‘Paper Gods’ is the 14th album from New Romantic survivalists DURAN DURAN.
It ropes in an expansive line-up of featured artists and collaborators – from fellow Birmingham artist Mr. Hudson (who additionally takes on production duties) through to ‘The Reflex’ remixer Nile Rodgers and one of their previous producers Mark Ronson. Less predictable are the appearances by ex-RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS guitarist John Frusciante and Lindsay Lohan who contributes spoken word elements to ‘Danceophobia’.
The amount of collaborators here could be viewed in two ways, either to set off warning bells of a band potentially struggling to produce material as a self-contained unit or as a way to stay relevant and appeal to a wider demographic; but look on the positive side though, at least Pitbull and Akon aren’t featured…
The opening eponymous title track is certainly a statement of intent, clocking in at 7 minutes, ‘Paper Gods’ is a wildly adventurous piece which starts off as lo-fi gospel with counterpointed vocals before a drum machine and synth combo straight out of DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Delta Machine’ takes the track in a completely different and unexpected direction. The addition of guitar and John Taylor’s bass give the track more of a DURAN-style feel but the electronic drums never quite propel the song to the heights required. A half-hearted dub-style middle section eventually leads back into what is undeniably a strong chorus, but one which would have fitted better into a shorter, more conventional song structure.
‘Last Night In The City’ showcases Kiesza’s vocals and ditches the live bass of John Taylor for more of an electronic EDM-style one, but the song itself comes across as a failed attempt to cross-fertilize current electronic elements into the DURAN DURAN sound.
‘You Kill With Me Silence’ is the first track to potentially get old school Duranies excited as its intro section alludes to elements of ‘The Chauffeur’ from ‘Rio’ with its synth-driven intro before morphing into a 10CC styled chorus with electric piano and layered vocals. Again this song feels like a wasted opportunity, a big melodic chorus wasted on a mismatched production style…
’Pressure Off’ brings a slice of funk with CHIC’s Nile Rodgers adding his trademark guitar sound and what is the most cohesive track on the album so far. But compared to, say, ‘Get Lucky’ or ‘Uptown Funk’, this is a second division effort. Just as the listener is getting ready to give up on the album, ‘What Are the Chances’ finally delivers what we know DURAN DURAN are capable of… more in the downtempo vein of ‘Come Undone’ or ‘Ordinary World’ and not trying overly hard to be down with the kids.
THIS is the direction that the band sound most comfortable with and is easily the strongest song and production on show here. Lyrically the track explores themes that recall the film ‘Sliding Doors’ where fate dictates the outcome of a relationship depending upon a person’s location at a certain time. The fact that out of all the songs here, this is the only one which is hooky enough to stay ingrained in the memory once the listener has walked away from the album, speaks volumes…
‘Sunset Garage’ with its urgent snare work has an uplifting Motown / pop feel about it, and with the autobiographical line “Whatever happens we’ll be ok!” showcases a sound (as on ‘What Are the Chances’) that feels more natural to the band. Of the remaining songs, ‘Change The Skyline’, ‘Butterfly Girl’ and ‘Only In Dreams’ scream FILLER! and it’s left to ‘The Universe Alone’ to end the album in emotional but downtempo fashion – at its climax, Frusciante’s guitar solo melting under a wall of track distortion.
‘Paper Gods’ showcases how important the right producer choice is – in comparison with Mark Ronson’s work on the revitalised ‘All You Need Is Now’ (which steered the band back into a more ‘Rio’-like sound), Josh Blair and Mr. Hudson’s work doesn’t seem to fit the band dynamic, songwriting and SOUND of DURAN DURAN.
Some credit must be given to the band for taking a risk and giving the album to a pair of relatively untested producers (Hudson is more known for his collaborative artist work than his production), but throughout, there is a lack of ‘band’ cohesion with drummer Roger Taylor and John Taylor’s signature bass sound both feeling under-utilised.
This album was two years in the making, but with its stream of featured artists feels paper thin and sadly far from God-like…
‘Paper Gods’ is available in a variety of formats internationally via Warner Music
In the five years since its formation on 15th March 2010, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has reviewed over 100 albums and EPs.
During this time, the album has become less of an artistic statement, with the focus of both consumer and media on single songs directly led to the prominence of the extended EP or mini-album in today’s digital marketplace.
It is a halfway house, but at least the creative output of an artist can be showcased by a small body of work. And increasingly, many are combining and reworking several EP releases in order to formulate a full length album. Despite the move towards downloads and streaming, there is still a demand for physical product.
However, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has been slightly bemused by the music industry bias towards vinyl, to the neglect of CD. It should be noted that silver digital discs are still the preferred medium for the general consumer, as proven by the million plus sales of TAYLOR SWIFT’s ‘1989’ opus on CD. This was a release which was confined to compact disc and digital download variants with no concessions towards streaming and, initially in the first few months of release, vinyl.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK confesses it has no love whatsoever for vinyl in the 21st Century, and is rather irritated by it being turned into an antiquated object of fetish and snobbery which bears little relation to the music on it.
And to think ironically that the world’s record labels tried to kill off vinyl back in 1989 in favour of err… cassette! Yes, the music industry… as forward thinking as ever!! With regards Spotify, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK actually is not particularly fond of that either…
Even with the subscription model, with so much music available, most of it is not listened to properly, thus devaluing any music that is perhaps worthy of greater recognition. Think of it like the casual music festival goer who just hops between all the acts playing on the many different stages after just two songs… it’s a false economy in reality!
But despite its concerns, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK still loves a good album in whatever format. It is the content that is most important, not the mode of carriage. So which long players still stand up to scrutiny and can claim to have lasted the course over the last five years? Listed by year then alphabetical order, with a restriction of one album per artist and no recent releases from 2015, here are our 30 favourite albums from the period between 2010 to 2014…
GOLDFRAPP Head First (2010)
Although now disowned by the duo, ‘Head First’ was Alison Goldfrapp finally all relaxed and having fun. Stomping synth tunes like ‘Alive’, ‘Believer’ and ‘Believer’ were fine examples of Ms Goldfrapp taking her Olivia Newton John fixation (which had been apparent on early B-side ‘UK Girls’ with its interpolation of ‘Physical’) to a fully realised musical level. But best of all though on this short and sharp collection were the marvellous ABBA tribute of the ‘Head First’ title track and the ethereal ARP laden Eurodisco of ‘Dreaming’. While the more recent ‘Tales Of Us’ has seen GOLDFRAPP venture into more cinematic orchestrations again, a return to electronic pop is always possible with Ms Goldfrapp’s record of chameleon-like tendencies.
