Category Archives: Pop

Eight 1980s Stock, Aitken & Waterman Tracks That Aren’t Crap

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Joe Meek isn’t often compared to Stock, Aitken and Waterman but here’s an associate of the former speaking after his untimely death: ‘He was being ganged up on by the establishment. Nobody with any power in the business liked him because he was independent and successful.’

The same could be said for Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman. The always-deeply-unfashionable songwriting/production/mixing/A&R team, who had over 100 UK Top 40 hits and sold over 40 million singles in the UK (35 million worldwide in 1987 alone),  found their feet in the hi-NRG scene, then detoured into classy soul before emerging with a late-‘80s formula that combined both approaches and made superstars out of Kylie, Jason and Rick Astley.

Everyone from Sigue Sigue Sputnik to Donna Summer sought SAW’s hit-making fairy dust. But many ’80s pop fans hated them. You could argue that was more down to the procedural limitations of their later work – ie. refusal to use a real rhythm section – and formulaic productions than the songwriting (reportedly mostly by Stock, with the other two supplying lyric ideas and Waterman the final mix and marketing) which often adroitely mined Motown and Philly soul and featured some of the weirdest harmonic modulations this side of Nik Kershaw.

But have their best tracks stood the test of time? Here are eight SAW singles that are not routinely turned off by movingtheriver when they come on the radio:

8. Dead Or Alive: ‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)’
Waterman boasted about making difficult records early in the trio’s career and this is one of their weirdest. Apparently their trick was to remove most of the bass from the mix and boost the cowbells, handclaps and sequencers to ‘trigger’ the interactive light shows, especially at ‘gay’ venues. It’s also interesting how long they wait before unleashing the first chorus…

7. Princess: ‘Say I’m Your Number One’
South London soul singer Princess – born Desiree Heslop – was a member of Osibisa before going solo in 1985. This tasty single, with its bizarre but brilliant harmonic hike into the chorus, settled at #7 as well as going top 20 in the US R&B charts.

6. Brother Beyond: ‘The Harder I Try’
Weirdly, this fine Motown pastiche was the FIFTH single released from their second album, but still made #2 in the UK.

5. The Three Degrees: ‘The Heaven I Need’
Yes it’s somewhat of a rip-off of Mai Tai’s ‘History’ (or is it? Which came out first?!) but this was the Prince Charles-approved trio’s groovy comeback after a five-year hiatus. Not much of a success though: it limped to #42.

4. Sonia: ‘You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You’
Bear with me here. Under the house-by-numbers groove lurks a cool take on Philly soul, the verses reminiscent of both ‘Stop Look Listen’ and ‘Betcha By Golly Wow’. 18-year-old Scouser Sonia Evans was a complete unknown when she recorded this. Maybe people assumed it was Kylie. Interestingly it was SAW’s final #1 single in the UK, though they’d already had SEVEN during 1989!

3. Rick Astley: ‘Whenever You Need Somebody’
Just a brilliantly weird sequence of melodic hooks, and another strange key change going into the chorus. Astley’s vocal phrasing is a treat too.

2. Donna Summer: ‘Love’s About To Change My Heart’
Reportedly, this is SAW’s favourite of their singles and Summer’s beautiful vocal is surely a big reason why. It completely bombed in her homeland but made the UK top 20.

1. Brilliant: ‘Love Is War’
Killing Joke’s Youth and future KLF man Jimmy Cauty were involved with this great bit of post-Cupid & Psyche pop/soul, but it still stiffed in the UK.

Any other good SAW tracks? Deep cuts from Kylie albums? It’s unlikely but you never know (and no, ‘Roadblock’ is NOT a great single…).

Further reading: ‘Good Vibrations: The History Of Record Production’ by Mark Cunningham

Peter Gabriel: i/o

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Despite his reputation as a sonic groundbreaker and technological wiz, Peter Gabriel arguably hasn’t done anything much good on record since 1992, even as his live shows gain popularity.

1986’s So was of course the huge pop breakthrough, and that album has been the template for his subsequent, rather predictable solo career – he generally switches between atmospheric ballads a la ‘Mercy Street’ or ‘Don’t Give Up, ‘dark’, vaguely industrial rock tracks, and ‘funky’ one-chord grooves with poppy hooks and emotional lyrics, typified by ‘Sledgehammer’.

i/o is his first album of new material since 2002 and sadly it cannot reverse the trend, despite Gabriel’s always excellent, ageless vocals. It mostly meanders by in a fog of ugly snare drums, dry guitars and keyboards (some by Eno), digital treatments/loops pitched somewhere around 1998, and not much air at all. It seems the multi-layered triumphs of ‘Lead A Normal Life’ and ‘Family Snapshot’ are long gone.

