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Mars: 2020: Springtime (1:24) [ NICK JACOUBOWSKY ]Dec. 14th, 2006
Mars: 2020: Springtime (1:24) [ NICK JACOUBOWSKY ]
[ part 1 ] [ part 2 ] [ part 3 ] [ part 5 ]
Fine Young Cannibals, The Raw & The Cooked, 1989
After Andy Cox and David Steele quit ska band The Beat they went on a long worldwide search for a vocalist for their new band before settling on Roland Gift, who just happened to live around the corner in Birmingham. It was a blessed combination because Gift's slick, strained vocals somehow both contrasted and complemented their schizophrenic music, which fell precisely halfway between electronic and guitar-driven 80s pop. This combination is still (just) good fun, but many of the tunes that weren't singles barely stand up at all today, although The Raw & The Cooked did sell two million at the time. The sparse construction of their sound was quite refreshing and unique, but this album also serves as a clear example of an all-too-prevalent 'track arrangement' template common to many 80s Britpop albums: kick off with an assured hit ('She Drives Me Crazy'), end side 1 with a more thoughtful song, hide the oddest track somewhere near the middle of side 2 before finishing of with an upbeat afterthought ('Ever Fallen In Love?'). It's a formula alright (and still used by too many acts) but there was little enough real substance to make FYC one of the defining 80s Brit bands, despite their occasionally brilliant ideas.
Nik Kershaw, Human Racing, 1984
From his school-leaving days dishing out UB40s at the dole office, Nik Kershaw's rise to fame was fortunate, first hooking up with Mickey Modern (the former manager of Nine Below Zero) his star rose quickly and yet descended almost as fast, a fate that seemed to befall so many solo musicians in the early '80s. But that was a sign of our own fickle record-buying tastes at a time when there was such an overflowing cornucopia of colourful British music around that people could afford to be picky. Kershaw had an unusual talent for bringing out fully-realised songs that needed little input from a producer ("because a lot of people in the music business haven't got a lot of imagination"); this led him into being able to release two albums in 1984 alone, Human Racing and the marginally inferior The Riddle, the two almost serving as one back-to-back double album in its own right. My memories of 1984's British music scene are dominated by 'I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me' and the anthemic 'Wouldn't It Be Good', then songs from The Riddle as good as 'Don Quixote' exposed him as a real musician possibly too good for the charts. Kershaw's over-exposure should have been paced better to give him time to breathe between albums, though he clearly didn't need any lessons in songwriting from Elton John. What Human Racing showed was a small but audible degree of wit and intelligence that people warmed to and it was to be a couple more years before this flowered again with the minor hit 'Radio Musicola', probably his most self-aware and cleverest song. I'm sure he misses the '80s and wishes they were still with us and it was good to see some talent rising to the top for once, albeit briefly.
Love and Money, Strange Kind of Love, 1988
Like The Blue Nile's A Walk Across the Rooftops, this for me was another one of those few 1980s British albums I had a sneaking suspicion, or daresay hope, that it would still be completely listenable in twenty years. Now that time's almost up, I can say it has acually done better, it has actually matured with age. Strange Kind of Love was a supremely confident follow up to their first album All You Need Is..., this time their itchy, melancholy funk being imbued with stratospheric cool, probably inspired by the involvement of Steely Dan's producer Gary Katz and Toto's drummer Jeff Porcaro. The breadth of sound does feel distinctly American in too many places for this to be a completely Scottish affair though that input was not a weakness as it stretched singer/songwriter/guitarist James Grant in unexpected ways, and apart from the freshness of the songs themselves it is his sheer authority of voice and diversity of guitar that have helped keep this album so enjoyable for so long. Love and Money were regretably not a 'hits' band (though half a dozen minor ones in nine years is still respectable), but here for once they deserved it – the single 'Jocelyn Square' still kicks around very nicely and for all I know might even still get airplay somewhere, if anyone else remembers it. But it's songs like 'Strange Kind of Love', 'Hallelujah Man' and 'Up Escalator' that give this album its quirky, trans-Atlantic identity, so uncompromising in attitude that I'll probably be listening to it still in another twenty years.