‘Head First’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Mute Records
One of the best electronic albums to have been released in 2010, ‘Origin’ was a fine crystalline balancing act that combined the classic synthpop of days gone by, with the freshness of new technologically fuelled dance music. The songs of the Helsinki based duo Juho Paolosmaa and Tomi Hyyppä ranged from the supreme GARY NUMAN on Prozac of ‘Remains Of Love’ and ‘Ways To Be’, to the Moroder-esque hypnotism of ‘Kiss & Tell’. Then there were the OMD influences on ‘Some Kind Of Dream’ and ‘Envelope’ so it was not entirely surprising the pair were invited to support than band on their 2010 tour. But while VILLA NAH then went into hiatus, Paolosmaa partnered up with ‘Origin’ co-producer Jori Hulkkonen to form SIN COS TAN.
‘Origin’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Keys Of Life Records
The baroque electronic trio of Katie Stelmanis, Maya Postepski and Dorian Wolf successfully broke away from the short lived Witch House sub-genre to yield their own emotionally charged sound. The moodily enigmatic ‘Beat & The Pulse’ and the frankly bonkers ‘Lose It’ had already gained a worthy amount of attention as singles and luckily, AUSTRA’s debut album did not disappoint. The tremendously epic spectre of ‘The Villain’ successfully utilised programmed technology and live drums while the sexual tension of ‘Spellwork’ was like a gothic opera crossing THE KNIFE with DEPECHE MODE that provided their most overtly synthpop offering.
‘Feel It Break’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Domino / Paper Bag Records
Since the return of the classic line-up in 2004, DURAN DURAN’s new material had general failed to meet expectations. However, despite losing guitarist Andy Taylor on the way, the Mark Ronson produced ‘All You Need Is Now’ saw DURAN DURAN reclaim their quintessential sound. The superb glitterball rework of ‘Are Friends Electric?’ for the title track signalled their intentions while ‘Girl Panic’ and ‘Runaway Runaway’ captured classic Duran for the 21st Century. The superb sequencer assisted ‘Being Followed’ had a tingling metallic edge that captured the tensions of post 9/11 paranoia while songstress KELIS dreamily counterpointed on the moody, string laden ‘Man Who Stole A Leopard’ which recalled ‘The Chauffeur’. Nick Rhodes claimed the album was “undoubtedly one of the strongest of our career”; and he was right!
‘All You Need Is Now’ is available as a CD and download via Tape Modern
‘Interplay’ was possibly JOHN FOXX’s most complete and accessible body of work since his classic ‘Metamatic’. Together with Chief Mathematician and synth collector extraordinaire BENGE aka THE MATHS, the use of vintage electronics with modern recording techniques captured a mechanised charm while simultaneously adding a correlative warmth. Among the realised examples of this fresh approach were the feisty ‘Catwalk’, the electro-folkisms of ‘Evergreen’ and the eerie ‘The Running Man’. One of the stand-out tracks ‘Watching A Building On Fire’ featured Mira Aroyo of LADYTRON and was perfectly dystopian, while the title track and closer ‘The Good Shadow’ both added a subtle atmospheric quality to proceedings.
‘Interplay’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Metamatic Records
MAISON VAGUE’s ‘Synthpop’s Alive’ was one of the surprise albums of 2011 and the creation of Clark Stiefel, a German domiciled American with a love for all things Synth Britannia. A classically trained virtuoso who studied piano and electronic music at a conservatoire, his title track battle cry sounded like the result of an unlikely sexual liaison between DEVO and PLACEBO. Chunky riff laden tracks such as ‘Pixelated Lover’, ‘My Situation’, ‘Living On Ice Cream’ and ‘Give Them Away’ affectionately revived The GARY NUMAN Principle but for some variation, there were the marvellous BETTE MIDLER gone electro of ‘No Show’ and the reggae inflected ‘Tunnel Vision’.
‘Synthpop’s Alive’ is available as a download album via Stiefel Musik
Brighton pop-noir quartet MIRRORS’ only album ‘Light & Offerings’ was a seamless majestic journey swathed in layers of vintage electronics and modern rhythmical dynamics. It began with superb sonic pulsar of ‘Fear Of Drowning’ with its dramatic overtures of young manhood before continuing with reworked recordings of the band’s excellent first two singles ‘Look At Me’ and ‘Into The Heart’. The sublime ‘Hide & Seek’ was soulful electronic pop while ‘Ways To An End’ proved MIRRORS could cut it on the dancefloor too. Elsewhere, ‘Somewhere Strange’ took the listener on the most euphoric train ride since NEW ORDER’s ‘Temptation’ while the final track ‘Secrets’ was an ambitious ten minute epic in three movements featuring its own ambient parenthesis. MIRRORS were worthy successors to the original Synth Britannia generation, but they sadly fragmented in Autumn 2011 and all momentum was lost before things really could get going.
‘Lights & Offerings’ is available as a CD, 2LP and download via Skint Records
With the critically acclaimed ’Visions’, Montreal’s GRIMES aka Claire Boucher explored a hybrid style of electro influenced by K-Pop, New Age and R ‘n’ B. ‘Genesis’ was one of many kookily inventive tunes on the album and like its close cousin ‘Oblivion’, played with Kling Klang derived rhythm section that came over like LYKKE LI fronting KRAFTWERK. Often using pentatonic scaling to show her affinity towards South East Asian culture, GRIMES’ sumptuously infectious approaches made tracks such as ‘Be A Boy’, ‘Colour of Moonlight (Antiochus)’ and ‘Vowels = space and time’ an aurally challenging but rewarding listen. And all this while retaining a quirky sense of humour in her promo videos…
‘Visions’ is available as a CD, LP and download via 4AD Records
While technically a stopgap compilation of rare and unreleased MARSHEAUX tracks, the ‘E-Bay Queen Is Dead’ collection did provide a mostly cohesive listening experience. Including a plethora of non-album tracks such as ‘How Does It Feel?’, ‘Sadly’, ‘Fischerprice’ and the FRONT 242 influenced ‘Bizarre Love Duo’, MARSHEAUX’s charmingly delightful synthpop covers of THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Empire State Human’, BILLY IDOL’s ‘Eyes Without A Face’ and OMD’s ‘She’s Leaving’ were also largely present and correct. Meanwhile, two uptempo outtakes from the ‘Inhale’ sessions ‘Do You Feel?’ and ‘Inside’ indicated where their fourth album might have headed had MARSHEAUX’s national surroundings been less economically turbulent.
Although METROLAND have little in common with GIRLS ALOUD, they are indeed The Sound Of The Underground. While highly influenced by KOMPUTER and KRAFTWERK, the single ‘Enjoying The View’ indicated METROLAND were more textural in their use of synthetic sequences, robotic vocals and vintage drum machines. With tributes to London Underground map designer ‘Harry Beck’, Kling Klang homages such as ‘It’s More Fun To Commute’ and a cover version of IGGY POP’s ‘The Passenger’ that has to be heard to be believed, METROLAND’s soundtrack provided a ride through an electronic landscape designed for the commuter world.