Elsewhere Tony Levin’s bass and stick parts are prominent but they can’t produce anything as immediate and catchy as ‘Sledgehammer’. ‘Four Kinds Of Horses’ sums up the problem – a fairly uninteresting half-time groove underpins a fairly uninteresting vocal melody, while a rather irritating piano loop burbles away in the background. It never should have left the rehearsal room and many other (mostly overlong) tracks replicate that formula.

But Gabriel does deliver a pretty good, harmonically-rich ballad – ‘Playing For Time’ – which some other reviewers have very generously compared to Randy Newman’s best work. It’s this album’s ‘Washing Of The Water’.

In conclusion, the main problem with i/o is that it sounds exactly like you think it will. Maybe Gabriel is working with the wrong people, maybe the wrong software. Maybe he needs to get back to recording ‘as live’, embedded in a really good five-piece band. Paging Bob Ezrin, Larry Fast, Robert Fripp and/or Hugh Padgham…

(postscript: I’ve recently invested in the definitive 2007 CD remaster of Genesis’s Lamb Lies Down On Broadway – it sounds absolutely fantastic and I feel 18 again…)

Gig Review: China Crisis @ The Half Moon Putney, 17 May 2024

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China Crisis in 2024

China Crisis in 2024 with Gary Daly (vocals) and Eddie Lundon (guitar), centre

It’s an interesting era for acts like China Crisis who were never massive but had significant singles success in the 1980s (five UK top 40 hits).

Though releasing only two albums of new music since 1994, they continue to tour successfully, playing both under their own steam and occasionally as part of big ‘80s-themed package dates such as Let’s Rock.

Now essentially a duo of Gary Daly on vocals and Eddie Lundon on guitars, plus Eric Animan on saxes and Jack Hymers on keyboards/programming, they remain a great live draw mainly due to Daly’s stage presence, pitch-perfect vocals and hilarious between-song anecdotes, plus the obviously excellent songcraft.

As Daly pointed out, China Crisis remain a singular, immediately identifiable band, completely different to other early ‘80s Liverpool acts (though they actually originate from nearby Kirkby) like Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

They specialise in willowy, intriguing melodies, haunting synths, clever rhythm guitars, obtuse lyrics and slinky grooves, and, of course, Steely Dan’s Walter Becker produced their best two albums, Flaunt The Imperfection and Diary Of A Hollow Horse.

Their sold-out visit to the venerable, reliable old Half Moon in Putney saw them plugging a new collection of re-imagined old favourites. It was movingtheriver’s first visit to the great venue for at least ten years, though I have fond memories of gigging there regularly in the early 1990s.

Coming onstage to a synth overture featuring some of their most popular themes, CC started with low-key, atmospheric ‘The Soul Awakening’ (with its neat nod to ABC’s ‘SOS’) and ‘Here Comes A Raincloud’, before Daly exploded into life demanding that the house lights be turned on, deadpanning: ‘If I’m gonna play these small f*ckin’ venues, I want to see you all.’

After more amusing greetings, including unprintable tilts at Bono and random asides – ‘Don’t get me started on Phil Oakey’ – he previewed the superb ‘It’s Never Too Late’, originally recorded in 1983 but for some reason relegated to B-side status, by rightly pointing out that it should have been a massive hit single and also claiming that it ‘f*ckin’ is too late or we wouldn’t be playing venues like this’, and there were airings of lovely early torch songs ‘Temptation’s Big Blue Eyes’ and ‘Red Sails’.

Daly paid tribute to Becker – ‘he changed our lives and our music’ – with a killer double from Flaunt, ‘Strength Of Character’ and ‘Bigger The Punch I’m Feeling’. Daly claimed the latter was somewhat inspired by ‘The Love Boat’ TV theme and also that it was a vague tribute to one of the most popular bands in UK singles history: ‘Shut your f*ckin’ eyes and think Hot Chocolate’.

‘African And White’, with intricate new guitar voicings from Lundon, finally revealed the meaning behind the baffling chorus – ‘Life is a fever in Israel’ – another one for the misheard lyrics file. The big hits arrived with mass audience participation and general affection for this most likable of bands – ‘Arizona Sky’, ‘Best Kept Secret’, ‘Black Man Ray’, ‘King In A Catholic Style’ and ‘Christian’, Daly claiming the latter’s UK #12 chart position would have been much improved by a bagpipe solo.

He ended a hugely enjoyable gig with an impassioned speech paying tribute to the UK’s smaller, grassroots venues such as the Half Moon, and an attack on Tory attitudes to the arts and the North in general: ‘Levelling up, my f*cking arse’. China Crisis  continue to tour the UK during the rest of 2024 – don’t miss.

The Blue Nile: A Walk Across The Rooftops 40 Years Old Today

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‘Every record should be compared to silence. Silence is perfect. What are you going to put on it?’
Paul Buchanan, 1984

The Blue Nile’s debut album A Walk Across The Rooftops – released 40 years ago today – embraced silence. The first minute of the title track was a case in point. Buyers all over the UK were wondering if their tapes and records were faulty.

