Monthly Archives: Feb 2024

The Samantha Fox/Mick Fleetwood BRIT Awards Fiasco: 35 Years On

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Memorable for all the wrong reasons, the 1989 BRIT awards, broadcast live 35 years ago this month, has long gone down as one of the most shambolic, embarrassing  TV shows ever.

It took place at the Royal Albert Hall during the Jason/Kylie/Rick Astley/Brother Beyond/Bros-inspired pop peak of the late 1980s, less than six months after the first Smash Hits Poll Winners Party at the same venue. Madchester was just around the corner but it seemed like another world.

Cool Britannia this wasn’t. Firstly, there was the the two presenters (wasn’t Phillip Schofield available?). Apart from anything else, Fox is 5’1” and Mick 6’6”. Then there was their extremely unnatural, awkward presentation styles, though, to this day, Fox swears that the autocue was broken.

Various bad-tempered Stones came and went, Boy George was introduced as The Four Tops, Tina Turner and Annie Lennox looked desperately awkward, other ‘dignitaries’ were wheeled out and MPs were booed.

Rounding things off perfectly, Cliff Richard was then given a Lifetime Achievement Award and delivered a brilliantly sniffy speech for the plebs. All in all, it’s no surprise that this was the last time the BRITS went out live on TV for 18 years…

 

Arvo Pärt: Tractus (2023)

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Can music bring about social change, get people to put down their guns, retire their drones? Can ‘religious’ music affect the atheist/agnostic as powerfully as it affects the ‘believer’?

Ted Gioia may have some answers but in the meantime the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has been making special music for decades.

His work was particularly revered in the 1980s as ambient/minimalism gained a bigger following than ever before, his ‘Fratres’ becoming a classic, performed by everything from a string quartet to cello octet and featuring on countless movie soundtracks.

Pärt’s mesmerising new ECM New Series album Tractus – probably movingtheriver’s album of 2023 – was recorded during September 2022 in Tallinn’s Methodist Church. It features music written between 1988 and 2019 for string orchestra, soprano voice, choir, piano and assorted percussion.

The title refers to a series of theological writings published between 1833 and 1845 by
English cardinal John Henry Newman, and also an ancient form of singing first noted as early as the third century AD. There are other historical precedents to both the title and compositional style, outlined in great detail within the CD’s liner notes.

Sadly the people who should listen to Tractus will probably never get to hear it.

Culture Club: ‘Karma Chameleon’ Hits US #1 40 Years Ago Today

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The Second British Invasion hit its imperial phase 40 years ago today, a week after Newsweek had put Annie Lennox and Boy George on its cover.

Off the back of Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’ hitting #1 in the US during September 1983, ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ peaked at #4 at the beginning of February 1984.

In the same week, Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon’ hit #1, their only American chart-topper to date. The band then won Best New Artist at the 1984 Grammy Awards on 28 February, Boy George giving one of the most famous music-award thank-yous of all time:

Regarding the Newsweek photoshoot, George later reported in his autobiography ‘Take It Like A Man’: ‘I heard Annie telling the make-up artist Lynne Easton not to make her look like Boy George. Annie was my female counterpart, the tomboy to my tomgirl. I enjoyed the irony of my being photographed with her; I was the fan made good, even if she didn’t want Boy George eyebrows.’

Both Culture Club and Eurythmics then toured the US during April 1984, the latter enjoying a famous residency at The Ritz in New York City. Did you see either of them live in ’84? Let us know your memories below.