‘Mind The Gap’ is available as a CD, deluxe 2CD and download via Alfa Matrix Records
Having worked together on the ‘Origin’ album, a side project between VILLA NAH’s Juho Paalosmaa and ace producer Jori Hulkkonen was almost inevitable. Under the moniker of SIN COS TAN, their debut album impressed with a rich filmic quality permeating amongst all the synths and drum machines in a much more mature approach than had been apparent on ‘Origin’. There was plenty of variation too, from the dark, atmospheric space ballad ‘In Binary’ and laid back electro R’n’B of ‘Book Of Love’ to the NEW ORDER styled dream attack of ‘After All’ and the almost Balearic ‘Calendar’. But true to form with Hulkkonen’s intelligent disco manoeuvres, the beat templates were complimentary and never overbearing. And with the sublime “disco you can cry to” closer of ‘Trust’, SIN COS TAN’s place in electronic music has been assured.
‘Sin Cos Tan’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Solina Records
A release that actually slipped under TEC’s radar on initial release, TRUST was the project of Robert Alfons and AUSTRA’s Maya Postepski. Although Postepski left after its release to return to AUSTRA, ‘TRST’ made a slow burning impact as Alfons toured his “Eeyore gone goth” electro template around the world. The filthy ‘Gloryhole’ was a wondrous combination of portamento and dance beats, while ‘Bulbform’ was perfectly doomy disco. There were more immediate moments too like the trancier synthscapes of ‘Sulk’ and the alternate Euro-disco of ‘Dressed In Space’ which came over like a more depressed version of CAMOUFLAGE. In all, ‘TRST’ was one grower of a record.
‘TRST’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Arts & Crafts
‘Brilliant’ reminded people why the classic line-up of ULTRAVOX were supreme when firing on all cylinders. It also laid to the rest, the ghost of the dreadful ‘U-Vox’ album in 1986. The title track and ‘Live’ contained all the hallmarks of Billy Currie’s Eurocentric piano and synth embellishments complimented by the motorik power house of Chris Cross and Warren Cann while Midge Ure’s voice now possessed a fragility and honesty that could only come from life experience. Then there was the pounding electronic rock of ‘Satellite’ and the percolating sequences of ‘Rise’ which saw the return of Currie’s distinctive ARP Odyssey soloing. The whirring Odyssey also appeared on ‘Change’ with beautiful ivory runs over the shuffling schlagzeug. ‘Brilliant’ was proof than while Billy Currie needed Midge Ure, Midge Ure also needed Billy Currie.
‘Brilliant’ is available as a CD, 2LP and download via EMI Records
If people can still hold enough regard for a version of KRAFTWERK featuring just Ralf Hütter to crash the websites of the world’s art spaces, then KARL BARTOS should at least be accorded some kind of equal status. After all, Bartos did co-write ‘The Model’, ‘The Robots’, Neon Lights, ‘Numbers’ and ‘Computer Love’. Utilising musical sketches and ideas gathered during his period with KRAFTWERK and his later project ELEKTRIC MUSIC, ‘Off The Record’ was a fully realised recording with Kling Klang at its heart. Indeed, ‘Without A Trace Of Emotion’ saw Bartos conversing with his showroom dummy Herr Karl and confronting his demons. The punchy ‘Rhythmus’ revisited ‘Numbers’ and ‘Computer World 2’ while the wonderful ‘Hausmusik’ had its clanking core driven by the type of mechanised backbeat heard on the ‘Autobahn’ and ‘Radio-Activity’ albums. Even using ideas gathered prior to 1996, KARL BARTOS produced a classic but modern electronic pop album.
‘Off The Record’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Bureau B
BEF Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 3 – Dark (2013)
The third instalment to Martyn Ware’s ambitious BEF covers project, amongst its fourteen tracks was some of his most overtly electronic work since he was in THE HUMAN LEAGUE. Kim Wilde’s brilliant opener ‘Every Time I See You Go Wild’ used just a Roland System 100 while the GIORGIO MORODER meets SPACE electro disco of ‘Same Love’ featuring David J Roch was another highlight. Other notable vocalists included ERASURE’s Andy Bell on an eerie take of ‘Breathing’, POLLY SCATTERGOOD’s kooky vocal on ‘The Look Of Love’ and CULTURE CLUB’s Boy George whose interpretation of ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ possessed a previously unheard grouchy edge. But it was a slowed down waltz remake of ASSOCIATES’ ’Party Fears Two’ voiced by HEAVEN 17’s Glenn Gregory that virtually stole the show and brought the hankies out.
‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 3 – Dark’ is available as a CD, deluxe 2CD and download via Wall Of Sound
Like it or not, CHVRCHES have managed to attain a mainstream recognition that was denied to MIRRORS, thus furthering the cause of electronic pop worldwide. And in Lauren Mayberry, they have a sweet voice that counterbalances some of the harsher aural aesthetics that come with using Moog and her sisters. This album was full of quality synthpop with excellent songs such as ‘The Mother We Share’, ‘Science / Visions’, ‘Gun’, ‘Lies’ and ‘Recover’. However, an otherwise great debut was spoilt by Martin Doherty’s dreary blokey ramblings on ‘You Caught The Light’ and ‘Under The Tide’… and with the far superior ‘Now Is Not The Time’ sitting on the B-side bench, it is this type of noted Glaswegian bloody mindedness that will be the Achilles’ Heel to this trio achieving further success.
‘The Bones Of What You Believe’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Virgin Records
While claims that FEATHERS were the female DEPECHE MODE may have perhaps been overstated, ‘If All Now Here’ was an impressive opening gambit that actually came over more like THE BANGLES fronting Basildon’s finest. Essentially the one woman project of Anastasia Dimou, she successfully combined harmonies, dystopia and deserts for some dreamy electronic soundscapes. ‘Land Of The Innocent’ was a wondrous epic based around the arpeggio of ‘Ice Machine’ while ‘Soft’ borrowed from the single mix of ‘Behind the Wheel’, but added an enlightening pop sensibility. Of course the raunchier, bluesier side of DM revealed itself on ‘Fire In The Night’ and ‘Believe’, but in ‘Dark Matter’, there was a tune with a Latino dancefloor heart, but reimagined by NITZER EBB! Opening for DEPECHE MODE on the winter 2014 leg of the ‘Delta Machine’ tour completed the circle.