In a superb year for debut albums, the Scottish trio stole a march on David Sylvian, beating his Brilliant Trees by two months, though Scott Walker was first out of the traps with Climate Of Hunter. Both Sylvian and Walker reportedly adored A Walk, as did Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno.

The album has a funny/weird backstory involving the Bee Gees, Krankees and Spice Girls, well worth checking out. But how does my original Linn/Virgin CD (catalogue number LKHCD1) sound 40 years on? Fantastic. Seldom have acoustic drums and pianos been better recorded, the songwriting is solid and every electronic noise has its place.

‘Tinseltown In The Rain’ and ‘Heatwave’ would make for superb hi-fi testers. Buchanan’s voice is original and affecting. Lyrically, his speciality seems to be life-changing realisations in ordinary settings. The title track, for instance, was reportedly inspired by the view outside his Edinburgh kitchen window.

A Walk only got to #80 in the UK on release but became a formidable sleeper hit and has apparently sold way beyond the band’s wildest expectations. They waited five years to release followup Hats, an album many rate as superior to A Walk. Not this writer though. A great debut album in a decade full of them.

Michael McDonald: Sweet Freedom (Extended)

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It’s always a nice surprise when a classic 1980s track suddenly appears on streaming services out of the blue.

Michael McDonald’s ‘Sweet Freedom’, written by Rod Temperton and co-produced by Temperton, Bruce Swedien and Dick Rudolph, is one such single, but the only version currently available is the superb seven-minute extended mix.

It was a good period for McDonald (weird that he wasn’t involved with ‘We Are The World’?). Despite a now-very-dated 1985 album No Lookin’ Back, he had recorded fine duets with James Ingram, Patti Labelle and Joni Mitchell.

As for Temperton, hot off the back of Thriller he had worked on Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Color Purple’ soundtrack, then ‘Running Scared’, nowadays a pretty-much-forgotten Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines vehicle. Recorded at Westlake in Los Angeles, where most of Thriller was laid down, ‘Sweet Freedom’ was the movie’s key song and arguably Temperton’s final masterpiece. The verses owe a little to Lionel Richie’s ‘All Night Long’ and Temperton finally gets his ‘starlight’ motif into the middle eight (‘Starlight’ was an early title for the song ‘Thriller’).

The extended version is a brilliant little pop/soul symphony, with every performer getting a feature. Greg Phillinganes adds his special sauce on keys and there are some beautiful backing vocals from Siedah Garrett. The horn section (Bill Reichenbach, Chuck Findley, Jerry Hey, Larry Williams) contribute brief solos as does guitarist Paul Jackson Jr.

It would have been nice to have heard a real rhythm section (JR Robinson and Nathan East?) let loose on this but no matter. And people who say McDonald isn’t a soulful singer need to hear his performance in the second half of this extended version.

Released in June 1986, ‘Sweet Freedom’ reached #7 in the US and #12 in the UK.

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…

 

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.

Nik Kershaw: Wouldn’t It Be Good @ 40

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Bristol-born, Ipswich-raised Nik Kershaw had a spiffing 1984 – no other solo artist spent more time on the UK singles charts during the year.

‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’, released 40 years ago this weekend (on the same day as Echo & The Bunnymen’s ‘The Killing Moon’) and reaching #4, was his second single – ‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’ initially flopped in September 1983.

‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’ was predominantly recorded at Sarm East studios on Osborn Street, Aldgate (don’t look for it – it’s not there any more). Peter Collins produced soon after helming Musical Youth’s ‘Pass The Dutchie’ and Tracy Ullman’s solo output (he later worked with Rush, Alice Cooper and Queensryche). The song’s original title was ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ – Collins demanded a better word than ‘nice’.

It’s a great single, the beginning of movingtheriver’s love affair with Kershaw’s music, and its ominous lyrics have the slight whiff of ‘In The Air Tonight’ about them, as well as a subtle social conscience. I also always liked the weird emphases he placed on some words/syllables – ‘You must be JOKING/You don’t know A thing about it/You got no probLEM‘ etc…

I distinctly remember watching him perform the song on ‘Top Of The Pops’ for the first time – who was this tramp on telly, with the snood and fingerless gloves? My parents liked the track too, which was a bit disarming.

The song’s overdriven guitars were layered/overdubbed, Brian May-style (best heard on the 12” remix), and their major-seventh chords create some strange timbres. Its structure is seriously weird too – the second chorus comes right at the end, after a lengthy guitar/horn solo. The delayed gratification is clever and totally outside the norm.

The video was directed by Storm Thorgersen, mostly filmed in a large, disused building opposite Buckingham Palace, apart from a bit at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in Cambridge. An extremely odd cover version features on the ‘Pretty In Pink’ movie soundtrack. Nik fluffed the words at Live Aid but hardly anyone noticed.

