture sleeve. Both sleeve and vinyl
mint with sleeve, might fetch over £100 need to be mint but might fetch near £100
5 ) Which R&B musician features
on Duran Duran’s new single
Pressure Off?
IN EXCESS OF £100 VALUE AROUND £100

6) Midge Ure, John McGeoch

and Barry Adamson were all
members of which band?

7 Which German band had a

1982 hit with Da Da Da?

8I’ll Be There is the first single

in no less than 23 years by
which disco band?

9 What was the name of

Tubeway Army’s chart-topping
second album of 1979?

10 Which singer is shortly to

star in a reality TV series
about his move from London to
Los Angeles? OMD SOFT CELL
LOCOMOTION MUTANT MOMENTS EP
11 Which single did The KLF
perform with Extreme Noise
Terror at the 1992 Brit Awards?
Very rare, this is a 1984 Uncut picture disc
test pressing for the limited edition 2-track
Super rare, and genuine 1980 UK 4-track
debut 7” released on the Big Frock label
‘steam locomotive’ shaped vinyl single that and containing the songs Potential, L.O.V.E.

12 What was the name of the

band Annie Lennox and Dave
Stewart were in together before
was commercially released. Generally used
as test pressings, uncuts are rarely seen and
Feelings, Metro Mrx & Frustration. As you
would expect, this copy of the EP displays
very desirable. This might fetch near £150 if the Sound Clinic pressing in the run-out
Eurythmics? in mint condition. grooves, ABF1.

13 In which city’s polytechnic did

Soft Cell’s Marc Almond and
Dave Ball meet?
VALUE AROUND £150 VALUE AROUND £100

14 Which film director designed

Pet Shop Boys’ first tour
back in 1989?

15 On which of his films is

David Bowie’s forthcoming
musical Lazarus based upon?

HOW DID YOU DO?

13-15 The Winner Takes It All
10-12 I Should Have Known Better
6-9 I Feel For You
0-5 Give It Up

12
 N E W S & O B S E S S I O N S

The Man Who Fell

rearrangements of the Roeg
movie music plus, we believe, old
Bowie material and some new
To Broadway songs with themes of “love and
violence”. “Some of the songs

T
he runaway success of
David Byrne’s disco/
karaoke Imelda Marcos
musical Here Lies Love
will be sweet news for
David Bowie, who had confirmed
the launch of a new piece of
musical theatre, co-written with
Irish playwright Enda Walsh
(whose credits include Once,
Disco Pigs, Hunger, Chatroom
and many more), directed by
Obie-winning Belgian director
Ivo van Hove, developed in
collaboration with New York
Theatre Workshop, and heading
for an off-Broadway venue in
New York City later this year.
The work, entitled Lazarus,
is based on the Thin White
Duke’s Nicolas Roeg-directed
movie classic The Man Who
Fell To Earth, and will feature
sound as if you have heard them
forever – like classics,” Ivo van
Hove told the BBC.
And what older material will
be featured? We don’t know yet,
but the director has thrown his
net wide. “I started with [1975
album] Young Americans as
a young man and went onto
Station to Station, Low, Lodger,
and Heroes, but I really loved his
last album The Next Day – it’s
a mixture of all these things,”
van Hove explained. “There are
romantic songs – his songs are
deeply romantic – and there are
songs about violence and the
ugly world surrounding us. That’s
what the new songs are about.”
Lazarus is due to open in the
winter of 2015, and Bowie
himself will not be reprising the
role of Thomas Newton.

Paul’s R-R-R-R-Remix
G
roundbreaking Eighties chart-topper 19
has received a 21st century makeover.
Paul Hardcastle became a household
name thanks to the stuttering anti-war
classic, and now he’s delivered 14
remixes, old and new, for a 30th anniversary release
available from 30 May. 
Hardcastle explains: “Over the years I’ve had so
many people enquiring whether all the original versions
could be released – so I have pulled together all 14
remixes of 19 in one album. The three original tracks
have been remastered. 
“Some are in a chilled vibe which I never thought
would work but actually do. For you Eighties people
out there, the album includes a new electro version and
also a Cryogenic Freeze Mix which I think is my all-time
favourite. Also, I have mixed the legendary Marvin
Gaye classic What’s Going On with 19, which worked
out brilliantly.
“I’ve included the original demo version that I still had
on cassette tape – the version I recorded in Leytonstone
in late 1984.”
 19’s anti-war message is just as poignant today,
which is why Hardcastle has chosen to release new
single 19 The PTSD Remix, focusing on soldiers troubled
by PTSD after returning conflicts. 
Paul added: “The haunting PTSD mix is quite heavy,
and reflects the fact that more soldiers have committed
suicide since the Afghanistan war than actually died in
battle. Now that is a sad statistic.” 

13
 O N T H E

UP
Jarre’s friend electric
THE RELEASES TO Crack out the lasers, for Jean-Michel Jarre has teamed
with fellow French electronic maestro Gesaffelstein
LOOK OUT FOR IN for a new collaborative project. The pair met in
THE NEXT COUPLE Los Angeles, and the first fruits of their work is a
OF MONTHS… track called Conquistador – a multi-generational
interpretation of electronic soundscapes.
“I had Gesaffelstein in mind. I wanted to work with
ASH the people of his generation,” says Jean-Michel. “His
HOLDING BACK NO
Kablammo! music has this instantly recognisable sound. It’s quite
MORE
dark, quite mystic.”
New album 25/5/15 To accompany 30th anniversary tour Gesaffelstein has already worked with the likes of
FLORENCE AND THE dates, Simply Red have confirmed their Kanye West and Lana Del Rey, but hooking up with
MACHINE first new album in eight years. Big Love Jarre was a dream come true: “Jean-Michel’s music
will be released on June 1, and finds Mick is part of every household,” says Gesaffelstein. “A
How Big, How Blue, How
Hucknall reconnecting with the band’s classic of electronic music. When I started making
Beautiful
classic sound. music, I looked towards the pioneers. I was interested
New album 1/6/15 “Now I’m comfortable with the notion in synthesisers and
JAMIE XX of us as a blue-eyed soul group,” Hucknall sequencers and the
In Colour admits. “I had to stop myself fighting that technology they used
idea. Our sound is original, too. I don’t around that time, so
New album 1/6/15
know of another band that has pulled so obviously I came across
MAJOR LAZER many musical strands together.” Jean-Michel. He is a
Peace Is The Mission Big Love’s 12 tracks are written by part of my influences.”
New album 1/6/15 Mick Hucknall and produced by Andy Expect an album to
WOODY WOODGATE Wright. “Once I began wondering how arrive, via a puff of dry
Simply Red were going to sound, I started ice, shortly.
In Your Mind writing songs,” says Hucknall. 
New album 1/6/15
ROBIN GIBB
Saved By The Bell
3CD compilation 1/6/15
FFS (FRANZ
FERDINAND/SPARKS)
FFS
New album 8/6/15
LEFTFIELD
Alternative Light Source
New album 8/6/15
SARAH CRACKNELL
Red Kite
New album 15/6/15
MIKA
No Place In Heaven
New album 15/6/15

The battle: Kraftwerk vs Kraftwerk

NATE RUESS
Grand Romantic

H
New album 15/6/15 ead robot Ralf Hütter filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against eZelleron
YEARS AND YEARS Inc, manufacturers of energy supply units for mobile electronic devices, as
Communion eZelleron has decided to create a portable power plant called ‘Kraftwerk’.
Kraftwerk, whose name literally translates as ‘power plant’, filed a complaint
New album 22/6/15
in Delaware federal court that reads, “Defendant is taking advance orders
FRANKIE GOES TO for the KRAFTWERK charging device. Therefore, consumers are likely to assume that
HOLLYWOOD there is a connection, association, or relationship between the famous electronic Music
Simply band and a charger for portable musical-playing devices.”
3CD “tinned” compilation Meanwhile, former Kraftwerk man Wolfgang Flür has collaborated with Jack Dangers
29/6/15 from Meat Beat Manifesto for a special limited edition single.

14
 weexplore
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POP GO THE CHARTS
Pop music has never been more… well, popular. 2014 saw
British artists account for the biggest share of albums sold in
the UK since Britpop in 1997. According to the BPI, British acts
accounted for 53.5% of all music sold in the UK last year – the
biggest UK pop boom since the Spice Girls. BPI and BRIT Awards
Chief Executive Geoff Taylor said, “From the creativity of Ed
Sheeran to the fresh new sounds of Sam Smith and George Ezra,
the powerful vocals of Paloma Faith and the stadium-filling
anthems of Coldplay, new British music has dominated the charts
at home and is breaking through all around the world. It shows
this country has strength, not only in talented musicians, but also
in innovative record labels that invest in nurturing their careers.”

Party’s over for Beastie Boy

What does a Beastie Boy do in his retirement years?
That’s a question being posed by Adam ‘Ad-Rock”
Horovitz, who is struggling to adapt to life after the
rap group’s amazing 30-year career. The Beasties
called it a day following the untimely death of Adam
‘MCA’ Yauch in 2012, and Ad-Hock has been trying
his hand at acting.
“It’s like, ‘What do you do with your life when your
former life is no more?’ I have to figure it out. I don’t
know if I ever will,” he says. ”I’m used to having other
people [plan stuff] for me. I don’t plan anything, so at
some point maybe I have to start doing that.’
Ad-Hock is also working on a “multidimensional”
biography: ”It’s nowhere near that. There’s no way it’s
going to happen [before 2017]. I might get sued by
saying this, but I’m just being realistic.”

from the Classic Pop to the obscure: 80’s, 70’s, 60’s pop &
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sales@991.com
991.com answer the call

L OS T & F O U N D
No.17
BREAKING POINT
BOURGIE BOURGIE
An omnipresent figure in the
Postcard Records scene, Paul
Quinn began as frontman with
misleadingly-named pastoral
popsters Jazzateers, leaving
when relegated to backing
vocals by future Hipsway singer
Grahame Skinner. The rest of
the band bar Skinner rejoined
Quinn in 1983. Named after a
Gladys Knight song, Bourgie
Bourgie released the string-
soaked chamber pop of debut
single Breaking Point (No. 48)
and Careless (No. 96). That
was pretty much it; Quinn quit
halfway through recording of the
album. Guitarist Ian Burgoyne
lub, posted demos for the album on
YouTube in 2010 which were
quickly removed, and a widely-
available bootleg of a gig at
Kingston Poly is the only other
taste of their baroque elegance.
Quinn went on to record
with Edwyn Collins and Vince
Clarke, who remembers Quinn
as “a lovely man, but too shy
to make it as a pop star.” Two
early Nineties albums followed
with The Independent Group,
who featured members of
Aztec Camera, The Commotions
and The Bluebells. Sadly, since
singing backing vocals on ex-
Orange Juice guitarist James
Kirk’s 2001 album You Can
Make It If You Boogie, Quinn has
been too unwell with multiple
sclerosis to record. He lives
quietly in Dundee.
16
UP
Happy Grogan
C
lare Grogan has just released her second children’s book, Tallulah On
Tour, but she is already planning more dates with a new all-female
incarnation of Altered Images. ”It’s actually really good fun!” she says. ”In
a weird way the audiences are up for it and it’s pure escapism. We’re all
there having an afternoon or an evening where we are 18 again before
all the sh*t happened. I look out into the audience and I feel such a connection.
Because I’m looking at them and I’m thinking, ‘You know what it’s like. You know
how tough it is.’ And yet we’re still here and wanting to have a good time and still
going, ‘I’m that person somewhere inside of me. I’m still that teenager who thought
it’s all ahead of me. We’ve all been through stuff, and I just think for me being
allowed to recreate those teenage moments… it’s a joyful thing.”
BIGMOUTH STRIKES
AGAIN
Glasto head honcho Michael Eavis has
become the latest victim of a verbal
volley courtesy of meat-free Morrissey.
The 79-year-old farmer was labelled an
“animal hater” by Mozzer for stopping
a film about the evils of factory farming
during his 2011 festival performance.
Morrissey wrote on fansite True To You, “I
was told that Michael Eavis had stopped
the screening because it wasn’t indicative
of how his dairy farm operated… he
appears to be one of those people who
love dead animals, yet hate live ones.”
Madonna hung up on Jacko
Madonna has been reflecting on spending time with
Michael Jackson in 1991. “I could relate to him on
many levels, but he was also a very shy person,” she
recalled. “He was famous since he was a child, and
didn’t really have a childhood. We didn’t really have
a relationship about me revealing myself to him, but
making fun of the crazy world we were living and
working in. We didn’t talk about our childhoods. ...
I think he felt eternally tortured. It was hard for him
to look into people’s eyes.” That wasn’t Jackson’s
interpretation of their meeting; he told spiritual adviser
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “She is not a nice person.”

B E R N A R D
M
ost musicians would be
content with one successful
group, but Bernard Sumner
has scored a spectacular hat
trick during his career with
Joy Division, New Order
and Electronic. Following a
lengthy hiatus – and a brief
stint as Bad Lieutenant – the
Lancashire man reunited New Order for
a string of acclaimed shows. They are
currently putting the finishing touches to
their first new album in a decade, due
later this year.
What inspired the new album?
We came back to do a few shows, but
they were getting better and better.
We were enjoying it as much as the
audiences, so an album just seemed like
the next logical thing to do.
Are you pleased with the results
you’re getting so far?
The album sounds brilliant. I’m a very
modest man, if it wasn’t I’d say, “it’s ok”.
But we’re in the finishing run with about
another two and a half tracks to write.
We’ve mixed about seven tracks so it
will be finished in the spring and out by
autumn, maybe September or October.
A concise number of tracks, then?
We’ve actually got about 14 or 15
tracks; the label want 10, but I have
to finish all of them. I can’t not finish
something, it bugs me. If I only do the 10
tracks, I know it will keep bugging me for
the next 10 years.
Sonically, there have been many
different eras of New Order. How
does this one compare?
It’s more electronic than the last two.
It’s more hard-edged, crude electronics,
like old-skool New Order. There are a
couple of guitar tracks on there, but it
really pokes you in the eye. I think it will
surprise people, too.
GODFATHERS
of
S U M N E R
Who have you worked with?
Tom Rowland from The Chemical
Brothers is involved on a few tracks but
most of it is produced by ourselves and
mixed by Craig Silvey. We’ve found it
an enjoyable process even though we’ve
worked on it over a long period and in
different places.
What has inspired your lyrics?
I find lyrics tend to either be about love
or having a moan. When you’re younger
it’s all about retaliation and getting your
own back. Now the songs are about
having a shit day, like someone reversing
into my car or trying to get an erection.
Is writing music a different process
for you these days?
It always depends on the music. I write
about the atmosphere that’s derived from
the music. The music has always come
first, before the words.
Will you preview the new music
live before the album comes out?
No, we aren’t touring, because we’ve
been playing live for the last three years,
so this year is all about recording the
album and then taking a break to refresh
our batteries. But we might do something
in the autumn.
How did you feel about the recent
petition to turn the Macclesfield
home of Ian Curtis into a museum?
I’m torn. Obviously it’s good to honour
Ian but another part of me thinks it’s a bit
ghoulish. To me, it’s a place of sadness.
What music are you listening to?
I’m listening to the new New Order
album and I work 12 hours a day on
it, start at 12 and finish at 12; at the
weekend I lay there with my tongue
hanging out. I get up, walk straight into
the studio, get pissed around seven
o’clock and when I can’t drink anymore I
go to bed. Which is about midnight – it’s
like the life of a student, but with money.
So this is your booze album?
I only drink at work. It’s like the opposite
of being a policeman. It doesn’t make me
creative, it just makes me forget myself,
and that’s the essence of creativity. I
drink wine these days, rosé or white. Red
makes me feel thirsty and tired, like I’ve
got a nine-inch nail in my head.
So can we expect an official New
Order brew or a bottle of plonk,
like Madness, or Tony Hadley?
Funnily enough we’ve been asked. It’s
not my thing, but I’m not ruling out my
own set of underwear, or fragrance.
It will be New Order’s turn to
receive Lifetime Achievement
awards soon. Your feelings?
I don’t mind. I got asked to give one of
those at the NME Awards recently and I
thought they said Slade, but it turned out
to be Suede. I had to rewrite my speech
– I was expecting Noddy Holder. But
Suede are a really good band. Rudy Bolly
17
 UP
Pet Shop Brandon
Neil Tennant guests on the latest Brandon Flowers
No place like solo album. The Killers frontman released The Desired
Effect in May with a vocal solo by his hero on the

Mika’s world track I Can Change. “We had a gap in a verse and
we needed something in there, and the greatest

F
alsetto hero Mika
is back with his first
new studio album
in three years. No
Place In Heaven, out
15th June, was produced
with Grammy regular Gregg
Wells. Mika first topped the
charts with Grace Kelly back
in 2006 and has now gifted
Last Party – an ode to Freddie
Mercury  – as an ‘instant
grat’ track to fans when the
album is pre-ordered through
iTunes. Recently, Mika has
been playing judge on The X
Factor in Italy as well as The
Voice in France.
musical ‘speaker’ is Neil Tennant! His voice is like
no other. He didn’t even hear the song. I just texted
him, ‘Will you send us a voicemail of yourself saying
”When you’re looking for a change”?’ And that was
it. He sent us a voice memo, and we stuck it onto the
track, from the phone. It was done in 20 seconds.”
PR Photos
SOUP-ER TROOPER
Abba fans can now enjoy culinary delights
inspired by the Swedish pop legends in
a theatrical settling. Björn Ulvaeus is
launching a Mamma Mia-style eaterie
in Stockholm, based on the Greek
taverna in his smash hit musical-turned-
film. Ulvaeus promises that the “new
entertainment experiment” will feature
Abba memorabilia as well as elements
from the stage show, possibly involving
some role play. Mamma Mia! The Party
is set to open on 20th January next year

at Gröna Lund, one of Stockholm's main

tourist attractions.

Errol Brown
continued success, scoring the
remarkable feat of a hit a year for 15
years from 1970 onwards – just one

1943 – 2015 of many chart stats the band achieved,

including You Sexy Thing being the

E
rrol Brown passed away on the
6th May 2015 after a battle
with liver cancer. He had a
long and illustrious career,
both in Hot Chocolate and as
a solo performer. He enjoyed huge
success with no less than 30 Top 40
UK hits, including So You Win Again
(a No. 1 in the UK), Emma, No Doubt
About It, It Started With A Kiss, Every
1's A Winner Baby and, of course,
You Sexy Thing. No less than five
of these hit the UK Top 5, including
Emma, a song written about the death
of his mother.
After a brief stint with Apple
Records in the late Sixties as The Hot
Chocolate Band, releasing a version
of Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance,
the Brixton-based Hot Chocolate rose
to fame with the help of legendary
producer Mickie Most and the band
eventually became instrumental in
helping Most build up his RAK studio
and record label empire – which still
only track ever to hit the UK Top 10
in three different decades. In 1987
they finally disbanded and Brown set
out upon a solo career before being
honoured with both an MBE and Ivor
Novello Award in the early noughties.
He continued to play live, including a
2009 farewell tour.
A statement from his manager said:
“Errol was a lover of life and
obviously ‘music!’ I never went into
his home, car or a hotel room without
music playing. He will be sadly missed
by everyone who knew him. His
greatest legacy is that his music will
live on!”
Getty Images

remains hugely successful to this day.

Throughout the Seventies and
Eighties Hot Chocolate enjoyed

18

T R A C E Y
F
ollowing her bestselling memoir
Bedsit Disco Queen, Tracey
Thorn has written a book
exploring the art of singing,
Naked At The Albert Hall. She’s
also just released her first film
soundtrack, Tales From The
Falling – but when will there be
a new solo record, or indeed an
Everything But The Girl album?
How much did you analyse
singing before writing the book?
Oh, I was pretty analytical about my
voice. I was very aware of its limitations
– its lack of range, and the lack of power
which made singing live difficult. I quite
like digging into things, so the idea of
this book appealed to me.
How did you decide which singers
to explore in depth?
They’re mainly ones I’ve been compared
to, like Karen Carpenter and Dusty
Springfield. Once I looked into them,
I realised I had so much in common,
like anxieties about performing. I’m
glad I could say “It’s not just me!”, but
I was surprised by those parallels. It’s
bewildering that Dusty didn’t like her
voice, because I’d thought that if I was
her I’d spend all day going “Brilliant, I’m
Dusty Springfield!” It’s easy to imagine
that, if you didn’t have your own flaws,
everything would be better. But of course
that’s deceptive.
You explain in the book how your
singing voice has altered over the
years. How aware were you at
the time of those changes?
I think it’s only afterwards, when your
music has moved elsewhere and you
listen back. When I sang country songs,
my voice became more country as I was
trying to make it work within that style.
It’s acting, I suppose, because there’s
an element of performing and singing
in character. But I wouldn’t do that now.
GODMOTHERS
of
T H O R N
It was an experiment to see if it’d work,
and I don’t think I convinced anyone I
was a country singer!
Why did you write about why you
don’t like Damon Albarn’s voice?
I wanted to explain how a tiny little detail
can stop you getting into a whole band.
There’s so much about Blur I like, like
their inventiveness, but I just don’t like the
sound of Damon’s voice, and that’s so
subjective. As a singer, there’s nothing
you can do about it. You can change a
band’s guitar sound, but there’s not much
you can do about a singer.
There’s a chapter on looking after
the voice and its physicality. Is it
frustrating that singers’ warm-up
routines are often portrayed as
eccentric, diva behaviour?
A lot of diva behaviour comes from
anxiety, not that you should indulge it to
the point of being nasty to people around
you. It’s the fear of being found wanting,
so you build support networks around
yourself. When I toured, I obsessed
about not getting a cold, and I was
interested in realising from other singers
that it’s part of what we live with. It’s a
little bit superstitious, having everything
right in your dressing room, but it’s
based on something real. If you strain
your voice, it won’t work. So there’s a bit
of madness, but it’s not just madness!
How much does a singer’s voice
reflect their actual personality?
When I was younger, people said my
singing voice was very mature. It’s very
deep-toned, which makes me sound
older. I wasn’t sure where that came
from, and when I first heard it recorded,
it was a shock. It’s still mysterious to me!
But it meant people thought I was going
to be more mature and sophisticated
than I am. I was a small-town suburban
girl, and I worried I couldn’t live up to
what people expected of me.
Any plans for a new album?
No, I have to wait for an idea to strike.
My last album, Tinsel And Lights, was
Christmas-themed and I liked having that
set of rules. Having an artificial set of
rules might be a good idea – “I’m going
to make this kind of record”. Once I get
a focus, I can get started. I’m fine that I
don’t have that idea yet. I used to worry
and think “It’s gone forever”, but I’ve had
long gaps and it’s come back again, so
I’m laidback about it now.
Could there be another Everything
But The Girl album?
Ben and I have always said it’s a
possibility, but we’re both anti-nostalgia,
and the worry about what kind of album
it should be is inhibiting. Should it be
acoustic and folky, or be electronica? We
could do something that isn’t under the
EBTG name, because that might be less
pressurised. But we do work together a
bit, quietly, without people knowing: Ben
has engineered Tales From The Falling.
John Earls
19
 TRANSMISSION
W W W . C L A S S I C P O P M A G . C O M
MARSHEAUX INSTAGRAMMING ABOUT THEIR ALBUM REVIEW,
TWEETERS CALLING FOR THE RETURN OF BLUE MERCEDES
AND READERS CONNECTING THE DOTS OF INSPIRATION
FROM LITTLE BOOTS ARTWORK BACK TO GARY NUMAN...
Email ian.peel@anthem- /ClassicPopMag
publishing.com
“TRULY SUPERB”
Just wanted to say a huge thank you for
awarding Erasure the Best Album award
for The Violet Flame. It’s great that you’ve
acknowledged a truly superb album that
sadly the likes of Q magazine couldn’t
even be bothered to review!
JON GRANT, INVERNESS
“CYMONE STRETCHES...”
I really hate complaining, especially
about a mag which I greatly esteem. But
in the album reviews section of issue 16,
the info under the title The Specials refers
to their second album More Specials
and vice versa, the information under
More Specials should be under the debut
album title... just saying!
Also, excellent article about
Minneapolis, but why stop at André
Cymone when looking at links emanating
from Prince? Cymone stretches to Adam
Ant (for the 1990 Manners & Physique
album), who used to be the bassist in
Bazooka Joe, who had Dan Barson
within their ranks, and he’s Madness’
keyboard player Mike Barson’s brother!
PAUL MUSCAT, UPMINSTER
“NUMANOIDS ARE FED UP...”
I enjoyed reading the Feb/Mar edition of
Classic Pop, in particular the interviews
with Gary Numan and China Crisis.
However I was astounded to see the No.
1 choice in your Top 20 Gary Numan
tracks – it was a remix of A Prayer For
The Unborn and not an original song.
In fact, a large number of hardcore
Numanoids are fed up hearing that
particular song in his live set. There are
over 300 Numan songs that are better
than the Andy Gray remix of APFTU!
It got me thinking of my top 20 Numan
songs, and here they are, from 1 to 20: I
Don’t Believe, Metal, Dark, Respect, My
Dying Machine, War Songs, Telekon,
20
@ClassicPop @classic
Magazine popmag
The Image Is, Deadliner, Absolution,
Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, Survival, Are You
Real, I Wonder, My Centurion, Cold
Warning, Love Hurt Bleed, Stormtrooper
In Drag, Remember I Was Vapour, Cold
Metal Rhythm.
ALAN KILVINGTON, PORT TALBOT
“SERIOUS INSPIRATION!”
I was flicking backwards, as you do,
through Issue 15 and couldn’t help but
notice the subtle-but-striking similarity
between the cover of Little Boots’ new
single and the sleeve of Gary Numan’s
The Pleasure Principle album which was
pictured in your Top 20 Tracks piece.
Some subliminal inspiration going on
there, don’t you think?
SARAH LEWIS, NORTHAMPTON
“WHERE’S JEFF LYNNE?”
Great magazine guys, wouldn’t be
without it – but there seems to be one big
thing missing so far. Where’s Jeff Lynne?
One of the all-time great pop songwriters
and producers, shockingly overlooked
until the last year or so by most... and
still by some! The great man even plays
a proper live gig for the first time in 28
years (I was lucky enough to be at Hyde
Park to see it) and there’s still no mention
of him! Come on Classic Pop, time
to dedicate a few pages to Jeff, ELO,
The Wilburys and indeed every other
(Flaming) pie he’s had his fingers in!
STEVE VANSTON, EXETER
“A TOP 10 ALBUMS FEATURE?”
Just wanted to add that the magazine is
a fantastic read and I hope it goes on
for many years to come! I would love to
see a Top 10 Albums feature similar to
the one you did for the Top 100 Singles.
Also more features like best B-sides, best
synthpop, solo artist Top 10s in terms of
sales, etc. And can I please nominate
Erasure’s The Violet Flame as Best Album
of 2014 (You read our minds! See last
issue – Ed) and also suggest you consider
them for the Lifetime Achievement award,
which would be fab given this year is
their 30th anniversary?
JON GRANT
“SOME LONG OVERDUE
RECOGNITION”
I want to thank you for your magazine,
a beacon in the market, a shining light.
Here in New Mexico there’s a dearth
of music and quality magazines. I’m a
subscriber but have Classic Pop sent to
my parents, who send it on with copious
amounts of Cadbury’s chocolate!
I also wonder if you’ve considered
an article on underplayed/rarely heard
Eighties songs? You know the deal, turn
to an Eighties radio station and you’ll
hear Come On Eileen, Girls Just Want To
Have Fun, Eternal Flame… and you think,
‘you know, these are classics, but I want
to hear songs that are rarely played’.
How about an article detailing great
songs that we just don’t hear anymore?
1927’s That’s When I Think Of You, The
Bible – Honey Be Good, Amii Stewart’s
Friends, The Lover Speaks – No More
I Love Yous, The Kane Gang’s Closest
Thing to Heaven, Electribe 101 – Talking
With Myself, Black’s The Sweetest
Smile, Bluebells’ I’m Falling, Deon Estus
– Heaven Help Me, Desireless’ Voyage
Voyage, Elbow Bones and the Racketeers
– A Night In New York and Freeez’s
Southern Freeez...
Some were big hits, some didn’t make
it big. It would be interesting to find out
what happened to the artists and give
them some recognition for songs that
have stood the test of time.
ADRIAN CROSTON, ROSWELL, NEW
MEXICO
“SUCH A TALENT...”
Loved seeing Peter Saville interviewed
and winning the Best Designer award
last issue. Such a talent, and such a
rare chance to see him in his studio and
talking candidly about his art. Thank you!
I have been wondering how the rest of
the voting panned out? I confess I voted
twice… once for Saville, and once for
Keith Breeden.
MIKE PARKES, SOUTHALL
From 2 to 20, here’s the how our Best
Designer poll shaped up: Sir Peter Blake,
Malcolm Garrett, James Marsh, Mark
Farrow, Vaughan Oliver, XLZTT, Barney
Bubbles, Andy Warhol, David Band,
Mark Wilkinson, Assorted Images, Brian
Griffin, Laurence Stevens, Bill Smith,
Bob Linney, Designers Republic, Patrick
Nagel, Shoot That Tiger, Keith Breeden.
 T R A N S M I S S I O N

T W E E T I T ! F A C E T O F A C E B O O K I N S T A G R A M

Loving this month’s magazine, so #CLASSICPOPMAG

@davido222
Absolute spot on review of Madonna’s
Rebel Heart in @ClassicPopMag.
@EarlsJohn entered my brain and
extracted my exact opinion of it
@jameshutch78
Just read @NickHeyward interview in
@ClassicPopMag. Still play my vinyl
copy of Pelican West to this day
@johnbolsar
Now that Blue Mercedes ended up in a
photo in @ClassicPopMag I’m hoping
for a “Where Are They Now” with them
@koishiiandhush
Great day in the studio working on some
new tracks – topped off with the new
issue of @ClassicPopMag in the mailbox
@TammyHillier
@ThereseEikum @ClassicPopMag A
great idea for a magazine! I gave a
subscription to my friend for his birthday
@tastyparmo Apr 7
@ClassicPopMag Heather Small sang
the rerecord of Ride On Time? As an
80s Pop Monkey never realised that,
thought a random replaced Loleatta
@becx1970
After the day from hell I found
@ClassicPopMag in my mailbox.
@duranduran features! Yay!
@AdamAntZone
Congratulations Adam Ant! http://
www.adam-ant.com/classic-pop-lifetime-
achievement-award/
@MatthewJRudd
Nice chat with @darylhall... he and
@JohnOates unquestionably the most
neglected Eighties charts act in the UK
@AleksRozens @TheLilacTime
@ClassicPopMag Stephen we miss you
here in NYC. Lilac tour soon?
@movintheriver
Big respect to Dexys and Kevin Rowland
– was never a huge fan but Nowhere Is
Home changed my mind
@TomAngel1
More excited than I care to admit about
A-ha’s album Cast In Steel out September
@thenorsebaker
Great @ClassicPopMag interview with
the sweetness that is @JimmySomerville –
great to have you back, with DISCO!
much in it to read, from the very
underrated Crash album by The Human
League to the latest from The Blow
Monkeys. It just gets better every issue,
please try and make it a monthly mag! hermanzone
DAVID MORGAN Balcony premiere
today! I’m of course
What an amazing issue: Gary reading the brand-
Numan, Culture Club, and Bow spanking-new issue of
Wow Wow, three personal favourites. #classicpopmag
When I discovered Mr Numan’s music I
was spellbound; like music for aliens, so
bizarre, thought-provoking and beautiful.
It was the sound of the future: accessible the.ryan.show
but unlike anything else on the radio. The Happy Mondays!
only other artist I can think of coming #Paddington
close to Numan’s bizarre brand of sci-fi #bear #teddybear
pop is Toyah. His uneasiness with the #bluray #movielover
back catalogue is like Mozart being #classicpopmag
uncomfortable with his most famous
compositions. For many who hit the ‘big
time’ out of the blue, pressure to
duplicate initial success is extreme. Gary itsalarwilife
did not have an easy go of it, with the Late lunch, the new
venomous music press and hostile idiots Classic Pop magazine
that hated him. I agree with many of your and a cappuccino
Top 20, but I would have included #classicpopmag #80s
Complex, M.E., Me! I Disconnect From #coffee #lunch
You and The Joy Circuit.
JAMES PARKER
Charli and Sophie both on the carlosrabelo
cover? *faints with shock* Not Congrats to Andy
keen on SEB’s last album but glad to see & Vince #erasure
her on the front! #thevioletflame
TONY BIANCHI #classicpopmagazine
#bestalbum
Wally Badarou, Godfather of Pop:
a worthy title for an amazingly
gifted musician. Check out his solo
albums if you’ve not heard them; Words marsheaux
Of A Mountain is an all-time favourite. A Broken Frame
BRETT LUKER best new album
and great review
Classic Album, Kate Bush’s The #BestNewAlbum
Hounds Of Love: I couldn’t get into #classicpopmag
her other work but THIS is a masterpiece.
JOHN ENRIQUEZ
...One of MANY awesome albums rosiepsbkyliefan
from this beyond-mere-human lady! Very good review
DARLA GAIL BENEFIELD SCHNEIDER of The Human
League’s Crash!
A-ha reunited: blimey. They’ve split #classicpopmag
up and got back together more #newissue
times than JR and Sue Ellen...
MARTIN BURGESS-MOON
...Personally I couldn’t care less if kasper.elbjorn
they’re doing it for cash. I couldn’t 30 years ago You
care less that I went to four shows on the Spin Me Round went
their farewell tour (including the ‘last No. 1 #PopGem
ever’ one). Love their music – will be #classicpopmag
delighted to hear some new stuff. #YouSpinMeRound
SEÁN CUNNINGHAM

21
 OF
THE

HAVE YOUR SAY!

THERE WERE SO MANY FANTASTIC AND INNOVATIVE POP ALBUMS
RELEASED IN THE EIGHTIES THAT WE’RE HAVING AN IMPOSSIBLE TIME
DECIDING WHICH WAS TRULY THE BEST OF THE DECADE – SO WE’RE
ASKING OUR READERS TO DO IT FOR US. YOU CAN VOTE UP TO 10
AND YOU’LL ALSO GET THE CHANCE TO WIN 20 MUST-HAVE EIGHTIES
CLASSICS FOR YOUR COLLECTION…
 Vote & win!
When Classic Pop announced the
Top 100 Singles of the 1980s
last year, we gave you the chance to
vote for and decide the best tracks
from one of the most iconic decades in
music history. Now you get to decide
the Best Albums from that decade as
we announce Classic Pop’s Top 100
Albums of the 1980s. This time,
not only do you get the chance to
shape musical history, you could also
win 20 classic Eighties CD courtesy of
Universal Music. These include albums
by Blondie, The Human League,
Simple Minds and Tears For Fears.
All you have to do to take part is vote
for your favourite album at www.
surveymonkey.com/s/NWHJMH3.
Vote now, and look out for the results
in Classic Pop later this year.