Talk Talk, The Colour of Spring, 1986
For a supposedly New Wave band Talk Talk were yet another outfit with a typically early 80s image crisis, showing they had some categorically pre-punk influences but whose UK success was at the whim of their chosen audience's post-punk sensibility. I think it's for that reason they were unjustly and too often overlooked, though they obviously knew what they were about. Too often Talk Talk could be introverted and depressingly (or wonderfully) moody, giving off a vibe, at least here in the UK, of a genuinely interesting band always just about to make it big, a band who most had at least heard of but who never quite caught the ear of everyone and left you wondering, as if from afar, how long they'd been around and where they might go next. Talk Talk never gained much more than critical acclaim in their native England, only gaining minor successes here while they enjoyed far more popularity in Europe. It's my feeling that The Colour of Spring was the album that should have made them register with everyone who hadn't yet given them a chance, as they seemed to have something truly original to say about modern life and the elusive quality of finding spiritual meaning in the everyday. Maybe it was the way they went about saying it that, in the long run, alienated many: though The Colour of Spring was briefly a top ten chart album, outside of the catchiness of their singles their often progressive and dependable tunes acted as the frame on which Mark Hollis draped his shaky vocals, at times recalling the vulnerability of Nick Drake, while some complex or restrained guitar and keyboards revived memories of the off-limits tastefulness of Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour and Rick Wright. So perhaps it was who they reminded you of that made a wider UK audience difficult, or maybe it was the achingly-delivered earnestness of their lyrics, but their hits did have a directness of approach: 'Life's What You Make It' and 'Living in Another World' are both solid and dependable pieces of thoughtful rock. Maybe they just weren't obtusely cool in the way Simple Minds were. Their next album Spirit of Eden (later categorised as 'post-rock') had a far angrier yet more minimalist sound and was considered to be their crowning moment, yet it sold less and for me it also lost them their melancholy edge. Belated UK success was to come with the 1990 compilation Natural History which sold a million (perhaps with the schizophrenia of their synth-pop New Wave origins at last at a safe distance), but The Colour of Spring is the album I will always prefer to remember them by.
Fine Young Cannibals, The Raw & The Cooked, 1989
After Andy Cox and David Steele quit ska band The Beat they went on a long worldwide search for a vocalist for their new band before settling on Roland Gift, who just happened to live around the corner in Birmingham. It was a blessed combination because Gift's slick, strained vocals somehow both contrasted and complemented their schizophrenic music, which fell precisely halfway between electronic and guitar-driven 80s pop. This combination is still (just) good fun, but many of the tunes that weren't singles barely stand up at all today, although The Raw & The Cooked did sell two million at the time. The sparse construction of their sound was quite refreshing and unique, but this album also serves as a clear example of an all-too-prevalent 'track arrangement' template common to many 80s Britpop albums: kick off with an assured hit ('She Drives Me Crazy'), end side 1 with a more thoughtful song, hide the oddest track somewhere near the middle of side 2 before finishing of with an upbeat afterthought ('Ever Fallen In Love?'). It's a formula alright (and still used by too many acts) but there was little enough real substance to make FYC one of the defining 80s Brit bands, despite their occasionally brilliant ideas.
Nik Kershaw, Human Racing, 1984
From his school-leaving days dishing out UB40s at the dole office, Nik Kershaw's rise to fame was fortunate, first hooking up with Mickey Modern (the former manager of Nine Below Zero) his star rose quickly and yet descended almost as fast, a fate that seemed to befall so many solo musicians in the early '80s. But that was a sign of our own fickle record-buying tastes at a time when there was such an overflowing cornucopia of colourful British music around that people could afford to be picky. Kershaw had an unusual talent for bringing out fully-realised songs that needed little input from a producer ("because a lot of people in the music business haven't got a lot of imagination"); this led him into being able to release two albums in 1984 alone, Human Racing and the marginally inferior The Riddle, the two almost serving as one back-to-back double album in its own right. My memories of 1984's British music scene are dominated by 'I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me' and the anthemic 'Wouldn't It Be Good', then songs from The Riddle as good as 'Don Quixote' exposed him as a real musician possibly too good for the charts. Kershaw's over-exposure should have been paced better to give him time to breathe between albums, though he clearly didn't need any lessons in songwriting from Elton John. What Human Racing showed was a small but audible degree of wit and intelligence that people warmed to and it was to be a couple more years before this flowered again with the minor hit 'Radio Musicola', probably his most self-aware and cleverest song. I'm sure he misses the '80s and wishes they were still with us and it was good to see some talent rising to the top for once, albeit briefly.