Happy birthday to another classic single from 1984.

Big Country: ‘Wonderland’ Kicks Off One Of The Greatest Ever Pop Years

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Big Country kicked off 1984 – one of the greatest ever pop years – with their between-album, standalone A-side ‘Wonderland’. It reached #8, their second most successful single in the UK.

Also 40 years ago this week, Radio 1 DJ Mike Read ‘banned’ Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ and the Second British Invasion was sweeping the States, led by Eurythmics, Duran Duran, Culture Club, A Flock Of Seagulls and The Police (a remarkable Hot 100 chart of April 1984 featured 40% British acts).

Meanwhile, Big Music of a distinctly Celtic hue was sweeping the UK: The Waterboys, Simple Minds, U2, Echo & The Bunnymen and Big Country. They made ‘elemental’ music, as the cliché goes, with lots of space and lyrics about wars, work, glaciers, mountains, seas and skies.

You could make the case that Big Country were the best musicians of the lot (see the live clip below). And they had an extraordinary run of singles success between 1983 and 1986 – after their debut (‘Harvest Home’) missed the top 40, all the next ten reached the top 30. They also made some serious inroads into the US market.

Tommy Vance liked ‘Wonderland’, reviewing it in Kerrang! magazine thus: ‘Should be heard by anyone who likes fine music. I’m a real fan of Steve Lillywhite’s productions and he’s done a superb job here. The guitar sound is good and the drumming superb.’ Indeedy. Ver Country’s second album Steeltown (sans ‘Wonderland’) emerged in October 1984 and went to #1 in the UK. Cool times.

RIP the terrific Annie Nightingale.

Trevor Horn: Echoes – Ancient & Modern

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Over the next few weeks movingtheriver will look at new albums by two giants of 1980s music – Trevor Horn and Peter Gabriel (despite the fact that both arguably stopped being crucial pop forces around 1993 or 1994 – but then pop also probably stopped being crucial around then too, sometime between the first Suede album and the first ‘farewell’ Faith No More LP…)

First up, Uncle Trevor. The superstar producer and one of the architects of 1980s music revisits some of that decade’s key songs with guest vocalists on Echoes. But alarm bells have been ringing in recent interviews where he has mentioned that it’s these songs’ lyrical content that most interests him.

And, sadly, coming from a man who was responsible for some of the best grooves of the 80s and most provocative musical pranks, Echoes is desperate not to offend and a big disappointment. Fair enough, though – the guy is 74 years old, and who knows that sort of record company pressure has come from his new paymasters Deutsche Grammophon who aren’t exactly known for their ‘challenging’ pop albums.

Seal is a brilliant interpreter of the modern pop song and initially his version of Joe Jackson’s ‘Steppin’ Out’ works a treat. But the reformatted chords and bossa-nova feel are seriously skew-whiff, despite a nice (uncredited) trumpet solo. Horn’s collaboration with Michael Buble surely can’t be far off.

‘Slave To The Rhythm’ is reinvented as a piano ballad (for the second time, after Horn/Rumer’s weird 2019 effort), with a few strange new chords and an almost comically stiff groove, and the song just can’t take the strain despite a committed vocal from Lady Blackbird.

Marc Almond is in good voice but his ‘Love Is A Battlefield’ foregrounds a horrid little Euro-disco groove. Meanwhile Iggy makes ‘Personal Jesus’ halfway passable despite an incredibly polite blues setting. It could have worked with the right band.

Steve Hogarth’s ‘Drive’ could have worked too (and if only Horn had produced Marillion circa 1993) but it misses the whole point of The Cars’ original – the dichotomy between the dark lyrics and bittersweet harmony/melody, with liberal use of major-7th chords. Why not a classic soaring Horn swoon-fest along the lines of Seal’s ‘Crazy’?

The key of ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ has been changed to accommodate Rick Astley’s smooth mid-range vocals and he does a passable job but, again, the groove and arrangement are simplistic and not a little irritating.

Toyah is let loose on ‘Relax’ – again, it could and should have worked. But Horn inexplicably reimagines the song as a slow, painstakingly robotic groove with a toe-curlingly reverent recitation of the lyrics. Is it supposed to be funny?

Elsewhere there are versions of ‘White Wedding’, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Swimming Pools’ which barely register. Horn’s own vocal on ‘Avalon’ is absolutely fine though, despite the on-the-nose arrangement.

So it’s sad to report that Echoes is rather joyless pop. Most of it might suffice as the soundtrack for ‘Broadchurch’ or a Christmas TV ad but generally it just made me yearn for the originals. One is also desperate for a vocalist with a bit more edge – shame Holly Johnson, Claudia Brucken or even Glenn Gregory couldn’t be persuaded to do a twirl.