Named after the cult Italo standard, FOTONOVELA’s sophomore album ‘A Ton Of Love’ was conceived as a supreme electronic record featuring vocalists from all stages of classic synthpop, as a homage to the genre. As a sign of their ambition, the first person they approached was OMD’s Andy McCluskey and the sessions went well… so well, that the resultant number ‘Helen Of Troy’ ended up on OMD’s ‘English Electric’ opus instead! With FOTONOVELA’s tracks being coveted by their heroes, it boded well for the remainder of the album. With a cast that included SECTION 25, KID MOXIE and MARSHEAUX, the quality was maintained and several cases, even exceeded. In particular, ‘Our Sorrow’ featuring MIRRORS’ James New captured the essence of classic OMD with a spirited, majestic vocal while ‘Justice’ found DUBSTAR’s Sarah Blackwood in particularly feisty form. The presence of some of the most distinct voices in electronic pop music made ‘A Ton Of Love’ a fine showcase for one of best production teams in Europe.
‘A Ton of Love’ is available as a CD and download via Undo Records
With LADYTRON in hiatus, Helen Marnie set out “to create an electronic album with more of a pop element and pristine vocals” for her first solo record. Vocally and musically expansive like an Arctic escapist fantasy, this objective was achieved with ‘Crystal World’ with the classic pop of ABBA and MAMA CASS obviously apparent as well as MARNIE’s love of fellow weegies CHVRCHES. The brilliant launch single ‘The Hunter’ was the vibrant electropop single that LADYTRON never quite got round to releasing while there were other shining jewels like ‘Hearts On Fire’, ‘We Are The Sea’, ‘High Road’ and ‘Sugarland’. Meanwhile, ‘The Wind Breezes On’ was MARNIE’s own ‘Love Is A Stranger’ while the neo-acappella ‘Laura’ sat as a lush centrepiece to the collection.
‘Crystal World’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Les Disques Crespuscle
MESH’s danceable electro-rock ambitions became fully realised on ‘Automation Baby’. The lead single ‘Born To Lie’ was a brilliantly aggressive slice of Goth glam while in ‘Taken For Granted’, MESH had their own ‘Never Let Me Down Again’. ‘Just Leave Us Alone’ added some trancey dressing to the classic MESH template but it was the atmospheric maturity of the album’s ballads that were the big surprise. The beautiful ‘It’s The Way I Feel’ showed a more sensitive side with hints of ENNIO MORRICONE while ‘Adjust Your Set’ displayed some subtle traits despite its mechanical rhythms. But with the aptly titled ‘You Couldn’t See This Coming’, this orchestrated epic saw Mark Hockings’ passionate angst exposed for all. With the sonic balance bolstered by additional strings to MESH’s bow, ‘Automation Baby’ was undoubtedly the best album of their career to date.
‘Automation Baby’ is available as a CD and download via Dependent Records
On ‘Innocents’, MOBY’s familiar chord changes and sweeping string synths were all present and correct. But this was an adventurously beautiful work tinged with emotion, sadness and resignation that explored mid-life and mortality. Damien Jurado’s sensitive vocal on ‘Almost Home’ provided a marvellous slice of folktronica while Skylar Grey’s angelic voice on ‘The Last Day’ provided a beautiful innocence over the looping male gospel sample. One of the key moments of the album was ‘The Perfect Life’, an enjoyable duet by MOBY with FLAMING LIPS’ Wayne Coyne that came over bizarrely like GARY NUMAN at a Pentecostal church! With an elegiac tension, MOBY described parts of ‘Innocents’ as “nostalgic futurism”… it was also soothing electronic soul.
‘Innocents’ is available as a CD, deluxe 2CD, 2LP and download via Little Idiot
In 2013, Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys finally released the album that many had been wanting since 1984. ‘English Electric’ was a brilliant concept album that encompassed the mantra “what does the future sound like?” The reality of unfulfilled dreams and impending mortality lingered on ‘Metroland’ and ‘Night Café’ while ‘Dresden’, ‘Helen Of Troy’ and ‘Final Song’ used clever metaphors for tales of relationship breakup. However, the magnificent ‘Our System’ did what OMD always did best, with an emotive soundtrack about the universe while ‘Kissing The Machine’, McCluskey’s collaboration with KARL BARTOS from 1993, was given some appropriate Synth-werk. And there was the return of the Paul Humphreys vocal on the very personal ‘Stay With Me’, a melodic ditty that was up there with ‘Souvenir’.
‘English Electric’ is available as a CD, deluxe CD/DVD, LP and download via BMG Music
Laced with House, Italo and Eurotrance references, ‘Electric’ took a few risks with the opening track ‘Axis’ being virtually instrumental, re-imagining Bobby Orlando in the 22nd Century. The brilliantly titled ‘Love Is A Bourgeois Construct’ recalled the pomp of ‘I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing’ but then came the hypnotic ‘Fluorescent’. Basically a wonderful dancefloor makeover of ‘Fade To Grey’, waves of synth sirens attacked like a Martian invasion. Meanwhile, ‘Thursday’ re-explored the New York club scene with the distinctive squelch of a TB303 and captured the vibrant excitement of what is now the new Friday. The slightly berserk ‘Shouting In The Evening’ was a slice of “banging” techno before the comparatively conventional ‘Vocal’. With the vivid sentiment “I like the singer, he’s lonely and strange – every track has a vocal…and that makes a change”, it was a befitting conclusion of what this album was about; ‘Electric’ by name and electric by nature.
‘Electric’ is available as a CD, LP and download via X2 Recordings
Anglo-German collective TWINS NATALIA captured a pristine technostalgic journey through a Europe of real life and postcard views on ‘The Destiny Room’. A wonderfully emotive soundtrack of elegance and decadence with a touch of neu romance, the collection’s main act began with the gorgeously arpeggiated ‘Destiny’. Then there was the more frantic HI-NRG romp of ‘I Avoid Strangers’, while the PET SHOP BOYS styled neo-orchestrated statement of ‘Set Love Free’ climaxed like a pomped up ‘Rent’. As an appendix, there was also the superb debut single ‘When We Were Young’ b/w ‘Kleiner Satellit’ which first appeared in 2008. With rich, vibrant soloing from Dave Hewson on a Roland Jupiter 6 throughout, ‘The Destiny Room’ was perfect listening electronic music enthusiasts of a time when people actually played synths and explored the capabilities of their drum machines.