VOTE FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN

20 CLASSIC 80S CDS
COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL MUSIC CATALOGUE:

The Human League Grace Jones

Dare Nightclubbing
Soft Cell The Cure
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret The Head On The Door
Janet Jackson Siouxsie & The Banshees
Control Juju
Japan Simple Minds
Tin Drum Sparkle In The Rain
Culture Club Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Colour By Numbers Too Rye Ay
Heaven 17 ABC
Penthouse & Pavement The Lexicon Of Love
Neneh Cherry The Style Council
Raw Like Sushi Café Bleu
Soul II Soul Tears For Fears
Club Classics Vol 1 Songs From The Big Chair
Visage Blondie
Visage Eat To The Beat
OMD The Housemartins
Architecture & Morality London-0 Hull-4

i itwww.surveymonkey.com/s/NWHJMH3 to e toda
Look out for the results of this poll which will be published in Classic Pop later this year.
Full Terms and Conditions are available on the voting link above.
24
o o
AFTER VCMG, WITH DEPECHE MODE’S FUTURE
ode
UNKNOWN, MARTIN GORE IS SIMPLY ‘MG’ – AND
THIS TIME HE REALLY IS ENJOYING THE SILENCE…
R U D Y B O L L Y

T
hose alluring, shadowy melodies combined with dark, heart-
shattering lyrics have made the Basildon boy one of the most
successful songwriters of his generation – but three years on
from his acclaimed VCMG techno record, Martin Gore has
extended the gagging order on those angelic pipes of his
for another, albeit very different, instrumental project. MG
is a bewitching collection of ambient extremes – the perfect electronic
accompaniment to the spectrum of human mood and emotions.
Some might consider it a little miserly to be denying fans those big
vocal hooks again, but this is not an album by Depeche Mode’s Martin
Gore. MG is the essence of an entirely different musician.
“I wouldn’t file this album next to any other Martin Gore music,” he
deadpans. “This is a different concept, but I liked the idea of carrying on
the ‘MG’ from the VCMG project I did with Vince [Clarke] because that
was very electronic – it was an instrumental project too. They fit together,
even though it’s not aimed at the dancefloor at all. But somehow the
electronic-ness and the instrumental-ness make it seem like it should carry
on that moniker.”
Stripping his name to its bare initials is certainly symbolic of the
new music’s simplicity, but does it also help deflect some expectations
hardened Depeche Mode fans might otherwise have?
“It’s a good observation,” Gore agrees. “There’s no preconceived idea
as to who or what sort of album MG is. I always think it’s good to do

25
M A R T I N G O R E

We’ve been together for 35 years. It’s crazy. That’s

a long time. There’s not enough time to look back”
things that are different. People might be expecting me to Working solely on the synthesiser took Gore back to
do more cover songs or a techno album maybe as a solo the early days of his then-burgeoning pop career. In fact,
artist, but that’s too predictable now. So doing a more a few MG moments really wouldn’t sound out of place
filmic instrumental album is a bit more unexpected.” on a Berlin-era album by Bowie and Eno – records that
Featherlight – were written by Gore during the gestation of Depeche

One of Gore’s key songwriting strengths is his ability shaped Depeche Mode’s very creation. “That would
Mode’s Delta Machine but saved because of an excess of material

to construct multiple melody lines that weave between be a very big compliment,” Gore grins. “All those
POP_UP Several of the songs on MG – including Elk, Brink and

himself, Dave Gahan and layers of instruments. MG, instrumentals on Low and Heroes are what I was brought
however, is the opposite: it’s an exercise in restraint. up listening to, and they are two of my favourite albums.
“I really wanted to keep the album electronic – no To be mentioned in the same breath is amazing.”
guitars, no real drum sounds and no vocals,” he says. Of course any self-respecting ‘Mode fan will tell
“That was definitely the main template that I had.” you instrumentals are nothing new to Martin Gore,
But this, of course, meant stifling those well-honed and Oberkorn, Pimpf and Easy Tiger have become
three-minute pop song instincts as well… as essential to homespun Depeche Mode playlists as
“It’s very different when you are working on a Walking In My Shoes or Black Celebration. “There was
traditional song,” Gore considers. “Obviously the at one point a Japanese box-set that came out with all
lyrics, the vocal melody and the vocal itself are the most of our instrumentals on it up until that point,” recalls
important thing, and they have to be the most prominent Gore. “There were a lot of them, even then. I’d like to
thing. When you’re working on instrumentals, that goes know how many instrumentals I’ve written over the years
completely out of the window. You are working on just for Depeche Mode, because it would be an interesting
keeping the listener’s interest – and it’s different from concept to put them together in a collection again.”
track to track. Those of the Why Don’t You… generation can send their
“Sometimes it may be an ominous single note, a drone votes on a postcard to Classic Pop.
track almost, or sometimes there are chords involved MG not only offers Gore escapism from pop star
and what I might consider a type of verse and chorus. trappings, it’s also his ticket off the actual planet. “It
It’s different each time, but it’s definitely an interesting really became apparent to me halfway through the
alternative to traditional writing for me.” making of the music that whenever I visualise something,

26
 Getty Images
ON FRANK OCEAN:
Few artists have had the pleasure of collaborating with Depeche
Mode’s chief songwriter, let alone record a Gore original. Nitzer Ebb
and Gwen Stefani were two of the lucky ones, but more recently
so has highly-acclaimed US R&B star Frank Ocean. But Gore’s still
waiting to hear the results…

“When we were finishing up on Delta Machine in the studio, Frank

came in and asked us if we would be interested in working on one
of his tracks,” Martin recalls. “We said: ‘Great, come up and show
it to us’.

“The following day me and Christoffer Berg, who was the guy
working with us in the studio, spent a day on it, and gave it back to
Frank, and we heard that he liked it.

“The track he gave us was incredible, but it’s never seen the light
of day… but then again, he hasn’t released anything yet since. It’s
such a shame because I’m one of the few people in the world who
have heard from him in these interim years, and the track – I have
to say – was phenomenal.”

Frank Ocean’s new album is out in July.

I seem to drift off into space and imagining space travel.

The track Southerly is very good example of that… I
can literally see travel with that piece, whether that’s a
spaceship or even a schooner on the sea, I can just see
something moving.”
Gore laughs off any suggestion of investing in a trip
on Richard Branson’s first commercial space flight; like
the music itself, his interest in space is far more ambient.
“People have been asking me about the sci-fi influence,
asking details like” – he assumes a pseudo-cosmonaut’s
voice – “‘are you talking about the Russian school?’ I
didn’t get that specific, it really is about a feeling – I just
see a spaceship moving through space, the music takes
you into that other realm.”
Yes, the MG album has its fair share of sci-fi lullabies,
but a more precise descriptive term for David Lynch-esque
moments like Elk would be ‘cinematic’. Considering he
resides a mere stone’s throw from Hollywood these days,
could MG be the precursor to a future movie soundtrack
career – or does Martin Gore’s dedication to his day job
still take precedence?
“I would consider a soundtrack if the right project
came along at the right time,” comes the response.
“That’s always been the problem because we usually
work in four-year cycles as a band – well, that’s what’s
happened over the last number of years.

27
M A R T I N G O R E

“When we get back from a tour that would be the
ideal time, when I have a year or so when I could do a
solo project have a break or meet a film director who
wanted me to do a soundtrack. But now, for example,
if somebody offered me something, I would really be
feeling like I should get back to songwriting for the band
instead. Then next year we will be into recording for the
band, then the following year we will probably be back
out of the road again. There isn’t enough time in life. I
would be very lucky to find the right director with the
right film to come along at the right time.”
What has become apparent on more contemporary
Depeche Mode records is Gore’s revived interest in
electronics, specifically analogue equipment. “It began
with Sounds Of The Universe – I really got back into
using old vintage synthesisers again,’ he explains. “Then
that changed a little bit with Delta Machine; there I got
into putting together modular systems based on the old
Moog modular units. I would say 80% of the sounds
on this album were made using the Eurorack modular
system, which was also used on Delta Machine, so there
is a sonic continuation there.”
At one point Gore’s vintage fetish was so acute he
had amassed an aircraft hanger’s worth of instruments
“I edit,” he says rather apologetically. “I think I’m good
at editing myself. Even during the making of this record
there were times where I would spend three weeks
working on something before I had a moment of clarity
and thought to myself: ‘what is it I like about this track?
It doesn’t have this, it doesn’t have that, it’s really going
nowhere’. Then I’ll just throw it away. I realise that I’ve
been fooling myself for three weeks for some odd reason.
“So I don’t have vaults of unfinished tracks, they’re
more like sketches. I’m not a prolific songwriter in the first
place, but I am very good at getting rid of things.”
He’s not kidding: there have been just two solo
projects in the name of Martin Gore his whole career. So
how does he reflect on those two cover song collections
which go by the name of Counterfeit 1 & 2?
“I still like those albums, and the very concept of
recording other people’s songs I really like as well. I
wouldn’t rule out doing it again. It’s good to surprise
POP_UP Martin Gore is a big fan of certain instrumental albums

via eBay. “I’m not scouring the internet so much these

days,” he chuckles, feigning recovery. “Now there are
by other artists, including Selected Ambient Works by Aphex

more and more manufacturers of modules springing up

all of the time, it’s a booming industry and very inspiring.
Yes, people are coming out with bread-and-butter sound
Twin and Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury’s Drokk

modules, but others are incredibly creative.”

He’s obviously still excited by the noise an electronic
instrument can make, be it real or virtual. Yet despite a
lifetime stood craned over keyboards, Gore’s fascination
with electronics remains purely artistic rather than
practical, and he leaves the design of sound equipment
to others. “I would loved to have been that kid who got
into wires and electronics when he was 10 years old,
but I never did that,” he says. “I think you kind of need
that background. I could take courses now, of course…
but maybe I should be using my time a little more wisely
these days.”
Gore spends five days a week in his home studio, not
that his nominal solo output would have you believe it.
Does this mean that there’s a secret Prince-like vault of
Martin Gore and Depeche Mode material waiting to be
unleashed on the public?

1982 1986 1989 1990 2003 2004

A Broken Frame
Having previously
contributed just two
instrumentals, Gore was
thrown in at the deep end
after Vince Clarke’s shock
departure. He wrote the
whole of the band’s second
Top 10 album, introducing a
new melancholic subtlety.
Black Celebration Counterfeit e.p. Violator Counterfeit² Overdrive / Client
Recorded at Berlin’s Hansa These six covers were Soaking up country and Officially only Gore’s first Gore lends backing vocals to
Studios, Black Celebration recorded between two DM blues, Gore kept the solo LP, yet his second this electro clash throwback
marks a transition in both benchmark albums – Music demos simple to allow his Counterfeit covers collection. by the first signings to
Gore’s songwriting and For The Masses and Violator. bandmates room; Enjoy From Julee Cruise to near- bandmate Andrew ‘Fletch’
the band’s image. It’s the Joe Crow’s Compulsion is The Silence went from hilarious electro-country Fletcher’s short-lived Toast
Depeche Mode album with illuminating, and the simple slow ballad to dance track. to David Essex and a song Hawaii label.
the most songs performed arrangement of Motherless Gore’s songs range from sung completely in German
by Gore, including the Child offers rare insight into the “pervy” (Blue Dress) to (Das Lied Vom Einsamen
haunting Question Of Lust. Gore’s song demo process. immoral (Halo). Mädchen), it’s... eclectic.

28
people. Who knows if in 2020 Counterfeit 3 comes out?
The first one came out in 1989, it would be good to
surprise people in 2020 with only the third instalment.”
It’s plain that Gore cares little about nostalgia. Even
this year – which marks the 25th anniversary of arguably
his most important Depeche Mode work, Violator – he
is reluctant to pinpoint any specific turning point in his
career. “I don’t really look back,” he says. “Or have one
song or a moment that is favourite – I never do. It doesn’t ON DEPECHE MODE:
change, either. We just keep going. MG is merely a stopgap between Depeche Mode albums.
“I’m proud to have been around for so long doing Naturally Martin is already thinking of the band’s next move,
what I love to do and that’s an amazing testament in whatever that may be.
itself. We’ve been together now for 35 years. It’s crazy.
That’s a long time. There’s not enough time to look back.” “We don’t have concrete plans – we never do, especially not at
As an Essex boy larging it in California, there must be this stage,” he says. “It’s a question of writing songs again. It’s
a few home comforts he pines for… a different mindset, you’re back to focusing on lyrics and vocal
“I miss family and friends. They all live in England. melody. That’s my next plan over the next couple of months,
to get back to that. When we have enough songs, we’ll think
And football! I’m a massive Arsenal supporter, I still keep
about getting into the studio next year.”
my season ticket and I try and get back for a couple
of games a year, which doesn’t always happen.” So if 2016 delivers a new album, what is left to achieve
as a band – perhaps that long-mooted headline slot at a
mainstream festival like Glastonbury?

“It’s not something I think about too much. The last tour was
really enjoyable and we played a few festivals throughout
Europe, but I prefer to play our own shows than festivals, to
be honest.

“There’s such an atmosphere at every one of our shows. We

are completely spoilt by our audiences, it always blows me
away. It’s such a joy to perform with the band.”

If Gore isn’t about looking back, his fans definitely

are, with celebrations and conventions planned to mark
Violator quarter-century. They were positively blubbing
Violator’s
into their Speak & Spell pillowcases when Gore reunited
with Vince Clarke for 2012’s VCMG album, so the
merest sniff of Martin and Vince working together again
would thrill fans almost more than a new DM album. “I
wouldn’t rule it out, but we haven’t spoken about it. It’s
all about keeping people on their toes, something they
didn’t expect, so maybe that’s one for 2025.” And with
his relationship with Vince now reconciled, how about
that project with the other estranged DM member, Alan
Wilder? “Er,” Martin Gore laughs nervously, “2035?”

I edit. I’m not a prolific

2010
Once You Say / Nitzer Ebb
A long association has
existed between Depeche
Mode and these EBM Essex
boys. Gore provided backing
vocals to this cut from their
comeback album, and
invited the band on the road
a year later.
songwriter in the first
2012
Man Made Machine / Motor
2012
Ssss / VCMG
2015
MG / MG place, but I am very good at
Gore exaggerates a wobbly
vibrato on this funky slab
of industro glam electro
After barely speaking
since the Eighties, Clarke
approached Gore to
Gore spent five days a
week crafting a collection
of electronic instrumentals
getting rid of things”
rock. Motor also supported collaborate via file- whose aim is to transport
Depeche Mode on tour. swapping. It’s a raw techno the listener into another
record blending Clarke’s dimension. Playing with
melodious synth hooks with concepts of time and
Gore’s meaty, minimal stabs, space, it’s free, hypnotic,
reflecting both’s strengths. and cinematic.

29
G I O R G I O M O R O D E R

FROM WOULD-BE SIXTIES STAGE STAR TO ALL-CONQUERING

PRODUCER, FROM CREATOR OF THE RELENTLESS DISCO SYNTH
THROB TO BLOCKBUSTER SOUNDTRACK KING AND NOW A
MUST-HAVE COLLABORATOR, GIORGIO MORODER HAS ALWAYS
HAD A CANNY FINGER RAISED TO SENSE THE SHIFTING
WINDS OF POP. COULD HE CAST AN EYE FOR US OVER HIS
EXTRAORDINARY CAREER? OF COURSE. TALK OF SINGERS FROM
DONNA SUMMER TO KYLIE? NATURALLY. AND WHAT ABOUT HIS
MOUSTACHE MAINTENANCE ROUTINE…?
R U D Y B O L L Y

30
C
hart whippersnappers Calvin
Harris and Mark Ronson might
have you believe the age of the
‘celebrity producer’ is entirely
their doing – but long before they
were even twinkles in the eye
of the Top 40, a moustachioed studio maestro
called Giorgio was the go-to-guy for hits. For
almost a quarter of a century the pioneering
Italian has been absent from planet pop, but
Giorgio is feeling the love again and back with
a brand new album titled Déjà Vu which teams
him with the next generation of chart pin-ups.
Between 1975 and 1986, barely a month
went by without a Giorgio Moroder production
tickling the radio or the dancefloors, and if you
were a household name then the chances were
that Giorgio was playing Pied Piper with your
pop career. Sparks, Blondie, Limahl, Irene Cara,
Cher, The Three Degrees, Japan, David Bowie,
Freddie Mercury, Adam Ant… they all benefited
from his touch, but it was Donna Summer who
became his wondrous disco muse.
However, by the end of the Eighties Giorgio’s
interests had shifted towards visual art before he
lost himself, like the best retired footballers, to the
fairway. “I discovered golf, it’s true,” he guffaws
to Classic Pop with a Latin twang. “But I was
happy and never felt an urge to make music.
Frankly, I enjoyed not doing anything.”
Many failed in their attempts to prise Giorgio
away from the putting green, until a pair of
robots named Daft Punk piqued his interest with
their 2013 project Random Access Memories.
The French duo’s sprawling autobiographical
tribute, titled Giorgio By Moroder, not only
revived global interest in his synthesised magic, it
fanned the great man’s creative flames too.
“I was already DJ-ing a little, but Daft Punk
was the catalyst for me making music again,”
Moroder agrees. “It got me creating, because
what they were doing was a celebration of my
past. Suddenly I had offers from management
and three major labels… well, it was all three,
because that’s all that’s left in the music industry
now… right?”
Musically Daft Punk may have paid homage to
the full range of Giorgio’s electronic mastery, but
the narration they chose delved deeper into his
past, way back to those days of kitsch German
schlager music.
“Maybe people know me for the synthesiser,
but at the beginning, in the Sixties, I wanted to
be a performer… you know, singing on stage,”
31
T H
G I O
E R HG AI ÇO I EMNOD RAO D E R

1969 1972 1974 1975 1976 1976

That’s Bubblegum, That’s
Giorgio
These pre-synth schlager
music recordings – some
made in collaboration with
Michael Holm under the
name of Spinach – were
jukebox pastiches of other
hits from the era. Killer
kitsch highlights include
Looky Looky , a song
inspired by the Beach Boys.
Son Of My Father
Giorgio teams with aspiring
musician Pete Bellotte to
start developing groove-
based music with candyfloss
top lines. The title track
became a No. 1 for UK act
Chicory Tip. It was also one
of the first hits to feature
a Moog synthesiser, played
by producer/Beatles
collaborator Chris Thomas.
Donna Summer: Lady Of
The Night
Originally only released in
the Netherlands, Giorgio
and Pete Bellotte’s first work
with Donna Summer is an
album of mostly pedestrian
pop/rock fare, although it’s
notable that Giorgio’s soon-
to-be signature Clavinova
keyboard sound ‘disco-fies’
the title track.
Donna Summer: Love To
Love You Baby
Summer came up with the
lyrical concept but it was
Giorgio’s orgasmic sonics
that created this über-sexy
breakthrough smash. Top 10
across the world, the head of
Casablanca Records refused
to release it until a longer
17-minute version was cut.
Donna Summer: A Love
Trilogy
More elongated disco
anthems segueing into one
another from the artist now
being dubbed ‘the First Lady
Of Love’. The Love Trilogy
tracks were so long that DJs
chose to spin entire sides of
the album before playing
another artist.
Donna Summer: Four
Seasons Of Love
Still a concept album,
but Donna and Giorgio
made greater distinction
between the tracks to boost
mainstream radio play on
this more orchestral disco
collection. An edit of lush
ballad Winter Melody went
Top 30 in the UK.

Moroder reflects. “I didn’t have the talent but I knew I Left Moroder in his
day
past element : “To
could still make music.” the thought proces
s is
the
After a few releases in a light pop style Giorgio gave different, a lot of
the
up the dream of stage stardom and took a back seat, a acts want to write
es.
melodies themselv
decision that would slowly lead to him to becoming the It’s a different era
.”
ultimate studio boffin. So it’s more than a little ironic that
his latest comeback finally allows him to live out those
childhood fantasies…
“This is why today the scene is so exciting for me;
producers can be the artists,” he chimes, as if Simon
Cowell just crowned him X Factor winner. “Today, the
collaboration can make you the star.
“Look at David Guetta – he doesn’t sing, he doesn’t
play an instrument and maybe doesn’t even compose
– but he is the vehicle for success, so I think it’s a great
chance right now to be back in business.”
Moroder is absolutely right. The cult of the producer
is such that even established pop vocalists take second
billing on releases. Yet those DJs work incredibly hard at
maintaining their international profiles…
“It’s a new world. Guetta warned me, ‘they are
going to chase you from country to country, to do the
interviews, appear on shows here and there.’
“I never did this before, and the record label are “I still want to make the perfect dance-pop song,” he
kaleidoscopic video was hailed as “soulful”, seductive” and “a
renaissance” and topped the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart
POP_UP Moroder and Kylie’s Right Here, Right Now with its

already telling me I have to come back to Europe after
I’m doing shows in Singapore and Australia. Then they
want to send me to Hong Kong and Japan to promote, so
it’s a lot – but it’s a pleasure to work.”
Despite his advancing years, Giorgio is happy to re-
style himself on the careers of younger hitmakers.
“The way I’m going to make money is not through
record sales anymore,” he concedes philosophically. “It
still costs a fortune to make an album, but they don’t sell
that much. Where I make money now is by DJ-ing, and
I find this very interesting as well. I’ve been to Australia
and Mexico, where we had around 20,000 people
watching. I could never have imagined this before.”
Giorgio’s new career as a DJ has already seen him
remixing tracks by Coldplay and Lana Del Rey, but
although this kind of work reflects a canny response to
the changing face of the musical landscape, he was still
determined to create a good old-fashioned pop album.
Soundtracks and instrumentals including The Chase
played a huge role in his success over the years, but pop
voices remain his first love.
says. “What kind of extraordinary instrumental could
work on the radio today? I still think in songs.”
So after such a long time away from the studio, what
was the brief for Déjà Vu?
“At the very beginning people told me I should do a
disco song, especially after Get Lucky was so big. But I
decided not. I wanted some retro but just a touch of it.”
That hint of the old romantically spooning with the
new shines brightest on the album’s euphoric title track,
recorded with Australian songbird Sia.
“I still have my digital arpeggio synths on there, plus
violins, so there’s a hint of old disco,” Giorgio agrees.
“I wanted a combination of electronic basslines with a
little sparkle. What she did is amazing, and in just a few
weeks, by herself. She sent it to me, and it was perfect.”
Quite early in the album’s planning stages Giorgio
constructed a wish list of artists, but the one he moved
mountains to get was Kylie Minogue. Mercifully, their first
collaboration doesn’t disappoint – Right Here, Right Now
is the kind of anthem pop that fans of all generations can
heroically punch the sky to.

32
1976
Giorgio Moroder: Knights In
White Satin
Side A of Giorgio’s own first
foray into heavy-petting
disco centres almost entirely
on a cover of the Moody
Blues classic. Unlike most
tracks of the era, Giorgio
kept the tempo at a
sensually steady 110bpm.
Kylie said, ‘I should have
worked with you 10 years ago”
1977
Donna Summer: I Remember
Yesterday
Giorgio touches on the
Twenties (I Remember Love)
and Fifties (Love’s Unkind)
before propelling us into the
future with the synthesised
bass groove of I Feel Love.
Disco and pop would never
be the same again.
1977
From Here To Eternity
Another huge sonic leap
forward, Vocoder robot vocal
effects sing over muscular
Euro-disco synths. ”Only
electronic keyboards were
used on this recording,”
read the credits. The metallic
beats became precursors to
the future techno scene.
1977 1978 1978
Donna Summer: Once Soundtrack: Midnight Donna Summer: Live
Upon A Time Express And More
Even more electronically This soundtrack to Alan Notable for Giorgio’s
charged, but Donna’s new Parker’s drug-smuggling reimagining of Jimmy
stature meant more trad drama became a benchmark Webb’s MacArthur Park
fare like I Love You did in instrumental electronic incorporating One Of A
best. The entire album music. Hypnotic Hi-NRG Kind and Heaven Knows –
charted as one entry at opener The Chase earned No. 1 for five weeks in the
No. 1 on the dance charts. Moroder his first Oscar. US, and still a DJ staple.
“Kylie is a darling,” Moroder grins. “She said to me,
‘I should have worked with you 10 years ago’. I always
liked her, especially Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. It
was so innovative.”
Giorgio has been following Kylie’s career ever since
the days of Stock, Aitken and Waterman – producers
who openly followed his lead. “Those three guys… I
would hear their names on a daily basis back in the
Eighties, and they did a good job,” he acknowledges.
“They had a huge hit with Donna Summer too – This
Time I Know It’s For Real. But I really like what Kylie did
afterwards… she was more about the rhythm.
“Now we are doing another EP for her with Lady
Gaga’s producer, Fernando Garibay. He’s doing four
very uncommercial tracks. She asked me if I could do
a little talk for it. I can’t write lyrics, so a friend in Italy
came up with about half a minute of something, and
she wanted me to do it really sexy, like a Latin lover. No
robot voice! I think she was quite happy with it.”
Another headline maker on Déjà Vu is Britney Spears,
with whom Giorgio reimagined the Suzanne Vega
classic, Tom’s Diner. “She called me and asked me to
produce a song. It’s a remake, and I loved the idea. But
the problem is with big singers today is time. Britney is
so busy, she has two performances in Vegas every week,
photo shoots, video shoots. It’s difficult to get her, so
when we work we mostly work separately by email.”
33
G I O R G I O M O R O D E R

Top Gun scenes with shots of Berlin’s Terri Nunn risking life and
POP_UP The 1986 video for Take My Breath Away intercut

limb in an aircraft graveyard at Mojave’s Air & Space Port

It was the new breed of pop princess that Giorgio got finest earworm. “It’s funny, I did so many songs with
to work closest with. “My record label came to me telling big artists but in the UK, but all I get asked about is
me about Foxes and Charli XCX, who interested me. Phil Oakey and this song Together In Electric Dreams! It
Charli has this attitude… it reminds me of Debbie Harry,” came at a time when technology was moving so fast and
he says, mocking shock. “I read an interview with her, almost everything worked so well. A lot of people here
and the word ‘f***’ was used quite often.” consider it my biggest hit, but not so much in America.”
Speaking of Debbie Harry, it was of course Giorgio Indeed, over in the US it was Hollywood who came
who gave Blondie their biggest US hit with Call Me. “I calling, and Giorgio became one of the most successful
had the chords and melody but Debbie came up with the soundtrack composers of the era. He landed a Best
title and the lyrics, which fitted with the American Gigolo Song Oscar for The Chase from Midnight Express,
film very well,” he recalls. “It’s a difficult song with a very Flashdance… What A Feeling and a third for that
high note, but she was never afraid.” ultimate slab of Eighties celluloid machismo, Top Gun.
Female voices have long defined the producer’s chart “I’m not saying I deserved to win the Oscar for the
career, none more so than the late great Donna Summer. song, but Take My Breath Away was a great song,”
Giorgio, along with writing partner Pete Bollette, helmed Moroder allows. “Melodically and musically, it is my best
almost all of Donna’s best-loved hits over a prolific six- song. It has nice chords… it reminds me in a way of the
year period, and he’s yet to find a more versatile singer. Italian song tradition, even though the band playing it is
“I knew Donna so well, and I could give her whatever called Berlin.”
I wanted and it would always sound great. I don’t know
of an artist right now who would be able to do songs Moroder today: “I
like MacArthur Park. Today the thought process for my remember making
E=MC2. It was a
new music is different, a lot of the acts want to write the mess. It cost $10,000
melodies themselves. It’s a different era.” a day. How can you
Bad Girls, Hot Stuff, Last Dance are just a few of the miss those prices?”
iconic dancefloor fillers Giorgio and Donna recorded
together, but which is his favourite?
“Love To Love You Baby is a great song, it’s my claim
to fame – my first big hit. It was my first chance to
get into the business. I had some hits before but not a
worldwide No. 1, so it’s certainly my favourite. But the
Bad Girls album is probably the best collection of songs
we made, it had so many things and Donna wrote a lot
of the songs herself.”
For clubbers it was I Feel Love with its synthesised
pulse which broke new ground. “The secret to that track
is in the mechanical futuristic rhythm,” nods Moroder.
“Then the hook had to be great… and then you have a
voice like Donna’s. But even then, it comes down to the
timing and technology, and the whole disco movement
was important, so with that one we were lucky.
“Brian Eno told David Bowie he heard the sound of the
future with I Feel Love. I would have never thought I could
do something like this.”
Giorgio’s success with Donna inspired a steady stream
of pop star collaborations, but perhaps it’s his team up
with The Human League’s Phil Oakey that delivered his

1978 1979 1979 1979 1981 1982

Battlestar Galactica And
Other Original Compositions
Moroder’s attempt to cash in
on Meco’s disco take on Star
Wars, but Evolution deserves
rescuing from obscurity.
The project helped launch
Hollywood solo careers for
Harold Faltermeyer and
Keith Forsey.
Donna Summer: Bad Girls
Giorgio’s favourite Summer
collection arrived just before
the Disco Sucks backlash. He
was already incorporating
new sounds with nods
to rock, pop, and even
country while maintaining
continuous mixes most of
the way through.
Donna Summer: On The
Radio: Greatest Hits I & II
Donna’s third double LP, a
US No. 1, and an amazing
set of Giorgio productions.
Streisand duet No More
Tears (Enough Is Enough)
cemented Donna’s move
from disco queen to middle-
American pop darling.
E=MC2
Costing a small fortune,
Giorgio continued pushing
the envelope with a
collection recorded entirely
electronically, creating
pop history along the way.
Keep an ear out for a cute
Vocoded shout-out to the
studio tea girl, too.
Donna Summer: I’m A Soundtrack: Cat People
Rainbow Alas, Moroder’s synth throbs
Shelved until the Nineties haven’t dated well – but it’s
due to pressure from worth the admission price
Summer’s label Geffen, for hit Bowie collaboration
who forced her to split Cat People (Putting Out
from Giorgio and Pete. One Fire) ,which Moroder was
track, Romeo, eventually delighted to hear revived
reappeared on the in Quentin Tarantino’s
Flashdance soundtrack. Inglorious Basterds.

34
 Flashdance, Scarface and The NeverEnding Story
followed, and Moroder seemed to be on a roll of non-
stop box office smashes. “It was an exciting new way of
working for me, and it was also an exciting time for the
industry, because of these synthesisers – it hadn’t been
done much. It was a big thing for a pop composer to
enter this new world, and I was given a lot of freedom
to express myself. It’s different today, you don’t hear the
music matched with the pictures in the same way. But I’ve MORODER MEMORIES
been offered another one, so I may start that again.” A professional highlight for Giorgio was breathing fresh
Moroder’s reputation as a sonic specialist attracted electronic life into the band Sparks. At a career crossroads in
acts as varied as The Rolling Stones and Queen to his 1978, the Mael brothers happened to tell a German journalist
state-of-the-art Musicland studio in Germany. Today how much they loved Donna’s Summer’s I Feel Love. The writer
anyone with a basic laptop has access to similar music was a good friend of Giorgio’s, and the message got through…
technology, but Giorgio isn’t sentimental about the old
days of big budgets and vast arrays of equipment. “I “These guys were great. They called me in LA and said they
don’t miss the old studios, in the same way that I don’t wanted to stop using so many guitars and do something with
synthesisers,’ Moroder remembers.
have time for my old records. People don’t need to know
big mixing desks anymore. You can do remixes and
“So we rented a downtown studio. It didn’t look anything like
recordings on a laptop. a studio, but it had a huge collection of Moogs and modules
“I remember making E=MC2 – I spent too much time plus a guy called Dan Wyman, the guy who gave us the sound.
with technology. It was my first digital experience, and I played a few synthesisers, and Ron loved it – it was the most
it was a huge mess. It cost $10,000 dollars a day to fun I remember having during that period. No. 1 In Heaven – I
record. How can you miss those prices?” like to think I started the synthesiser career for them.”

I’m seeing Lady Gaga soon and

Around the same period, burgeoning New Romantics Japan
were after a mainstream hit, and Giorgio was happy to deliver
it. “I loved that band – they were so handsome and the way they
dressed, especially David Sylvian. Life In Tokyo is one I still play in

Pharrell is desperate to do something”

my show now. I wish we did more. “

Although the new album is complete, Giorgio isn’t

resting on his laurels. “I really love Rihanna and would
love to work with her,” he says. “I’m seeing Lady Gaga
in a few weeks to start something and Pharrell is also
desperate to do something with me, so there are still
many possibilities to come.”
Few of today’s pop stars, it seems, are willing to miss
the chance of a collaboration with the music legend with
the famous facial hair. “Kylie dances on my moustache in
our video,” Moroder chortles, twiddling his wispy ends.
“I read a biography about Freud, and he would get up at
5am to spend half an hour trimming his beard. I don’t do
that. I just trim it once a week…”

1983 1983 1984 1985 1986 2015

Solitary Men (with Joe
‘Bean’ Esposito)
Giorgio worked with the
Brooklyn Dreams vocalist
on several projects, but this
collection let him refine his
digital recording and cast
a pop/rock template that
would dominate Hollywood
soundtrack work.
Soundtrack: Flashdance
The 20 million-selling
Flashdance was a benchmark
in soundtrack history.
Although produced by Phil
Ramone, Giorgio’s euphoric
Flashdance... What a Feeling
featuring Irene Cara won the
Best Song Oscar – his second
Academy Award prize.
Soundtrack: The
NeverEnding Story
With that fading-in,
fading-out Limahl title track,
Giorgio’s collaboration
with German saxophonist
Klaus Doldinger is a key
moment in Eighties cinematic
nostalgia. The arrangements
set an industry standard.
Philip Oakey & Giorgio
Moroder
Moroder was a huge
influence on the League,
so Oakey grabbed the
chance to co-write the
theme to 1984 rom-com
Electric Dreams. This rush-
recorded album segues
like his Summer work.
Soundtrack: Top Gun
Harold Faltermeyer, Tom
Whitlock and Giorgio were
sent the script long before
the movie was even finished.
Giorgio’s music helped
revive the career of Kenny
Loggins and earned him a
third Oscar via Berlin’s Take
My Breath Away.
Déjà Vu
The cream of the pop
world force Giorgio back
into the studio for a
collection of contemporary
dancefloor pop with Sia,
Kylie, Britney and more.
It was recorded almost
entirely on laptops around
the world.