Love and Money, Strange Kind of Love, 1988
Like The Blue Nile's A Walk Across the Rooftops, this for me was another one of those few 1980s British albums I had a sneaking suspicion, or daresay hope, that it would still be completely listenable in twenty years. Now that time's almost up, I can say it has acually done better, it has actually matured with age. Strange Kind of Love was a supremely confident follow up to their first album All You Need Is..., this time their itchy, melancholy funk being imbued with stratospheric cool, probably inspired by the involvement of Steely Dan's producer Gary Katz and Toto's drummer Jeff Porcaro. The breadth of sound does feel distinctly American in too many places for this to be a completely Scottish affair though that input was not a weakness as it stretched singer/songwriter/guitarist James Grant in unexpected ways, and apart from the freshness of the songs themselves it is his sheer authority of voice and diversity of guitar that have helped keep this album so enjoyable for so long. Love and Money were regretably not a 'hits' band (though half a dozen minor ones in nine years is still respectable), but here for once they deserved it – the single 'Jocelyn Square' still kicks around very nicely and for all I know might even still get airplay somewhere, if anyone else remembers it. But it's songs like 'Strange Kind of Love', 'Hallelujah Man' and 'Up Escalator' that give this album its quirky, trans-Atlantic identity, so uncompromising in attitude that I'll probably be listening to it still in another twenty years.
Talk Talk, The Colour of Spring, 1986
For a supposedly New Wave band Talk Talk were yet another outfit with a typically early 80s image crisis, showing they had some categorically pre-punk influences but whose UK success was at the whim of their chosen audience's post-punk sensibility. I think it's for that reason they were unjustly and too often overlooked, though they obviously knew what they were about. Too often Talk Talk could be introverted and depressingly (or wonderfully) moody, giving off a vibe, at least here in the UK, of a genuinely interesting band always just about to make it big, a band who most had at least heard of but who never quite caught the ear of everyone and left you wondering, as if from afar, how long they'd been around and where they might go next. Talk Talk never gained much more than critical acclaim in their native England, only gaining minor successes here while they enjoyed far more popularity in Europe. It's my feeling that The Colour of Spring was the album that should have made them register with everyone who hadn't yet given them a chance, as they seemed to have something truly original to say about modern life and the elusive quality of finding spiritual meaning in the everyday. Maybe it was the way they went about saying it that, in the long run, alienated many: though The Colour of Spring was briefly a top ten chart album, outside of the catchiness of their singles their often progressive and dependable tunes acted as the frame on which Mark Hollis draped his shaky vocals, at times recalling the vulnerability of Nick Drake, while some complex or restrained guitar and keyboards revived memories of the off-limits tastefulness of Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour and Rick Wright. So perhaps it was who they reminded you of that made a wider UK audience difficult, or maybe it was the achingly-delivered earnestness of their lyrics, but their hits did have a directness of approach: 'Life's What You Make It' and 'Living in Another World' are both solid and dependable pieces of thoughtful rock. Maybe they just weren't obtusely cool in the way Simple Minds were. Their next album Spirit of Eden (later categorised as 'post-rock') had a far angrier yet more minimalist sound and was considered to be their crowning moment, yet it sold less and for me it also lost them their melancholy edge. Belated UK success was to come with the 1990 compilation Natural History which sold a million (perhaps with the schizophrenia of their synth-pop New Wave origins at last at a safe distance), but The Colour of Spring is the album I will always prefer to remember them by.