Three years in the making, ‘The future through a lens’ was well worth the wait. While not as immediate as the tracks on the preceding three EPs made available for their German tour supporting OMD, the album itself took a more esoteric, filmic approach. Like ‘Twin Peaks’ meets ORBITAL, ‘Damaged Software’ was an enticing piece of electro while ‘Drowned Cities’ was an enticing entry point following the title track overture. Both the pulsating ‘Proximity’ and the moody ‘Nothing’ grew with further listens. But with the closing ‘Deep Red’, it took all that was great about early OMD, putting ‘Statues’, ‘Stanlow’ and ‘The Romance Of The Telescope’ into a breathtaking seven and a half minute epic. This full length debut impressed enough for VILE ELECTRODES to snap up two Schallwelle awards in Germany for ‘Best International Album’ and ‘Best International Band’ in 2014.
‘The future through a lens’ is available as a download via Vile Electrodes, CD and cassette package available at http://vileelectrodes.bigcartel.com/
Techno DJ WESTBAM celebrated 30 years in the music business with an intriguing mature collection of songs under the title of ‘Götterstrasse’. While the theme of the album centred on the joy and euphoria of underground nightlife, the magnificent launch single ‘You Need The Drugs’ voiced brilliantly by THE PSYCHEDLIC FURS’ Richard Butler was not actually a celebration of illicit substance use. It was an album full of surprises like the dramatic ‘Kick It Like A Sensei’ with rapper LIL WAYNE and the tensely militaristic ‘Iron Music’ featuring the distinctive baritone of IGGY POP. Meanwhile, ‘She Wants’ saw the return of NEW ORDER’s Bernard Sumner on a new electronic dance composition and the frantic but serene ‘A Night to Remember’ with THE STRANGLERS’ Hugh Cornwall brought proceedings to a euphoric come down via some piano and Solina strings.
‘Götterstrasse’ is available as a CD and download via Warner Music
The transformation of Glaswegians ANALOG ANGEL has been startling. Moving away from their industrial shackles, they came up with a largely excellent collection of quality synthpop in ‘Trinity’. ‘Drive’ was a haunting drama about domestic violence that was given extra poignancy by a ghostly guest vocal by Tracy J Cox. There was also the frantic ERSAURE on Stella Artois of ‘The Chase’, the rousing schaffel stomp of ‘Round Again’ and the refined CAMOUFLAGE meets VANGELIS atmospheres of ‘Inner Voice’. But the biggest surprise was ‘The Last Time’, a cinematic masterpiece involving an orchestra that cascaded into an epic Pan-European journey across The Steppes. The virtual symphonic strings and gothic choirs gave an indication as to what OMD might have sounded like if Jim Steinman had been producing!
After the promise of the ‘Bounty’ and ‘Kin’ collections, ‘Blue’ fully realised the potential of IAMAMIWHOAMI, the slightly bonkers moniker of delightfully odd vocalist Jonna Lee and producer Claes Björklund. Expanding on the audio / visual template of its predecessors, the first impression of ‘Blue’ is that it is more of the same. But like fine wine, this album gets better with age. The windy breeze of glacial Scandinavian beauty immerses itself on tracks like the sub-COCTEAU TWINS ‘Fountain’, the ABBA-like ‘Chasing Kites’ and the closing reverberant mood piece ‘Shadowshow’. But it is the more uptempo danced based numbers like the mutant techno of ‘Ripple’ and the KATE BUSH gone trance of ‘Hunting For Pearls’ that show the most advancement. Jonna Lee’s otherworldly rasp does polarise but once overcome, the sonic rewards can be startling.
RÖYKSOPP’s final album took five years but it ultimately benefitted the outcome. ROBYN returned for a shorter, sharper version of ‘Monument’, but her thunder was stolen by some supreme vocal performances by SUSANNE SUNDFØR and Jamie McDermott from THE IRREPRESSIBLES. ‘Save Me’ and ‘Running to The Sea’ reinforced why the former is the Nordic vocalist of the moment, while the latter’s contributions to ‘You Know I Have To Go’ and ‘I Had This Thing’ showed how modern electronic dance music can be both vibrant and heartfelt. Only the pointless profanity laden ‘Rong’, ironically featuring ROBYN, stopped ‘The Inevitable End’ from achieving perfection.
‘The Inevitable End’is available as a 2CD, 2LP and download via Dog Triumph / Cooking Vinyl
The ULTRAVOX reunion had a profound effect on the diminutive Mr Ure if nothing else and got him to fully focus on the solo album he’d been working on since 2001. The time that passed was worth it; songs like ‘Become’ recalled his work with VISAGE while the title track revealed that despite the moustache and long raincoat back in the day, he’d always wanted to be in PINK FLOYD. Meanwhile, instrumentals such as ‘of ‘Wire & Wood’ and ‘Bridges’ showed that Ure’s music still has subtlety. But the undoubted highlight of ‘Fragile’ was ‘Dark, Dark Night’, a co-write with MOBY. The song built to an amazing climax with the follically challenged pairing forming a partnership made in heaven. Overall, the album was an impressive musical diary of a man pondering and confronting his post-midlife.
‘Fragile’ is available as a CD, LP and download via Hypertension Music
Artists are not infallible creatures and even on great albums, there’s often a duff song that somehow gets released as a single and becomes a hit.
Some of these inferior singles though get found out early on and deservedly fail to capture the public’s imagination. However, sometimes the artists themselves will realise the errors of their ways with these less than satisfactory offerings.
They might quickly drop the track from the live set or rewrite history by excluding the said offending item from greatest hits packages. As a singular follow-up to the ‘We Hope You Enjoy Our New Direction’ albums article, here are twenty singles by your favourite acts who really should have known better.
Arranged in chronological and then alphabetical order with a restriction of one release per artist, these singles are, in the words of SPINAL TAP’s Nigel Tufnel, “like lukewarm water…” – a Spotify playlist is therefore not required 😉
JAPAN Don’t Rain On My Parade (1978)
Was this really the band who were to record ‘Ghosts’ four years later? You certainly wouldn’t have put your money on JAPAN becoming chart regulars by 1982 based on ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’, a cover of BARBRA STREISAND’s set piece from ‘Funny Girl’ This hilarious two fingers rock thrash, with an unrecognisable David Sylvian snarling away, found an audience in Japan itself, which subsequently allowed them to develop into the artful combo they are better known as.
After the success of their debut ‘The Hurting’, TEARS FOR FEARS’ label wanted an interim release. But after several months exploring their artier aspirations, the resultant single was poor. ‘The Way You Are’ was Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal trying to be JAPAN, only they weren’t very good at it! Smith said it was “probably one of the worst recordings I think we’ve done”. The change of direction to produce the rockier, more MTV friendly opus ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ proved to be far more fruitful.
The lack of input from departed founder member Midge Ure as producer really exposed itself on VISAGE’s third long player ‘Beat Boy’. Most of the songs went on for far too long while Steve Strange’s flat, tuneless vocals and banal lyrics were allowed to run riot. Running for a painful six minutes on the album, even in edited single form, the title track really needed a ‘Go Faster’ stripe as the attempt to merge rock guitars with Fairlight stabs and industrialised percussion failed miserably.