35
ClassicPop_DPS_0315.indd 1
25/02/2015 12:10:15
 T H E L O W

DOWN
Getty Images

38
 -
A HA
N
orway’s A-ha – stylised variously
THEY WERE THE as a-ha, a-Ha and A-Ha – were the
BIGGEST NORTHERN biggest pop group from Europe,
EUROPEAN POP ACT northern or otherwise, of the classic
pop era, bigger than any of the Euro-
OF THE EIGHTIES, synth forefathers (Kraftwerk, Telex,
INVENTING A NEW Trio, Yello, DAF) or poodle-haired
metallic merchants (Scorpions, Europe,
TYPE OF SOARING
Krokus). They were masters of forlorn
MELANCHOLIA AND majesty; mournful magnificence a
SCORING HITS speciality. They brought bleakness and
despair to the charts like no other band, maybe
SUCH AS TAKE ON only matched by Depeche Mode in the noir
ME AND THE SUN electro-pop stakes. This was existential dread
ALWAYS SHINES ON for teenies, epic sorrow for Smash Hits readers.
They may have had chiselled cheekbones
TV. SYNTHPOP NEVER and sad eyes, but boy band muppets they
SOUNDED THIS were not. They comprised guitarist Paul
SPRIGHTLY, YET THIS Waaktaar-Savoy (born Pål Waaktaar Gamst),
the band’s principal songwriter and also a
SAD. OH, AND THEY painter; keyboardist Magne Furuholmen, now
HAPPENED TO BE THE a highly regarded visual artist; and frontman
Morten Harket, arguably the most gorgeous
PRETTIEST BOYS ON
male pinup of the Eighties and a former
THE PLANET… choirboy whose soaringly sad voice was,
P A U L according to NME, capable of “the greatest
L E S T E R falsetto in the history of pop music EVER”.
They had all been in bands before A-ha:
Waaktaar and Furuholmen in Bridges, who
recorded an album in 1981 entitled Fakkeltog
(Torch-light Parade); and Harket in an outfit
called Souldier Blue. As A-ha, they arrived in
Britain from Norway in January 1983. “We
were stylistically oriented towards Sixties music
and melodic hippie music,” Furuholmen told this
writer in 2009. “Then we came to England and
that opened us up to a whole new set of British
contemporary music such as Soft Cell, after
years of thinking rock music ended with John
Lennon’s Imagine album.”
In London there were several false starts,
meetings with record company personnel and
demo recordings, before they signed to Warner
Brothers. There were tentative experiments in
the studio with producer Tony Mansfield before
Alan Tarney was drafted in and their debut
single was given a groundbreaking video to
accompany its umpteenth (well, third) release.
By winter 1985, A-ha went global, the pre-
internet version of viral. And it was just right
for the time of year: no one did windswept
melancholy and chilly synth euphoria like A-ha.
A - H A T H E L O W D O W N
“All music that’s meaningful is pain-
condensed,” Furuholmen told me. “Happy
music makes me very sad. People find
consolation in the fact that someone can
articulate conflicting feelings and turn them into
some sort of beauty. That’s the attraction of Joy
Division’s music to me – it’s really beautiful.”
And is A-ha’s music therapeutic, affording
them an opportunity to exorcise all their
negativity and angst? “Well, you say
‘negativity’ – I strongly oppose that word,
because to a Scandinavian melancholia is
not negative, it’s like an itch you must scratch,
a yearning,” he replied, “It’s a Northern
condition, a big part of our make-up.”
A-ha’s debut album, Hunting High And Low,
now accounts for 10 million of their 80 million
total record sales worldwide. It featured the
hits Take On Me, The Sun Always Shines On
TV, the title track, Train Of Thought and Love
Is Reason, but they could easily have chosen
three other album cuts as singles. It was the
Thriller of dark, dolorous synthpop, and it
unexpectedly brought them a massive teen
female audience. “The arrangements were
very poppy, but the lyrics were dark – but the
attention was not on the lyrics, which was a
shame,” complained Furuholmen. “Because of
our commercial sound we found ourselves in a
hailstorm of pop stardom.”
It may have taken several years, but
eventually they have earned the credibility
they sought, with props given to them latterly
by everyone from Coldplay, U2 and Keane
to Oasis and Morrissey. These days they are
viewed, rightly, as consummate masters of
monumental melody whose work in the field
of anthemic electro-pop merits contention
alongside Depeche Mode and New Order.
Over 30 years, they have released nine
albums, each as defiantly miserablist (Barely
Hanging On! I Wish I Cared! You’ll Never
Get Over Me! The Sun Never Shone That
Day! And those were just the titles from their
eager-to-please 2000 comeback album for
a new era!) as the last. And now, six years
after calling it a day and slipping into the
Norwegian shadows, they’re returning with a
brand new album, Cast In Steel, and a world
tour. There’s never a forever thing? Maybe,
maybe not. But, for at least one more time, we
can bask in their mighty melancholy.
39
T H E L O W D O W N A - H A
T H E M U S T- H AV E A L B U M S
HUNTING HIGH AND
LOW
1985
A classic of Scandi-pop angst
A melancholy synthpop masterpiece,
A-ha’s debut album was almost a displaced
late addition to the synthpop canon that
included such early-Eighties monuments as
Dare, Architecture & Morality, Speak And
Spell, Upstairs At Eric’s and Non-Stop Erotic
Cabaret. Any doubts that a Norwegian trio
of windswept pretty-boys could sell a British
music back to we Brits – not to mention the
Yanks – were trounced when the album, on
the back of hits such as Take On Me, The Sun
Always Shines On TV and the title track, sold
10 million copies worldwide.
The album was recorded at Eel Pie
Studios in Twickenham, and produced by
former New Musik member Tony Mansfield
and hitmaker for Cliff Richard and Barbara
Dickson, Alan Tarney. It won them a Grammy
nomination (the first for a Norwegian act)
and bequeathed five singles, making it
a motherlode of dolorous Scandinavian
electro-pop, establishing Pål Waaktaar – who
penned most of the words and music, with
occasional assistance from Morten Harket
and Magne Furuholmen – as a songwriter of
note: the Martin Gore of the frozen north.
AND THE REST...
Minor Earth /
Major Sky
2000
Their sixth album, and first
since 1994’s Memorial Beach, was another
No. 1 hit in Norway. The titles – Little
Black Heart, The Sun Never Shone That
Day, Summer Moved On, I Wish I Cared,
Barely Hanging On, You’ll Never Get Over
Me, I Won’t Forget Her – suggested their
worldview was no less bleak, their view of
relationships and the human condition as
mordant as ever. Musically, however, Minor
Earth was brighter than its predecessor, with
some of their best songs since their heyday,
notably the infectious Velvet (originally by
Waaktaar’s band Savoy, only now featuring
sitars not guitars), the bruised yet brisk The
Sun Never Shone That Day and title track
(both issued as singles in Europe), and the
orchestrated grandeur of Summer Moved
On. Meanwhile, Harket’s voice was in fine
fettle, and enhanced by strings it soared to
symphonic effect.
40
SCOUNDREL DAYS
1986
A toughened-up sound
Their second album was another big hit,
selling over six million copies worldwide.
Co-produced by Alan Tarney with Waaktaar
and Furuholmen, it featured the singles I’ve
Been Losing You (No. 8 in the UK), Cry Wolf
(a deserved UK Top 5 and also a sizeable hit
in the States), Maybe, Maybe (a Bolivian-
only release), and Manhattan Skyline (which
became a No. 13 in the UK). The latter was a
song of two halves, with a meditative F major
part written by Furuholmen and a neo-metal
D minor section from Waaktaar.
Elsewhere, it was soaringly sad business
as usual for the Norwegian trio, yet with a
distinctly harder, rockier sound, and darker
lyrics to match: the title track included
references to screaming, blood, burning
houses, and suicide. The Take On Me-ish
We’re Looking For The Whales and the Sun
Always Shines-esque The Weight Of The Wind
hinted at past glories, and Soft Rains Of
April was a companion piece to Sometimes It
Snows In April, from Prince’s Parade. Days
On End – a bonus track on the expanded
2010 reissue – crystallised their glacial
sadness: “Do you know why winter’s such a
cold and lonely place?”
Lifelines
2002
A-ha’s seventh album
entered the Top 10 in
nine countries, reaching No. 1 in Norway,
Germany, Estonia and Latvia (although it
stalled at No. 67 in the UK). It sold over
1.5 million copies, proof of their enduring
appeal compared to most of their Eighties
pop peers. The first single Forever Not
Yours was summed up by Morten Harket as
“melancholy, and at the same time uplifting
– soaring”. Lifelines and Did Anyone
Approach You? were also singles. Oranges
On Appletrees was John Barry-ishly epic,
and there was a return to crisp electro-pop
on Cannot Hide and Solace. Production was
by Stephen Hague (New Order, Pet Shop
Boys) and Langer & Winstanley (Madness,
Costello). Songwriting duties were more
evenly shared this time, and Furuholmen
said Lifelines was “characterised by long
drawn-out periods of creativity and huge
amounts of conflict”.
STAY ON THESE ROADS
1988
The John Barry Years
A-ha’s third album (and the band’s third
British No. 2) was another international
hit, selling over four million copies. It was
arguably their last pop album before they
embraced a more “serious” sound, in a bid to
increase the age of their audience.
The record company, sensing a need
to capitalise on their pop success, issued
no less than five singles: Stay On These
Roads (taking forlorn majesty into the Top
5 across Europe), The Blood That Moves the
Body (alleged to be about teen suicides in
Japan), the million-selling Touchy! and the
deceptively perky You Are the One.
The album also included A-ha’s 1987
James Bond theme, The Living Daylights,
a UK No. 5: it was a sure sign of their
preeminence at the time – only the biggest
acts on the planet get the call from Cubby
Broccoli’s people, and A-ha were chosen to
follow Duran Duran’s A View To A Kill. The
other tracks were This Alone Is Love, Hurry
Home, You’ll End Up Crying, Out Of Blue
Comes Green and the exquisite There’s Never
A Forever Thing, which became the sixth
single, but only in Brazil, where A-ha remain
unrivalled superstars.
Analogue
2005
Following their 2000
comeback, A-ha gradually
moved closer to an understanding of
what made them great in the first place.
Produced by KT Tunstall/James Morrison
man Martin Terefe, their eighth album
boasted four singles – Celice (No. 1 in
Norway, No. 2 in Russia), Cosy Prisons,
Birthright and Analogue (All I Want),
the latter their first Top 10 UK hit for 18
years – as well as another superb anthem
of nostalgia and longing, The Summers
Of Our Youth. One magazine decided the
first three tracks comprised their greatest
opening salvo since their debut (track two,
Don’t Do Me Any Favours, was reminiscent
of Take On Me) while the title track was
almost Nirvana-esque in its quiet/loud
dynamics, and Keeper Of The Flame was
Beatlesque – as though the Fab Four had
been a Scandinavian trio obsessed with
ageing and regret.
FOOT OF THE
MOUNTAIN
2009
Like the Nineties and ’00s never
happened
Their ninth album reached pole position on
the German charts and debuted at No. 5 in
the UK, A-ha’s highest placing since Stay On
These Roads. This made sense: Foot Of The
Mountain – ostensibly the last A-ha album,
because they announced their split in 2010 –
was their synthpop swansong, with a return
to the keyboard-dominated sound of their
first three albums. As Furuholmen put it, “It’s
an album that incorporates the key elements
that first defined the band: soaring vocals,
synth hooks, yearning lyrics and melodic
melancholia.” Produced by Steve Osborne
(New Order, Elbow), Mark Saunders and
Roland Spremberg, the majesty of the music
was reflected by the wintry cover image of
Norwegian mountain Kyrkja (“the church”),
and Waaktaar drew inspiration from his twin
homes in New York and Oslo, and “the pull
between nature and big-city civilisation”.
Much as the songs harked back in terms of
sound, there were contemporary nods, on
Riding The Crest, to Arcade Fire’s album Neon
Bible, as well as comparisons to The Killers
and Keane, Coldplay and Depeche Mode.
Out Of My
Hands
2012
Morten Harket’s fifth
solo album, his third English-language
album, and his third Norwegian No. 1, it
was considered by some to be rather too
commercial a move, but that’s exactly why
it’s worth investigating – with its driving
guitars and lush orchestration, it’s of a
piece with A-ha’s better work post-Stay On
These Roads, and with Steve Osborne at the
controls it can be filed quite comfortably
alongside A-ha’s own 2009 album, Foot
Of The Mountain. Lightning is catchy, I’m
The One has a very A-ha sentiment (“Take
this cold heart of mine”), and Keep The
Sun Away maintains A-ha’s obsession with
that particular astral body. There is even
a ballad, Listening, which was given to
Harket by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of
Pet Shop Boys, who believed, according to
their website, that “it would suit his voice”.
A must for diehards.
THE ESSENTIAL SINGLES
TAKE ON ME
1985
Definitely not gone in a day (or
two)
It’s hard to believe, listening to that ecstatic
onrush of sound, one that seemed to define a
new mood for pop – perky poignancy – that
this wasn’t an immediate hit. A-ha’s best-
known song was recorded in 1984 and took
three releases before it charted at No. 2 in
the UK in November 1985, helped not a little
by that epochal video. Actually, Take On Me
had an even longer gestation, resulting from
Waaktaar and Furuholmen’s prehistory as
members of Bridges, who had a track called
The Juicy Fruit Song, which included elements
of this future classic, particularly the central
synth motif. Harket joined from his outfit
Souldier Blue, the trio worked on Lesson One,
a new song based on The Juicy Fruit Song,
and that eventually evolved into Take On
Me. With added electronic instrumentation
and Alan Tarney’s fairydust, A-ha had their
seven-million-selling debut single.
STAY ON THESE ROADS
1988
Where joy should reign
Stay On These Roads was A-ha’s seventh
and final Top 5 UK entry, reaching No. 5 in
March ’88, and they wouldn’t have another
Top 10 for almost two decades. It was, like
many A-ha singles, quite uncommercial,
with an uncompromisingly bleak lyric (“The
cold has a voice/It talks to me/Stillborn, by
choice/It airs no need to hold”), especially
considering their target audience. The whole
thing sounded like one long lament, Morten
Harket’s vocal an extended plea. Written by
all three members, with Tarney once more at
the controls, this is a perfect piece of tuneful
A-ha torment, complete with the sound of
wind – timed to coincide with the line, “Feel
the cold/Winter’s calling on my home” –
made on a Roland Juno 60 synthesiser.
THE SUN ALWAYS
SHINES ON TV
1986
Drifting gloomily through time
This was released in December 1985 but
didn’t hit No. 1 – where it stayed for two
weeks – until January 1986. It sold over
five million copies worldwide, propelled into
charts across the globe by its chugging guitars
and magniloquent keyboards… not bad for
a song that was recorded with two members
(Furuholmen and Harket) lying in the studio
on camp beds, struck down with flu. It starts
operatically, a ballad, with Harket pleading,
“Touch me – how can it be?” Then it becomes
more ominous and thunderous, and yet,
even at its most roaringly potent, The Sun
Always Shines On TV is an aching requiem –
although to what, remains unclear. What was
clear from the lyric (“I reached inside myself
today/Thinking there’s got to be some way/
To keep my troubles distant”), was that A-ha
expressed anguish more economically than
any pop group of their era.
SUMMER MOVED ON
2000
Return to splendour
All lulls and crescendos, this is their greatest
latterday song. It was written after A-ha
agreed to a one-off show at the Nobel Peace
Prize concert at Norway’s Oslo Spektrum
Arena in 1998; encouraged by the reunion,
the band began working on their first new
material since 1993’s Memorial Beach. This
single was how they announced their return,
and it couldn’t have been any more suffused
with melancholy, particularly the “Stay, don’t
just walk away/And leave me another day”
refrain, featuring extra-emotional infusion by
Morten Harket on “stay” and “day” – in fact,
the singer holds the European record for the
longest note held in a Top 40 pop song when,
at the climax, he sustains an auto-tuned chest
voice note for 20.2 seconds.
HUNTING HIGH AND
LOW
1986
A monument to melancholy
With one and a half million copies sold,
the fifth and final single from Hunting
High And Low is one of their best-known
songs, reaching No. 5 in the UK. Coldplay
have performed this song in concert (it also
features on their album A Rush Of B-sides
To Your Head), but the definitive version is
by A-ha – no one else but Morten Harket
could truly capture the agony of the lyric,
one of the saddest ever to breach the UK
Top 5. “There’s no end to the lengths I’ll go
to,” he wails, as he promises to tear himself
to pieces in his search for his elusive special
one. Meanwhile, the orchestral arrangement,
complete with crying birds, the tumult of
rising strings and a lonely, parping trumpet,
takes tragic angst to new symphonic levels.
The accompanying video starts with a lonely
Morten walking across a snowy landscape. Of
course it does.
ONLY FOR THE BRAVE
East Of The Sun,
West Of The
Moon
1990
A-ha’s rockier, supposedly more adult
fourth album featured a cover of the
old Everly Brothers staple Crying In The
Rain – pointless when such tear-drenched
poignancy was one of their specialities.
NEED TO KNOW
S H H H
● A-ha fan Chris Martin of Coldplay
has described Morten Harket as “the
most disarmingly handsome man you
will ever meet”.
● Growing up, Harket was influenced
vocally by David Bowie, Johnny Cash,
Freddie Mercury and Art Garfunkel. He
was also into classic rock, psych, prog
and proto-metal: Uriah Heep, Deep
Purple, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix.
“I heard Hendrix’s Hey Joe when I
was 17 and it changed everything,”
he admitted in 2009. “It was a
pivotal moment. I walked away from
the other stuff and started over.”
MANHATTAN SKYLINE
1987
Hard rock meets heavenly pop
The third single from A-ha’s Scoundrel Days
album (with a live version of We’re Looking
For The Whales on the B-side) reached No.
13 in the UK, and again the focus was on the
forlorn, on dejection and despair. “We shake
hands and cry/Now I must wave goodbye,”
sang Harket, warning, “I’ll never see
your face again.” It started with a delicate
harpsichord pattern, followed by a strikingly
muscular guitar riff – this was quite different
to anything else A-ha had recorded to date,
although that repeated crunching guitar
section perhaps reflected their pre-teenpop
beginnings as classic rock and post punk
fans, listening to The Doors and Echo & The
Bunnymen. Furuholmen described it as “one
of the most inspired cut and paste projects
that [Waaktaar] and I did,” explaining that
chores were divided between himself (the
melodious, quiet parts) and Waaktaar (the
heavy, metallic parts). Stunning.
Memorial Beach
1993
Even by their bleak
standards, this was a
noir-fest: Dark Is The Night For All, Cold
As Stone and Lie Down In Darkness are
just some of the titles. Move To Memphis
was typical of the dreary rock on offer, a
tedious display of so-called muso gravity.
● Harket’s first ever gig was Echo
& The Bunnymen. “I thought if they
could stand with their backs against
the audience, so could I!” he said.
● Pål Waaktaar and Magne
Furuholmen began in a band called
Bridges, while Harket sang with
Souldier Blue. If you count the records
Waaktaar made with Bridges and with
Savoy and Weathervane, and Harket
and Furuholmen’s solo work, there are
dozens of non-A-ha records. That’s not
even counting Waaktar’s paintings,
Furuholmen’s artistic endeavours and
Harket’s extracurricular collaborations.
41
T H E L O W D O W N A - H A

T H E M U S T- WAT C H V I D E O S
TAKE ON ME
DIRECTOR: STEVE BARRON
The first video for A-ha’s debut single
featured the band singing against a blue
background with little more than a touch
of split-screen and a dancer performing
cartwheels, but the Steve Barron one used
a pencil-sketch animation/live-action
combination called rotoscoping. It changed
everything – for A-ha, and for videos. It was
a completely innovative approach to the art
form; at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards,
it won six gongs, for Best New Artist in a
Video, Best Concept Video, Most Experimental
Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects,
and Viewer’s Choice. Few videos are this
memorable. It’s a romantic fantasy of a
comic-book hero – played by Morten Harket
– who pulls a “real-life” young woman,
played by Bunty Bailey (Harket’s girlfriend
at the time), into his fictional pencil-drawn
world. Once seen, never forgotten. They even
paid homage to it in an episode of Family
Guy. Immortal. https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914
THE SUN ALWAYS
SHINES ON TV
DIRECTOR: STEVE BARRON
The Steve Barron-directed video for the
follow-up to Take On Me picks up exactly
where the latter left off: it opens with an
epilogue to their debut single’s promo,
featuring rotoscoped animation. There are
lovers Morten Harket and Bunty Bailey, the
former hunched over, seemingly wracked
with pain as he disappears back into his
comic book world. Thereafter, you see the
band playing, at their most chiselled and
videogenic, with an additional fourth member
sitting in on drums. They are all in black-
and-white, in a church: St Albans, now The
Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington, London.
They are “accompanied” by motionless
mannequins. The video ends with Messrs
Harket, Waaktaar and Furuholmen being cut
out from the background and becoming a still
frame. The video for the band’s next single,
Train Of Thought, began with this shot, as
though part of a trilogy. https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=zBS97SPX3Gs
MINOR EARTH /
MAJOR SKY
DIRECTOR: PHILIPP STÖLZL
This promo was filmed in an abandoned
mine in Prague, Czech Republic. It shows
the members of A-ha wearing spacemen’s
outfits – they were reproductions of real
lunar suits, ones that had been originally
used in the 1995 Tom Hanks movie Apollo
13. The video starts with grainy colour
film of a group of young men and women,
made up and dressed to look as though
they are in 1970, sitting down in front of a
television to watch black and white footage
of the Apollo 11 space mission, applauding
as the first human foot touches the moon’s
surface. In fact, appearing on the telly
screen are three astronauts – the members
of A-ha – traversing the lunar landscape.
Harket gets left behind as the craft takes
off for Earth – apparently this was a jokey
reference to the fact the singer was always
late and thus would be fun to “leave
behind”. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Awnhonto-8s
FOREVER NOT YOURS
DIRECTOR: HARALD ZWART
This video to the single from the 2002
Lifelines album was shot in Havana, Cuba, by
Zwart (who also directed the video to A-ha’s
single Velvet and went on to direct numerous
films both long and short, including 2010’s
The Karate Kid). The storyline is based on
the Biblical floods and Noah’s Ark, and
features an array of celebrities from the
arts, politics and royalty entering the ‘VIP’
area – it includes lookalikes of Desmond
Tutu, Madonna, Lenny Kravitz and Queen
Elizabeth II, among others. With the lyrical
theme of doomed love (“It’s one of those
songs that sums us up. Melancholy, and at
the same time uplifting – soaring,” Harket
said) the video shows the A-ha frontman
getting separated from his girlfriend
(ironically, the single was released on
Valentine’s Day). In the final scene, A-ha
make fun of themselves: the VIP entrance
turns out to be an entrance to a work hall for
the crew. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=qZjUJbWo1LI

Directed by Steve Barron, the video for Take On LISTEN UP! 11 The Sun Never Shone…
Me used a pencil-sketch/animation technique A special playlist of some The sun/rain obsession continues.
all-time A-ha faves…
called rotoscoping. It changed everything – for 12 I Won’t Forget Her
1 Hunting High And Low
A-ha, and for videos – and it won six gongs at A Nordic chill to summer ’86.
Signs of pop perkiness.

the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards 2 The Blue Sky

13 Lifelines
The best song Oasis never had.
Under-rated synthpop perfection.

WHAT’S NEXT?
14 Cannot Hide
3Here I Stand And Face The
Rain A-ha do Duran Duran!

The agony of heartache. 15 Celice

4 Manhattan Skyline Another late-period stormer.

A song of two halves. 16 Don’t Do Me Any Favours

As they announced at a press – and A-ha will also return to Rock In
Take On Me, all grown up.
conference in Berlin earlier this Rio to perform during the festival’s 5 Soft Rains Of April
year, after last calling it a day in 30th anniversary this September. More water-vapour-as-metaphor- 17 Cosy Prisons
2010, A-ha are coming back They insist, however, that no for-slow-drizzle-of-despair. Possibly a song about life in A-ha.
in September with a matter what the demand,
brand new album, “WE ARE the reunion is only
6 Stay On These Roads 18 Riding The Crest
their 10th. On the NOT GETTING BACK for the Cast In Steel Magisterial album opener. A rebirth, of sorts.
30th anniversary album and tour. 7 There’s Never A Forever
of their global
TO STAY TOGETHER. IT’S Harket said: “We Thing
19 Nothing Is Keeping You

Here
breakthrough, they ONE ALBUM, ONE TOUR. BUT are not getting Joy Division go beautiful pop. Everybody’s talkin’ at me…
will be releasing IT ALLOWS US TO WRITE back to stay
Cast In Steel, their together. We’ve
8 Early Morning 20 Butterfly, Butterfly (The

first album since ANOTHER CHAPTER” – agreed to come back The Doors from Norway… Last Hurrah)
2009’s Foot Of The MORTEN HARKET for a set period: one 9 Angel In The Snow Their last ever
Mountain. They will also album, one tour. It’s a track, from 2010.
Great track from weak album. Only it wasn’t…
be embarking on the Cast great opportunity and allows
In Steel tour – 15 dates in Germany, us to write another chapter.” Cast In 10 Summer Moved On http://spoti.
Austria and Switzerland in 2016, with Steel is released on September 4. See See The Summers Of Our Youth. fi/1bA01nY
more international dates to be added www.a-ha.com for details.

42
 "I'm the Operator…"
Make music with the New

OUT
NOW!

MT House ad for CP.indd 66 08/05/2015 08:16

 VICE VERSA WORKED WITH THE HUMAN
LEAGUE AND CLOCK DVA TO HELP DEFINE
THE FUTURIST, ELECTRONIC SOUND OF LATE
SEVENTIES SHEFFIELD. JOINING MARTIN FRY,
THEY CHANGED THEIR NAME TO ABC AND SET
THE BLUEPRINT FOR POST-PUNK POP.
NOW, 30 YEARS ON, THEY ARE BACK…
I A N P E E L

44
T
he Lexicon Of Love by ABC is, quite rightly,
lauded as one of the most important debut
albums in pop history. But it wasn’t actually
the first record release for two of the group’s
founders, Stephen Singleton and Mark White.
For several years they’d been toiling away – as
a trio alongside David Sydenham – as electronic
pioneers Vice Versa.
The group was as influential to the business
side of the Sheffield music scene as they were the
music side, with Stephen running Neutron Records
not just to release Vice Versa but to put out tracks
– on VHS, cassette, and all manner of elaborately
packaged vinyls – by groups like Clock DVA,
Stunt Kites and Robotnik.
When they hooked up with Martin Fry, a local
fanzine writer, David Sydenham – who sadly
passed away just as this issue of Classic Pop went
to press – stepped aside from the project, Mark
stepped down as lead vocalist, and a shared love Above Stephen
of funk turned their heads and turned their group Singleton (left) and
Mark White as Vice
into ABC. Versa, 30 years on
That shift, from the dark, analogue melancholy in April 2015
of tracks like Vice Versa’s New Girls/Neutrons to
the pristine passion of Poison Arrow was seismic
– though less so than when ABC followed up
Lexicon… with the anti-Thatcherite rock of Beauty
Stab. Stephen left the group soon after but Mark
stayed with Martin and blended ABC across four
more albums of increasingly refined dancefloor
drama before he himself retired from the music
business after 1991’s Abracadabra.
Which brings us to the present day and – for the
first time – Mark and Stephen are revisiting their life
as Vice Versa. We’re here, in theory, to talk about
a new box set – the beyond-deluxe Electrogenesis
reviewed in issue 15 – but I sense they’re planning
on doing more than just looking back...
45
V I C E V E R S A

Sheffield new wave), it was like talking to the Steve I

met when I was 16. It’s like a science fiction thing when
suddenly someone walks back in the room and they’re
30 years older. It was really freaky for a bit, but I’m
getting used to it now.

That Chic gig must have been quite a moment

as, musically, it was a real jump to go from
Left Mark and Vice Versa to ABC...
Stephen with Vice
Versa co-founder MW: It might seem like a jump, but not if you think about
David Sydenham, those times. I think that’s something unique about the
who sadly passed Seventies that’s very hard to understand if you haven’t gone
away just as this
issue of Classic Pop
through it. You realise it’s way more than just Chic – you
went to press. had so many different genres of music all being invented

There’s a sci-fi element to Vice Versa, so much

so that it makes total sense that you should be
so prolific for a relatively short space of time,
and then suddenly skip forwards 30 years and
carry on. It would be a very different type of
band that would have gone on making album
after album…
Stephen Singleton: We would have become like
Depeche Mode, probably, or something like that. Or
we’d all be dead from the lifestyle. Vice Versa was great,
it was a great band but we just changed in mid stream
and forgot about it because all of a sudden we were
ABC and everything was happening.
Mark White: We were just starting to evolve our own
style, a quite aggressive sort of punky electronics, then
something happened, didn’t it Steve?
SS: I think what happened was we went to see Chic
at Sheffield City Hall and we just loved them and, as a
result, Vice Versa very quickly turned into ABC.
MW: Weirdly, Vice Versa to me feels like it was
yesterday because when Stephen and I got together
again for Made In Sheffield (Eve Wood’s biopic of the

The duo’s own personal timelime charting the development of

synthpop from Fifties sci-fi to Noughties EDM. “Not a definitive,”
they say, “but the events that most affected our us...”

1964
Robert Moog
creates
the first 1966
1956 1959 1963 commercially The Beach Boys’
Forbidden Planet The Twilight The BBC Radiophonic available Good Vibrations
Zone Workshop records the modern features Tannerin,
1963
theme tune for Dr. Who synthesizer ‘the electro
The Outer Limits
Theremin’

46
 ROBITNIK:
You had so many genres of music MISSING IN ACTION
invented at the same time – disco, One of the missing pieces of Vice Versa history – and electronica
history as a whole – is Nottingham synthpop quartet Robotnik.

electronics, reggae, glam rock –

Stephen Singleton issued their one and only release on Neutron
Records in 1981. But where are they now, that is the question?

and it was OK to be into all of them” “Robotnik were very good, very poppy,” Stephen remembers. “They
had a great song called Space Race and they worked with us in the
studio – we recorded it and we’d put it out as a cassette single. I’ve
still got the original master tape but we sold all the cassettes. The
at the same time. Disco, electronics, reggae, glam rock... beauty of the cassette single was that we didn’t have to press them,
they were all happening simultaneously. And punk! It wasn’t we could just make them up as people ordered them. But there’s still
odd to be in the Crazy Daisy in Sheffield and hear the Sex lots of people that contact me going ‘If you ever find a copy of the
Pistols followed by T Connection followed by Dr Feelgood. Robotnik cassette single in your house, please can I have it?’!”
It was perfectly OK to be into all these things at the same
time, there was no conflict at all. Mark White: “We remember they were from Nottingham, although
SS: And to us it didn’t seem like a massive change. Other we can’t trace them. And a label in America now wants to reissue it,
people said ‘I can’t believe they were that band and then so if any of Robotnik are reading this, please come forward!”
they were that band’. Or how two friends come along and
totally changed everything. But it wasn’t like that. Mark
and I were into ideas, we liked music, we liked making
music, we used synthesisers. When we discovered that
Martin Fry could sing, Mark sacked himself and said ‘I
want a gold medal for that, or an OBE, because I think I’m
the only lead singer in the history of pop music to resign in
favour of someone else’!

There’s a great – and very prescient – Vice

four Sheffield bands including The Stunt Kites who performed in 2003
POP_UP Neutron Records’ EP 1980 – The First 15 Minutes featured

Versa slogan, “data = porn x 100mph” that

I think sums up your live shows. They got a
with special guests and fans Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley

pretty strong reaction didn’t they?

SS: The music seemed normal to us, it didn’t seem that IN A LEAGUE
challenging, but it was fairly out there. Not necessarily
what a bunch of students want to hear on Saturday night.
OF THEIR OWN
But we enjoyed it and if there was heckling sometimes “The first time we saw The Human League we were supporting
Mark would be at the mic going ‘Come on, come up them,” Stephen remembers. “Somebody phoned me and said
‘Would you like to do a concert supporting The Human League?’
here and say that!’ And I’d be stood there thinking ‘Oh
and I said ‘Well we’re not a political band’ and they went ‘That’s
God, he’s offering people out’. It was fun, it was kind of OK!’ Because I thought The Human League were like The Anti
theatre in a way. You enjoy it, whatever the reaction it’s Nazi League – I was worried that there might actually be Nazis or
better than people just standing around. If people didn’t something. I was thinking ‘What do The Human League stand for? It
like it, it was all part of the fun and the act. could be really dark...’

All of which was quite different to the cyborg- “The first time we saw them, they were sound-checking. It was
based delivery of other early electronic groups. very early on, their first major gig. They were perfectly formed
“Anti-cyberman, anti-digital-sterile, two-tonic right from the beginning. I just couldn’t get it at first because the
to tuetonic” was another early slogan. So Vice electronic music, the other stuff that was in Sheffield, was like
Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, a lot more edgy and experimental. But
Versa wasn’t exactly Kraftwerk was it?
this was so poppy. I remember chatting with Phil Oakey afterwards
SS: We didn’t want to be like Kraftwerk. We really and he told me ‘We want to be as good as ABBA’ and I was thinking
wanted to take the energy of punk – it was still really there ‘Where does that come from?’
and tangible at the time – but use electronics. When we
were writing songs, I had The Ramones in my head.

1976
Kraftwerk
play
Sheffield 1977
1970 University
1968 1974 Bowie records Low
Mick Jagger in
Wendy Carlos’ Switched Autobahn – Kraftwerk in Berlin followed
Performance
On Bach by Heroes, then
plays Moog 1972
produces The Idiot
Modular Brian Eno plays synth solo
and Lust For Life
System D on Virginia Plain
with Iggy Pop

47
V I C E V E R S A

Mark, did you really want an OBE? I

guess there aren’t many lead singers that
sack themselves...
MW: No, not at all. It was totally obvious what
should happen...
SS: Martin Fry was best friends with Mike Pickering who,
at that time, was living in Holland. He’d organised a Joy
Divison tour that had gone really well and he wanted us
to go there and play. We went out there and we met the
guys that ran Backstreet Studios in Rotterdam and they
invited us in after we’d done a Vice Versa concert...
MW: The intention was just to record some material and
put out an EP (1980’s Stilyagi). So we did our sessions
and at the end we’d heard that Eno had once suggested
Ajwhgcj eghw ckjgew
to Bowie on – would it have been Lodger around that
time? – that they all swap instruments. His idea was that ewkuycg kuewy fsdfa
the singer would play the bass and so on and just to see
what happens. So that idea came up, I don’t know where kuwygeckuyg wekucy
it came from, and I said ‘Martin, here’s the mic, I’ve heard
you singing a bit, go on, have a go.’ And he started and
I just went ‘Oh my God! I can see how all this is going
kwuyegc kuywe gcuy
to develop,’ because we were cooking our ideas about
being more funky, more poppy, more overground. And his
voice was obviously more suited to that.

So was there a particular point when you

thought, ‘No more Vice Versa, it’s now ABC’?
MW: It just seemed to flow and evolve so naturally, there
was no big serious meeting where we sat round a table
and went ‘That’s over, we’re doing this now’. It wasn’t
like that at all. I don’t think we were sure if it would still
be Vice Versa but a bit more funky, or whether that even
needed to end.

And Stephen, having built up the Neutron

label, it carried on as a brand within
Phonogram for all of ABC’s releases. Was that
important for you?
SS: I think at the time we thought if we had our Neutron
identity within Phonogram Records that it might leave
us free to be able to do outside collaborations or even

1978 1978 1979

Sheffield’s Nowsoc June: Being Boiled Music 4 EP
presents concerts by – Human League, - Vice Vera,
1977
1977 Human League, Vice July: Cabaret Neutron
March: Trans Europe 1977
July: I Feel Versa, Cabaret Voltaire, Voltaire EP Records
Express – Kraftwerk Throbbing Gristle united
Love – Giorgio Clock DVA – all use
Moroder & synthesizers
Donna Summer

48
 As soon as ABC appeared on Top Of
The Pops, everything changed. We
sign people ourselves. Megalomania abounded! But as
soon as ABC appeared on Top Of The Pops, everything

became pop star commuters and

were all over the place. Just boom!”
changed. We didn’t have time for anything, it was like
‘now you’re in Belgium, now you’re in Germany, now
you’re in France, the record’s taken off.’ We’d become
international pop star commuters and we were just all
over the place. Just... boom! When you take off like that
you don’t have any time to stop and think, and I think
sometimes that’s actually a mistake.

What are you listening to? Who’s influencing

you these days?

hw ckjgewcyg SS: We both went to see Sparks live last year and
enjoyed that. I also really love some contemporary stuff

uewy fsdfasgc called The Seduction, a thing with Marc Bergman. It’s
a prose/poetry narration, I saw the whole thing at the

uyg wekucycg Barbican performed with a full orchestra. But the stuff I
listen to is also all the old stuff I’ve always listened to –

uywe gcuywgc” though it’s not necessarily an influence on what we do

now. The way that Vice Versa songs, or ABC songs, used
to come around was we’d just be talking about anything,
random stuff, and we’d say ‘hey that would be a good
idea for a song’. I think it’s a bit like that now. Mark and
I discuss stuff and go ‘You know what? That would be
interesting as a song’.
Take modern life, for example. For some people,
they work to survive. Lots of our friends – especially in
London because it’s so expensive to be here – they’re
on a treadmill: ‘I go to work, I come home, I pay
excessive amounts for where I live, I can’t really afford
to go out that much and I just feel that I’m working and
working and working to live.’ You’re like ‘I’ve been
working all my life and what have I got to show for
it?’ Mark was saying it’s like ‘life stealers’, so we’ve
actually got a new Vice Versa song idea going called
Life Stealers Inc.. “Life Stealers Inc.. Like to know what
you think...”

So this is the start of something new, as well as

looking back? What’s next for Vice Versa?
MW: We’re writing. I’ve started collecting old synths
again, hardware as well as software. The Arturia things
(a French ‘soft synth’ company), especially, are amazing.
SS: We carry on, we carry on. Always forwards, even
all these years later. We love it.

2014
Calvin
Harris, EDM,
1983 worldwide 2014
New Order make biggest- hits Vinyl On Demand
1982 1982 1988
selling 12” of all time, Blue releases 4-LP
ABC use Fairlight Afrika Phuture’s Acid Trax
Monday. Ultravox, Human anthology of Vice
CMI (first usable Bambaattaa & makes heavy use of
League, Depeche Mode, Versa, Electrogenesis
sampling synth) on The Soul Sonic the Roland TB-303 and
and Eurythmics have hits 1978-1980
multi-platinum The Force release creates acid house
throughout the Eighties
Lexicon Of Love Planet Rock

49
 C L A S S I C

ALBUM
AVALON
R O X Y M U S I C
A DECADE AFTER VIRGINIA PLAIN KICK-STARTED ROXY MUSIC’S GLAM APOCALYPSE, BRYAN
FERRY, PHIL MANZANERA AND ANDY MACKAY REGROUPED TO RECORD AVALON, AN ALBUM
FAR REMOVED FROM THEIR STOMPING, SLEAZIER EARLY WORK WHICH SHOWED THAT
MATURITY NEEDN’T EQUAL BORING. M A R K L I N D O R E S

50
 R O X Y M U S I C C L A S S I C A L B U M

I
n the 10 years since their 23rd September
breakthrough, Roxy Music 1982: Bryan Ferry
had proved themselves performing on
the Avalon tour at
to be one of the most Wembley Arena
influential groups of the
Seventies. Their dynamism
and propensity to remain true
to their art-school sensibilities
ensured that they always
stood out. Even among
the myriad acts that took
inspiration from them and
attempted to replicate their
sound and style, Roxy Music
were always a step ahead.
From the glam stomp of
Love Is The Drug, Street Life,
Re-Make/Re-Model and
Pyjamarama to the sleek
sensuality of Dance Away
and Jealous Guy, Roxy Music
were one of the most distinct,
original acts of their time.
Though never repetitive,
their sound was always
recognisable thanks to the
unique voice and personality
of helmsman Bryan Ferry.
Having spent the Seventies
living life to the max, Ferry
found himself at a more

Getty Images
mellow time in his life in
1981. Seemingly jaded
by nightclubs, drugs and a

TRACK BY
TRACK
1 MORE THAN THIS
The perfect opening track and first single,
More Than This is one of Roxy Music’s
greatest songs, and the lyrics and the
yearning tone of Bryan’s voice have a
sombre relevance to the state of relationships
in the group at the time. This is accentuated
by the vocal ceasing altogether at 1:45,
leaving the remaining 1:45 to sweeping
keyboards and a gorgeous guitar solo. More
Than This reached No. 6 in the UK charts,
giving the group its final Top 10 hit. It has
been covered by 10,000 Maniacs, Emmie and
Blondie; memorably, Bill Murray performed
the song in Lost In Translation.
2 THE SPACE BETWEEN
Nile Rodgers has spoken countless times
about how much of an influence Roxy
Music were on Chic, and here the feeling
is patently mutual. One of the album’s
danciest moments, The Space Between is a
groove based on a killer bassline courtesy of
infamous session musician Neil Jason. Bryan
Ferry was inspired by Japanese poetry while
writing the album and The Space Between is
an example of this, with just 12 short lyrics
sang intermittently over the track. Another
Chic connection: singer Fonzi Thornton
provided backing vocals on The Space
Between and various other Avalon tracks.
3 AVALON
The final song recorded for the album
became an integral track, defining the
album’s musical identity and providing
its title. The lilting tune, accentuated by
Manzanera’s gentle guitar punctuations and
Yanick Etienne’s sublime backing vocals,
embody the beauty and elegance of this
seductive ballad. Avalon had begun as a
completely different track entitled New
Scatter. Bryan came up with the lyrics just
24 hours before the album was due to be
completed, and the new subject matter – the
legend of King Arthur – dovetailed with the
revised, dreamlike melody.
4 INDIA
When working on Avalon, Ferry discovered
that much of the mood he was trying to
convey came from the music rather than
lyrics – the lush, dreamy chillout ambience
conveying exactly what they had set out to
say. This sensibility resulted in the inclusion
of India, an instrumental interlude which
helped Avalon flow into a cohesive piece of
work, more film score than song collection.
Only 1:45 in length, India showcased
Manzanera’s guitar playing and became a
fan favourite. It has become a staple at Roxy
gigs, both on the Avalon tour and subsequent
reunion shows as the band’s intro music.
5 WHILE MY HEART IS
STILL BEATING
Written by Ferry/Mackay, While My Heart
Is Still Beating is one of the more seductive
tracks on an already sexy record. Singing
languidly of the frustration of human
limitations and propensity to sin, Ferry’s
vocal is accompanied by a stunning sax
hook from Andy Mackay over a gentle bossa
nova melody. It was considered as a single,
and an eerie video was shot in which Ferry
investigated a house filled with mannequins.
The single release was cancelled in favour
of Take A Chance With Me after the upbeat
More Than This charted higher than Avalon.
6 THE MAIN THING
The Main Thing is the song which sounds the
most like their earlier material. Written as a
basic keyboard track, the song was fleshed
out via jams, session players and drums
recorded in the studio’s stairwell to give it
a more live feel than some of the album’s
more experimental moments. The Main Thing
gained airplay when a remix became the
B-Side to Take A Chance With Me.
7 TAKE A CHANCE
WITH ME
Hugely experimental, Avalon is a feast of
interesting song structures and juxtaposed
sounds. Beginning with Phil Manzanera’s
haunting 80-second intro, the suspension
builds and builds and gives way to the
poppiest song on the album. Unashamedly
catchy, Take A Chance With Me is a western-
tinged sing-along. The song was released as
the album’s third single and Roxy’s last, in
September 1982, reaching No. 26 in the UK.
8 TO TURN YOU ON
The underrated To Turn You On is a yearning
ballad featuring some of Ferry’s best Avalon
vocals and lyrics. Written in 1980, it was
used as a B-Side for Jealous Guy but was
included here as Bryan felt it was too good.
9 TRUE TO LIFE
A shimmering, hypnotic masterpiece, True
To Life encapsulates Avalon’s rhythmic,
textural aesthetic. The vocals are used as
an instrument, treated and processed and
drifting in and out of the mix to create a
dreamlike soundscape. The song has never
been performed live.
TARA
10
Andy Mackay’s second co-write on the album,
Avalon’s closer is a gentle sax improvisation,
just 100 seconds long, which ends with
the sounds of crashing waves, the perfect
conclusion to an otherworldly sonic journey –
a phrase which can be used not only to sum
up Avalon, but Roxy’s decade-long reign.

51
 C L A S S I C A L B U M R O X Y M U S I C

Phil Manzanera,
Andy Mackay and
Bryan Ferry on stage,
London, 1982

Getty Images

THE
PLAYERS
BRYAN FERRY
The man behind and in front of Roxy Music,
Bryan Ferry started the band with the help string of relationships allowed Ferry free rein to
of a Melody Maker advertisement seeking with some of the world’s most indulge in his experimentalism
musicians in 1970 and was the creative force glamorous women, he was on without any compromise.
and main singer/songwriter behind the group
the verge of settling down to “We were creating tracks
for their entire career. Following the group
a quieter lifestyle with model back then,” engineer Rhett
he embarked on a successful career; 1985’s
Girls And Boys album has been his greatest Lucy Helmore, and his music Davies told BBC Radio 2.
success, mainly due to the hit Slave To Love. reflected that. If the first 10 “We didn’t have the songs.
Last year’s album Avonmore saw Ferry return years of Roxy Music had been The songs were virtually the
to the charts and critical acclaim with Classic a riotous, decadent party, last things to go on there.
Pop stating: “in Ferry’s attic there must be a Avalon was the point in the We were creating a musical
Photoshot

PHIL
MANZANERA
Phil replied to Bryan’s ad but
lost out to David O’List and
joined Roxy Music as a roadie.
In 1971, O’List quit the band following a
fight with drummer Paul Thompson. As the
group was mid-tour, an urgent replacement
was required and Phil stepped in. He
remained the band’s main guitarist and
occasional co-songwriter until the band split.
RHETT DAVIES
Rhett began his career as
a producer at Island in the
early Seventies, beginning
with Brian Eno’s Taking Tiger
Mountain (By Strategy) before working on
Roxy’s final four albums as well as records
by Genesis, Dire Straits, Talking Heads, Talk
Talk and Robert Palmer. He retired in 1990
to pursue other interests but made exceptions
for Bryan Ferry’s Dylanesque and Olympia.
collection of dreadful recordings, as what the night when it was time to
public gets to hear remains ageless.” retire to the chillout room.
The genesis of Avalon came
ANDY MACKAY to Ferry at Crumlin Lodge on
After he joined Roxy Music the west coast of Ireland. “I’d
via Ferry’s Melody Maker ad, often thought of an album
Andy Mackay introduced his
where the songs are bound
friend Brian Eno to Ferry. The
together in the style of West
two hit it off – initially – and Eno joined the
group. Andy Mackay played saxophone and Side Story, but it seemed
oboe on all of their albums. Following the too much bother to work that
split, Mackay formed The Explorers with Phil way,” he told Rolling Stone.
Manzanera. They released one album before “Instead, I had these 10
continuing as a duo Manzanera & Mackay. poems, or short stories, that
could, with a bit more work,
BOB be fashioned into a novel.
CLEARMOUNTAIN Avalon is part of the King
Mix engineer Clearmountain Arthur legend. When the king
worked on notable albums for dies, the queen’s ferry takes
Springsteen, Bryan Adams, him to Avalon, an enchanted
Bon Jovi, Simple Minds and Tears For Fears, island. It’s the ultimate
yet Avalon remains most dear to him. romantic fantasy place.”
“Avalon means more to me than anything
This ambitious theme
I’ve ever done,” says Bob. “I’ve had more
comments and compliments on this album by
dictated not only the album’s
far than anything else I’ve ever done.” lush sound but also the
methods by which it was
created, and new technology
atmosphere tor the musicians
to respond to. Bryan and Roxy
would have a musician in for
a day or two and get them
to play on all the songs and
see what came out of that.
We were looking for anything
that fitted, and if it added
atmosphere and it worked,
we used it… even little half
notes. Soloed, the guitar parts
just don’t make sense until
you put it all together and you
realise that guitar worked with
the bass part, which fitted in
with the keyboard pad, and
it all created a balance. It’s
a combination of things that
makes that phrase work.”
Ferry was also inspired by
electronics and the panoramic
scope allowed by keyboards
and drum machines. “We
were working in a completely
different way by then,” says
Andy Mackay. “It was much

52

more of a studio-based sound
with Bryan’s vocals over the
top of it.”
His recollections are echoed
by Phil Manzanera. “By the
time we got to Avalon, 90%
of it was being written in
the studio,” he says. “That
album was a product of
“For the last three albums the drugs had created a
lot of paranoia. Bryan decided he wanted a more
adult type of lyric, so we decided to tone the
rockier side down” P H I L M A N Z A N E R A
completely changing our
working methods. For the last
three albums, quite frankly,
there were a lot more drugs
around, which was good
and bad. It created a lot of
paranoia and a lot of spaced-
out stuff. Bryan decided he
wanted a more adult type of
lyric. We were making music
that was a bit rockier, but we
decided, in light of the way
Bryan was thinking lyrically,
that we should tone it down,
so it ended up having a more
constant sort of mood.”
Getty Images
That mood was also a
product of the environment in
which the album was written
and recorded. The group
spent a lot of time in the
Bahamas at Nassau’s famous
Compass Point Studios, and
that tropical location had a
huge impact. Avalon’s lilting
melodies and seductive sound
created an ambience which
exuded a dreamy, ethereal
beauty and elegance with,
in many instances, the vocals
used sparingly throughout the
intricate tapestry of the music.
“At the time I was very
inspired by Japanese and
Oriental poetry,” Ferry said.
“The lyrics were very spare
and very evocative and that’s
how the lyrics on Avalon took
that direction.”
Further sessions took
place in London and New
THE BIG
PICTURE
T H E V I D E O S
MORE THAN THIS
DIRECTOR: UNKNOWN
Renowned for their visuals, Roxy Music were keen to embrace the latest in technology in the
format of music videos, and deployed the latest special effects for More Than This. Beginning
with light from a crucifix-shaped window
onto a solo Bryan Ferry, the video progresses
to scenes of him in a cinema watching a
band performance of the track. Though the
pyrotechnics resemble little more than a
bonfire, Mr Ferry scores points on the fashion
front for his bowtie/biker
jacket combo.
https://www.
youtube.com/watch?
v=kOnde5c7OG8
AVALON
DIRECTOR: RIDLEY SCOTT/HOWARD GUARD
The only music video to be directed by Ridley Scott (co-directed by Howard Guard), Avalon is
as suitably cinematic as the music would suggest. Shot at Mentmore Towers country house, the
video features Roxy Music as the louche house
band performing a lament in the aftermath
of a masked ball. Sophie Ward, Ferry’s love
interest, is seen in a medieval headdress with
a hawk, evoking King Arthur’s final journey
to the enchanted island
of Avalon, the lyrical
inspiration for the song.
https://www.
youtube.com/watch?
v=bpA_5a0miWk
TAKE A CHANCE WITH ME
DIRECTOR: TV CHANNEL PERFORMANCE
As the global success of the Avalon album had catapulted Roxy Music headlong into a hectic
touring schedule, they were unable to film a video for what would become their final single,
and a TV performance was used instead.
Unfortunately for one of the most fashionable
figures in music history, Roxy Music’s swansong
was promoted with a video in which the western
twang of the song is carried through into
Bryan’s outfit… and, at 1 min 30 secs, even a
Muppet makes an head-
bobbing appearance.
https://www.
youtube.com/watch?
v=Bk-hVaI0R24
THE MAIN THING
DIRECTOR: UNKNOWN
Although not an official single, The Main Thing received the video treatment for the track to
promote the album in nightclubs, where risqué clips were shown on video walls and on video
jukeboxes. The dirty groove of the song evoked
vintage Roxy Music and the arthouse-inspired
video –with Bryan performing in front of
a backdrop of four pairs of dancing girls’
stocking-clad legs, interspersed with shots of
him pounding the streets of Paris at night –
had a feel of classic Roxy
iconography such as the
For Your Pleasure cover.
https://www.
youtube.com/watch?
v=ib4-Lyxxyw0
53
C L A S S I C A L B U M R O X Y M U S I C

York’s Power Station Studios

where, with Roxy Music
down to just three full-time
members – Bryan, Phil and
Andy – session musicians
were hired to complete
the tracks, including Andy
Newmark (an accomplished
successor to original drummer
Paul Thompson), guitarist
Neil Hubbard, percussionist
Jimmy Maelen, bassist Alan
Spenner, Paul Carrack, and
Chic’s Fonzi Thornton, who
provided backing vocals on
seven tracks.
It was during those New
York sessions that the album
really came together. A
song called New Scatter,
that would eventually evolve
into the album’s title track,
had proved to be a bone of
contention which Ferry had
spent months struggling with.
“It was really fast, twice the
tempo, even though it was
Getty Images

the same chord sequence,”

says Rhett Davies, “but it
never really developed into
anything. I can remember that
it was very pop-sounding,
but Bryan couldn’t get a
handle on it in a way that fit
the album. He would come
in and say, ‘I think I’ve got
a first verse’ and he would
try it. Then he might come
in later with a second verse
or a chorus. It was pieced
together, along with the rest of
the music, over the period.”
While they were finishing
the album in New York, they
decided to go into the studio
to re-record the song Avalon.
As the studio was rarely
booked at weekends, new
bands with little money were
allowed to use it to cut demos.
“Bryan and I heard this girl
from the Haitian band next
door singing, and we thought,
‘Wow! What a voice! We’ve
got to get her singing some
backing vocals on Avalon,’
recalls Rhett. “That was Yanick
Etienne, who didn’t speak a
word of English. She came in
with her boyfriend/manager
and we described to him what
we wanted and she sort of
sang the choruses and the
word ‘Avalon’ – the great
sound that is on there. Then
we said, ‘Can she try and do
something free at the end?’
and she sang exactly what
you hear on the record.”
and I just remember thinking ‘I
“The song Avalon was a real high point. It made really need a break from this.”
the record for me. I asked Bryan “what are you Following the break-up
of Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry
going to call the album?’ He said ‘Avalon.’ I married Lucy Helmore in
thought, ‘Yeah. Of course’” R H E T T D A V I E S 1983. She had appeared
on the cover of the Avalon
album. Like the music, it was
With Yanick’s vocal biggest-selling album, while a much more sedate image
everything clicked into place; the singles Avalon and Take than albums such as Country
inspired by her performance, A Chance With Me reached Life, For Your Pleasure and
Ferry instantly re-recorded No. 13 and No. 26. Stranded. Shot in Ireland at
his vocals. “We knew it was While many long-term the lake which had inspired
a really high point of the fans bemoaned the band’s Bryan to come up with the
evening. I remember going, adoption of a more mature, idea of the album, it depicted
‘Wow! We’ve really created mainstream sound, the move Lucy in a medieval helmet
something special,’” says lead to success in territories with a falcon on her hand in
Rhett. “It was one of those such as the US where Roxy a recreation of King Arthur’s
turnaround things, just as the had been perceived solely journey to Avalon. Shot by
original track was about to as an arty underground cult. Peter Saville and styled by
be thrown in the can. And A seven-month world tour long-time Roxy collaborator
then suddenly, we did a became the conclusion of not Antony Price, the image
completely different version of only the Avalon era, but of was, like Avalon itself, very
it that just made the record for Roxy Music too. different from what had come
me. I thought, ‘That’s it. That “The tour was the straw before it, yet it contained all
completes the record!’ We that broke the camel’s back,” the elements that ensured it
went to dinner a couple nights said Ferry. “It felt to me that was still pure Roxy Music.
later, and I asked Bryan, is had gone as far as it could
‘What are you going to call go. It was no longer useful or
the album?’ and he said, ‘I’m stimulating and I really didn’t LISTEN UP!
going to call it Avalon,’ and I want to tour again after that. I Hear Roxy Music’s
seminal masterpiece Avalon –
thought, ‘Yeah. Of course.’” think we all felt the same.” from More Than This to Tara – in
Avalon was released on “We walked off the stage its entirety with
28th May 1982, a month and took the first Concorde our Classic Pop
after More Than This had back to the UK,” Andy playlist here:
given Roxy Music their final Mackay remembers. “Within http://spoti.
Top 10 single. It shot to No. six hours of coming offstage fi/1H2Qkwd
1 in the UK and became their in America we were home

54
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88x131mm
 S O F T C E L L

IN THE EIGHTIES, SOFT CELL’S IDIOSYNCRATIC

RECORD SLEEVE ART STOOD OUT AS
STRONGLY AS THEIR MUSIC. HUW FEATHER,
THE CREATIVE TALENT BEHIND THE BAND’S
VISUALS, SPOKE TO CLASSIC POP IN HIS
HOMETOWN OF SOUTHPORT...
A N D R E W D I N E L E Y

D
ramatic, heartfelt,
disturbing and neon-
lit – these words could
equally apply to the
music of Soft Cell and to the
designs created to complement
the songs. For almost all of their
time together as a band, Almond
and Ball’s musical melodramas
were brought to visual life by artist
Huw Feather, a long-time friend
of Marc’s, whose background in
theatre gave him a special ability
to illuminate these strange and
brave confessionals.
“The neon lettering was an important prop, and Peter’s
photograph was perfect for the very Soho style we were
after – shiny and wet, with saturated colours and neons
that went with the lyrical themes” H U W F E A T H E R
Today Huw Feather lives and
works in Nottingham and is a
senior lecturer and tutor in art
and design at Nottingham Trent
University, but he and Marc
Almond first met at school in
Southport and went on to join the
same art college. “Although Huw
was doing the foundation course
and I was merely doing general
art and design, we shared a love
of theatre, camp and all things
outrageous,” Almond recalled in
his autobiography Tainted Life,
“but Huw’s musical tastes were
in contrast to mine: The Pointer
Sisters, Labelle and American soul.
Nonetheless, this friendship was
that port in that storm.”
How did your working
relationship begin?
HF: Marc and I were at King
George V Grammar School
together here in Southport. The
school has an amazing reputation,
which for me was all about art
class. We had a big gang which
incorporated a couple of bullies,
and one of them was having a go

The neon sign and

Peter Ashworth’s
“Soho style”
photography on
1981’s Non-Stop
Erotic Cabaret

56

at Marc one day outside the art
room. I was big and loudmouthed,
so I came to his defence. This is
where the friendship began… we
were kindred spirits.
Then, at 16, Marc and I enrolled
at Southport Art College together
and formed a theatre group. We
performed The Sport Of My Mad
Mother by Ann Jellicoe at the local
arts centre. I designed the set
and acted, and it was Marc’s first
major theatre performance. We
also worked at Southport Theatre
together while we were students in
the mid-Seventies.
After college we went our
separate ways; he headed off to
Leeds and I went to Nottingham,
but we stayed in touch and I
helped him out with set design
for things he was working on.
After Marc graduated he came to
live with me and my girlfriend in
Nottingham before he went back
to Leeds to form Soft Cell in 1980.
What was the first thing you
worked on for Soft Cell?
Marc and Dave used to perform
in front of a soft cell, literally a
padded cell with neon pink bars.
As soon as I heard the name I
knew we had to make this. It made
them stand out from all the other
bands who just performed on
stage with a tape machine. I had
to do a lot of drawings to convince
their manager, Stevø, and we
eventually made it in the prop shop
at Nottingham.
How did the infamous cover for
the first album, Non-Stop Erotic
Cabaret, come together?
The neon lettering was something
from the first single, Memorabilia.
I wanted to use it again, it looked
great. Dave had that made in
Leeds and used to stand it up on
his keyboard – it was an important
prop. We were friends with the
photographer Peter Ashworth
P O P A R T
Above left:
[whose work was profiled in reflections of Soft
Classic Pop issue 2] and we all Cell’s stage set.
Above: Almond
worked closely together. requested Feather
We had very little time to work to do his “Gene
on this, but Peter’s photograph Kelly thing”
was perfect for the very Soho style
we were after – shiny and wet,
with saturated colours and neons
that went with the lyrical themes.
The padded cell also made an
appearance on the inside sleeve
and labels.
After the photographic
approaches on the debut album
and Bedsitter single, you started
using illustrations instead.
The first rough I did for Say Hello,
Wave Goodbye looked nothing
like what we ended up using – it
was more like one of David Band’s
designs for Altered Images from
that period. I did a drawing of
a head shot with hands spelling
out ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ in sign
language. Marc saw this and said
“No, do what you do best – make
it theatrical, do your Gene Kelly
thing!” So we ended up with the
camp pink flamingo drawings, and
those also ended up serving as
inspiration for how the promotional
video should look.
57
 The imagery for
1982’s Torch single
was inspired by
Manon Lescaut,, a
controversial 1731
novel by Abbé
Prévost and the
subject of many
ballets and operas
“The book Manon had a bald-headed dancer which seemed
perfect. It was my cover drawing that used to style Cindy in
the video, not the other way around, and she wasn’t happy
about it one bit!” H U W F E A T H E R

“Say Hello, Wave Goodbye got to It was my cover drawing that was
number three. It was accompanied used to style Cindy in the video,
by one of the campest videos so not the other way around, and she
far – set in an imaginary pink wasn’t happy about it one bit!
Parisienne jazz cellar, complete
with existentialists and Apache “Cindy came over to England for
dancers – in some ways a sterilised the video and a Top Of The Pops
version of Soft Cell’s world. In appearance. But she hated the
it, my old friend Huw Feather video. Somehow I’d convinced
appears as the club host, complete myself that the singer in my
with pointy beard and moustache. imagination should be bald, which
I sit on a stool at the bar, clad in we made Cindy up to be, imbuing
black like a Garlandesque torch her with a strange, androgynous
singer.” Marc Almond, from look. She was none too pleased.
Tainted Life The result was surreal and beautiful,
in a mannequin sort of way, but
The cover of Torch is intriguing. she thought she had been made to
Is it a portrait of Cindy Ecstasy, look ugly and that I had done it on
The design for
who sang on the single and purpose.” Marc Almond 1983’s The Art
appeared in the video? Of Falling Apart
No, not at all. Marc had a vague Neil Tennant’s 1983 Smash Hits featured masks by
Marc himself and
idea that I recall came from a book review for The Art Of Falling Apart photography by
he gave me, Manon – a story often said: “The new Soft Cell sound Peter Ashworth
covered by classical and modern is epic and detailed, weaving
ballet and opera. His brief was to trumpets and pianos into a
create something weird, odd and backdrop of synthesisers”. The
torchy. The book had a bald-headed cover showed Marc and Dave on a
dancer in it which seemed perfect. carpet of decaying memorabilia…

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 S O F T C E L L P O P A R T

The cover of this was a team effort.

We built a large sand pit and filled
it with interesting ephemera to
make a great background for Peter
Ashworth to shoot them lying down
on. The masks that they’re wearing
were actually made by Marc when
he was at art college. The myth
that Dave slept through most of this
shoot is true – it wasn’t called The
Art Of Falling Apart for nothing!

Soft Cell releases had unique

sleeve designs – the 12” singles
were rarely simple enlargements
of the 7” versions, and different
territories got different designs.
Why was this?
We were obsessive about these
things. We were all from art
school, so it was important that we
should create new stuff for each
release. Even the centre labels
of the records were changed
each time – we wasted a lot of
money. After the massive success
of Tainted Love we were largely
given free reign to do what we
wanted, often to the dismay of the
record label executives. Where
The Heart Is is a good example.
I created two naïve portraits of
children, that’s what the song was
about; the front cover characters Above: 1983’s
complemented the photographs Soft Cell’s final album before The cover images and words Numbers/Barriers.
Below left: 1984’s
of Marc and Dave on the back, their brief reformation in 2002, used on that final album cover This Last Night In
which were hand-coloured, This Last Night In Sodom, and its were from a textbook about Sodom with its gold
showing them as they were then in single Down In The Subway had people in an American mental on red printing
1982, and as children. those enigmatic markings in that health institution. The drawings
intense red and gold… and messages were created by
patients as part of their therapy.
“The This Last Night In Sodom cover images and words
were taken from drawing created by American mental health
patients, while the colouring was intended to look like a bar
of Bournville chocolate” H U W F E A T H E R
The simple yet powerful images
really spoke to us. We were
fascinated by tattoos and all that
kind of imagery, and were keen
to come up with something that
would cause intrigue.
The colouring was intended
to look like a bar of Bournville
chocolate. I loved the contrast
of those weird images with the
sumptuous gold and red, it was
designed to provoke a reaction.
On the record racks next to other
releases, it really stood out.

How do you look back on your

work with Soft Cell?
It was my full time job for a long
time. After they split, I carried on
working with Marc on the Mambas
releases and then with his solo
work up until about 1990. I did
everything that involved visuals,
really, from logo design to layouts
to stage sets and video production
design and beyond. It was a crazy
time, and I look back on it with
great affection.

59
 MARCH’S SEMI DETACHED – BLANCMANGE’S FIRST
NEW ALBUM FOR FOUR YEARS – APPEARS TO HAVE
BEEN FAR FROM A ONE-OFF, WITH LIVE ART GALLERY
SHOWS THIS MONTH AND ANOTHER NEW LP NOW
READY TO DROP. IT’S AN INSTRUMENTAL ALBUM THAT
PICKS UP FROM WHERE THEIR DEBUT EP –
1980’S IRENE & MAVIS – LEFT OFF...
I A N P E E L

60
You toured last year with Heaven 17 but
you have quite a long history with them…
Martyn Ware and I go back a long way as he did
one of our first demos. Our publishers sent me to their
studio to do a demo to help us get a deal, which it
did. It was just after he left The Human League. In
fact Martyn gave us a big hand when we started out.
He and Heaven 17 were sharing a studio with The
Human League and he worked with us during the day
and the others used the studio through the night. We
went in when it was Martyn’s time with B.E.F. and
all that stuff. He played us an embryonic version of
(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang. I always
remember that – we were all like ‘What’s going on
there? Turn that off and get an 808 on!’.

Have you ever collaborated musically with

Glenn and Martyn?
Funnily enough we talked prior to the tour about that,
saying that while we’re on it we should do something
together like a new track. A few emails have gone
backwards and forwards but we haven’t taken it any
further, though everybody seemed very positive about
it. But there’s far more important things in the world…

Not for Classic Pop, I’d say. But what about

other collaborators – who would you like to
work with?

73
61
Blimey, there are many artists I think I wouldn’t mind
working with – that’s a really good question. I really
like Matthew Dear’s work. I don’t think he needs to
work with me at all, but I’m a big fan. I really like
Digitalism, I like Actress, but I don’t really think about
collaborations. I generally think about me working
as Neil Arthur and as Blancmange – I’m just one
musician trying to fit in somewhere.
We’ve been meaning to ask you about I
Want More, the Can cover on Semi Detached
– what kind of inspiration were they and
other groups of that ilk on Blancmange?
Can, Tangerine Dream and Neu! were a big influence
on us. And Kraftwerk. For me it all links together.
You listen to early Kraftwerk and it’s all kind of inter-
related. I’ve watched films of them in concert where
they’re playing guitar and flute, or keyboard and
flute. But I love Can and I really, really enjoy Flow
Motion, the album that I Want More is taken from.
In fact I actually did a version of the song in the
Eighties that was never released so it’s been on my
mind for quite some time. I’m really good mates with
David McClymont and Malcolm Ross who used to be
in Orange Juice and just after Blancmange, I did a
project with them. I won’t tell you the secret name for
it because that was just for us. It’s not repeatable. But
the working name for it was Saturn 5. So we had this
project and we recorded a load of tracks. Stephen
Luscombe and I also recorded with them when
Blancmange were still going, and we worked with
reggae guitarist/bassist Dennis Bovell on a track that
was called Ape The Scientific. And in that period we
were talking about doing I Want More because we
were all fans of Can, so the three of us went in and
recorded a version.
Do you think the sessions might ever get
a release, either as Saturn 5 or under the
unrepeatable name?!
I digitized the Can cover not too long ago, so who
knows, that might surface soon. But no, sadly not.
And of course the project finished when I started
working on solo stuff and then I got my own deal with
Chrysalis to release Suitcase in 1994.
I gather you’ve also done a lot of tracks
under no name at all, for compilations like
the Casa Paradiso series...
Oh yeah, none of it under the name Neil Arthur, but
hundreds of tracks. They’re a nice excuse to get the
synth out. I did a load of the Asian stuff (2008’s Casa
Paradiso Presents Asian Chill), a lot of the African,
North African and Middle Eastern.
To me they’re like Elton John’s secret
sessions for Top Of The Pops covers albums.
They were quite good fun. I did that stuff with Fortran
5 before they became Komputer, and I did the
Persian Blues album with them, too. I’m still in touch
with David and Simon and they did a remix for our
Happy Families Too LP. They remixed Cruel and God’s
Kitchen. They’re good mates so no doubt there will be
more from them – they’re clever men.
The new instrumental album Nil By Mouth
sounds very ‘Blancmange’. Is there a specific
Blancmange sound that you aim for?
62
Well there’s no formula. If we’d had a formula we’d
probably have done a few more Living On The Ceilings.
But that was never my plan, it’s not my plan now. I never
go into the studio unless I’ve got an idea but when I’ve
got the idea, it’s a journey for me. I don’t know what it’s
going to end up like. Obviously I know where the song’s
going but not in terms of how it’s going to sound.
Because I’m a non musician, I sometimes think it’s
left me very bereft and sometimes very open at the
same time, because I’ve got to utilise a limited amount
of ability. And I always restrict myself to a pretty
limited palette because unless you’ve got a decent
idea, the idea’s far more important than the sound for
me. The sound can come later, with engineering or
production. Sometimes ‘crap’ sounds quite good.
For example, we were doing the last track on Semi
Detached, Bloody Hellfire. I’d done it as a demo and
the really nice thing about technology today is that –
as opposed to twenty or thirty years ago – you can
start off with your recording that you’re making today
and you can make a snippet of that and reference
it all the way through, taking a small idea or part
of the demo and making it into a finished piece of
music. You always have that file on hand, whereas
thirty years ago you’d have made a demo with lots of
energy on a cassette, and then you’d spend a fortune
in the studio trying to recreate that energy, trying to
get it back, which was ultimately impossible. It’s still
not possible to capture the moment, to recreate the
moment, but nowadays you can keep and store and
reference that moment really clearly.
“Everybody loves you, useless as you
are. They really do adore you, you’re a
superstar.” The lyrics to Useless, from Semi
Detached, sounds like a commentary on
manufactured pop stars to me…
It’s actually not, no! If you want it to be, that’s fine, but
quite often with our lyrics in the past, and mine with
this album, there’s an ambiguity that I quite like. Put
two things together and come up with a third. For a
while, Useless was an instrumental, it was just a thing
where I’d go with little melody lines. It was slightly
Depeche-y, slightly early Vince, slightly Blancmange
I suppose. I was just having fun with it and then I
 B L A N C M A N G E

thought ‘Right what can go over the top of that?’

I got this line – as usual from something that
someone says – “bloody useless.” I thought that’s
such a good phrase and fits in so many ways: this
idea that everybody loves you, useless as you are.
Really that’s all of us. Maybe it’s me, I don’t know.
The one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that I’m
not certain anymore. When I was half my age, I
thought I knew it all.

There’s this undercurrent of instrumentals

in the Blancmange catalogue, from the
debut Irene & Mavis EP via the closing
tracks of your last Eighties work, Believe
You Me. And now we have a new,
entirely instrumental album and the Semi
Detached track MKS Lover. I’m guessing
that’s an homage to the MKS synth rather
than the post-Sugababes M/K/S reboot?
I actually left it as initials for that reason so that
you can have your own interpretation. But I don’t
mind saying that the title comes from the first
part of a name of a synth, an MKS 80, which is
a rack version of a Roland Super Jupiter (which
can be heard right across Believe You Me and its
predecessor, Mange Tout.) The whole song – apart
from the drums which are original 808 – is very
noisy too and all made from that one synthesiser.
That’s all right, it just came around that way.

You must have amassed a museum’s-

worth of synthesizers over the years?
No, not at all. I’ve got a sampler and that’s it.
Honestly I’ve got more Tupperware than I have
synths and I’d use it, too. Whatever it takes to
make the track.