Album version available on the album ‘Beat Boy’ via Cherry Pop
BRONSKI BEAT & MARC ALMOND I Feel Love / Johnny Remember Me (1985)
‘I Feel Love’ looked like a dream combination for Jimmy Somerville’s swansong with BRONSKI BEAT to be paired with the one-time SOFT CELL front man. With ‘Love To Love You Baby’ and ‘Johnny Remember Me’ segued onto the main act, the well intentioned recording ended up a total cut ‘n’ paste mess with the poor stop / start edit into ‘Johnny Remember Me’ being particularly embarrassing. Meanwhile, the screaming match between Somerville and Almond was painful to the ears.
An attempt at crossing ‘Endlessly’ with ‘Like A Miracle’, the lukewarm ‘Enter The Angel’ from the ‘In Mysterious Ways’ album had none of the electro innovation of ‘Metamatic’ or the neu romance of ‘The Garden’. Featuring Eddi Reader from FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION on backing vocals, Foxx had gone all conventional and no longer stood out from the crowd like he once had. And the result was that the quiet man effectively retired from music until his 1997 re-emergence.
Howard Jones did much to further the cause of electronic music with his one-man synth act. But ‘Look Mama’, the second single from his second album ‘Dream Into Action’ was a tedious narrative about an interfering mother that was one of the weakest songs on the collection. Featuring a plethora of state-of-the-art digital sounds, their prominence was quite obviously to cover a weak tune. Amazingly, this one got into the UK Top 10!
THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s fifth album ‘Crash’ was largely rotten, save ‘Human’ and ‘Love Is All That Matters’, two Jam and Lewis numbers that were totally unrepresentative of Da League’s own sound. ‘I Need Your Loving’ had a crew of six on the writing credits, none of them members of the band! This had to have been a Janet Jackson cast-off from ‘Control’… Phil Oakey has been many things but Alexander O’Neal he certainly wasn’t while Joanne and Susanne could never sound like Cherelle!
A toss-up between this and ‘This Is Love’, these two singles from the below-par ‘Strange Charm’ both actually got in the UK Top 40… quite shocking when far superior singles from previous album ‘The Fury’ failed to make any chart impact. By 1986, Numan wasn’t sure if he wanted to be THE POWER STATION or Prince so ‘I Can’t Stop’ was frankly, all over the place! Whatever, flying took more of an interest in his life, Gary Numan’s career dip would not be reversed until 1994’s ‘Sacrifice’.
The signs had not been good when drummer Warren Cann was fired from the band for preferring to use programmed percussion. With the success of his solo career, Midge Ure was dictating a more conventional back-to-basics approach. But while the soulful backing vocalists, live drums and brass section on ‘Same Old Story’ kept ULTRAVOX sounding with the times, the bland played on. The poor title of the parent album ‘U-Vox’ summed it all up… a band with something missing!
Album version available on the album ‘U-Vox’ via EMI Music
Such is life, the brilliant predecessor ‘The Blood That Moves The Body’ only reached No28 in the UK singles chart. Instead, the public took its rather ordinary and annoying follow-up ‘Touchy!’ to No11! Devoid of the usual emotive but melodic melancholy that had made songs such as ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV’ and ‘Hunting High & Low’ so dramatically appealing, the lead synth brass line, which ubiquitous for the time, was particularly annoying!
When Glenn Gregory appeared on the single sleeve wearing a Stetson, the writing was on the wall. ‘The Ballad Of Go Go Brown’ with its slide guitar and harmonica was the antithesis of the funky modernism that HEAVEN 17 had previously stood for. Martyn Ware’s success as a producer for artists such as TINA TURNER and TERENCE D’ARBY around this time proved he hadn’t lost his creative nous… the once innovative trio had run out of steam.
NEW ORDER were acknowledged as a supreme singles act… until this! ‘Fine Time’ spoilt an otherwise brilliant album in ‘Technique’. A sly send-up of the acid house scene, even Bernard Sumner admitted it was “a novelty record”. A pitch shifted vocal was made to sound like an inebriate jackmaster impersonating Barry White, while the messy backing track was complimented by some bleeting sheep. One thing good about the single edit though is that it’s shorter!
Available on the album ‘Singles’ via Rhino Records
1987’s ‘Savage’ album was a laudable attempt by Annie Lennox and David A Stewart’s to get back to their electronic roots after their overt flirtation with America for their previous two long players ‘Be Yourself Tonight’ and ‘Revenge’. But to launch the 1989 album ‘We Two Are One’, EURYTHMICS got all bland again on ‘Revival’. The squelchy synth bass could not disguise a lifeless tune that ironically, despite its rhythm ‘n’ blues influences, was lacking in soul.
Available on the album ‘We Too Are One’ via RCA / Sony BMG Records
DURAN DURAN’s cover of ‘White Lines (Don’t Do It)’ is more comical than awful! But ‘Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)’ was a poor relaunch of their classic five-piece band format with guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Sterling Campbell joining the fold, following two albums as a trio. What they forgot to add to the line-up though was some tunes… unsurprisingly, ‘The Violence Of Summer’ has never made it onto any DURAN DURAN compilation CDs.
For SIMPLE MINDS’ worst commitment to the singular format, it was tempting to list ‘Belfast Child’ or their cover of PRINCE’s ‘Sign O’ The Times’, but the ploddy ‘She’s A River’ wins out. With overblown guitar histrionics, big drums and a virtually anonymous verse with no hook. Bizarrely, pop duo HURTS revived the template of ‘She’s A River’ for the even more appalling ‘Miracle’ in 2013!
PET SHOP BOYS are as perfect singles act as you can get, but even they were not flawless. For their worst offering, it was a close race between the inappropriately titled ‘Winner’ and the camp OASIS of ‘I Get Along’. But ‘New York City Boy’ has to be Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s least convincing single. While ‘Go West’ took a VILLAGE PEOPLE song and applied an elegiac PET SHOP BOYS template, ‘New York City Boy’ was misguided attempt to try and actually be New York’s favourite disco queens.
In a scandal equivalent to the UK’s Millenium Dome project, KRAFTWERK pocketed 400,000 Deutsch Marks for a five syllable processed voice jingle for Expo 2000! At the time, it was their first new composition for 14 years. Lacking the percussive drive previously provided by the now-absent Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür, ‘Expo 2000’ was a meandering, formless ditty which lacked the klassik melodicism that made KRAFTWERK great.
‘Sounds Of The Universe’ is such a dire body of work. So surreally imagine as a diversion from its uninspired electro blues rock, John Lennon trying to write a KRAFTWERK song during THE BEATLES sessions that produced ‘Across The Universe’? Sounds interesting doesn’t it? DEPECHE MODE worked on the concept but came up with the ghastly ‘Peace’. No pleasures remained as the strained and nauseating chorus, attached to a lame verse, was more likely to harm diplomatic relations.
For anyone who had loved OMD’s pioneering early catalogue, ‘If You Want It’ was horrid. An attempt at a soaring OASIS styled anthem, ‘If You Want It’ was not what fans were expecting. With an excruciatingly high key and a joint compositional credit to Tracey Carmen, who had worked with Andy McCluskey’s girl group creation ATOMIC KITTEN, its true origins can only be guessed at. But thankfully, OMD managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with 2013’s ‘English Electric’ opus.
On paper, things were not promising as the severely over rated FRANKMUZIK was recruited to apply his modern dance production aesthetic to Andy Bell and Vince Clarke’s classic synthpop on the ‘Tomorrow’s World’ album. But its first single ‘When I Start To (Break It All Down)’ sounded like a rather anodyne TAKE THAT ballad and Bell’s voice was strained to an auto tuned flatness, lacking power and soul.
The book ‘Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s’ is to be formally made available in the UK.
In the book’s foreword by DURAN DURAN’s Nick Rhodes, the flamboyant synth player says: “It was a culture where the predilection was standing out from the crowd rather than fitting in. Artists were musically adventurous, less driven by commerce… While those in their teens and early 20s have a limited musical vocabulary, they remain the key source for change in music”. Concluding in the afterword, Moby states: “New Wave was its own world. With its own influences, its own codes, its own bailiwick(s), its own aesthetics, its own sonic landscape…”
Launched in North America to great acclaim last April, it discusses many of the artists who formed the British Invasion of the US with the advent of MTV; the Americans referred to these types of acts as New Wave.
While not definitive, ‘Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s’ delves into the spirit, the politics and the heartache behind some of the best songs ever recorded, regardless of genre. The book does bias towards a Stateside viewpoint courtesy of self-confessed Anglophile and Duranie Lori Majewski, but the content is balanced by the critical input of LA based Glaswegian Jonathan Bernstein.
The two met at Spin Magazine during the height of Grunge and found themselves to be kindred spirits as they quietly bonded over Synth Britannia and New Romantics, much to the chagrin of their scruffy, plaid shirted colleagues.
Photo by Paul Natkin
The dynamic between the “sour by nature” and “staunch supporter of the sheer oddball” Scotsman and the “obsessed past the point of sanity” American ensures that ‘Mad World’ celebrates the triumph and innovation of the era while simultaneously pulling no punches. For example, while accepting their places in the book, Bernstein lobs a few hand grenades in the direction of KAJAGOOGOO and THOMPSON TWINS! The pair’s differing viewpoints on the two phases of OMD are another enjoyable discussion point.
‘Mad World’ is ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s kind of book… it is affectionate and respectful, but also objective and discerning; this more than makes up for previously feeble attempts by other writers to capture the era by combining acts as disparate as SIMPLE MINDS and JASON DONOVAN into a single volume!
While the Adam ‘n’ Moz laden front cover might indicate otherwise, many of the artists who impacted on the Post-Punk synthesizer boom figure prominently in ‘Mad World’. As well as OMD, DEPECHE MODE, SOFT CELL, ULTRAVOX, NEW ORDER, JOY DIVISION, YAZOO, HEAVEN 17, TEARS FOR FEARS, DURAN DURAN, A-HA, A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, SIMPLE MINDS, there’s Gary Numan, Thomas Dolby and Howard Jones, there’s also THE NORMAL and the early HUMAN LEAGUE to represent the trailblazers from 1978 who helped define the era.
Daniel Miller describes electronic music like ‘Warm Leatherette’ as “pure punk music” as opposed to “punk rock”, due to it adopting that true punk ideal of do-it-yourself. Meanwhile, Martyn Ware waxes lyrical about the realisation of ‘Being Boiled’… the chapter was to have been about ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ but with Phil Oakey’s continued refusal to give interviews about the past has ensured its omission. At the end of the day, Oakey misses an opportunity to reflect and give his story of the era.
However, Oakey’s contemporaries don’t disappoint; as usual, Andy McCluskey gives great copy and his interview nicely sums up the rise and fall and rise and fall and rise of OMD to highlight the pressures of achieving and maintaining success. And while ‘If You Leave’ from the film ‘Pretty In Pink’ may not be the greatest song he and Paul Humphreys have ever written, it is certainly not their worst and its success in America is a handy pension pot for the duo.
The joy of this book is that even if an act is of no interest musically, the back stories are fascinating and a number have not been widely known. Like did you know that the true origin of the name SPANDAU BALLET is even more unpleasant than JOY DIVISION? Or that ‘True’ was inspired by Gary Kemp’s unrequited relationship with ALTERED IMAGES’ Clare Grogan? Or that DEXY’S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS’ Kevin Rowland is a right miserable sod, but he always has been and always will be!
Meanwhile, the entertaining KAJAGOOGOO chapter proves that like in much of today’s music scene, ego can often exceed inherent talent and actual artistic success. The diva-ish spats between Limahl and Nick Beggs in ‘Mad World’ are almost worth the purchase price alone.
While ‘Mad World’ is full of tales of excess and hedonism, one very interesting chapter is about the clean living and philosophical Howard Jones. While quietly making his fortune in the US, the happily married vegetarian readily admitted to having a wandering eye that inspired his biggest American hit ‘No-One Is To Blame’: “It’s about being attracted to other people and admitting that. You are attracted to maybe half the people you meet, and that isn’t a bad thing. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that… but if you want to consummate that attraction to other people, then you have to be prepared to take what comes with it”.
‘Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s’ is a terrific read, but there are the odd date errors and what some might consider irritating translations of distinctly British terms for the primarily American audience.
And while the book covers most bases, one important song that is missing is VISAGE’s ‘Fade To Grey’. A complex story in itself, that probably would have made up a book on its own! But overall, these minor aberrations do not spoil what ‘Mad World’ is… the best book so far capturing that MTV era which many like to refer to as ‘The 8*s’ 😉
Following her highly informative interview earlier in the year, co-author Lori Majewski reflected on the Americanisation of New Wave and why certain UK acts came to become more highly regarded in the US than back home…
Why did it seem the only US acts that seemed to ride on that UK synth wave were BERLIN and ANIMOTION?
LA had a very big New Wave scene with MISSING PERSONS, THE GO GOS, THE MOTELS, BERLIN and ANIMOTION but what you have to remember is that it kinda got watered down by the time it got to America. As we say in the book, you had Brits trying to be Germans wanting to be robots, and then Americans who wanted to be British!