63
 H E R I T
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SO MUCH TO
ANSWER FOR

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Basildon
THE A127 PASSES BY IT. IT’S GOT ITS OWN
SPORTING VILLAGE. AND, IN THE EIGHTIES,
IT BECAME AN UNLIKELY HOTBED OF
ELECTRONIC MUSIC BRILLIANCE, WITH
DRAMA NEVER FAR AWAY…
M A R K F R I T H

64
 BASILDON S O M U C H T O A N S W E R F O R

B
asildon. It isn’t even a city, yet Daniel Miller of Mute
this anonymous town (head right Records, home of
Depeche Mode
out of London on the A13, don’t
go as far as Southend, that’s it,
you’re about there) produced a
series of huge acts, all of whom have
one man in common: the least likely pop
star you could ever meet.
Vince Clarke was a shy, awkward
child and teen, but he was utterly
obsessed with music. He learnt violin and
piano, then guitar and played in bands
as soon as he hit 16. He formed his first
band with his neighbour Andy Fletcher
called No Romance In China in 1977,
then one called The Plan two years later.
But it was hearing OMD’s Electricity in
1979, a brilliant combination of early
synths and ultra-commercial hook, that
encouraged him to dump the guitar and
form a commercial electronic band,
Composition Of Sound with Fletcher and
schoolmate Martin Gore, who had also
played in bands from a young age. This
pivotal moment came with a price and
the band worked several part-time jobs to
pay for their new, expensive synthesisers.
It was an exciting time – late night
Getty Images

Radio One was full of the new electronic

music and Clarke began to ape the
music these bands were making. “We
wanted to be The Cure or Orchestral
Manoeuvres or The Human League. But
from Basildon,” he said in a TV interview
many years later.
He really wanted to succeed, too.
Unemployed and miserable, Clarke
saw this new type of music as his only
viable career, and his work situation
(Fletcher and Gore rapidly got full-time
jobs, Clarke didn’t) gave an extra layer
of desperation to the project. He had to
make a success of this. He couldn’t do
anything else.
As a lead singer, Vince was never
very confident. “We realised early on
we needed a front man, someone
to leap about and make us look
interesting”, reflects Clarke now.
Luckily, in 1980 he stumbled upon a
singer called Dave Gahan who was
performing Bowie covers at a local
loads of tapes and mailing them off,
unsolicited, the band would rock up at
different London record companies with
just one copy of the demo expecting the
A&R team to listen to it there and then.
When they said no – and most did – they
would simply head off down the road
“The
major labels were
after us, offering huge
amounts of money. They
came to Basildon and were
group at early electronic mecca Crocs
in nearby Rayleigh) and in East London.
They already had a crowd of fans,
although they were mostly fashion
college friends of Gahan or girls who
fancied him and would stare adoringly
at him on stage. But word spread, and
a Fad Gadget support slot in Canning
Town, east London brought them in front
of Daniel Miller again. Impressed by the
crowd, the songs and the charismatic
singer, he offered them a deal. But as
Gahan recalls, by this point they were
spoilt for choice and knew they had to
make their decision carefully.
“The majors were after us, offering
huge amounts of money. They came
to Basildon and were looking for us
in pubs! It became funny, we started
having fun with it, let them take us

looking for us in pubs” –

scout hut jam session. Gahan was
everything Clarke wasn’t – confident,
well-dressed and with an entourage of
female fans. He was perfect, Clarke
decided. He was in.
Now a four-piece called
Depeche Mode (the name of
a French fashion magazine)
they played their first concert
at Fletcher and Gore’s school,
Nicholas Comprehensive in
Basildon (now renamed James
Hornsby School; a plaque in the
school hall still commemorates the event).
Also at that time, under the tireless
leadership of Clarke, the four went off in
search of a deal. Rather than producing
Dave Gahan
to the next one. Daniel Miller,
label boss of Mute, then enjoying
some success on the Indie charts
with Fad Gadget, was one of
the people to pass. But soon their
paths would cross again, with a very
different result.
The group played anyway and
everywhere, initially in their native
Essex (including becoming the resident
out for meals and stuff. Then we met
Daniel [Miller] and he said ‘I have no
money but I love your stuff and will try
and would do my utmost to compete with
a major label’. That was the most honest
thing we heard from anyone.”
First single Dreaming Of Me went to
No. 57 but Miller wasn’t concerned. He
had a long-term plan for the group and
he was impressed that the band were
prepared to work at it too. “We worked
very hard, never really had time off,
said Fletcher later. “We had a chance
to develop on Mute with Daniel. On a
major label we wouldn’t have had that.”
So keen were the band to succeed
they did everything – every radio, every

65
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Basildon

DEPECHE MODE
HOW LONG? 34 YEARS (AND COUNTING)
NUMBER OF TOP 40 SINGLES: 42
NUMBER OF TOP 10 ALBUMS: 16

YAZOO THE
HOW LONG? 18 MONTHS
MANY FACES
NUMBER OF TOP 40 SINGLES:
FOUR (A FIFTH AFTER THEY’D SPLIT) OF VINCE
NUMBER OF TOP 10 ALBUMS: TWO CLARKE

THE ASSEMBLY
HOW LONG? SIX MONTHS
NUMBER OF TOP 40 SINGLES: ONE
NUMBER OF TOP 10 ALBUMS: ZERO

VINCE CLARKE & PAUL QUINN

HOW LONG? A FEW MONTHS
NUMBER OF TOP 40 SINGLES: ZERO
ERASURE
NUMBER OF TOP 10 ALBUMS: ZERO
HOW LONG? 20 YEARS (TO DATE)
NUMBER OF TOP 40 SINGLES: 33
NUMBER OF TOP 10 ALBUMS: SEVEN

66

Far from Basildon: Vince
Clarke and Alison Moyet,
Central Park, NYC
TV. Today, that is something they regret.
“If we had our time again, we’d have
done things differently – we wouldn’t
have done certain TV shows… we did
everything,” says Gahan. “But we were
young! In our teens. But some people
never forgave us for what we did…”
The next two singles, New Life and
Just Can’t Get Enough, went Top 20. The
success was fast and big; too fast and
big for Clarke. During the promotional
campaign and tour for debut album
Speak & Spell, his mood began to
deteriorate. “I was being a miserable
bastard. I think they thought I was going
to do something. We started bickering,
especially on the tour bus.”
“He came to me,” recalled Gahan
recently, “and he said ‘I don’t think
this is something I want do. I don’t
like the questions we get asked, I
don’t like doing interviews, don’t like
TV, don’t like touring’. And I said to
him ‘Vince – all those things are what
we’re going to be doing from now on!’”
Clarke left. The band – and especially
those around the band – thought he’d
be back. Vince knew he wouldn’t be.
“The deed was done. It’s like packing in
your girlfriend, you can’t go back. I was
going to get a job. Give it all up. Then I
met Alison…”
Alison, of course, was Alison Moyet,
born a couple of miles away from
Basildon in Billericay, on the map
musically thanks to Ian Dury’s 1977
track Billericay Dickie. Moyet (her dad
is French) left school at 16 to work in a
shop, but her real love was her evening
BASILDON S O
work – singing in punk-influenced blues
or rock bands in local pubs. Never short
of confidence, a 20-year old Moyet
placed an ad in Melody Maker looking
for a collaborator and Clarke replied.
Desperate to get away from the live/
promo bandwagon, Clarke envisaged
the band as a studio project – a world
away from what Moyet was used to.
“The
deed was done.
It’s like packing in your
girlfriend, you can’t go back.
I was going to get a job. But
then I met Alison”
– Vince Clarke
In fact this pair were
opposites in so many ways: she
was ballsy and outspoken, he
was shy and insular. But Clarke
could spot talent, and he needed to
act fast so he didn’t lose his contract with
Mute. In late ’81 they recorded a home
demo. A sceptical Daniel Miller showed,
in Clarke’s words, “just about enough
interest” to encourage him to pursue it.
M U C H T O A N S W E R F O R
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The song on the tape was Only You,
and nine months after quitting the music
industry the pair reached No. 2 with it
in April 1982. More hits followed: Don’t
Go (backed with maybe their best song,
Situation, a hit on its own in the Nineties)
reached No. 3, and Nobody’s Diary
also went to No. 3 the following year.
But things were never easy for
Yazoo. Clarke was still upset by his
latter Depeche Mode period and found
bonding with Moyet difficult (she puts
it down to the speed with which they
formed the band, and going straight
into the studio before becoming friends;
Clarke admits that’s just how he is –
uncommunicative and someone who
has difficulty with close relationships).
Resentment increased when Moyet
was sent out to fulfil the bulk of promo
duties. A second album, that Clarke
originally didn’t want to make, was
mostly recorded separately. Throw in
legal challenges to their name (they
had to be ‘Yazz’ in the States because
another band were called Yazoo) and
you have even more problems. The
band split in the spring of 1983.
They’d been going for just 18
months. Vince Clarke was back
on his own again.
Whilst Clarke’s latest project
was falling apart, Depeche
Mode were enjoying a new lease
of life with a new member and their
biggest hit to date. Although the ad in
the paper didn’t specify a name, London-
born keyboardist Alan Wilder guessed
it was Depeche Mode. The band were
67
BASILDON S O M U C H T O
Erasure: “In the studio,
I was so enamoured of
Vince I just kept staring
at him. He was my
hero” – Andy Bell
impressed by him from the first meeting
– he could play anything. Although not
a full-time member until 1983 (industry
rumours alleged he was on £500 a
week until then) his influence was felt
from the beginning. The band were
rock musicians who suddenly all bought
synths; Wilder was the real deal, a synth
native who taught the band so much. In
Gore’s words having Wilder in the band
was “like having a teacher checking your
work before it goes out”.
Another new recruit was Gareth
Jones, a rather left-field producer, who
encouraged them to experiment in
sound – such as on the day he took
the band off to Shoreditch to hit things
with hammers, record train sounds
and then to come up with a song
like Pipeline, constructed entirely of
vocals and authentic sounds. But it
wasn’t just weird album tracks that
used this method – Everything Counts,
a big commercial hit did, too. The band
were back in the Top 10 for the first time
since See You.
1984 marked a new approach. Dave
Gahan had fallen in love with Berlin
and moved there. The rest of the group,
fascinated by its musical heritage,
decided to make the band’s fourth album
there, recording in the same studio as
Bowie and Iggy Pop. They deployed the
same ‘noises not instruments’ method
on People Are People, the first single
recorded in Berlin and their debut Top
Five hit. Daniel Miller first spotted its
potential when he heard the initial demo
but the single’s commercial popularity
68
A N S W E R F O R
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and their growing love for the anti-
commercial meant they soon fell out of
love with it. Gahan: “We felt the next
single had to be a lot harder”.
This was music to Martin Gore’s ears.
Now the principle songwriter, he wanted
to move the band in a darker more left-
field direction, and with follow-up singles
Master & Servant and Blasphemous
Vince
Clarke embarked
on The Assembly, a
collaboration with Daniel
Miller, though the project
only produced two
singles
Rumours he achieved that. The
latter – about the death of a
teenager in a car accident –
was ruled too dark for Radio
One, but in America it got a lot
of attention. Traditionally anti-electronic
music, the US was starting to enjoy the
music Britain was making in that field.
Depeche Mode couldn’t break America,
could they?
Back in Basildon, Alison Moyet didn’t
nurse her Yazoo break-up wounds for
long. Within weeks of the split, Moyet
had signed with CBS and recruited Jolley
and Swain, in-demand producers thanks
to their work on Spandau Ballet’s True.
Moyet even bagged Lamont Dozier to
write the song Invisible, which would
go on to become her first US Top 40 hit.
But it was Europe where Alison had the
greatest success, with Love Resurrection
and All Cried Out making the Top 10
on the UK singles chart and then a No.
1 with Alf, the name she was known as
to her bandmates in pre-Yazoo days.
Moyet’s work rate was (and still is)
astonishing; 2013’s The Minutes reached
the UK Top Five.
Vince Clarke wasn’t exactly a slouch
post-Yazoo either, embarking on his new
project The Assembly, a collaboration
with Daniel Miller that was intended to
feature a series of guest vocalists, in late
1983, though the project produced only
two singles, Never Never (with Feargal
Sharkey) and a rare and undeserved flop
in One Day, credited to Vince Clarke
and Paul Quinn (the singer in indie-pop
pretenders Bourgie Bourgie).You might
expect Clarke to sail off into the sunset,
hits under his belt, talent proven… but a
bigger success was on the horizon.
Erasure’s success, however, wasn’t
instant. In common with the other big
electronic pop band of the second
half of the Eighties, Pet Shop
Boys, Erasure failed to land a
big hit with their initial
release. Clarke knew that he
was starting all over again
and that he needed to promote
each release, however
uncomfortable he may
have felt doing so (as anyone
who saw any of his children’s TV
appearances promoting the 1985 flop
Who Needs Love Like That would
testify). It was lucky, then, that he had
Andy Bell by his side.
Clarke recruited Bell, again,
through a music paper advert.
Although shy initially – Bell recently
told The Guardian “in the studio [at
first] I was so enamoured of Vince I
just kept staring at him. He was my
hero” – live performances brought out
a very different side. Bell became
one of the great pop frontmen
of his generation, a tutu-
clad, all-singing, all-dancing
whirling dervish, which meant
Clarke could hide behind his
keyboard and do his thing. This
is how being in a band should
be, decided Clarke, and his hatred of
touring began to lessen (he still loathed
promotional work, though, and as soon
as the band began scoring hits he would
try and leave it all to Bell).
 H E R I T
P A
G
O

E
P
And boy, did they have hits: an “I like getting everyone involved,” he SO MUCH TO
amazing run of five straight No. 1
albums from 1988 to 1994, 16 Top 10
said years later. “If you can do that with
65,000 people… it’s very emotional.”
ANSWER FOR

E
P
O G
singles, but only one No. 1. But what With the show, the release of a live
P A
H E R I T

Basildon
a brilliant No. 1 – with Abba fever rife album and a film of the 101st show
in the early Nineties the duo released (called 101, naturally) the Eighties were
the Abba-Esque EP (covers of Take A to end on a high for Gahan, but the
Chance On Me, Lay All Your Love On Nineties were to be far, far darker. He
Me, SOS and Voulez-Vous). The first began experimenting with drugs in late
of the four was the lead track and the
video featured Andy as Frida
1990, taking ecstasy after shows on
the tour promoting Violator. The
BEST 10
and Vince as a hesitant but
still gorgeous Agnetha.
following year his marriage
ended and he moved
TRACKS
Gradually, this born
performer was Clarke’s to LA, where his drug
usage intensified. By
JUST CAN’T GET
ENOUGH
coaxing his socially-
phobic bandmate former bandmates 1993 his heroin
use was having a
DEPECHE MODE
No-one had used synths to create such
thrilling pure-pop moments as this at
out of his shell.
For a while, Depeche Mode were severe effect on
his health, and
that time (Autumn ’81). Still amazing

becoming one of the

Erasure were
Britain’s biggest
touring act. Yet,
bizarrely, Clarke’s biggest live acts in
former bandmates
in Depeche
Mode
the US
were becoming
one the biggest live acts in
the US. The darker their music
became (and 1986 album Black
Celebration was their darkest yet) the
more the States embraced them. They
were now filling big arenas, 10 to 15
thousand people a night, with their
increasingly left-field, adventurous synth
pop. To promote 1987’s Music For The
Masses this little band from a small Essex
town were now announcing enormous
shows like the one at the Rose Bowl in
Pasadena on June 18th 1988. Titled A
Concert For The Masses, the 101st gig
on the tour became “the Woodstock
of the electronic boom” according to
Thomas Dolby, who was on support
duty that day. A concert where 65,000
enjoyed something very big, very special
and truly alternative. For Gahan it was
what the pinnacle of all they had wanted
to achieve. Had there ever been a singer
who enjoyed feeding off a crowd more?
in October he
suffered a heart
attack on stage in
New Orleans. The
following March as
news reached the band
in Chile that Kurt Cobain
had taken his own life, Gahan
recalls his first reaction was anger. “I felt
like he’d stolen my idea, like he’s beat
me to it. That’s how f***ed up I was”.
Gahan went into rehab in Arizona,
but didn’t stick at it, and in the year and
a half after leaving the facility he made
a suicide attempt and suffered a near-
fatal overdose. Days later he was taken
into rehab again, this time strapped
down, and at death’s door. And it wasn’t
just Gahan who was in trouble – Gore
suffered on-stage seizures during the
1993/1994 tour, whilst Andy Fletcher
missed its entire second half due to
“mental instability”. It was all too much
for Wilder, who quit in 1995.
Since Gahan’s recovery (he’ll celebrate
being 20 years sober next summer) the
band have released albums, toured and
embarked on solo projects, albeit on a
slightly smaller scale than before. But
they’re alive, all of them. And that is a
bloody miracle.
NOBODY’S DIARY
YAZOO
The brilliant downbeat farewell hit.
Kicks off ‘the Vince Clarke dour period’
which continues with…
NEVER NEVER
THE ASSEMBLY
What. A. Voice. If only they’d stayed a
long-term Clarke-plus-guest-vocalists
thing: still, the downside… no Erasure
LOVE RESURRECTION
ALISON MOYET
In contrast, Alf’s first single was a
euphoric, possibly saucy pop anthem
MASTER & SERVANT
DEPECHE MODE
It’s 1984, Martin Gore is wearing a
leather skirt. A great single
ONE DAY
VINCE CLARKE & PAUL QUINN
This No. 97 “hit” is far better than its
chart position indicates
SOMETIMES
ERASURE
A brilliant, energising pop moment
miles away from the stuff Clarke had
been doing in recent years
STOP
ERASURE
Truly one of the greatest pop singles of
the decade. Fab production and vocals

Depeche Mode today:

ENJOY THE SILENCE
Martin Gore, Andy DEPECHE MODE
Fletcher, Dave Gahan The Nineties may not have been good
for Gahan and the band, but they
certainly began it in style
OH L’AMOUR
ERASURE
Not a hit single until the noughties, Oh
L’Amour shows that Clarke can turn
out pop moments whoever he’s with

LISTEN UP!
Why not check out this
superb selection of our Basildon
‘best of’ on the
Classic Pop Spo-
tify channel.
http://spoti.
fi/1IiH9YZ

69
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 IN NO SENSE?
FOR OVER A DECADE, HOT CHIP HAVE BEEN A VERY MODERN GANG, FLOURISHING IN A
VARIETY OF SIDE-PROJECTS WHILE MAINTAINING A STREAMLINED POP MACHINE AS THEIR
DAY JOB BAND. CHIEF SONGWRITERS ALEXIS TAYLOR AND JOE GODDARD TELL CLASSIC
POP WHY THEY YEARN TO BE REPLACED BY MACHINES AND HOW THEY THOUGHT THEIR
LOVE OF DESTINY’S CHILD SHOULD BE OBVIOUS TO ANYONE. AS THEY SAY: “WE TRY TO
MAKE SYNTHS GO HAYWIRE AND DO THINGS THEY WEREN’T INTENDED TO…”
J O H N E A R L S

72
That Hot Chip should call their sixth album Why Make
Sense? actually makes perfect sense. It’s a nod both to
their anarchic spirit, and the fact that by the established
rules of bands Hot Chip are a very unconventional
notion. For a start, are they pop music? Dance music?
When side-projects usually mark the death of a band,
why do Hot Chip’s alter-egos such as The 2 Bears and
New Build flourish as much as their day-job? And are
they really a vehicle for frustrated R&B lovermen?
Classic Pop meets de facto leaders Alexis Taylor and
Joe Goddard for breakfast at east London café The
Breakfast Club. Originally from Putney on the other side
of the capital, the pair still live and work near each
other, with the café equidistant from their respective
studios. A compact ball of energy, you can virtually see
the sparks flying off Taylor as he bounces ideas off the
more laidback Goddard, who really is as bear-like as his
other band’s name implies.
Explaining the album title, Taylor admits he’s been
frustrated at the perceptions that Hot Chip have long been
accused of being a study in irony. “We definitely didn’t
make sense when we began making music,” he admits.
“People seemed to like it, but they were also weirded out
by us. To us, it was obvious that we were into Destiny’s
Child, Rodney Jerkins, Timbaland, Queen and Prince.
We thought that would make sense to everyone, and then
everyone else said ‘It doesn’t sound like that to us.’”

“NOT MAKING SENSE

ISN’T A PHILOSOPHY. IT’S
MORE ABOUT HAVING
A PLAYFULNESS AND
EXPERIMENTATION
IN THE STUDIO”
The idea of not making sense sums up Hot Chip’s
mischievous approach – five very different-looking
people, they nonetheless dress as an identical gang in
press photos, the results more like Devo’s Situationist’s
pranks than ‘us against the world’ Ramones-style outlaws.
“It’s best to have an absurdist approach,” says Taylor. “If
you understand that the world around you doesn’t make
sense, you’re more likely to be happy with it.”
Goddard gently disagrees. “I have anarchic
tendencies, but I wouldn’t say it’s a mission statement,”
he ponders. “I don’t believe in the world’s political
systems, but not making sense isn’t a philosophy. For me,
it’s more about having a playfulness and experimentation
in the studio – we try to make synths go haywire and do
things they weren’t intended to.”
Goddard and Taylor met in 1994 at Elliott School, a
music-focused secondary whose other alumni include
Four Tet, The Maccabees and The XX. Guitarist/
percussionist Owen Clarke soon completed the first
line-up, while multi-instrumentalists Al Doyle and Felix
Martin arrived during the making of 2004’s debut album
Coming On Strong. Hits including Over And Over and
Ready For The Floor have followed alongside Mercury
Prize nominations and, from the outside, the band’s rise
has seemed smooth.
“Luckily, we’ve never felt stale,” Taylor muses. “We’re
pretty busy, and it’s hard to feel stale if you’re making
three albums a year and producing other people. It’s
nice to get on and make records, meeting new people.
Doing other things freshens up the process.”

73
 Yet there is a line in the new album’s first single
Huarache Lights – “Replace us with the things that do
the job better” – that seemed to hint at a worry about
how to freshen up the band after so long.
“That line is tongue-in-cheek, but when you’re
making music, then sometimes you question ‘What’s
the place for this in the world?’” Taylor admits. “You
don’t think that at the start of your career, but after six
albums you do think ‘What can we do now?’
“But Huarache Lights isn’t really a deep and
meaningful think about Hot Chip’s place in the world,
it’s more about the bravado of making a song for the
dancefloor, then cutting the idea down by being so
self-deprecating.” Taylor laughs, peering at Classic
Pop from behind his trademark oversized glasses.
“Self-deprecating is my natural demeanour.”
In fact, Why Make Sense? does see Hot Chip take
a new approach to recording. Joined by their regular
touring musicians Rob Smoughton and Sarah Jones,
they decamped to residential Northamptonshire studio
Angelic, living together for the first time rather than
making an album in fits and starts.
“We hadn’t ever done an album without any
distractions before,” Taylor smiles. “Going away
meant we had more focus and we could work late
hours, being very productive.”
The result is actually the band’s shortest, most
concise statement. “We just wanted to make a
succinct record,” nods Goddard as he finishes off his
salmon and eggs. “No two songs sound the same.
I don’t have anything against long records, but we
wanted to see what it’d be like to whittle everything
down to the core.”
Guests on Why Make Sense? include Scritti Politti’s
normally elusive Green Gartside, making his debut
as a string arranger on the warm-hearted Love Is
The Future, having previously played guitar on Hot
Chip’s cover of Shakira’s She Wolf for Radio 1’s Live
Lounge back in 2010. “It does take Green a while to
do things,” smiles Taylor. “I was a bit concerned that,
after we’d asked him, we might get the arrangements
back in about four years. But it actually came back
pretty quickly. I think Green enjoyed doing something
that was less intense than just him making his own
new record.”
“WE JUST WANTED
TO MAKE A SUCCINCT
RECORD, TO WHITTLE
EVERYTHING DOWN
TO THE CORE. NO TWO
SONGS SOUND THE SAME”
74
Talk of how Goddard was inspired to write Love
Is The Future partly by Usher’s drum sound leads to
a discussion about the Blurred Lines ruling, where
Robin Thicke and Pharrell had to pay Marvin Gaye’s
estate simply for being inspired by his 1977 track Got
To Give It Up. Goddard is unable to take the ruling
too seriously, smiling: “Blurred Lines did sound like a
rip-off, even though every pattern is slightly different.
It’s a weird, contentious decision if it means you can
take someone to court just because a song sounds
like something else. But it was funny how Thicke shot
himself in the foot by telling GQ ages ago that he’d
wanted to rip Marvin Gaye off.”
Taylor believes the ruling was partly as a result of
the backlash against Blurred Lines’ sexist video and
dubious lyrics. “People ended up really wanting to
attack that song,” he states. “It wasn’t any worse than
other songs have been for years. To me, Blurred Lines
was an homage. There’s another Pharrell
production, on Paloma Faith’s Can’t
Rely On You, where the guitar riff
sounds the same as Take Me
Out by Franz Ferdinand and I
thought that was cheekier. The
trouble with that ruling is that I
can imagine us saying about
writing a song ‘We were just
thinking about this R Kelly
track we like’ and suddenly
ending up in court!”
As respected as Goddard’s
house duo The 2 Bears and
Taylor’s improvised band
About Group are, the pair are
aware that Hot Chip’s name
has more commercial clout.
“In Hot Chip, we have the resources
to make exactly the record we want,”
Goddard explains. “We can tour in lots of
countries without losing money, we can get a
big name like Jimmy Douglas to mix a track, we
can stay in Angelic Studios. With our other
projects, we don’t have financial resources.
Touring can’t make sense financially,
but you can still give yourself creative

limitations with an unlimited budget and say ‘Today,
I’m only using this synth.’” Taylor raises an eyebrow.
“’Unlimited budget?’” he scoffs. “It’s not like we’re
living in an era where the luxuries are the same as a
Yes album in the Seventies, and that’s a good thing. I
get scared of having endless time to work on things,
the idea of losing focus.” Goddard agrees, saying:
“It’s very easy if you’re making records over a couple
of years to spin out of control and not end up with
anything that’s vital. Musicians end up bored out of
their minds, and we’ve never had that.”
With both men having so many extra-curricular
projects, are they able to compartmentalise their
songwriting and think ‘That’s a Hot Chip song, that
one isn’t?’ According to Goddard: “Sometimes I think
like that, but I try not to. In the few hours when I’m
writing, I try not to let the idea of where it’s going to
end up come into my head.” Taylor is much the same,
expounding: “There are certain songs where, even if
you write them for one band, it ends up being better
for another. A song like So Much Further To Go on
H O T C H I P
the new album was me at the piano thinking ‘Let’s see
what happens with this song in this room’, not ‘This
will work really well for Hot Chip one day.’”
Why Make Sense? certainly continues Hot Chip’s
focus, whether it’s the pulsating title track or the
grandiose film noir Dark Night. Its makers seem to
have remained firm friends for 20 years, and Taylor
jokes: “We’ve only ever squabbled over whether or
not we should support Goldfrapp.” It’s a relationship
detailed in Goddard’s summary: “When we first
started working, Alexis came to my house after school
to make songs in my bedroom and now we own
three companies together. We have different lives,
we’re both fathers, but we still live near each other.
We’re still close.” Taylor adds: “You don’t get many
examples where what you used to do together aged
12 becomes a job. That does change things, but we
don’t really have planning meetings about business
strategies. We just respond to accountants who say
‘You should pay these people’ by going ‘OK then.’
And then we go off and make some more music.”
75
RULES of ENGAGEMENT

FIRMLY ROOTED IN TECH INNOVATION SINCE NEW SONG

BECAME A HIT 32 YEARS AGO, HOWARD JONES CONTINUES
TO PUSH BACK THE BOUNDARIES WITH HIS LATEST PROJECT,
AN INTERACTIVE TOUR WHICH IS BECOMING AN EQUALLY
IMMERSIVE CD AND DVD EXPERIENCE. AS JONES TELLS CLASSIC
POP, HIS DAYS OF MAKING REGULAR ALBUMS MAY BE OVER…
J O H N E A R L S
 or some of the original synthpop
pioneers, music was only
ever a part of their focus.
Sure, Thomas Dolby and
Sparks wrote songs equally as
infectious as their peers, but it
seemed to be the fascination of
the technology itself that excited
them as much as being on TV.
That definitely applies to Howard
Jones. Not only did albums such as
Human’s Lib and Dream Into Action try to
explore the limits of what synths could do, but Jones tried
to present himself in a different way – by, for instance,
inviting mime artist Jed Hoile to become an integral
part of his show for four years. Fast forward 30 years,
and the technology may have changed drastically but
Jones’ intention to give audiences – and indeed himself –
something extra hasn’t diminished.
In 2013, to mark the 30th anniversary of debut
single New Song becoming a hit, Jones premiered his
latest work at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The 38-minute
piece Engage is more than just an album or a gig.
Incorporating dance, cinema and Kabuki theatre as well
as some fired-up pop music, it lets the audience interact
with what’s happening via a smartphone app which
beams videos and images directly from the stage.
It’s typical of the questing spirit that has carried on
from the days when Jones was able to give up working
as a machine operator at a cling film factory in High
Wycombe. Sat in the bar of the Sanctum Hotel in
London’s Soho, Jones is a thoughtful, patient presence.
Softly spoken but a lively thinker, even to those who
don’t know his spiritual beliefs it’s not so hard to guess
Jones has practiced Buddhist chanting daily for decades.
Recently turned 60, he’s youthful too, the silver in his hair
about the only change in his trademark quiff.
Comparing Engage to his past work, Jones says:
“I’ve never been interested in copying the past, mine or
anyone else’s. What has always excited me is the feeling
of ‘Nobody has ever done this before. Let’s push the
boundaries here.’ That’s what energises me.”
Doesn’t that make things harder for himself? “Sure,
but that’s exciting part! Things go wrong, there are
obstacles, but you can’t let them overcome you. Step by
step, you keep going. OK, it often feels horrifying at the
time and your heart rate can go through the roof. But I
have to get out of my bubble. Even when everything falls
apart, I know I can get out of it somehow. Yes, doing an
acoustic album would be so much easier! But if you’re not
challenging yourself to move forward, what’s the point?”
The genesis of Engage came from its title. “I thought
about how I could engage the audience,” he explains. “I
had a clear idea of what the show should be: a gig with
a lot of drama, where the audience don’t know what’s
coming next. Because of that concept, the music came
much quicker than it normally does. I would say that
Engage wrote itself, but that would imply no work went
into it! Let’s just say that it flowed easily…”
Jones was able to call in old friends and favours. “I
knew I wanted to include a short ballet sequence, and
then I had an email from Tania Patterson, one of the
backing singers on Dream Into Action,” Jones reflects.
“She’s became a ballet choreographer, and I thought
‘Oh, of course, Tania…!’ I think it proves there’s always
someone out there who can help. If you think about an
idea hard enough, someone will help you realise it.”
The visual side of Engage was drawn up by Steven
Taylor, who engineered Human’s Lib in 1984. “We both
think it’s funny that Steven is helping out on the visuals
rather than the music, but he’s always had a great visual
eye,” explains Jones. “We share the same aesthetic
sensibility. Steven knows that I don’t want normal, but
HOWARD ON… FAME
“I’m not interested in being a celebrity. Being in
the spotlight too much is a distraction. I’m only
interested in my work. It’s great when people enjoy
that, but I don’t mind how many people are into
it, so long as it’s enough to keep me going. I try to
make my work as great as it can be, and people
sense that. People come with you if they know
you’re giving it everything.
“When I started having hits, I was very
uncomfortable around the showbiz world. It helped
that I’d had a life before becoming successful – I
was 27 when New Song was released. I’d worked
on the shop floor of a factory in High Wycombe as
a machinist. Having that experience with machines
was actually invaluable if ever a keyboard packed
up! Knowing what life outside the music industry
was like made me grateful and appreciate what I
was able to do once I had success.
“I never felt part of a scene. Once I became
successful, there was no time to socialise, especially
because I didn’t live in London. It was a bubble of
people I was working with and I just had to get on
with it. I’ve got to know my peers a lot more from
the festival circuit now, and we’ve had chance to
sit back and reflect on it all. Classic Pop’s Synthpop
Summit with me, Glenn Gregory, Thomas Dolby and
Neil Arthur was a lovely example of that.”
77
H O W A R D J O N E S

Talk of the cost of developing

Engage leads to the biggest
practicalities of staging the show
and releasing the album, which
includes a DVD and – for the deluxe
edition – a book with 3D images
and instructions on how best to enjoy
the whole experience. “Each show
is expensive, so I’ve only been able
to do a handful of them,” he nods.
“I’d love to do a regular tour, but
I’d need to be out there a bit more
and have more of a profile again to
fund it. I’m not sure if that’s going to
happen, really. I view each show as
like a shop window for my work.”
The scarcity value has meant that
each performance since that first
London show two years ago has kept
Jones on his toes. “I’ve never been
able to relax during Engage,” he
laughs. “I have to be so focused on
getting the singing and playing right
to trigger each interactive part.
“Before the first show I was very
HOWARD ON… FANS “The most amazing experience for me from nervous because I had no idea what
“I funded the CD/DVD set of Engage via the Pledge was writing individual piano solos for four the audience would think. It was so
crowdsourcing site Pledge Music, and I tried fans. Getting to know them and reflecting that in different to anything I’d done before.
to experiment with what I could offer fans. It a piece of music was very moving. I met three of I didn’t talk to the crowd once, but
turned out that people love coming to the studio them, and the fourth was a Norwegian fan living they were so into it that they looked
to see how I put it all together. I sold my Roland in Thailand, so we talked via a dodgy Skype
as if they were in a trance. People
keyboard too, as I wanted to see ‘Is anyone connection! It was like doing portraits of people,
said to me afterwards that they
actually interested in my old kit?’ I put all my expressing how they’d made a great success of
sounds over the last seven years in the Roland – something or come through a difficult time. The enjoyed it even more than the hits
even unreleased stuff, like a song with Thomas fans seemed to enjoy it, and I got a lot of benefit show in the second half.
Dolby for my 30th anniversary concert. from it too. I’d definitely do it again.” “One of the most fun parts was
creating the first song. The venue is
in darkness, so you need a piece
of music to pin people back in their
I don’t want anything flash for the sake of it. He sees seats – and get them out from the bar! So you need a
it from the artist’s point of view. For instance, on Five huge blast of loud, fragmented music. Basically, that
Pianos, the visuals are just that: five pianos. Steven plays involves a load of sub-bass until people are thinking
with that idea, but it’s like a video artist’s installation, ‘What the heck is going on?’”
rather than someone trying to make a tricksy pop video. The show was not without teething troubles. “If you
We were coming up with ideas at the same time. Steven analyse New Song, the timing is shifting – my synth was
would say ‘Oh, I’ll change that visual around’ if my so unreliable!” Jones says. “I’ve sorted that out now, but
music didn’t fit his idea. I wanted transitionary visuals it’s important not to sacrifice its charm. Maybe when I
between songs, and he was fantastic at reacting to these perform Engage in 10 years’ time, what I’m doing now
little pieces of music that join each song.” will look primitive. But imperfections can be great.”
Even Jones’ fans are engaged with Engage, as the Engage lasts 38 minutes, about the average length
app was developed by an admirer at web developers of an album, but it wasn’t cost that prevented Jones
Spacestream. “The app was one of the first things I from turning it into a full-on film-length extravaganza.
wanted to develop,” he enthuses. “But I didn’t think I’d “I thought at first it wasn’t long enough,” he says. “But
be able to afford it. Then I had an offer from a fan asking I quickly realised that it’s one flow of thought. I wrote
if he could help. It’s seemed a really charmed project.” a piece for the end credits, but I couldn’t get back into

78

“It upsets me when people criticise a decade of
music as being naff. It’s writing off a generation”
Howard performing
Engage at London’s
Indigo2, February 2015
HOWARD ON… AGE
“I’ve just turned 60, and that was a massive
milestone. No other significant age has been, at
least not for me. Turning 30, 40 and 50 went
straight over my head. But 60 feels like ‘Right,
maybe what I’m doing next will be my last work, so
I’d better make sure it’s great.’
“I don’t want to leave anything in the locker, so
I need to make sure that I finish all the best ideas
that I have. I can’t put things off anymore, I can’t
postpone ideas, so I have to grab them while I can.
“That’s where the idea of Engage came from,
really, the idea of engaging with mortality. I look
after myself, but I know I’m lucky: I can still sing
Howard Jones at Rewind
South, August 2014:
“Playing the hits to so
many people is a total
pleasure, it’s a party”
and I can still play, so I can still give it plenty in the
studio and on stage. The other concepts to follow
Engage will probably take another decade, so I’ll
be 70 by the time I finish these ideas in my head.
Hopefully then I’ll still be able to carry on and do
whatever next excites me.
“I’d also be interested in one day telling my
story. I would love to write my autobiography, that’s
definitely on my bucket list, just not yet. Maybe the
end of the Engage concepts would be the right time.
As things go on, my thinking about the past gets
more refined, so it’s better to wait. Hopefully my
thinking will be extremely refined by then!”
that headspace when I tried writing another song for the
middle of it all. I was forcing it, and it just wouldn’t flow.”
Instead, shows are divided into Jones performing
Engage in the first half, then playing his hits after the
interval. He’s also become a regular at festivals such
as Rewind and Reload. “I wasn’t certain I wanted to do
something so nostalgic,” he admits. “I have the outlet for
my new work and I make sure I do that. Going out and
playing the hits to so many people? It’s a total pleasure,
it’s a party. I don’t have any problem with that at all.”
Indeed, Jones’ only anger during our interview comes
when he’s asked his views on how his commercial
heyday of hits such as Like To Get To Know You Well,
Look Mama and What Is Love? is assessed now. “Those
festivals we’ve just discussed are a sub-culture and that’s
fine,” he says. “But I don’t think the Eighties has been
properly re-assessed, not in the mainstream. It upsets
me when people criticise a whole decade of music as
supposedly being naff – it’s criticising the people who
grew up listening to music in that decade. Straight away,
you’re writing off a generation! It’s important that that
generation love the music from that era. They’re what
makes the era’s music valuable, and nobody can analyse
that. It’s that generation’s culture.”
Engage further correlates to Jones’ past in not being
a regular album – he followed up Human’s Lib with
The 12” Album, a six-song collection of remixes and
new songs that also reached the Top 20 in the UK. It’s
little wonder, then, that Jones is in no rush to release a
‘regular’ new album to follow 2009’s no-synths Ordinary
Heroes. “I love music,” he says. “But I have lots of
other interests. Engage brings all those together. It’s so
satisfying; the idea of a traditional album doesn’t really
appeal anymore. Besides, if you play the CD of Engage
on its own, it isn’t far removed from a normal album.”
Instead, Jones has mapped out tentative plans for
three more interactive events over the next decade,
which he hopes to perform as a quartet at special
shows, ideally around his 70th birthday. “The sequels
are still concepts,” he tells us. “I’ve got the loose titles
– Transformation, Dialogue, Global Citizen. I’m letting
those themes percolate in my head, but how they will end
up manifesting themselves, I’ve no idea. Maybe Global
Citizen means travelling around the world and bringing
back something that expresses that journey. The other
two? Pass! I’ll let the idea take me where it will.
“In the past I tended to move onto the next project too
quickly. I’m very restless, but I want to spend the whole
year promoting Engage, to give it the best chance I can
to build that profile so that I can fund the sequels. I’m
fortunate… I have ideas bubbling around my head all the
time, but I can put them to one side and think ‘No, I’m
not going to do anything with these until 2016.’”
Maybe by then Jones will have played enough
interactive shows to relax during the concerts. More
likely, whatever new technology has come along in the
intervening decade will be up there on stage. Get your
jet-packs and hoverboards at the ready.
79
 W
hen chart
compilers
Official
Charts
Company
announced the first specialist
vinyl charts for singles and
albums in April, the Top 40
album chart made depressing
reading for anyone interested
in the future of new music.
Of the Top 10, the only new
albums were The Wombats
at No. 6 and Sufjan Stevens
at No. 10, neither of whom
are newcomers. The 20th
anniversary of Manic Street
Preachers’ The Holy Bible
was at No. 1, and George
Ezra and Courtney Barnett
were the only acts to have
achieved the Top 40 on
their debut albums. So, with
vintage names such as Happy
Mondays, David Bowie and
The Sex Pistols also camped
firmly in the Top Five, does
the chart merely confirm that

R E I S S U E S A N D
B E Y O N D
FEATURING THE BEST OF THE RECORD STORE
DAY RELEASES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED, A
MASSIVE (YET INCOMPLETE) BOX-SET AND A
DEXYS OFFSHOOT ALBUM THAT TAKES SELF-
RELEASED TO A NEW LEVEL, IT’S THE PICK OF
THE RECENT VINYL RELEASES…
J O H N E A R L S

MADNESS – LOVESTRUCK
Although guitarist Cathal Smyth and drummer Woody Woodgate have just released their
debut solo albums, Madness remain busy, with a lengthy tour of sports stadiums recently
underway. With work also ongoing on a new album, their Record Store Day single was a
beautifully-packaged Lovestruck, the 1999 single that marked their comeback. Featuring a
B-side of Le Grand Pantalon – the waltz version of Baggy Trousers recorded for 2011’s
Kronenbourg lager ads – the pop-up sleeve folds out into a vaudeville theatre. And if anything
sums up Madness’ career…
A-HA
HUNTING HIGH AND LOW/SCOUNDREL DAYS
Less than five years after they split, A-ha are set to return with a new
album in September. It’s unclear exactly when Britain will get to hear
Cast In Steel, however, as their new record deal appears to exclude the UK.
However, Universal are at last putting the trio’s first two albums back out
on vinyl for the first time since they were released. There are no extra
tracks, but the pressings are remastered and issued on 180gm
heavyweight vinyl, complete with download codes. Following
later in the year are deluxe 2CD versions of A-ha’s next
four albums, from 1988’s Stay On These Roads to
Memorial Beach from 1993. As if that wasn’t enough,
they also reissued Take On Me for Record Store Day
to mark the single’s 30th anniversary.

80

the “vinyl boom” is basically
limited to old giffers buying
up albums they had on vinyl
30 years ago, wishing they
hadn’t replaced them with
CDs in the Nineties?
Not quite. A glance at the
vinyl singles rundown was not
unlike like reading the indie
chart in Record Mirror back
in the early Eighties. Yes,
reissues of Young Americans
by David Bowie and Lulu’s
feckin’ Shout were in there…
JOHN LENNON –
LENNON
It’s surprising to learn that none of
John Lennon’s eight solo albums are
available on vinyl, especially as there was a
remastered CD box set in 2010. Out in
August, this vinyl box set is from those same
remasters, with no explanation as to the
five-year wait – it even omits the rarities and
non-album-singles discs from the CD box!
Otherwise, it’s as you’d expect: pressed on
180gm vinyl with download codes, and
reproductions of their original vinyl sleeves.
So at least you get the Imagine poster and
Some Time In New York City postcards.
MANTRONIX – BASSLINE
Another single re-released on vinyl
for its 30th anniversary is the second
hit for Mantronix. It’s hard to ignore the
crimes that have since placed rapper MC Tee
on the US sex offenders’ register, but from a
musical perspective he does well to maintain
a flow over what were in 1985 some highly
unusual beats from Kurtis Mantronik. The
instrumental version on the B-side is a treat;
it was the pair’s second single, following
Fresh Is The Word. Both singles were later
sampled by Beastie Boys, with Bassline the
basis for 3 The Hard Way from the trio’s
2004 album To The 5 Boroughs.
but you could also look at the
names and ponder who Sean
McGowan is, what gender
Clark might be, and whether
or not Gengahr would ever
become so popular that you’d
have to work out how to
pronounce their name.
Actually, the indie chart
comparison isn’t quite correct
– it was, ironically, how the
album chart should look, with
a bit of everything in there.
Who couldn’t be happy at
JIMMY SOMERVILLE
-12” OF HOMAGE
From the day-glo sleeve and
single-entendre title onwards,
Somerville is at his most playful on this
double-pack 12”. It features remixes by
Somerville and co-producer John Winfield of
four songs from his recent album Homage
– Back To Me, Travesty, Overload and Some
Wonder – plus new radio edits of the first
two tracks and the originals of the others.
Somerville told Classic Pop his next album is
likely to have a stripped-back late Sixties
West Coast feel – so make the most of these
disco moments while they last.
ADAM AND THE ANTS
– KINGS OF THE WILD
FRONTIER/ANTMUSIC
Adam Ant playing Dirk Wears White
Sox on tour was special, but not
wholly unexpected; the surprise, given Ant’s
long antipathy towards Sony, is that the label
are starting to treat his commercial heyday
with some respect. More activity around
Kings Of The Wild Frontier is expected, but in
the meantime the Ants’ Record Store Day 7”
pairs its two biggest hits together. Both
singles’ original artwork has been restored,
and the gold vinyl actually looks classy. It’s
looking promising for the album reissue.
L O N G
seeing Underworld poised at
No. 1? Wouldn’t it be lovely
if Django Django had a
chance of making it to No. 11
in the proper singles chart?
Is that really dear old Brian
Jonestown Massacre in the
Top 40? Hurrah!
Naturally, the actual
number of sales for any of
these releases is kept closely
guarded by the compilers.
The fact that vinyl albums
sold a million copies last year
THE BLUE OX BABES –
APPLES AND ORANGES
When guitarist Kevin Archer left
Dexys Midnight Runners in 1981 to
form The Blue Ox Babes, legend has it that
Kevin Rowland nicked fiddler Helen O’Hara
for Too Rye Ay after hearing her on Archer’s
demos. It was to be seven years before
Archer and his girlfriend Yasmin Selah’s folk
band released debut single There’s No
Deceiving You. After two further singles, Go!
Discs pulled the plug, and only in 2009 did
Cherry Red put out what should have been
their debut album. Archer has bought most of
the remaining stock and is selling it himself.
BELINDA CARLISLE –
HEAVEN ON EARTH
Heavyweight 180gm vinyl is pretty
much standard for reissues these
days – less so for picture discs such as this
RSD pressing of Carlisle’s 1987 album. A
limited picture-disc version of the CD was
released at the time, but Demon Records’ UK
exclusive, limited to 1,000 copies, was its first
picture disc vinyl. The rear of the sleeve,
dominated by the tracklisting, also copies the
back of the original vinyl. Carlisle plays at
three Rewinds this summer, as well as Here
And Now with Toyah and Kid Creole in Carlisle
in July, before a six-date tour in October.
L I V E V I N Y L
sounds impressive, until you
remember that a YouTube
video of a stoat appearing to
moonwalk will get 25 million
views in a day.
Cult concern or not,
both charts confirmed that
today’s vinyl buyers are, if
not hopefully snobs, then at
least people with a strong
interest in looking beyond
the obvious. And with that in
mind, here are a few more
recent hidden treasures…
BLANCMANGE – I WANT
MORE
Hard to tell if the minimal sleeve of
Blancmange’s RSD release is
intended to resemble a white-label club 12”
or is a typically dry play on “I want more”. I
Want More was originally by Can, when the
Krautrock pioneers decided to go pop. Side 1
features the extended version (also on the
deluxe edition of Semi Detached), while the
flip features a remix by Radio 1-championed
house musician Applebottom, aka Neil
Arthur’s son Joe. In other Blancmange news,
a new instrumental album Nil By Mouth will
soon be available from their website.
OMD – JULIA’S SONG
Although Julia’s Song first featured
on Orchestral Manoeuvres In The
Dark’s self-titled debut album in 1980, the
previously-unreleased dub mix for their new
12” is based on the version released in 1984
that featured on the B-side of Talking Loud
And Clear. It features The Weir Brothers on
brass, as well as brand new parts for the
track. Making its vinyl debut on the B-side is
10 To 1, one of the bonus tracks from the
reissue of Talking Loud And Clear’s parent
album Junk Culture. Paul Humphreys also
recently remixed Erasure’s Be The One for
their Violet Flame Remixed EP.
81
WIN! LOTS OF
COOL STUFF
WIN TICKETS TO SEE KYLIE AT THE EVENT OF THE SUMMER WHEN HYDE PARK
HOSTS BRITISH SUMMER TIME! THEN THERE ARE TICKETS TO SEE GO WEST AND NIK
KERSHAW PERFORM ON THE SAME BILL, PLUS CHANCES TO WIN SIGNED HOWARD
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2 x Go West & Nik Kershaw tickets

G
o West celebrate their 30th anniversary with
a joint headline tour with Nik Kershaw and
special guest T’Pau from October 2015. Kershaw
and Go West will team up on stage for new
interpretations of their hits, with “special surprises” also
promised. You can win a pair of tickets to one of the gigs*
simply by answering the multiple choice question below!
* excludes London

Visit www.flyingmusicboxoffice.com for more info or tel:

0844 244 1000.

Q
Go West had a chart hit with:
• We Close Our Ears • We Close Our Eyes • Bette
Davis Eyes
Closing date: 31/07/2015

5 x Synth Pop compilation albums

S
ynth Pop is a 3CD collection that celebrates the
importance of the synthesiser. Rising in popularity
during the late Seventies and giving birth to the
New Romantic movement, the synthesiser defined
the sound of the era and continues to influence bands
and genres today. This brand new collection includes 14
massive No. 1 hit singles as well as genre-defining chart
smashes from the likes of Eurythmics, Ultravox, Yazoo,
New Order, Paul Hardcastle, Bronski Beat and many
more. To win one of five copies answer the following…

Q
Are Friends…
• Synthetic? • Electric? • Apoplectic?
Closing date: 31/07/2015

82
 6 x sets of three ZTT albums
W
e’ve got six sets of a bundle of three
superb albums to give away. They are
Lisa Stansfield’s critically acclaimed
2004 album (produced by Trevor Horn)
The Moment, a double CD from Act called Love And
Hate: A Compact Introduction and Anne Pigalle’s
Everything Could Be So Perfect (also a double CD
set). So that’s six chances to win three great titles. Just
answer the following…

Q
Lisa Stansfield scored a hit with:
• All Around Manchester • All Around The Moon •
All Around the World
Closing date: 31/07/2015

8 x tickets British Summer Time

K
ylie Minogue will return to Hyde Park to
headline Barclaycard presents British Summer
Time Hyde Park on 21 June. Pop sensation
Mika will join her, plus Chic featuring Nile
Rodgers, Grace Jones and more. Win one of four pairs
of tickets by answering…

Q
Kylie had a hit with:
• Locomotion • Commotion • The Potion
Closing date: 10/06/2015

More info from www.bst-hydepark.com/events/detail/kylie

5 X signed copies of
Howard Jones’ Engage
H
oward Jones’ Engage is an interactive
performance by the legendary star INVITES YOU TO ENGAGE!
that, as we say on p77, “is more than
OUT NOW ON
just an album or a gig. Incorporating
CD/DVD AND
dance, cinema and Kabuki theatre as well as
ON iTUNES
some fired-up pop music, it lets the audience
interact with what’s happening via a smartphone
app which beams videos and images directly
from the stage.” Now you can enjoy the Engage
experience with a chance to win one of five
ENGAGE APP
signed copies of the DVD. Simply answer this… Download the app with
free bonus track

Q
‘The Human Touch’...
Photo: David Conn

Howard Jones scored a huge hit with:

• New Song • Old Song • New Wave Follow Howard on Facebook,
Closing date: 31/07/2015 Twitter and YouTube

WWW.HOWARDJONES.COM

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83
With A Little
Help From
My Friends/
She’s
Leaving
Home
WET WET WET/
BILLY BRAGG WITH CARA TIVEY
It’s easy to forget how, before their version
of The Troggs’ Love Is All Around spent 15
weeks at No. 1 in 1994, Wet Wet Wet
enjoyed their first chart-topper with another
cover. Recorded for Childline, it was their
first new song since the Popped In Souled
Out album. Although airplay was dominated
by the Wets, Bragg’s Beatles cover gave him
what remains his only Top 10 single and
also awarded eternal pub quiz status to his
duettist, Cara Tivey. A cousin of The Lilac
Time’s Duffy brothers, Tivey now works as a
music lecturer for the Royal National College
For The Blind in Hereford.
Anfield Rap
LIVERPOOL FC
The all-conquering Liverpool were red-hot
favourites to beat Wimbledon in the FA Cup
final of 1988. The fact that the Reds lost 1-0
is some justice to compensate for a stinker
regularly cited – amongst stiff competition –
as one of football’s worst songs. It saw the
only local first-team regulars Steve McMahon
and John Aldridge mock the other players’
accents, despite being written by Liverpool’s
Australian midfielder Craig Johnston with
London rapper Derek B of Bad Young
Brother fame and Leicester rocker Mary
Byker of Gaye Bykers On Acid. It’s notable
for featuring the debut of John Barnes, later
to rap on New Order’s World In Motion.
Liverpool’s only other
Top 10 single, Pass
And Move, was
released before the
1996 FA Cup final
against Manchester
United. They lost that
match 1-0 as well.
WEEK ENDING MAY 28 1988
WET WET WET’S FIRST COVER VERSION
CHART-TOPPER DOMINATES IN A WEEK
FEATURING THE BIGGEST SUCCESSES FOR
THREE ACCLAIMED SINGER-SONGWRITERS.
J O H N E A R L S
(1)With A Little Help From My
1 Friends/She’s Leaving Home
WET WET WET/BILLY BRAGG WITH CARA
TIVEY (CHILDLINE)
3RD WEEK IN CHART
(4) Got To Be Certain
KYLIE MINOGUE (PWL)
2 3RD WEEK IN CHART
(2) Perfect
Got To Be
Certain
KYLIE MINOGUE
Following on from
The Loco-Motion and
I Should Be So Lucky,
the third single from La
Minogue’s debut album
Kylie was originally written for Mandy Smith,
whose version remained unreleased until 2005.
Now a Catholic teetotal vegan who writes
a relationship column for a Christian lifestyle
magazine, in 1988 Smith was best-known for
her under-age relationship with Bill Wyman,
who she eventually married in 1989. Stock,
Aitken and Waterman kept the same backing
track for Kylie, going to her native Melbourne
to record her vocals rather than staying in
London where most of Kylie was made. Wet
Wet Wet kept the song off the top for a further
two weeks, before Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi
completed Kylie’s run of singles from her debut.
She last performed the song regularly on
2012’s Anti tour.
Perfect
FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION
Starting to slide down the charts here, the
folk-popsters’ debut single spent a week
at No. 1, while their only album The First
Of A Million Kisses went platinum. Singer
Eddi Reader was heavily pregnant with
her first child during TOTP appearances for
Perfect. Although eight new songs had been
previewed in concert, the band split before
completing it when guitarist Mark Nevin
walked out (most of the songs ended up on
his next band Sweetmouth’s album). There
was talk of a 25th anniversary reunion in
2013, but Reader said that they couldn’t
agree over publishing rights to their old
songs. Nevin co-
wrote Morrissey’s
Kill Uncle and Your
Arsenal before
starting a solo career
in the Nineties. His
most recent album,
Beautiful Guitars,
came out last year.
 KYLIE MINOGUE (PWL)
2 3RD WEEK IN CHART

(2) Perfect
FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION (RCA)
3 8TH WEEK IN CHART
Blue Circle In
Monday (3) Anfield Rap The Sand
1988 LIVERPOOL FC (VIRGIN) BELINDA
3RD WEEK IN CHART CARLISLE
NEW ORDER 4
Released between Borrowing from Mike
the Brotherhood and (5) Blue Monday 1988 And The Mechanics’
Technique albums, NEW ORDER (FACTORY) Silent Running, the
4TH WEEK IN CHART third single from
Quincy Jones’ remix
was something of a payback to him for
5 Carlisle’s album Heaven On Earth was
being the only US record company executive (12) CIRCLE IN THE SAND written by Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley,
who cared enough about New Order to BELINDA CARLISLE (VIRGIN) who penned most of her hits at the time.
6 4TH WEEK IN CHART Nowels was just getting started as a writer
sign them, putting them on his Warner
imprint Qwest. Jones mainly left the legwork and continues to create hits for Lana Del
to John Tokes Potoker, who engineered (14) The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll Rey, John Legend and Lykke Li, but Shipley
Paul McCartney, Talking Heads and Peter PREFAB SPROUT (KITCHENWARE) quit music in the late Nineties after writing
7 6TH WEEK IN CHART for Hanson and *NSYNC, claiming the
Gabriel and also remixed D-Train, Miles
Davis and Easy Lover for Phil Collins and industry was becoming a rip-off. She now
Philip Bailey. Eventually reaching No. 4, the
(17) Somewhere In My Heart directs plays. Carlisle has released two new
AZTEC CAMERA (WEA) singles in recent years, but told Classic Pop
funk-led remix beat the No. 12 peak of the 6TH WEEK IN CHART
that she’s unlikely to make a full new album,
1983 original, and is at least better than
Hardfloor’s rotten techno mix from 1995.
8 preferring to tour instead.
The B-Side, Beach Buggy, is a reworking
(8) Divine Emotions
NARADA (REPRISE)
of the original version’s instrumental Blue 9 6TH WEEK IN CHART Somewhere In My Heart
Monday adaptation, The Beach. AZTEC CAMERA
(7) Theme From S’Express How strange to think that this marked the
The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll S’EXPRESS (RHYTHM KING) only time that East Kilbride’s precocious
PREFAB SPROUT 10 7TH WEEK IN CHART songwriter Roddy Frame – at this point a
Produced by Thomas Dolby, the only Top seven-year music business veteran yet still
20 single by Paddy McAloon’s visionaries only 24 years old – managed to pierce the
was written in just 20 minutes and describes Top 10. It was taken from Aztec Camera’s
a Fifties one-hit wonder tired of singing third LP, Love, a record which saw the outfit
his only success so often – a situation that Divine Theme From becoming noticeably less a band, more a
McAloon has described as ironic, given his Emotions S’Express solo vehicle. The first single How Men Are
own song’s ubiquity. “I told Paul McCartney NARADA S’EXPRESS stalled at No. 25, but Somewhere In My
that I wasn’t sure if The King Of Rock ‘N’ Better known as Former Mud Club DJ Heart – a song which Frame initially felt
Roll did the band any good, because Narada Michael Mark Moore formed didn’t fit with the rest of the album, and
people think it’s a kiddie song,” said Walden, the former S’Express with future saw only as a B-side – succeeded. In the
McAloon. McCartney replied that the song Jeff Beck drummer Kylie producer three years since Knife, Frame had moved
is Prefab Sprout’s version of My Ding A was given the Pascal Gabriel, and to America to make what he planned as a
Ling, Chuck Berry’s atypical novelty smash. name Narada this debut was a collage of samples of Jam And Lewis-style album, working with
It’s been revived again recently thanks to its by spiritual guru Sri Chimnoy in the early everyone from Yazoo to Star Trek creator a series of R&B names including Michael
use in Boots’ TV ads. Seventies. Walden was a noted producer Gene Roddenberry. The album Original Jonzun, who as
Although McAloon (Starship, Whitney Houston) but he turned to Soundtrack featured singer Billie Ray well as producing
now has hearing composing film soundtracks, including Free Martin in his pre-Electribe 101 days, while Somewhere In My
difficulties, he’s Willy. His last album Love Lullabies For Kelly Intercourse saw Moore team up with Carl Heart had also
become active again, was intended for toddlers but he appears Craig. Moore retired the S’Express name in discovered New
and Prefab Sprout’s to have quit producing to make rock-based 1991, save for one-off single Stupid Little Edition. After a long
album Crimson/Red solo records such as 2013’s Thunder. He Girls for the band’s 20th anniversary in hiatus, Roddy Frame
went Top 20 in 2013. occasionally tours, and also runs music 2008 on the hip Kitsune label. “I did it to released the album
workshops for disadvantaged children. confuse the history books,” he claimed. Seven Dials last year.
86
Getty Images

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 L L O Y D C O L E

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musi ever yone oducer P y Polydo g.”
b n anniv ured for a appy reu otions fi
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f
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r long rsary. “La month for on in 20 led out,
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le lau gh to rem and
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make dW agre it’s a ic us br u sic to fine. w ere a ways
ins ei lso a h ie g
made fly a grea ether, the ut when i d if we
B n ,
had a pop alb tanley, w ng to wo much
t ban frictio t came
been um,” e’d t rk wi being
withs stron says acitly th So, a lon d wa ns th to
ge s a
ta
song nd that t r, they’d ole. “If t greed to
C a Reco no plans gterm ba the same t made
s yp he rd fo n th
like t do sound e of pro ave been songs
h Penn ings box r any sho d imposs ing that
he g g r d u c a b ’s Blu -set? w s f ible.”
eat.
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4
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But it ll hav
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e i l Mick ough, a ean
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se th ly nin that go?’ d think ‘ which closu band? I t d I doing gger! I w I’m
at e ” H ow t here r e h in s o ou
Easy
Piece The Com months af with . Unless t k the box mething ldn’t
back s. “W m otion ter the a ridicu h e re’s a -s et is q uiet,
a e lous a
Morr nd judge didn’t ha s began t album’s amou Saudi sh ver y
is i v o nt of ei
ever sey and h t properly e time to doubt mone kh out
writte e sai . I pla look y…”
happ n d y
y wit , so I thou it was th ed James
it’s o h it, i ght ‘I e bes to
ne tm f ts
aesth of the w ust be rig he says th ong I’d
e o h a
and tic was d rst songs t’, and o t and I’m
Wins evelo I’ve e f cou
But a tanley, ped ver d rse
in on
Ever y t least it rather tha the studio e. The
t w n w
aster hing I say as a suc in the wr ith Lang
isk a a b o c e s s … “A ng.” iti er
gain
st it, ut that pe bsolu
beca r i od n t ely.
use I
appr eeds an
eciat
e tha
ta

89
C L A S S I C P O P M A G A Z I N E

R E V I E W S

NEW RELEASES p93

FFS, Giorgio Moroder, Hot Chip, The
Orb, Martin Gore and Leftfield…
by WYNDHAM WALLACE
REISSUES p100
Tori Amos, James, A-ha, Grace Jones,
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions,
Section 25, Level 42…
by PAUL LESTER
COMPILATIONS p105
Funk, synthpop, rave anthems and
R&B. Could you ask for more?
by PAUL LESTER
DVDS & BOOKS p106
With Stuart David, Adam Ant, Lee
Hazlewood, Tracey Thorn and Kylie
by JOHN EARLS
LIVE & EVENTS p110
Simple Minds, Spandau Ballet, Paloma
Faith, Future Islands and Superfood
by JOHN EARLS

R A T I N G S

LOVE IT
BUY IT
STREAM IT
PONDER IT
AVOID IT

Simple Minds play Newcastle (review P111)

93

JAH WOBBLE
FORMER PUBLIC IMAGE LTD BASSIST JAH
WOBBLE HAS WORKED WITH BJÖRK,
PRIMAL SCREAM AND CHAKA DEMUS &
PLIERS AND IS TOURING HIS NEW SIX-DISC
BOX-SET REDUX. BUT WHAT WILL JAH MAKE
OF THIS MONTH’S SINGLES? John Earls
LEFTFIELD
UNIVERSAL EVERYTHING
The grimy, gritty intro is otherworldly.
Overall it didn’t go anywhere for me, but
it probably wasn’t designed for old blokes
lying on their bed listening on headphones,
like me. At a big rave, it’d work great. It’s
like Debussy, who hated over-musicality. It
lacks a big human touch, like a great vocal
on top – maybe they should work with
Bryan Ferry, take a chance together.
92
Alex Hurst
A U G / S E P 2 0 1 4
CLASSIC
BEST SINGLE
SARAH CRACKNELL
ON THE SWINGS
I love this, it’s very John Barry. I hear
she did the album in two weeks – it
sounds lovely and natural. Musicians talk
a lot about “making the air move” when
recording, and you can hear it here. There’s
a humility to Sarah’s song – such a lovely
contrast to all the software that make songs
anodyne. Imperfections can make a song
beautiful, and this is a great example.
MIDNIGHT TRAIN
BRYAN FERRY
MIDNIGHT TRAIN
He should take more of a risk. You’re
Bryan Ferry – you can do anything! Do you
still want to do kitsch Eighties songs with
layers of synths and little guitar parts? This
doesn’t take any chances; the middle-eight
comes exactly where it should. He should
do something braver, like how Love Is The
Drug strutted along. I bet he spent a week
on the vocals; it should have been first take.
THE FEARLESS LIGHT
TEACH ME HOW TO DIE
Generic stadium rock, which is interesting as
it’s a lad from Somerset’s debut single. This
sound has been popular for so long – huge
bass lifting the chorus into a big pumping
sound with swirling guitars. He could be
really big already, from how this sounds; it’s
very well done. It could be an impressive
soundtrack to the right kind of film.
MAJOR LAZER
LEAN ON
I see the Eastern sound that Beyoncé did
a few years ago is still very popular. It’s
well put together, but it’s quite dated and
sounds very early Noughties, whereas the
Bollywood-style video is proper. It dresses
the song up, shows they’re taking the song
seriously. I used to watch MTV in the early
Nineties to request hip-hop videos on The
Box; this reminded me of doing that.
S I N G L E S
HOT CHIP
BURNING UP
Fascinating, as there’s so little going
on. For something that’s basically just a
Vocoder vocal, it’s extremely subversive.
My first thought was “Great, somebody
is being quirky!” It’s not trying too hard
to impress, and it’s taking the piss out of
the idea of releasing singles. For a band
known for big club hits, it’s basically
saying “F*** off!”
GIORGIO MORODER
FEATURING SIA
DÉJÀ VU
I can hear this being played on the radio
in a café up the road from the industrial
estates where big bands rehearse. I can
hear forklift trucks move about with this
in the background. You’d think everyone
would have caught up, but Giorgio still does
this better than anyone. Sia’s vocal is great.
FFS
COLLABORATIONS DON’T WORK
There’s a Beatles bit, ELO, Passengers…
it’s Seventies, tongue-in-cheek. It’s quite
bonkers, frankly. Sparks always grabbed
my attention because they’re so genuinely
odd. All credit to Franz Ferdinand, it’s
quite brave. It’s expressionist – they’re
mucking about, sploshing paint about, not
worried what everyone thinks. They know
it won’t kill their career.

FFS
FFS
DOMINO RECORDS
TAKE ONE TOP BRITISH ROCK BAND AND ONE REVERED AND GENRE-ANIHILATING POP DUO,
THROW THEM AT A MICROPHONE, REDUCE THEM TO MERE INITIALS AND YOU GET FFS…
B
ack in 2004, when
Franz Ferdinand
released their self-
titled debut, there
was little doubt that
they were fans of
Ron and Russell Mael. If the
ambiguity of their smart but
screwball lyrics, as well as the
spiky rhythmic twists of their
New Wave-flavoured tunes,
didn’t make it clear enough, the
Glaswegians made no secret
of their admiration for the Los
Angeles-based brothers. In fact,
the idea of partnering up was
discussed almost immediately,
but a record has taken a
decade to materialise. So how
has this long-awaited tie-up
turned out?
The two acts would
perhaps argue about it, but
it sounds pretty much exactly
as one might expect. Those
inclined towards the groups,
therefore, are going to swoon
with delight. Others may be
somewhat baffled by its appeal:
if it weren’t for the fact they’ve
produced a dozen songs, it
might be tempting to dismiss
each one as a novelty track.
But together they present
a solid aesthetic, the
bands’ strengths smoothly
complementing one another, the
J U N E / J U L Y
CLASSIC
BEST NEW ALBUM
borders between where Sparks
end and Franz Ferdinand
begin almost invisible. Even
on the knowingly titled
Collaborations Don’t Work, the
madcap mixture of acoustic
guitars, operatic vocals, mallet
instruments and time changes,
overwhelming as it is, remains
undeniably entertaining – and
convincing – while the frenetic
Police Encounters sounds like
it was recorded by a small
band of endearingly animated,
fluorescently coloured furry
animals who’ve eaten far too
much sugar.
In fact, at times it’s hard to
know where to focus one’s
attention. Faced with a barrage
of characters like no-hoper
Johnny Delusional, a mysterious
Power Couple and The Man
Without A Tan (“If he touched
your woman/ How the hell
N E W R E L E A S E S
1 5
David Edwards
could she resist?”) it would
be understandable were one
to dwell on the lyrics, though
often they’re delivered at such a
fierce pace it’s hard to keep up.
Still, the ideas do come thick
and fast. Some may be oddly
familiar: Save Me From Myself,
for example, starts with what
one must assume is a conscious
musical reference to This Town
Ain’t Big Enough For The Both
Of Us. Though others, like the
synth-lit Call Girl, the Casio
VL-Tone soda pop of So Desu
Ne and the frankly ridiculous
Piss Off sound like Sparks
had the last say on seniority
grounds. Alex Kapranos and
his pals apply their techniques
with gusto, in so doing bringing
the increasingly active Maels
back into the spotlight. Which,
of course, is where they belong.
Wyndham Wallace
93
MARTIN GORE
MG
MUTE

The idea solidified when

Gore returned from a recent
world tour and rediscovered
some of the tracks that, thanks
to Dave Gahan’s increasingly
active songwriting role, didn’t
make it onto Delta Machine.
Liberated of the need to write
lyrics, he took as his inspiration

When a pop star announces an
album of instrumental electronic
tracks, many loyal fans may
wonder whether they’ll really
need to part with their cash.
Sensibly, Martin Gore has
kept the word ‘experimental’
away from his sales pitch. In
fact, though he did release a
covers album in 2003, one
wonders why the leather-garbed
gentleman behind the vast
majority of Depeche Mode’s
oeuvre has waited so long to
indulge this side of his nature.
Aphex Twin’s Ambient Works,
and it shows: though musically
the two acts are fairly distinct,
what at first appear to be little
more than sketches soon reveal
a carefully crafted yet instinctive
structure and a keen ear for
atmosphere. So, fuelled by the
success of his techno-influenced
reunion with Vince Clarke
for VCMG – the adoption of
the MG moniker confirms the
link between the two projects
– he set out to create a new
collection of “atmospheric,
filmic” compositions.
What emerged is a
fascinating, it not always
gripping, selection of
sometimes abstract pieces best
interpreted as a showcase for
Gore’s mastery of modular
synthesisers. Their genesis as
Depeche Mode tracks isn’t
always hard to identify: one
could imagine Stealth beefed
up to match Gahan’s muscular
presence, while Brink’s
industrial strength might fit into
one of the darker corners of the
band’s catalogue. But most of
this would be best suited to the
kind of sci-fi films Ridley Scott
made early in his career, or
Linda Brownlee
perhaps even John Carpenter.
Trysting is full of dark tension
and brief glimmers of light,
interrupted by unexpected
metallic clashes; Swanning
sounds like a rubber ball left
to bounce around perpetually
inside a ravaged satellite; Elk
has the melodic qualities of
some of Vangelis’ futuristic
Blade Runner work. So, while
it may not be essential to fans,
MG isn’t only for completists.
Don’t expect to hear these tunes
in stadiums, though. WW

BLUR
THE MAGIC WHIP
PARLOPHONE

Albarn’s distinct, compressed

vocals, Graham Coxon’s guitar
work, at once choppy and fluid,
Alex James’ agile basslines, or
Dave Rowntree’s unobtrusive
rhythms. It’s the peculiar way
they all fit together in such a
leisurely manner.
The signs were there from
Travis Shinn

the day Go Out dropped on

Britain’s most schizophrenic
and dysfunctional of bands –
who’ve alternately led the pack,
pursued the pack, or dropped
out of the pack altogether –
are back, and truly it’s been
worth the dozen-plus years
we’ve waited to hear the four
of them reunited. They’ve
been shoegazers, Britpoppers,
American indie groupies and
wilful experimentalists, but
now, remarkably, after all the
feuds, they have become the
very thing they most needed to
be, arguably more than ever –
they’re Blur. It’s not just Damon
an unsuspecting public. The
deceptive monotony of its verses
– with their single, repeated
guitar chord, simple backbeat
and Albarn’s flat delivery – was
at odds with choruses of murky
guitars and the ingenuous
backing vocals that carried the
song’s most infectious hook.
This sneaky subtlety prevailed
on There Are Too Many Of Us
a month later, Albarn bleeding
melancholy over a military
tattoo rhythm as he considered
– as is his wont – the weighty
subject of overpopulation, the
song’s arrangements expanding
early on, yet its atmosphere
lingering well after its end.
The Magic Whip retains this
intelligent, downplayed cross-
pollination of styles throughout:
the mid-Nineties feel of
Lonesome Street – with its early,
self-conscious reference to “the
5.14 to East Grinstead” – is less
overwrought than it would have
been two decades ago, while
Thought I Was A Spaceman
offers as much room as its title
suggests, yet still tosses in hints
of the Hong Kong environment
in which the record was first
conceived. Only I Broadcast
lays the geezer-ish side of the
band on a little too thick (yet
that’s not going to stop the
crowds going wild in Hyde
Park this summer). Quite how
all this has happened is hard
to say, but it’s always been
hard to imagine what the glue
was that kept Blur together to
begin with: the power struggles
that emerged contributed
to their changing sound but
also, ultimately, to Coxon’s
exit. Maturity has brought
understanding, it seems, and,
with it, possibly the most
balanced, thoughtful, resonant
record of their career. Almost
Blurfect, you might say. WW

94
 N E W R E L E A S E S

KATE PIERSON
G U I TA R S A N D
MICROPHONES
LAZY MEADOW MUSIC/ KOBALT

Love Shack, her debut suggests

You wouldn’t know it from the
brashly vibrant front cover, but
Kate Pierson has just celebrated
her 67th birthday. She’s always
seemed ageless, and though
she may recently have been
helping run guesthouses in
the Catskill Mountains, she’s
clearly not ready to retire,
and now she’s finally given
herself permission to make a
solo album. Remarkably, given
it’s 25 years since The B52s’
Pierson could still be doing this
in another quarter century.
Her voice remains striking,
having lost none of its
boisterous brightness or power,
and Guitars And Microphones
packs its songs with cracking
harmonies. Bottoms Up lets slip
the presence of Strokes guitarist
Nick Valensi, who co-wrote
the song and, elsewhere,
provides hints of the surf
stylings that were so vital to her
band’s success. But even more
important is Sia, the prolific
songwriter who’s helped out
the likes of Christina Aguilera,
Britney and Kylie. As writer and
executive producer, she ensures
that, alongside producer Tim
Anderson, Pierson’s able to
separate herself slyly – if still
only a little – from the kitsch
with which The B52s have often
been associated.
This isn’t always such a
good idea: Pulls You Under
may be a heartfelt rejection
of the fear of death, but it
sounds like an off-Broadway
musical’s closing number, while
Wolves – co-written with recent
Marc Almond collaborator
Chris Braide – shifts Pierson a
little too close to the middle of
the road. But Braide redeems
himself on Bring Your Arms, the
co-write with Sia that kicked
off this project (and which was
inspired by the unlikely subject
of a Mexican sea turtle rescue).
Even better is the tremendous,
galloping title track (another
Braide/Sia collaboration) and
the energetic, guitar-heavy pop
of Mister Sister, a well-meaning,
if slightly clumsily articulated,
attempt to empathise with the
transgender community.
Almost 40 years since The
B52s released Rock Lobster,
Pierson remains as iconic,
colourful, passionate and
positive as ever. Bang, bang,
bang on the door, baby! WW

HOT CHIP
WHY MAKE SENSE?
DOMINO

boyish voice might actually be

Perhaps this lies at the heart
of the enduring loyalty that
their fans seem to have for
them, but there’s sometimes
been a sense that one had to
be in on the joke in order to
enjoy Hot Chip. That same
confusion one experiences
when one sees hipster clothes
– “Am I really meant to take
this seriously?!” – is frequently
evident in their music. There’s
also been an ambiguity in the
way they’ve put it together, as
though the slightly ramshackle
production and Alexis Taylor’s
meant to sound as though they
could part ways any moment.
Nonetheless, this has provided
us with plenty for everyone to
enjoy, from the lo-fi charm of
their debut to its follow-up’s
crossover hit, Over And Over,
and the more danceable sounds
of 2012’s In Our Heads.
Why Make Sense? represents
a departure for the group,
as it’s the first time they’ve
recorded an album together at driven by a fierce, post-punk arrangements by Scritti Politti’s
a residential recording studio drum pattern towards its Green Gartside – and Cry For
instead of working alone with ecstatic climax, or, at the other You boast a dry, funky feel the
their laptops. Consequently, end of the scale, the tender So band no doubt found in their
it offers an undeniably more Much Further To Go and the Prince collections. Dark Night,
‘live’, stripped back sound, gentle, typically eccentrically furthermore, turns to Eighties
though that’s not immediately titled White Wine And Fried Philly disco, its lazy pace and
audible on opening track Chicken, in which Alexis washes of synths making it a
Huarache Lights, which Taylor’s endearingly vulnerable contender for a Drive sequel,
reiterates their ability to tenor takes centre stage. and Easy To Get revives the
create absorbingly hypnotic Elsewhere, they lean heavily same decade’s blue-eyed soul
‘indie’ songs as mesmerising on influences from their youth, flavours. All the same, there’s
as techno. It’s more obvious, which means tracks like nothing kitsch about this. Why
however, on the title track – Love Is The Future – which Make Sense? is brim full of
arguably one of the best things features a cameo from De La affection, making it a delightful,
they’ve released – which is Soul’s Posdnuos, as well as accessible return. WW

95
ROISIN MURPHY SARAH CRACKNELL
HAIRLESS TOYS RED KITE
PLAY IT AGAIN SAM CHERRY RED

a subtly detuned piano that’s Edwyn Collins’ band, but who

later magically overwhelmed by
crystalline keyboard lines, while
Murphy’s voice sounds warmer
and more emotionally evocative
than ever before.
The more energetic Exploitation
tips its hat subtly to the soul-jazz
sounds of yesteryear before
taking a left turn, five minutes
in, allowing Stephens to explore
subdued realms full of ticklish
percussive taps and atmospheric
With its slightly disconcerting keyboards, while on Exile she
title, the third solo album from tastefully employs doo-wop
former Moloko frontwoman singers on an understated slice
Roisin Murphy spreads its of quasi supper jazz. But the old
eight songs over 50 minutes, disco influences are still here:
and they don’t divulge their the playfully crunchy, funk-pop
secrets easily. Closer listening, of Evil Eyes and the lazy shuffle
however, reveals a mass of of Uninvited Guest, with its
inspired details, many courtesy milkman’s whistling towards the
of Moloko collaborator Eddie end, at times recall her work
Stevens, who’s also been with Matthew Herbert, and her
Murphy’s live musical director delivery on the former can’t
for almost 20 years. The serene help but remind one, rather
title track, for instance, features gratifyingly, of Grace Jones. WW
The charm of Sarah Cracknell’s
voice has rarely been in
dispute. That breathy, soft-focus
tenderness has always been
a factor in St Etienne’s lengthy
career, even if it lacks a little
dramatic edge. She has been
somewhat dependent upon
her context, and never more
so than on her first solo album
since her 1997 debut, Lipslide.
Fortunately, she’s chosen wisely:
her collaborator is Carwyn
Ellis, a man who not only runs
also brought Leonard Nimoy
back to life with Soft Rain, a
soundtrack (recorded under the
name Zarelli) for his recording
of a Raymond Carver story.
Ellis and colleague Seb
Lewsley largely provide a
folk-pop setting that fans of
Goldfrapp’s Seventh Tree will
enjoy, with hints of Nick Drake
in the acoustic guitars of On
The Swings and the strings of
In The Dark and The Mutineer.
But they also edge into Sixties
girl group territory on tracks like
the Françoise Hardy-esque It’s
Never Too Late and Hearts Are
For Breaking, with fuzzy guitars
balancing the sweet keyboard
lines. Cracknell’s lyrics can spell
things out a little too clearly –
“Never felt lost like I do now/
If you’re wondering what this
song is about” – but all the
same, this is as sweet and
nostalgic as barley sugar. WW

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS LEFTFIELD

GLEAN A LT E R N AT I V E L I G H T S O U R C E
LOJINX INFECTIOUS

an extraordinary sophistication Well over a decade after their

Back in the Eighties, Brooklyn-
based John Flansburgh and
John Linnell established the Dial-
A-Song service: call a number
and hear one of their specially
recorded songs. This year, they
reanimated it – alongside a
website – and Glean gathers
together 16 early songs, albeit
this time recorded with the
budget that Grammy winners
tend to have. Otherwise, little
has changed: they’re still
prolific writers that never take
themselves seriously, yet display
as they flirt with a multitude of
styles, injecting their songs with
nimble wordplay and hook-
filled melodies. That familiar
nasal voice, for example, is still
evident on the upbeat Answer,
delivering laugh-out-loud lines
like “You asked for tall/ I came
in at 5’ 4”/ Then you asked
for dark/ I tend to sunburn a
lot”. On Hate The Villanelle
they adopt a more theatrical
tone – like an American college
rock Marc Almond – to discuss
an archaic French poetic form
(“Curses! These verses are my
prison cell!”), while the frantic,
two-minute Aaa throws out
questions like an amphetamine-
fuelled children’s show: “How
are sausages made/ And what
am I made of?” The geeks are
back, then, and though Glean
doesn’t suggest they’re likely to
inherit the earth, there’s still a
place they can always call their
own. WW
They were heady days, the
early Nineties. The baggy
generation had smuggled
dance culture into popular
culture, and – alongside the
likes of Orbital, Underworld
and The Chemical Brothers –
Leftfield exposed a commercial
market for music inspired by
techno, house and dub. Slowly,
the sound of the soundsystem
shifted from clubs into cars and
homes, and even today 1993’s
Open Up, with John Lydon,
provides a welcome rush.
second album – and with Paul
Daley out of the picture – Neil
Barnes is back, and his method
remains intact: pulsing beats,
floor-shaking, thunderous sub-
bass, and melodies delivered
by distinctive voices. Bad
Radio throbs beneath TV On
The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe’s
distorted vocals, while Sleaford
Mods do their budget Mike
Skinner impression on Head
And Shoulders, delivering lines
about “dandruff warriors” and
“chicken in a basket” over a
propulsive, wobbly backing.
Little Fish, too, proves that one
can employ classic dancefloor
tropes outside techno temples,
and the track that heralded their
return – Universal Everything –
confirms that Leftfield can exist
within the mainstream without
compromising. Two decades
later, those heady days are
back again, as though they
never went away. WW

96

PAUL WELLER
S AT U R N S PAT T E R N
PARLOPHONE
Every few years, Paul Weller
returns with a new album,
provoking much brouhaha
about a career renaissance.
It happened with 1993’s
rustic, rugged Wild Wood,
and 2008’s 22 Dreams,
which confirmed his status as
godfather of dad-rock thanks
to appearances from Noel
Gallagher and Graham Coxon.
Saturns Pattern will no doubt
do the same, but deservedly
so: like Wild Wood, it’s full of
GHOST HARMONIC
CODEX
METAMATIC
A continuation of former Ultravox singer
John Foxx’s recent excursions into the
avant-garde, Ghost Harmonic finds him
working again with Benge, his collaborator
in The Maths, as well as classical violinist
Diana Yukawa. Some will find the nebulous,
drifting ambience too lifeless, but there’s an
intrinsic, stately beauty here, with Yukawa
tracing delicate, improvised patterns amid
loops, echoes and featherweight clouds of
analogue synth. It’s reminiscent of Brian
Eno’s landmark Discreet Music in terms of its
mood, its style and its ability to merge with
background sounds – in fact, unintended
noises were often integrated into the final
pieces – but that doesn’t lessen the serenity
that lies at its heart, nor the benefits it offers
by lowering your blood pressure. WW
loose grooves and soulful vibes,
though it’s carved from heavier
timber. In fact, it may be the
most muscular thing he’s done
since The Jam.
Opener White Sky might
begin all Sgt Pepper’s, with
backwards tapes and sound
effects, but it soon explodes,
riffs aflame, like it’s controlled
by bomber command. Long
Time seems keen to take on The
Stooges, while on In The Car –
which finds him reunited with
The Jam’s Steve Brookes, who
lays down slide guitar – Weller
gets a little boogie woogie
on our arses. Pick It Up puts a
little tight-trousered funk into
his stride, and though the title
track’s stabbed piano chords
may echo Harry Nilsson, and
Going Away may sound at
times like he’s been listening
to Jimmy Webb, neither seems
content to remain subdued for
long. Heavy soul indeed. WW
THE NAMES
STRANGER THAN YOU
FACTORY BENELUX
Catching the post-punk wave, Brussels’ The
Names signed to Factory in 1980 – though
they soon moved to Belgian label Les Disques
Du Crépuscule – and hooked up with Martin
Hannett. Only one album emerged before
they split in ’82, but this is the reunited
band’s fourth release since 2009. Their
monochrome appeal remains unscathed,
even on the luminous, piano-led The Angel
Of Death, while Michel Sordinia still snarls his
lyrics – most effectively over Nowherarians’
cheap synths – in that occasionally out-of
tune Howard Devoto fashion, the band
lurking behind him in a Magazine-like
gloom. With an engagingly uncomfortable
Joy Division claustrophobia, this will delight
old fans, even if its dolent tone does little to
encourage Belgian tourism. WW
BIRDPEN
IN THE COMPANY OF
IMAGINARY FRIENDS
JAR RECORDS / FINTAGE HOUSE
If after Songs From The Big Chair Tears
For Fears had dived into Pink Floyd and
technology instead of The Beatles, they
might have ended up in similar territory to
Southampton’s BirdPen. The duo – Dave
Pen, co-writer/vocalist for Archive, and Mike
Bird – love sumptuous, ambitious, sprawling
music. Into The Blacklight is a little like
The Verve at their early, stoned peak, and
No Place Like Drone is an epic 10-minute
centrepiece, yet Lost It is a piano-led ballad,
and Like A Mountain’s restrained tension lies
somewhere near Radiohead, U2 and Simple
Minds. BirdPen won’t rule the world, but
they’re worth shouting about. WW
WILL YOUNG
85% PROOF
ISLAND RECORDS
A private education, a politics degree, TV
documentaries about surrealist painters,
three No. 1 albums (plus two that just missed
out) and an unusually likeable personality:
Will Young’s not your average talent show
winner. Now add to the list a potty mouth:
that really is Young concluding Thank You,
a sarcastic, George Harrison-esque ode to
an ex, with the words “F*** you”. His sixth,
diverse album suggests his longevity is
deserved: its leadoff single Love Revolution
may lean successfully on the current trend
for Northern Soul, while U Think I’m Sexy at
times recalls Terence Trent D’Arby, but there’s
enough big budget melodrama here to fill
Broadway, not least the uplifting stomper Joy
and the soaring Brave Man. Not exactly wild
at heart, then, but still young at heart. WW
N E W R E L E A S E S
THE PROCLAIMERS
LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE DOGS
COOKING VINYL
Let’s face it: people made up their minds
about The Proclaimers in 1987, when Letter
From America went Top 3, either welcoming
this new take on pop culture north of the
border or dismissing Charlie and Craig Reid
as speccy oddballs. The fact that these days
the band purveys bright powerpop like
Forever Young and the waggish What School?
– full of praise for Scottish dogs and Led Zep
references – may not influence the latter
faction. That Dave Eringa (Manics Preachers,
Idlewild) was behind the desk will merely
confirm prejudices rather than suggest the
twins are flexing their rock muscles. Still,
they’ve only got themselves to blame. Their
bum’s probably oot the windae. WW
JAMIE XX
IN COLOUR
YOUNG TURKS
Alongside his success in The XX, Jamie Smith
has consistently impressed hipsters with his
production work, most notably a remixed
version of Gil Scott-Heron’s entire I’m New
Here. His debut album provides a summary
of his allure: watertight beats that bubble and
seethe; discreet, almost abstract yet strangely
addictive soundscapes. It’s tempting to see
the album’s title as a counterpoint to the
minimalist sounds of his band: steel drums
and glowing swathes of synth decorate the
shuffling Obvs, while I Know There’s Gonna
Be Good Times draws intelligently upon the
gaudy sounds of dancehall. The highlight
comes when bandmate Romy Madley
Croft joins him for Loud Places, its oddly
melancholic yet soulful mood capturing Mr
XX’s ear for cautious celebration. WW
97
BLACK
B L I N D FA I T H
NERO SCHWARZ RECORDS
In the mid-Eighties, despite
having signed to WEA – by
whom he was soon dropped
– Colin Vearncombe found
himself homeless. A few years
later, thanks to another deal
with A&M, he’d sold millions
of albums. Again he was
dropped, and by the mid-
Nineties he was self-releasing
records and looking at quitting
the business altogether. It’s
a wonderful, wonderful life
indeed. He took a break for
several years, but eventually
THE ORB
MOONBUILDING 2703 AD
KOMPAKT
It’s 2015, and the world is
drying out and burning up. No
worries: here come The Orb,
with the summer’s soundtrack
for lazy afternoons, and – or
so they say – a blueprint for
discovering the root elements of
ancient rocks on solar moons
and their associated musical
harmonies. Yep, they’ve been
smoking those jazz cigarettes
again, sending yet more little
fluffy clouds into the universe.
Now made up of original
Orbist Alex Paterson and
98
persevered with music, and last
year he turned to crowdfunding
to raise the money for his
14th album. The results must
have gratified him, especially
given the up-and-down nature
of his career: fans pledged
over twice the target he’d set.
Furthermore, given that, for
many years, his biggest hit had
felt like an unwieldy weight
on his shoulders, it must have
been inspiring to return to the
studio knowing that there were
more than enough people so
enamoured of what he could do
that they’d pay upfront to have
it made. “Not so alone” after
all, eh, Mr Vearncombe?
His fans aren’t going to be
disappointed. While Blind Faith
is unlikely to represent the start
of a lucrative new chapter in
his story, it hints at a happy
ending. Full of the same kind
of nuanced songwriting as
Stephen Duffy’s recent Lilac
Time release, it leads one to
veteran Berlin-based producer
Thomas Fehlmann, The Orb’s
style remains very much the
same as when they took the 40
minute Blue Room to the Top
10: extended – to the point
of sprawling – journeys into a
cosmic world of improbable
samples, peculiar effects,
echoing ambient house and
dubby beats and bass that
provide a cushioned landing
for dedicated ‘heads’. The
name ought to tell you all
you need to know, but in
case it doesn’t – and you’re
unfamiliar with Tangerine
Dream – Moonbuilding 2703
AD offers four tracks, stretched
over 50 minutes, that drift with
the planetary winds. Oddly
compelling, despite their
seemingly improvised nature,
their highlight is perhaps the
most succinct Lunar Caves,
whose unusually abrasive
ending sets up the irresistibly
elastic title track perfectly. WW
wonder why, even if he was out
of favour with record labels,
he’s never been invited to write
for others. That, though, might
have prevented us from hearing
how, with his richly lugubrious
tenor, he’s developed into
quite the crooner. The brief but
sublime Beautiful is a bravely
naked tune ostensibly about
dying love, with lines like
“You stripped me of more than
my clothes” delivered softly,
regret oozing from every note,
and the sparse, nocturnal
FLORENCE AND THE
MACHINE
HOW BIG HOW BLUE HOW
BEAUTIFUL
ISLAND
My, my, Florence Welch: what a big throat
you have! I can hear you, even over here.
There’s really no need to shout. I know you
can sing, but when you raise your voice
like that, it sounds like Stevie Nicks yelling
down a factory chimney. On What Kind Of
Man, are you trying to eclipse the brass that
Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory has arranged on
your behalf? There’s a lovely choir on Various
Storms And Saints, and yet you’re throwing
notes around like you’re Mario Ballotelli in a
Father Christmas suit. On the title track, you
rein things in for a little while, and trust me
– it makes that regal trumpet fanfare at the
end much more effective. WW
ambience of Who You Are
could give The Blue Nile a run
for their money. There’s also
the swirling romance of The
Love Show, whose lush strings
dissolve into a sea of acoustic
guitars, and more wonderful
strings on When It’s Over, as
well as the subtle flamenco
flavour of Womanly Panther
and a gloriously soothing, yet
unsettling piano melody on
Sunflower. Thank goodness he
never gave up. It’s time to go
back to Black. WW
CATHAL SMYTH
A COMFORTABLE MAN
THE PHOENIX RISING RECORDING
COMPANY
It took a stint in rehab to make Cathal
Smyth record a solo album. His contributions
to Madness included Our House, but he’d
never stepped out alone. The break-up of his
28-year-old relationship forced change upon
him: sat at a piano 10 days into his recovery,
he wrote the heart-melting Are The Children
Happy?, and A Comfortable Man documents
his love affair, its end, and his subsequent
acceptance. Filled with regret, wisdom and
Smyth’s raspy voice, songs like You Are Not
Alone with piano and strings, the unplugged
rough and tumble of She’s Got The Light, and
Do You Believe In Love, inspired by his Ibiza
home – but influenced by his Irish roots –
sound like Ed Harcourt at his best. WW

GIORGIO MORODER
DÉJÀ VU
RCA RECORDS
IT’S A PARTY ON BOARD THE GOOD SHIP MORODER AND SIA, KYLIE, CHARLI XCX, FOXES AND
BRITNEY ARE ALL THERE, SIPPING CHAMPERS. YOU’RE INVITED… BUT WILL YOU ACCEPT?
held off the No. 1 spot by Rod
Stewart’s I Don’t Want To Talk
About It. Of course, that was
exactly what he was unable to
stop anyone doing, but a month
later the mood in the charts had
changed, with Donna Summer
moaning orgasmically atop a
trembling bed of Moog synth.
The Pistols’ sour-mouthed,
T
three-chord punk and Summer’s
auto-erotic, futuristic disco
couldn’t have been further
he summer apart, though both proved
of 1977 has revolutionary. But whereas
frequently been The Sex Pistols’ reunions were
defined by The dogged by cries of “sellout”,
Sex Pistols, who the return of Giovanni Giorgio
rode out onto Moroder – for whom the
the Thames words ‘filthy lucre’ apply only
on a wave of to the money he and protégé
nihilist spittle Summer earned with their
during the steamy partnership – has been
Silver Jubilee as their caustic achieved with the requisite
God Save The Queen was grace. Having sailed into view
on the gold-plated yacht that
was Daft Punk’s Random Access
Memories, now the playboy
steps on deck, surrounded by
pop idols, to release his first
solo album in three decades.
It’s one of the most star-
studded comebacks of the
year, but it suffers from a lack
of the very déjà vu advertised
by its title. Were his name not
associated with this release, it’s
unlikely anyone would guess
that Moroder was behind it.
At best, they’d hear the start
of 74 Is The New 24 and
groan about how people are
still ripping him off. It’s ironic,
therefore, that the track is one
of the best here, simply because
it lets his most recognisable
style briefly shine.
Elsewhere, Sia’s title track
is a pedestrian, if entertaining
slice of string-heavy disco, and
David Edwards
Kylie’s funky Right Here Right
Now is fun, but as original as
its title. Charli XCX’s Diamonds
takes an energetic stab at
Europop, while Foxes whoops
with girlish abandon on the
glossy Wildstar and Britney
regains some cred with an
appealingly lumbering cover of
Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner.
It’s not that the record is
weak, but most of it sounds like
the work of an anonymously
mainstream identikit 21st
Century producer, and while
it’s not entirely fair to compare
Déjà Vu only to Moroder’s
earliest achievements, it’s as
though someone checked sales
of his Top Gun soundtrack
and decided he’d sound best
focussing on comparable
commercial success. The
revolution is officially over.
Wyndham Wallace
99

A - H A HUNTING HIGH AND LOW
/ SCOUNDREL DAYS
UNIVERSAL MUSIC CATALOGUE
(HUNTING HIGH & LOW)
FED UP WITH HUNTING HIGH AND LOW FOR YOUR FAVOURITE NORWEGIAN NOIR ELECTRO-
POPPERS’ ALBUMS ON RECORD? HERE ARE THE FIRST TWO, IN WEIGHTY 180G BLACK VINYL
I 
t’s a good year for A-Ha
fans. There will be more
deluxe editions – Stay
On These Roads (1988),
East Of The Sun, West Of
The Moon (1990) and
Memorial Beach (1993) – as
well as a super deluxe box set
of 1985 debut Hunting High
And Low. And of course there
is, in September, a brand new
album, Cast In Steel, the band’s
100
(SCOUNDREL DAYS)
10th. But first, Hunting High
And Low and 1986 follow-up
Scoundrel Days are out on
180g black vinyl (their first time
on vinyl for 25 years), mastered
by Ron McMaster at Capitol
Studios, and complete with an
MP3 download code.
That debut really is a thing of
wonder, and an extraordinary
way for the Nordic trio to
announce themselves. They
were a boy band before the
term became grotesquely
devalued – gorgeous, exotic,
windswept boys from the frozen
wastelands of the north who
could play their instruments and
write songs full of desperate
sorrow and yearning. We
had never quite seen their like
before. What were they? A Joy
Division for depressed Smash
Hits readers? Certainly there
were moments that captured the
quandaries of post-adolescence
like nothing since JD’s second
and final album – in fact, if
Alan Tarney, the producer here,
had worked on Closer instead
of Martin Hannett, it might have
sounded like this. The title track
took existential longing into the
UK Top 5, and even the album
opener Take On Me could only
manage an ebullient sadness
at best. Its lyric-lesson – “Slowly
learning that life is okay” – was
hardly borne out by the rest
of the record; take a listen to
Here I Stand And Face The
Rain and see if you glean from
it the message that life is okay.
It is about as melancholy a
piece of music as any to feature
on a mid-Eighties pop LP that
reached No. 2 in the UK and
sold 10 million copies. Hunting
J U N E / J U L Y 2 0 1 5
CLASSIC
BEST REISSUE
High And Low was an album
of the year, which is saying
something: the competition
included Associates’ Perhaps,
Scritti Politti’s Cupid &
Psyche, Prefab Sprout’s Steve
McQueen, Propaganda’s
A Secret Wish, Kate Bush’s
Hounds Of Love, New Order’s
Lowlife and Dexys Midnight
Runners’ Don’t Stand Me Down.
Scoundrel Days didn’t
contain as many cute-miserablist
peaks, but it did boast Cry
Wolf, I’ve Been Losing You
and Manhattan Skyline plus
further angst-wracked marvels
– October, The Weight Of The
Wind, Soft Rains Of April. You
haven’t lived until you’ve heard
Morten Harket virtually expire
with grief at the last-gasped
word of the latter: “Over.”
Paul Lester

GRACE JONES
DISCO
UNIVERSAL
Disco is a sumptuous 3CD
box set comprising Grace
Jones’ first three albums
recorded for Island Records in
the late Seventies with disco
remix godfather Tom Moulton
at Sigma Sound studios in
Philadelphia, the home of MFSB
and the place where Bowie
recorded Young Americans.
Not surprisingly, the music
reflects the transition between
the polished musicianship of
Philly soul and the increasingly
mechanised rigours of disco.
TORI AMOS
LITTLE EARTHQUAKES
RHINO
This is a deluxe 2CD version of Tori Amos’
1992 debut, remastered from the original
tapes, including the album itself and its
attendant singles Silent All These Years,
China, Winter and Crucify, as well as the
justly feted a cappella Me And A Gun – a
harrowing account of her rape in Los Angeles
when she was 21 – plus 18 rare tracks,
live versions, covers (notably, Amos’ take
on Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit) and
B-sides. A sustained exercise in excoriating
autobiography, Little Earthquakes fared well
critically and commercially: it reached No. 14
in the UK and remained in the Top 75 for 23
weeks while in America it peaked just outside
the Top 50. With this album, Amos announced
herself with passion and panache. PL
Portfolio (1977), Fame
(1978) and Muse (1979)
are here remastered for the
first time, with unreleased
tracks, instrumentals, rare
mixes, extended booklets and
miniaturised versions of the
gorgeous gatefold album sleeve
by Interview magazine designer
Richard Bernstein. These albums
reek of the outrageous style
escapades of New York; Jones
exerted a powerful influence
on the Class of ’81, Face
fashion, chic Blitz club culture
and London’s demimonde – for
the cognoscenti, she was it, the
androgynous, polymorphously
perverse queen of disco,
making Madonna look like an
unambitious, risk-averse WASP.
For those unaware of
anything pre-Warm Leatherette
or Nightclubbing, these albums
will be a revelation. Side 1 of
Portfolio contains a discofied
suite of showtunes (Send In
The Clowns, What I Did For
TORI AMOS
UNDER THE PINK
RHINO
This is another deluxe 2CD set from Tori
Amos, also featuring the 1994 album itself
remastered from the original tapes, plus a
bonus disc containing assorted rarities, live
versions and B-sides, and new liner notes.
Under The Pink reached No. 12 in the States
and, on the back of UK No. 4 hit Cornflake
Girl, entered the British charts at No. 1.
Despite the wealth of timeless piano ballads,
there were other tracks here that posited
Amos as a sort of grunge-age Kate Bush, all
wracked confessionals and therapy as angry
catharsis – album opener Pretty Good Year
even has the quiet-loud dynamics of Nirvana
and their cohorts, while Past The Mission
featured Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails on
guest vocals. PL
Getty
Love, Tomorrow), while side
2 kicks off with Jones’ cover
of Piaf’s La Vie En Rose and
includes ’77 dancefloor staple
I Need A Man. Fame featured
a medley on side 1 and a
re-interpretation of a French
classic opening side 2 (Jacques
Prévert’s Les Feuilles Mortes,
sung in English as Autumn
Leaves). Do Or Die was a club
hit in America and Canada,
and the album closed with a
Jones co-write, Below The Belt.
Muse was a disco concept
PAUL HARDCASTLE
19 THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY
COLLECTION
NUA/CAROLINE
If you liked Paul Hardcastle’s six-million-
selling No. 1 hit from 1985, the anti-war
diatribe 19, you’ll love this album: it features
all 14 mixes of the track – including the
1984 demo recorded in his mum’s front
room in Leytonstone. Released to support
war veterans suffering from post-traumatic
stress disorder, it features a Cryogenic Freeze
Remix, an Electronica Dark Remix, even a
new PTSD Mix (“which reflects the fact that
more soldiers have committed suicide since
the Afghanistan war than actually died in
battle,” explains Hardcastle), as well as a
mashup of 19 with Marvin Gaye’s What’s
Going On. All proceeds of the PTSD Remix go
to PTSD charity Talking2Minds. PL
R E I S S U E S
with a suite of songs on side
1 bearing the titles Sinning,
Suffer, Repentance and Saved.
Icelandic keyboardist Thor
Baldursson, who arranged most
of the album and sang with
Jones on Suffer, had worked in
Munich with Silver Convention,
Boney M, Summer and Giorgio
Moroder, and those are the
templates for much of this
bionic boogie. The Disco Sucks
campaign had just begun, but
for Grace Jones, it was just the
beginning. Paul Lester
JAH WOBBLE
REDUX
CHERRY RED
Who provided the immortal bassline to PiL’s
1978 debut single, propelled postpunk
into deep, dub space and put the “death”
into 1979’s Death Disco? The ex-Pistol not
widely known as John Joseph Wardle, that’s
who, and he finally gets the anthology he
deserves, ReDux – six CDs covering his PiL
and solo work from 1978-2015, divided
into Greatest Hits, The Eighties, World Roots,
Jazz, Ambient Spoken Word and Covers.
It’s a big advance from his 2003 Trojan
Records triple-disc compendium, I Could Have
Been A Contender, featuring 93 tracks with
self-penned annotation and help from Sinead
O’Connor, Julianne Regan, Ronnie Drew
(The Dubliners), Julie Campbell (LoneLady),
Natacha Atlas and Chaka Demus & Pliers. PL
101
 JAMES
L A I D & WA H WA H
FONTANA
This 4CD Super Deluxe Edition
of James’ 1993 and 1994
albums, aka The Eno Years,
includes two discs of rehearsals,
demos, jams, B-sides, radio
sessions and live tracks (20 of
them previously unreleased),
as well as a 56-page hardback
book with new liner notes,
photos and memorabilia, plus
four colour postcards and four
button badges. It’s a treat for
James diehards, even if this was
a rather different beast than the
one who formed in Manchester
ECHO & THE BUNNY-
MEN
DO IT CLEAN: AN ANTHOL-
OGY (1979-1987)
RHINO
This 2CD, 38-track feast for Bunnyphiles
has all the hits and key album tracks, plus a
16-page booklet and liner notes from some
scribe called Paul Lester. The story starts at
Pictures On My Wall from May 1979 and
ends at 1987 with material from the fifth
and final studio album until the reunion, so
it’s pure original Bunnymen, and nothing
from the latterday, post-1995 incarnation.
It’s a distillation of one of the greatest bands
of the postpunk era as they make their
quantum leaps from Crocodiles to Heaven Up
Here to Porcupine to Ocean Rain. PL
102
in 1982 and gained popularity
alongside Happy Mondays and
The Stone Roses. You could tell
they were hardly peers of the
Mondays and the Roses – let
alone The Smiths – by this point
from the front cover image of
Laid, which presented the band
with bananas in hand, wearing
women’s frocks. Perhaps this
was a bid to throw in their
lot with the grunge crowd,
particularly Nirvana, who were
keen to distance themselves
from the jocks drawn, against
the band’s will, to Nevermind
(Cobain was seen wearing a
dress in press shots of the time).
After a stint in the US
supporting Neil Young, James
hooked up with Eno, always a
sign that a band has ascended
to a new level of success. As
might be anticipated from
the godfather of ambient and
oblique studio strategies, Eno
brought a new approach that
James later described as a
23 SKIDOO
BEYOND TIME
LES DISQUES DU CREPUSCULE
Beyond Time is a soundtrack to a
documentary directed by Alex Turnbull,
a member, like his brother Johnny, of 23
Skidoo, pioneers in subversive avant-funk-
punk, experimental tribal and industrial
music. The intention was to make “a gritty
British kung-fu movie” but it became a
documentary about their artist father, who
had “a genetic predisposition to anti-
establishment practices”. Additional musicians
include Pharaoh Sanders while disc 2, the
movie, features narration by Jude Law. The
music, Skidoo’s first for 15 years, is less
frenetic than, say, 1982’s astonishing Seven
Songs, but it’s as mesmeric as usual. PL
“journey of self-discovery”.
The result was a loose, warm
collection, far from the bombast
of Sit Down and Come Home,
although the title track was a
rousing enough anthem.
The Laid sessions led
directly to Wah Wah when a
series of textural pieces and
improvisational jams for the
former found a more natural
home on the latter – think of
it as the Zooropa to Laid’s
Achtung Baby. Wah Wah
caused some internal friction,
LEVEL 42
LIVE
WIENERWORLD
Live is a CD/DVD package from the Britfunk
veterans comprising music recorded live at
the Indigo2 in London on 22 October 2010
to celebrate the band’s 30th anniversary,
and a DVD filmed at London’s Town and
Country Club in March 1992 at the end of
their Guaranteed Tour. The greatest hits are
in evidence, of course, but the highlight is
the DVD's showcase of tracks from the Gary
Husband/Jakko Jakszyk era, like She Can't
Help Herself (the sequel to Leaving Me
Now?), Her Big Day and the Husband-penned
If You Were Mine. There's also a rare live
rendition of The Spirit Is Free from Mike
Lindup's solo album, Changes. PL
Xxxxxx
especially over how to present
it – it was eventually issued as
a limited-edition affair, bearing
a sticker on the cover that read
James/Eno: like David Bowie’s
Low and Heroes, Wah Wah
was as much about Brian as it
was Booth and Co. But if you
only care about the finished
product, not the process, then
you’ll find much to admire
about Wah Wah, not least
the fact that it sounds about
as unlike James as any James
record to date. PL
CLOSE LOBSTERS
FIRESTATION TOWERS 1986-
1989
Xxxxxx
FIRE
Scottish indie band Close Lobsters briefly
came to prominence via the track Firestation
Towers on the NME’s infamous C86 cassette,
and they captured much of the shambling
energy and jangling melodicism of the
‘anorak’ genre: file next to Weather Prophets
and Bodines. This collection comprises both
CL studio albums – 1987’s Foxheads Stalk
This Land and 1989’s Headache Rhetoric – as
well as Forever, Until Victory! (titled after the
final sign-off in a letter from ‘Che’ Guevara
to Castro), the singles collection which gathers
all of the band’s singles, plus their B-sides
and bonus tracks. Plenty to smile about. PL

THE WAKE
HERE COMES EVERYBODY
FACTORY BENELUX
This is a 30th anniversary
reissue of the 1985 album for
Factory by The Wake – the
band formed in Glasgow in
1981 by Gerard ‘Caesar’
McInulty (formerly of Altered
Images), Steven Allen (drums)
and Joe Donnelly (bass), the
latter replaced for a time
by Bobby Gillespie (Allen’s
sister Carolyn also joined on
keyboards). This is a remastered
2CD set including singles (up
to 1987), unreleased demos
(1988-90, when they signed
LLOYD COLE AND T HE
COMMOTIONS
COLLECTED RECORDINGS
1983-1989
UMC/POLYDOR
Collected Recordings covers
the three Commotions albums
– 1984’s Rattlesnakes, 1985’s
Easy Pieces and 1987’s
Mainstream – adds a disc of
B-sides, remixes and outtakes,
a disc of demos and rarities,
many previously unreleased,
plus a DVD featuring all 10
band video promos and eight
performances from TOTP,
TOGWT and Wogan. The
box also comes with a 48-
page hardback book by Pete
to Sarah Records) and a Kid
Jensen session from Feb 1984.
The Wake toured with New
Order, and their influence is
clear: Here Comes Everybody
imagines a world in which NO
didn’t go to Ibiza but stayed in
Manchester, mired in their own
mythic miserablism. The title
of the track Melancholy Man,
sums up The Wake’s reputation
– quintessential earnest indie
kids, all pale skin, long fringes
and grey overcoats, consumed
with existential despair.
In the sleevenotes, Carolyn
Allen remembers the sessions
as “dreamlike… emotional… a
very private experience” while
Caesar disabuses listeners of
the notion that his songs were
autobiographical. He could
have fooled us. O Pamela
captures a New Order stuck,
gloriously, in a Sisyphean stasis
circa Movement, using the
dolorous bassline and icy synths
of Procession as a springboard,
Paphides, which tells the story
of the decade’s preeminent
witty, adroit songsmith – well,
preeminent unless you count
Paddy McAloon, Morrissey,
Elvis Costello, Roddy Frame and
Edwyn Collins, which you should.
Still, Cole’s achievements are
considerable, and this box is a
fine summation of his Eighties
oeuvre. It’s hard to shake the
feeling that the band peaked
early, with the likes of Perfect
Skin, Forest Fire and Rattlesnakes
– Cole himself implies as much
when he says, “1984 was our
year. Everything seemed easy.
Everything went wonderfully.
After that being Lloyd Cole
And The Commotions became
increasingly difficult”. But even
after that, there is enough here to
make most aspirant songwriters
with an inclination to be louche
and literary weep with envy. PL
instead of Procession’s more
danceable B-side, Everything’s
Gone Green. “This is a page
from my diary, 15th day of
November,” sings Caesar,
sealing The Wake as purveyors
of wintry despair, his voice
the sensitive antithesis of the
full-bodied belter. This is indie
at its most weary and wan –
compliments both (see also The
Field Mice, The Wake’s label
mates at Sarah). The piano on
Talk About The Past is by Vini
Reilly, and guest percussion
SECTION 25
A LWAY S N O W
LTM
Section 25 were influenced by
Joy Division – but who wasn’t at
that time? You could also argue
that since there were really
only two JD albums, diehards
could have done with a third.
Which is where Always Now,
the Manchester band’s debut
from 1981, came in. If the
music recalls side 2 of Closer,
no surprise; it was produced by
Martin Hannett and released
almost concurrently with New
Order’s Movement – the two
R E I S S U E S
Xxxxxx
on Torn Calendar and the title
track is courtesy of A Certain
Ratio’s Simon Topping, but the
funk here is of an even more
etiolated type than ACR’s. Of
The Matter is more exuberant,
but it’s of the angsty variety. Of
the extra tracks, Bob’s Empty
Head contains fury projected
through a miasma of longing
and pain, while Pale Spectre
remains an all-time classic of
the happy to be sad genus:
even the sha-la-la’s are wet, wet
with tears. Exquisite. PL
are almost of a piece, sonically,
and the shadow of Ian Curtis
looms large over both.
This is a double-CD set with
a superb sleeve design by
Peter Saville. CD1 comprises
the original album plus eight
further tracks and singles, three
of which were produced by Ian
Curtis and JD/NO manager
Rob Gretton, including the
PiL-circa-Metal Box deathly
disco of Knew Noise. CD2
features Peel sessions and live
tracks, demos and outtakes.
It is a feast of serrated guitars
over dub-spacious production,
gloom rock that exults in its
own monumental miserablism.
Mere period depresso-rock?
No: Always Now and other
tracks here could be the work
of an aspirant contemporary
experimental outfit – in fact,
leading Brit indie band Friendly
Fires took their name from track
one, side one. PL
103
 BEE GEES LISA STANSFIELD
1974-1979 THE MOMENT
RHINO ZTT

Arif Mardin-produced albums circa The Lexicon Of Love or

– Mr Natural (1974, including even some of the cool Teutonic
lush, luminous ballad Charade) grandeur of Propaganda’s
and Main Course (1975, with A Secret Wish, but sadly
the prescient proto-disco shuffle not. The hi-tech bombast for
of Jive Talkin’ and the immortal Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s
if unfortunately tilted Fanny [Be Welcome To The Pleasuredome?
Tender With My Love]) – followed Forget about it. It’s not even
by Children Of The World as full-on and electro-funky as
(1976), which dovetails nicely Seal. The surfaces are shiny,
with their Saturday Night Fever the songwriting somewhat
material, and Spirits Having vapid; it’s music for grownup
Some might argue in favour Flown (1979), a consummate divorcees. Co-writers include
of their late Sixties work, and display of falsetto funk songcraft. Richard Darbyshire of Living
there are probably apologists There is a fifth CD, The Miami The Moment is an expanded In A Box, Chris Braide and
for their Eighties hits, but really Years, of SNF-era singles, B-sides reissue of the Rochdale lass’ Chris Difford. Lay Your Hands
most of the sentient world would and outtakes. These include sixth album from 2004, with On Me is like something from
agree that this box set contains the Big Four (Night Fever, How five bonus (alternate/live a Lloyd-Webber musical, the
the best of the biggest Seventies Deep Is Your Love, More Than A versions and radio edits) tracks, title track essays a new genre
pop group that wasn’t Abba. Woman and Stayin’ Alive), plus plus a 24-page booklet and – drum’n’bass musical theatre
In one neat package – five their take on songs they wrote new liner notes. Produced by – and Take My Heart is pure
CDs, each a mini replica of the for Samantha Sang (Emotion), Trevor Horn, it offers wall-to- Sixties melodrama, Lisa does
original vinyl versions – you Andy Gibb (notably Warm Ride), wall adult-oriented balladry and Dusty or Cilla. There’s even a
get a condensed history of the and Yvonne Elliman, as well as a sedate dancefloor grooves. cover of When Love Breaks
brothers Gibbs’ transition into stray B-side from Mr Natural. All With the names of Mr Horn Down by Prefab Sprout, on
purveyors of globally successful these songs have been released and ZTT, the expectation is that which Horn does Thomas Dolby
blue-eyed R&B and disco. Here digitally before, but it’s still an this might vaguely approximate (who was doing Horn in the first
in all their glory are their two essential purchase. PL the lavish pop-disco of ABC place). Glossy. PL

DENIECE WILLIAMS A TASTE OF HONEY BANANARAMA CHANGE

WHEN LOVE COMES CALLING LADIES OF THE EIGHTIES MEGARAMA: THE MIXES TURN ON YOUR RADIO
BBR BBR RHINO BBR

Williams recorded this 1979 album with
Ray (Raydio/Ghostbusters) Parker Jr and
songwriting/production supremo David
Foster, plus members of Toto and the cream
of LA’s session musicians. Expanded with
three bonus tracks including two extended
12” disco mixes, When Love Comes Calling
is as much polished FM radio fodder as it is
R&B or soul: Turn Around is Steely Dan-ish,
I Found Love has the hooks, handclaps and
harmonies of Hall & Oates. I’ve Got The Next
Dance topped Billboard’s dance chart, Touch
Me Again is a strings-drenched ballad; mostly,
it’s a mellifluous, mid-tempo affair. Let’s hear
it for the girl. PL
The main claim to fame of Janice-Marie
Johnson and Perry Kibble aka US disco duo
A Taste Of Honey was the 1978 US No. 1
(and UK No. 3) Boogie Oogie Oogie. Their
final album from 1982, here with three
bonus tracks, is quintessential pre-house,
female-fronted boogie: file next to Vicky D,
Sharon Brown and Sharon Redd. You can tell
that Earth, Wind & Fire’s Al McKay produced
it; Sayonara and We’ve Got The Groove are
all brass surges and digital immaculacy. Lies
chimes with what Teena Marie was doing,
Midnight Snack is Bootylicious 20 years early,
and Leavin’ Tomorrow is a vampish departure
into supperclub territory. PL
If you weren’t sated by the spate of
double-CD (plus DVD) reissues from 2013,
Bananarama fans (Ramettes? Nanaphiles?)
should check out this triple-CD casebound
book set with 36 12” mixes, none of which
were included on the album reissues (14 are
previously unreleased). It was assembled
(with the cooperation of Keren and Sara) by
Tom Parker, and it’s heavy on the SAW era –
no Robert De Niro’s Waiting or Really Saying
Something remixes here, although you do
get latterday (i.e. circa 1988) iterations
of Shy Boy and Cruel Summer. Perfect for
“gimpy dancing” (copyright Bananarama,
1983) in front of the mirror. PL
In the uptown disco stakes, Change were the
Chic who had success in the Eighties. Led by
Jacques Fred Petrus and Mauro Malavasi,
they even had Luther Vandross singing on
the 1980 hits The Glow Of Love, A Lover’s
Holiday and Searching. 1985’s Turn On Your
Radio was their final studio album: this has
the original eight tracks plus seven extras,
including a pair of Paul Hardcastle remixes
and one by Nick Martinelli, who produced
52nd Street’s mid-Eighties output. Mutual
Attraction is of a piece with the latter, SOS
Band and Loose Ends: gleaming, chrome-
plated postdisco, but the staccato melodies
don’t connect like Change’s best work. PL

104

SYNTH POP
VA R I O U S
J U N E / J U L Y
CLASSIC
SONY MUSIC
BEST COMPILATION
Flying Lizards – most if not all of
the artists who helped write the
electronic pop bible. Basically,
you could press play at the
start of CD1 and be chilled and
enthralled by the sheer inorganic
joy of Not Hearing Any So-
Called “Real” Instruments. By
CD2 the music is still brilliant,
but the album title becomes a bit
misleading. Because it features
many acts not known for their
This 3CD, 53-track high EQ (Electronic Quotient)
extravaganza is described such as Prefab Sprout, Haircut
in the press release as “a 100, Altered Images, King and
celebration of the invention and Spandau Ballet (offering Gold –
evolution of electric music”. To Cut A Long Story Short would
Everyone from Donna Summer have been okay). None of these
(I Feel Love) to Paul Hardcastle are electronic per se, although
(19) is present and correct, they use electrified instruments…
and in between there are all but then, so did Led Zeppelin,
the usual synthpop suspects: and they’re not here. Nor are
Human League, Heaven 17, Deep Purple or Foghat. Still,
Frankie, M, Visage, Eurythmics, you do get some of the greatest
Gary Numan, Yazoo, Ultravox, music of all time, and a virtual
New Order, Bronski Beat, The soundtrack to this magazine. PL
KITSUNE AMERICA 4
VA R I O U S
KITSUME
of Heat with their track This Life,
the askew folk of Beau on C’mon
Please, the woozy slow-motion
synth-soul of Mothxr’s Centerfold,
and the dishevelled power pop
of Twin Peaks doing Telephone.
Elsewhere, watch out for Watch
My Back by Basecamp, prepare
for Dutch Party’s Howl and
get ready for Milk & Bone’s
Coconut Water. Everyone of
them achieves the Kitsune aim
Subtitled At The Drive In! and of combining the experimental
delivered with a promise to be with the accessible, ensuring
all about the tune and to cover you’re never too far away from
everything from futuristic R&B a melody, no matter how radical
to corrosive indie glam, the the context. These are mainly
fourth instalment in the Parisian new, rising artists, most of whom
label’s survey of the latest in will be unfamiliar except to
experimental electronica, R&B, cognoscenti, although there are
urban pop and indie from the some recognisable names here,
States offers an alternative notably the excellent Toro Y Moi,
version of that dusty, rocky term known to his mum as Chazwick
‘Americana’. Here, you get the Bradley Bundick, currently one
futuristic R&B of Kanye West of the most highly regarded
protégée Kacy Hill singing characters at the forefront of
Experience, the seething guitars avant-electronic US pop. PL
THROWBACK OLD SKOOL
ANTHEMS
1 5
VA R I O U S
MINISTRY OF SOUND
If you like Nineties and
Noughties dance music, this
3CD trove is the one-stop-
shop (or rather, club) for you.
Throwback Old Skool Anthems
will bring your adolescent
memories flooding back in a
Proustian (or rather, a Black
Boxian) rush. CD1 features
turn of the century garage
delights such as Re-Rewind
by Artful Dodger (featuring
Craig David), Why? by Mis-
DOWNTOWN FUNK
VA R I O U S
MINISTRY OF SOUND
Compiled to capitalise on
the good feelings towards
old school funk generated by
Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk,
Downtown Funk is a 3CD,
60-track bonanza, although you
might baulk at the inclusion of
Chic, whose shimmering disco
was far removed from funk.
Ditto Diana Ross’ Upside Down,
Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop
Til You Get Enough and The
Whispers’ And The Beat Goes
On (is anything on SOLAR
C O M P I L A T I O N S
Teeq, Gotta Get Thru This
by Daniel Bedingfield, Body
Groove by Architects ft. Nana,
Teardrops (the Flava Mix) by
Lovestation, and Crazy Love by
MJ Cole. CD2 reaches back
further into the mists of time
with such Nineties dancefloor
staples as Space Cowboy by
Jamiroquai, Two Can Play That
Game (the K Klassik Radio
Mix) by Bobby Brown, Finally
by Ce Ce Peniston, Ride On
Time by Black Box, I Luv U
Baby (Dancing Divaz 1995
Club Mix) by The Original,
Professional Widow (Armand
Van Helden’s Star Trunk Mix) by
Tori Amos, and Let Me Be Your
Fantasy by Baby D. Finally,
on CD3 you get Funky House
Classics from Modjo, David
Guetta, Eric Prydz, Martin
Solveig, Room 5, Armand Van
Helden, Layo & Bushwacka!,
The Ones and Mylo. PL
Records ‘funky’? I’d argue
not). These are all operating
in a realm beyond funk. Funk
is gritty and earthy – it has,
as they say, stank – and if you
like the sound of that, you’ll
be in your element here. Disc
1 includes James Brown, Kool
& The Gang, Commodores,
The O’Jays, Sly & The Family
Stone and The Temptations; no
arguments. But EW&F’s Shining
Star? That’s symphonic boogie.
The Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s
Delight? Proto-rap, surely. CD2
is similarly confused, being
more disco than funky (George
Benson, Shalamar, Pharrell’s
favourite Marvin track, Got
To Give It Up), while CD3 is
a Seventies funktravaganza
(Fatback Band, Funkadelic),
with the odd incursion into
Eighties electro-funk with Zapp
& Roger Troutman’s More
Bounce To The Ounce. Great
music, mixed message. PL
105
KYLIE ANNIE LENNOX
K I S S M E O N C E : L I V E AT T H E AN EVENING OF
SSE HYDRO N O S TA L G I A
PLG (DVD) ISLAND (DVD)

While Kylie has admitted that
last year’s Kiss Me Once album
was a flop, the accompanying
concerts were her best in years.
Seemingly more relaxed with
her past than ever, the DVD
filmed at a raucous Glasgow
show encompasses every era
of Kylie in 28 songs, while
La Minogue is at her teasing,
taunting best as she both plays
up to and undercuts the Sex
Kylie image. Songs from Kiss
Me Once like the electro Les
Sex and Sexercise make more
sense in the theatrical setting,
seemingly designed for the
tour’s cabaret, while a relatively
straight take of Locomotion is
magnificent froth.
A 2CD live album of the
show is included, featuring
every song bar Skirt, which
demonstrates Kylie’s voice has
grown more assured too. Other
extras include the Tim Burton-
style Sleepwalker fairytale film
shown before the concerts and
a glossy photo booklet. It’s a
comprehensive package that
deserves to see this relatively
unheralded portion of Kylie
reassessed. Showstoppers like
Grace Jones and Chic are
a bold choice of support for
Kylie’s forthcoming Hyde Park
festival but, if she brings a
similar level of enthusiasm and
style to her hits as she does
here, then she’ll deserve that
headline spot. John Earls
Like George Michael, Annie
Lennox’s career appears
to have stalled, making
predictable covers albums like
last year’s Nostalgia instead of
attempting to re-engage with
her own creativity. Lennox has
earned the right to be semi-
retired, but her apparent ennui
isn’t helped by the concert film
accompanying Nostalgia.
Filmed as a TV special for the
US in LA in January, it’s the only
show Lennox could be bothered
to perform for the album.
Inevitably, it lends a somewhat
precious air to proceedings;
the welter of strings and brass
is standard, and there’s no
tension to be found. That the
over-familiar likes of Georgia
On My Mind and Summertime
are fossilised is to be expected,
but the soporific versions of
Lennox’s own once-explosive
hits – Sweet Dreams, Here
Comes The Rain Again – are
just depressing. Director
Natalie Johns does her best,
but even an action film-maker
like Michael Bay would struggle
to lift Lennox out of her current
torpor. Hopefully she’ll find her
muse again one day. On this
evidence, a Tourists reunion is
more likely. JE

HENRY PRIESTMAN ADAM ANT

SETTLE DOWN D I R K L I V E AT T H E A P O L L O
SANDBOX (DVD) BLUEBLACK HUSSAR (DVD)

The material gains momentum with the end result naturally

Although still best known as
the former keyboardist of It’s
Immaterial and The Christians,
over the last decade Priestman
has quietly reinvented himself
as a folk singer. Written after
the death of his mother and
mother-in-law, last year’s second
solo album The Last Mad Surge
Of Youth was a quietly uplifting
testament to the human spirit.
in a concert filmed at Settle
Victoria Hall in Yorkshire.
A plethora of unrehearsed guest
musicians wander in and out
of the action, but spontaneity
mostly outweighs shambles.
The moving True Believer
comes over like a Scouse Chris
Difford, yet It’s Immaterial’s
biggest hit Driving Away From
Home is uncomfortably and
wastefully shoehorned into the
rootsier Suffice To Say by his
first band Yachts. For someone
who spent so long lurking in
the background Priestman
proves a natural frontman, a
raconteur with a ready quip
throughout the show. Perhaps
this DVD is too biased towards
his solo career to make it a
good introduction to Priestman’s
canon, but it’s a capable and
effectively-filmed document of
someone who’s finally found
his calling. Despite its title,
Priestman isn’t settling for
second-best. JE
Last year’s performance at
Hammersmith Apollo of Adam
And The Ants’ debut album
Dirk Wears White Sox saw
original bassist Leigh Gorman
and drummer Dave Barbarossa
reunited with their frontman
for the first time since the
original tour in 1979. The pair
were integrated with Ant’s
current touring band and with
Morrissey guitarist Boz Boorer,
coming over as somewhat
muddled at times, although
subsequent performances
of the whole album at other
gigs were more concise. All
the same, it would be a hard
heart that couldn’t warm to
the affection emanating from
both the audience and from
an unusually sentimental Ant,
whose DVD sleevenotes pulsate
with a vigour in keeping with
the songs themselves.
While it’s an odd move to cut
out the Apollo show’s second
half of hits, the DVD definitely
benefits from including a
semi-acoustic 100 Club show
filmed the following week. At
this performance Ant is more
relaxed in mood, yet the likes
of Cleopatra remain stark
and eerie even when stripped
back. If the rumoured Kings
Of The Wild Frontier shows do
happen, then our fingers are
crossed that they can be this
ferocious. JE

106

MARC ALMOND
MARC ALMOND
FIRST THIRD (BOOK)
Now established as publishers
of boutique music photo books
following similar collections
with Genesis P-Orridge, Felt
and Saint Etienne, First Third
turn to Marc Almond for a
limited run of 1300 copies.
Naturally photogenic and
an honest chronicler of his
debauched years in the
accompanying captions, there
is certainly much to gawp at
WYNDHAM WALLACE
LEE, MYSELF AND I
JAWBONE (BOOK)
To many, Lee Hazlewood is
familiar only as Nancy Sinatra’s
duettist on These Boots Were
Made For Walkin’. To others,
he was an elusive outlaw, a
singer to rival Scott Walker
for mystique. To Classic Pop
contributor Wyndham Wallace,
Hazlewood was his most
unlikely client, having become
Hazlewood’s manager thanks
here. The psychotic look in
Almond’s eyes during the video
shoot for Soft Cell’s final single
Soul Inside is the definition
of pop stardom gone awry,
while Pierre Et Gilles’ hyper-
real imagery around 1990’s
Enchanted album seems to
invent new colours.
Almond’s tone remains gently
self-deprecating throughout,
whether describing the
bleakness of rehab or trying
to make music following his
motorbike crash in 2004, yet
many of the photographs –
childhood ones aside – are
over-familiar, and it would have
been intriguing to see more of
Almond’s transformation from
would-be prog rocker to glam
acolyte. The text is sometimes
confusingly laid out too, making
it hard to establish which
picture is being referred to. It’s
a lively book, but more cluttered
than something so bespoke
should have been. JE
to a chance meeting with Sonic
Youth’s drummer. For the final
eight years of Hazlewood’s
life until his death in 2007,
Wallace used his galeforce
enthusiasm and business
acumen to oversee his charge’s
reluctant return to recording
and performing.
Hazlewood, pet alligator
and all, was a man out of
time, a Wild West lawmaker
rather than a country singer
and Elvis associate. His
brusque demeanour masked a
capricious humour – his final
album Cake Or Death was
named after an Eddie Izzard
routine – and Wallace writes
with affection about his charge
while also revealing what a
mardy old sod he could be. The
second half of the book about
Hazlewood’s battle with cancer
is touching, but funny as hell
too. You suspect Hazlewood
would approve, even if he’d
probably hate such a fuss being
made of him. JE
TRACEY THORN
N A K E D AT T H E A L B E R T H A L L
VIRAGO (BOOK)
Following the success of her
memoir Bedsit Disco Queen,
Tracey Thorn turns her attention
to examining a specific part
of her job: singing. Her
conversational tone proves
ideal for discussing every
aspect of singing, down to
the physicality of the voice: as
Thorn points out, vocal chords
STUART DAVID
IN THE ALL-NIGHT CAFÉ
LITTLE, BROWN (BOOK)
Stuart David quit as Belle &
Sebastian’s bassist in 2000,
since when he’s made playful
electronica as Looper, but also
written a handful of novels. One
of those, Nalda Said, is an
unheralded masterpiece about
outsiders, and it’s this spirit that
informs David’s quietly brilliant
memoir about his old band.
B O O K S & D V D ’ S
are fragile, so it’s no wonder
many singers get wrapped up
in obsessive routines for looking
after them. Featuring interviews
with the likes of Alison Moyet
and The XX, Thorn only uses
technical speak when essential,
preferring to guide the reader
along rather than ever making
it feel like a textbook – yet even
hardened musos will learn
something fresh, particularly
about her favourite vocalists,
such as Dusty Springfield and
Patti Smith. Thorn’s innate
curiosity for her craft comes
across at every turn, and
her scattergun digressions
are hugely endearing, in the
tradition of Billy Connolly’s
stand-up comedy. If you want
to know about scales, high Cs
and nodes, look elsewhere, but
if you’re interested in why The X
Factor might be important after
all, it’s a terrific read. Where
will Thorn’s magpie mind takes
her on book three? JE
J U N E / J U L Y 1 5
CLASSIC
BEST BOOK
The title is drawn from the
myth that the band formed in an
all-night café. David details how
he met singer Stuart Murdoch
who has become a relatively
frequent interviewee, but whose
private life remains enigmatic –
even David admits he knew little
of him. Nonetheless In The All-
Night Café is rich with beautiful
details about the absurdities of
cult status, down to a meeting
with one potential label who
arrange a supposedly decadent
circle of After Eights to woo the
band. The book ends around
the release of debut album
Tigermilk; a second volume
would doubtless be just as
hilarious, but this is as joyful a
book about indie pop life as
has been written. JE
107
CLASSIC POP LIVE TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CONTACT LEAH FITZ-HENRY ☎ 01225 489984 leah.fitz-henry@anthem-publishing.com
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 Academy Events present

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PERFORMING CLASSIC HITS RELAX, TWO TRIBES, THE POWER
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WITH SONGS FROM HIS
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S PA N D A U B A L L E T
O2 ARENA, LONDON
17 MARCH
THIS IS A BAND THAT CAN DELIVER FAR, FAR MORE THAN THE SAFE AND FAMILIAR, AND
NOW THEY’RE WILLING TO SCATTER SOME RARER GEMS AMONG THE DIAMONDS
W
hen Spandau Ballet
first reformed in
2009 there was a
sense of a security
blanket being thrown
around the choice
of songs, as if to
ensure nobody could
argue over whether
Age Of Blows should
feature instead of Fight For
Ourselves. As soon as the latest
hiatus was over, they couldn’t
wait to announce that this
year’s shows would more fully
explore their back catalogue.
Given their varying tastes –
Tony Hadley’s love of dance
music; Martin Kemp and John
Keeble’s preference for hard
rock – seeing what made the
cut would show how healthy
Spandau Ballet are in 2015.
110
In the event, every flavour
of Spandau is represented,
with the setlist rarely feeling
like a compromise vote. After
elegant new song Soul Boys
opens proceedings, the first
segment focuses on the arena
years. It feels like Gary Kemp’s
era, his guitar tougher than
on the studio versions, notably
a sinuous Highly Strung.
Martin excels in Only When
You Leave, transformed from
daytime TV chatshow staple
back to the gurning Deep
Purple fan of his youth as
he hammers into its testing
bassline. How Many Lies is
one of the few duff choices,
too sedate to grab an arena’s
interest. The problem is that the
setlist is unevenly paced – the
biggest hits are nearly all saved
for the end and, good as they
are, playing the other two new
songs consecutively is too much
of a cue to head to the bar.
Hadley’s dancing errs on
the side of fatherly frugging,
but his vocals are magnificent.
He ducks the high notes in
True when turning the mic to
the crowd, but is far more
controlled than the foghorn of
legend, carrying the Blitz-era
section brilliantly. Reformation
is a deliciously odd choice,
its squelchy riff still sounding
futuristic as a giant glitterball
descends over the stage.
An acoustic section with
Hadley and Gary Kemp in the
middle of the crowd doesn’t
quite come off, slowing the
momentum. A lounge version
of I’ll Fly For You is more suited
Dani Quesada
to retro cool before Gary
announces, only half-jokingly,
“Shall we play some hits?”
80 minutes in. From there on
in, Gold, True, Through The
Barricades and co give the
night the expected triumphs.
It’s the bolder choices that
linger. Hadley has been
persuaded to sing his bête
noire Raw, Spandau’s baggy
anthem from Heart Like A Sky.
Steve Norman, switching like a
madman between sax, guitar
and congas, is in his element
on a taut Confused. The polar
opposite of cosy nostalgia,
it suggests Spandau have
remembered how fascinatingly
complex they always were. Let’s
hope that spirit sustains them
into a new album and further
journeys to glory. John Earls

CLAUDIA BRÜCKEN
BUSH HALL, LONDON
12 MARCH
After several years celebrating
her career with shows featuring
a full band augmented by
special guests, then staying
firmly in the past with 2012’s
covers set The Lost Are Found,
a low-key tour promoting the
guitar-focused new album
Where Else was always in
danger of turning out to be
to something of a comedown
for Claudia Brücken. It’s thus
full credit to Brücken that,
even stripped back to just two
backing musicians, her voice
still proves an attraction worthy
of the glamorous venue.
A reserved audience creates
a slightly strained atmosphere
during the first few melancholic
new album songs, a situation
not helped by the fact that
many in the crowd are seated
around tables at a club that’s
usually standing-only. However,
those songs do suit the setting;
precise and introspective,
they conjure Patti Smith at
her most contemplative, and
even – in places – The Doors.
This is something of a change
in style from Brücken, not
only from Propaganda but
also her endeavours with Paul
Humphreys in OneTwo and her
own solo work. Nevertheless,
the heartfelt lyrics and overall
resonance of Where Else’s
sound shouldn’t come as a
surprise to fans, while the more
traditional rock stylings brought
into play here could potentially
Festival, London 2014
Hampson
SteveiTunes
Photo:
serve to broaden the longtime
London resident’s audience.
Once some beats are added
later in the show, including on
recent single Nevermind, the
mood definitely lifts. Originally
produced by Stephen Hague,
Brücken’s cover of ELO’s One
Summer Dream increases
the pace still further. After
another cover – David Bowie’s
Everyone Says ‘Hi’ – Brücken
falls back on her own history
for the liveliest section of all.
Propaganda’s Duel remains
a career standout and, while
you may feel somewhat uneasy
dancing to its sinister lyrics, it’s
performed faithfully and makes
a fantastic crescendo for the
main set closer.
It’s a show of confidence in
the encore that, after an equally
magnificent P:Machinery, the
gig is rounded off with a final
song from the current album
with Sweet Sound Vision.
Dealing with fatal attraction, it’s
again thought-provoking, but
stands up well to everything that
comes before.
Whilst Claudia Brücken’s
four-decade career has been
long and full of highlights,
the new songs show there is
potentially plenty more good
stuff still to come. Hopefully
anyone lured in by the new
album’s Radio 2 appeal will
soon discover for themselves
just how rich Brücken’s past is
too. Simon Taylor
Photo: Marc Pinder
SIMPLE MINDS
CITY HALL, NEWCASTLE
6 APRIL
“It’s not an easy song to sing!”
quips Jim Kerr as a near-
capacity Newcastle audience
enthusiastically “hey hey” at the
start of Don’t You (Forget About
Me) and “ha la” vigorously
as Simple Minds’ biggest hit
reaches its climax. Alongside
Kerr are original guitarist
Charlie Burchill and long-time
drummer Mel Gaynor, joined
by Ged Grimes (formerly of
Danny Wilson and bassist since
2010) and Andy Gillespie,
keyboardist since 2002.
The extensive 29-date UK
tour has a great light show, but
more importantly the power
that explodes from the stage
has to be heard to be believed.
Simple Minds 2015 are one
kickass live band. Gaynor and
Grimes lay down a rock-solid
backbeat, allowing Burchill
to riff, chime and treat us to
some of rock’s most distinctive
and recognisable guitar
work. Meanwhile, Gillespie
lays down eccentric rhythms,
pulsing dance beats and crafty
keyboards that sometimes make
it difficult to work out who
exactly is doing what.
Pretty much all of the hits
are delivered, with standout
Someone Somewhere (In
Summertime) filling the City Hall
with a sea of hands. Burchill
is less inclined to mouth along
with the lead vocals these
days but he sneaks back into it
during Waterfront.
Alan Wild
L I V E & E V E N T S
J U N E / J U L Y 1 5
CLASSIC
BEST LIVE SHOW
With no support, the quintet
play two hour-long sets with a
15 minute gap. The second set
kicks off with Kerr offstage as
Sarah Brown fronts for Book
Of Brilliant Things, Once Upon
A Time and East At Easter.
She does a fine job with her
soulful vocals and striking stage
presence, but probably puzzles
some of the audience as this
was the first time she had been
seen. Kerr returns for All The
Things She Said with Brown on
backing vocals. Burchill, Grimes
and Gillespie are on acoustic
guitars for Home and The
American, where what sounds
like an electric guitar pops up
even though no one is playing
one. An imaginative retooling
of The Doors’ Riders On The
Storm has Brown soaring
alongside Kerr. Gillespie drops
in a couple of Ray Manzarek
flourishes, but otherwise this is
a re-invention that could easily
be one of Minds’ own songs.
Powerful new numbers like the
latest album’s Big Music and
Midnight Walking sprinkled
amongst Alive And Kicking and
Sanctify Yourself prove that this
is a band who still know how
to give their audience a good
time, but are determined not to
rest on their laurels. Ian Ravendale
Photo: Marc Pinder
111
PALOMA FAITH
B A R C L AY C A R D A R E N A ,
BIRMINGHAM
19 MARCH
Paloma Faith’s title of Britain’s
reigning Princess of Pop was
confirmed when she walked
away with the Best British
Female Solo Artist prize at
the BRITs. Nearly a month on,
she’s still clearly flushed with
success, whisking her Tracey
Emin-designed statuette out from
behind the piano mid-set for all
to see. “It took me a long time
to get it,” she grins.
The Londoner’s rise from
a niche fashion-conscious
post-Amy Winehouse kook to
bona fide arena-filler has taken
six years. During that time
she’s wooed TV panel show
audiences and guested with
Ray Davies and Jools Holland –
both class acts that add a slice
of elder statesmen cred.
Beginning with Changing,
her chart-topping collaboration
with Sigma, Paloma’s second
arena tour features a career-
spanning set-list that flies all
the way from 2009’s debut
single Stone Cold Sober to
Beauty Remains, the new
Bernard Butler/Fyfe Dangerfield
co-write from the expanded
edition of last year’s A Perfect
Contradiction.
In front of an open,
enthusiastic audience, Faith
uses their receptiveness to
encourage women to vote,
takes an amusing knock at UKIP,
comments on tax evasion by
the rich, and praises the NHS.
Whether you agree with her
Getty
112
sentiments or not, it’s refreshing
to hear a high-profile pop star
be unafraid to stick their neck
out, even briefly.
With the serious bit over,
Faith reclines on the piano for
standout mid-period ballad Just
Be, before kicking things up
a notch with a show-stopping
and highly irresistible cover of
Aretha Franklin’s Baby I Love
You, performed as a duet with
snappily-dressed Ty Taylor, the
singer from her support band
Vintage Trouble.
Armed with a powerful, full-
bodied voice, Faith thankfully
keeps the showy histrionics to a
minimum, preferring to be led
by the song.
That lack of pretention
extends to the set and her
attire – surprisingly for someone
so associated with the more
out there side of fashion, her
dress and appearance are both
relatively restrained.
As the show careers towards
its conclusion, the wiggly,
snaking Pharrell Williams co-
write Can’t Rely On You and
Sixties soul-influenced belter
Only Love Can Hurt Like This
shine brightly, as does a take
on Ike and Tina Turner’s River
Deep Mountain High. It comes
complete with cheeky Tina
moves from both Paloma and
her bare-footed ‘Ikette’ backing
singers, and ensures that the
night ends on a mountainous
high. Dave Freak
SHALAMAR
CONCORDE 2, BRIGHTON
1 APRIL
Three decades ago, Shalamar
would have come to the beach
to make a personal appearance
on the Radio 1 Roadshow but
they did a great job of rolling
back the years at a busy and
buzzing Brighton club gig
which had the feel and flavour
of a Soul Weekender ahead of
the Easter Bank Holiday. Mostly
dressed in black and fronting
a cracking band, Howard
Hewett, Carolyn Griffey and
Jeffrey Daniel shimmied on to
the slinky Make That Move,
their overlapping harmonies
and synchronised moves as
infectious and dazzling as ever.
They follow the title track from
Friends, their superlative album
heralded by Paul Weller as
one of 1982’s finest releases,
with two more Top 20 singles,
I Owe You One and Take That
To The Bank, and set a high
standard they manage to keep
throughout a hit-laden set.
Carolyn Griffey – the daughter
of SOLAR Records singer Carrie
Lucas and Dick Griffey, the
entrepreneur who came up
with the Shalamar concept and
who co-founded SOLAR with
Soul Train host Don Cornelius –
was all smiles and proved the
perfect replacement for Jody
Watley on Don’t Go, the dance
track Shalamar recently cut
with DJ Skip. A ballad segment
featured Hewett dedicating
“to the ladies” This Is For The
Lover In You, the smooth tune
Em Irvine
Babyface revived with LL Cool
J in 1996, and Daniel singing
falsetto and doing some
unusually slow but nonetheless
effective body-popping on
Lost Without You reminded
us that Shalamar's catalogue
occasionally wandered away
from the dance floor and into
the bedroom.
Though Hewett took
another breather with Enough,
performed in tribute to the late
keyboard wizard George Duke,
the audience had very much
come to party the night away
and lapped up the wondrous
Second Time Around and
especially a double-whammy
disco finale of There It Is and I
Can Make You Feel Good.
When the trilby-wearing
Daniel reprised the backslide
he taught Michael Jackson,
he, Griffey and Hewett
interpolated UpTown Funk!,
the Mark Ronson featuring
Bruno Mars smash, into an
inevitable encore of A Night
To Remember. I half expected
Shalamar to complete the circle
and dust off Uptown Festival,
the Motown medley that served
as their launching pad in 1977
before Hewett joined Daniel
and Watley, but the event was
memorable enough without that
conclusion, and offered further
proof that a Chic-style return to
the charts is not beyond the all-
singing, all-dancing trio.
Pierre Perrone
Derek Bremner/NME

FUTURE ISLANDS
ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON
30 MARCH
Future Islands’ appearance
on The Late Show With David
Letterman in March 2014 was
the most talked-about TV slot
by an unknown band for years.
Singer Samuel T Herring’s
bamboozling dancing was the
main focus; resembling a young
Kevin Spacey playing a car
mechanic, Herring was totally
committed to ensuring every
viewer was captivated by his
manic glare, wildly windmilling
arms and non-stop melodrama
as he pirouetted on the spot.
That was heroic enough,
but the song Seasons (Waiting
On You) – heartfelt, chiming
synthpop sung like Andy Bell
at his most intense – was also
something of a marvel. The
weird thing was how the East
Carolina trio had remained out
of the spotlight despite releasing
three previous albums. Having
played nearly 200 shows in
the year since Letterman, Future
Islands’ largest headline date
went some way to explaining
why they’ve both gained a
devoted following and why they
were able to stay unremarked
upon for so long.
Despite performing so
many gigs, Herring’s intensity
remains undimmed. From the
opening pulse of Back In The
Tall Grass, he’s demented and
as hammy as any B-movie
actor. It’s certainly a contrast
to his bandmates – mop-haired
William Cashion throws out
plenty of Peter Hook-style low-
Dani Quesada
slung basslines but remains
mostly static, as does Gerrit
Wilmers behind a bank of
keyboards. Virtually all of
current album Singles is aired,
but Seasons is very much the
highlight. Dispensed with
halfway through the 75-minute
set, it sees off any notion that
Future Islands are a novelty act.
Not all of what surrounds
it does such a good job
of dispelling the suspicion
that Herring’s masterclass
in performance art is more
substantial than the occasionally
primitive tunes that he’s fronting.
The gig’s two new songs
highlight their mixed approach:
The Chase is a wonderfully
twinkling fairground ride
built around a Wilmers riff
reminiscent in its simplicity of
Kraftwerk’s The Model, whereas
the ballad In The Dark is am-
dram hokum that Bon Jovi might
reject for lack of subtlety.
Eventually, the inevitable
happens and Herring
announces shortly before the
encore “I just split the f*** out
of my pants.” Getting a new
pair of trousers means a lengthy
wait before the trio come back
on. That the crowd cheer every
moment before the band finally
re-emerge for a thumping Inch
Of Dust shows the affection
Herring’s earnest endeavours
generate. Whether his band
can throw all of that passion
into their music hasn’t totally
been established. John Earls
ANDREW MONTGOMERY
HOXTON BAR & KITCHEN,
LONDON
25 MARCH
Unlucky enough to arrive
during the fag-end of Britpop,
Aberdeen marvels Geneva
would surely have been better
received in a less laddish era.
Built around the skyscraping
vocals of Andrew Montgomery,
they eventually imploded after
two sumptuous albums of
Suede-flavoured drama. Bruised
by Geneva’s messy demise,
Montgomery vanished, a sad
cameo in the “Where are they
now?” round of Never Mind
The Buzzcocks his only public
appearance in a decade.
Now living in Sweden,
Montgomery re-emerged last
year with solo album Ruled By
Dreams. Looser and lither than
before, songs aired here range
from the heavy funk of Waiting
For Me to Radio 2-playlisted
ballad Sorry Someday,
SUPERFOOD
H E AV E N , L O N D O N
9 APRIL
Superfood is fronted by Dom
Ganderton, a producer for
local Birmingham shoegazers
Peace and Swim Deep, and
his intention with this new
band was to bring a sense of
much-needed fun back to the
increasingly earnest guitar
scene. It’s an approach which
has meant the quartet have
been unfairly pigeonholed as
Britpop revivalists, with all the
supposedly regressive attitudes
that entails. True enough,
Melting rivals Blur’s Tracy Jacks
for whimsy, but there’s a lot
more to their debut album Don’t
Say That than wishing it was
1994 again.
Superfood amble on stage
much like one of Ganderton’s
production clients, with bassist
Emily Baker remaining heads-
down throughout and even
the singer himself looking a
little overawed by the size of
the 1800-strong crowd (“It’s
very strange seeing so many
of you,” he admits). This initial
bashfulness is overcome by the
L I V E & E V E N T S
holding their own among the
five Geneva epics littered
throughout the set. Looking trim,
Montgomery is a funnier, dafter
presence than his impassioned
high vocals suggest, joking
about his lack of dancing skills,
his nostril hair and referring to
himself as “the Scottish numpty
in the middle”. For a numpty,
it’s a terrific performance. If
his glass-smashing voice is
naturally suited to heightened
drama, then the Too Rye
Ay-era Dexys stomp of La
Graciosa imagines a folk-era
The Associates. While the
encore consists of an acoustic
run-through of Geneva’s If You
Have To Go, there’s enough
spirit in Montgomery’s return
to suggest his shows are likely
to end on solo songs soon
enough. John Earls
confidence in their music. After
a prog-synth intro reminiscent
of The Flaming Lips, first song
proper You Can Believe sets
the tone as an extremely young
and very enthusiastic audience
remain word-perfect throughout
the show’s hour. Girls sit
on boyfriends’ shoulders,
crowdsurfers weave in between
them and the atmosphere is
more like a dream festival
crowd than the stereotypical
chin-stroking London audience.
The fact that one fan is
extravagantly sick in a bin next
to the bar at least shows people
are here for a good time.
They’re rewarded with the
baggy party of Like A Daisy
and Don’t Say That’s Was (Not
Was) heightened funk, while the
closing Superfood is the band’s
own version of The Monkees’
theme. Playing in front of the
sort of fractal ambient club
images last seen at an Orb gig,
Superfood aren’t subtle, but
Ganderton more than fulfils his
aim. John Earls
113
 CLASSIC

114
No.17
N E W O R D E R
R E U N I T E
W I T H G I L L I A N
G I L B E R T
MOMENTS
2 A U G U S T 2 0 1 3
Long before Peter Hook’s messy departure from New Order in 2007,
the band had been missing a key ingredient. Drummer Stephen Morris
and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert’s younger daughter has a neurological
condition and, in 2001, Gilbert quit the band to care for her family,
reasoning that it would be easier to replace her than Morris.
Gilbert was replaced by Phil Cunningham and, when New Order
reformed without Hook in 2011, both keyboardists stayed. They
will feature on New Order’s first album since 2005’s Waiting For The
Sirens’ Call, due out later this year.
It remains to be seen whether Gilbert – seen here looking imperious
at 2013’s Lollapalooza festival – will make one of her rare vocal
appearances on the new album. She has sung on four New Order tracks,
most recently reciting the single word “faith” on 1993’s Avalanche.
John Earls

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