So the Americans were already two steps removed from the conception of New Wave. You look at something like BERLIN, so they’re named after the city that inspired New Wave and 6,000 miles away singing about ‘The Metro’ in Paris where they had never even been!
But I think what LA New Wave brought was glamour. First of all, there weren’t a lot of women in New Wave full stop although in the UK, you had Annie Lennox, Alison Moyet and BANANARAMA. So in LA, we had BERLIN’s Terri Nunn who was a model and tried out to be Princess Leia in ‘Star Wars’, there was THE MOTELS’ Martha Davis who was very old school Hollywood glam and THE GO GOS; plus you had MISSING PERSONS’ Dale Bozzio, who was the first woman I ever saw and thought “oh, that’s what a breast implant is”*laughs*
I think in general, Americans put their own spin on New Wave but as Jonathan likes to point out in the book several times, it wasn’t something we exported back to Britain; it was something that we kept here that Brits didn’t really go for.
What did you think about bands like TEARS FOR FEARS, SIMPLE MINDS and THE PSYCHEDLIC FURS tailoring their sound for the American market when their initial charm was sounding British in the first place?
It’s something we talk about in the TEARS FOR FEARS chapter. We forget that TEARS FOR FEARS had the biggest album of the era in ‘Songs From The Big Chair’. Curt Smith talks in the book about how they did consciously move to appeal to a wider audience but also to make a different record to ‘The Hurting’.
They were listening to more American things like Frank Zappa. So they didn’t make a conscious decision to be American, they made a conscious decision NOT to make the first record again… and as you point out, that record was very British. I don’t know if ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ is American sounding, it just not as New Wave sounding.
The Americans really loved THOMPSON TWINS and Howard Jones? What was it about them that appealed Stateside?
Howard Jones did well here but I think he would have made it no matter what decade it was because he wrote classic songs… but he happened to use synthesizers and he had the haircut! When you look at a song like ‘No-One Is To Blame’, it’s a good pop song, period!
As for THOMPSON TWINS, Jonathan knew of their previous incarnation while I did not, so he was suspicious of how they were this art conglomerate that suddenly wanted to be pop stars and on the cover of Smash Hits! I have to say, they were visually arresting and those songs are built to last. You hear ‘Hold Me Now’ today and what an incredible song!
And I always remember that was the first time I thought about couples fighting because the idea that a man will placate a woman and say “you ask if I love you, well what can I say? You know that I do and if this is just one of those games that we play”, and I thought “Oh my God, that’s right… that’s what women do!”*laughs*
So I felt Tom Bailey was a pop star with a romantic side that really appealed to me, especially with the song ‘If You Were Here’ at the end of the John Hughes film ‘Sixteen Candles’, that’s one of my favourite songs from the entire era.
Why do you think acts like A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, THOMAS DOLBY, WANG CHUNG and NAKED EYES were perhaps more popular in America than Britain?
I think this IS the advent of MTV, you guys in the UK didn’t have it and we did. ‘I Ran’ by A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS was a huge MTV hit, but it only started going up the US charts and being played on radio after people were requesting it because they saw the video on MTV. So they rode a wave that was not available in their own country.
It was the same with NAKED EYES and I love their version of ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’. MTV helped a lot of bands that were using the medium of video to get to an audience.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Lori Majewski
Meanwhile in Brooklyn at Rough Trade NYC on Saturday 14th September 2014, ‘A Mad World Conversation with Midge Ure’ takes place at 5.00pm – details can be found at the Mad World website
‘Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s’ is a brand new book that covers the music of the MTV Generation.
Written by New Jersey born Duranie Lori Majewski and LA based Glaswegian Jonathan Bernstein, ‘Mad World’ includes many of the bands that formed part of the post-punk British Invasion of the US which the Americans later referred to as New Wave. Very different from the British definition of New Wave which included acts such as BLONDIE, THE PRETENDERS, X-RAY SPEX and THE POLICE, the Stateside classification threw in Synth Britannia, New Romantics, Young Soul Rebels, Goths, Antipodean funk rockers and refugees from The Bromley Contingent!
Regardless of the seemingly incongruous acts being lumped together, what New Wave in the US did was enlighten a whole group of impressionable teenagers about a musical world that artistically and stylistically had more to offer than the turgid home grown rock of bands like BOSTON, REO SPEEDWAGON, STYX, TOTO and JOURNEY.
‘Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s’ features a foreword by DURAN DURAN’s Nick Rhodes and while not definitive, ‘Mad World’ delves into the spirit, the politics and the heartache behind some of the greatest songs in popular culture, regardless of genre. With the publication of the book in North America and a UK edition scheduled for Autumn 2014, co-author Lori Majewski gave a fascinating American viewpoint on Synth Britannia and much more…
I understand that this book was partly inspired by the advent of Grunge?
Jonathan Bernstein and I met during Grunge when we both worked at Spin Magazine which in the US, used to be a real competitor to Rolling Stone, although how it’s evolved now as Rolling Stone is more of a veteran magazine while Spin is more indie. But back then, it was neck-and-neck, a bit like how NME and Melody Maker were in the UK. I was just starting out in the business and wanted to work on a music magazine.
Unfortunately for me who grew up an Anglophile and liked electronic music, by the early 90s, electronic music was no longer in vogue and even a dirty word; it was really gauche to use synthesizers! Grunge with its guitars and feedback, it was dirty compared with the pretty electronic sound that we loved in New Wave.
I kept it to myself because I was at Spin, but then I heard Jonathan talking about ‘The Lexicon Of Love’ by ABC being his favourite record… it was like I could hear angels singing because I thought “OH MY GOD! Somebody understands that time in music!” because nobody wanted to talk about it anymore. We were kinda nerdy for even liking it, we weren’t cool at Spin. So we became best friends.
So how long has ‘Mad World’ been in the making and what has the journey been like?
It wasn’t until 18 months ago when we read an article with Gary Kemp from SPANDAU BALLET. He was talking about the song ‘True’, the story behind it, all the different influences and what the lyrics meant. We called each other and thought “Wow! Imagine if we could do this kind of article with all of our favourite songs?” That’s how ‘Mad World’ really evolved.
We were going to do the stories behind the songs but as we interviewed the artists, it turned into so much more… it was about the songs, the journeys to making those seminal tracks, how those tracks changed their lives and how sometimes the success strangled artists. Take A-HA; when I interviewed Mags, he said “everyone knows ‘Take On Me’ but I’m like a dad with lots of kids, don’t just like one of my kids, you have to like all of them!”
We also had a cultural conversation with these artists because they talked about The Cold War and Thatcherism. There were some bands like DURAN DURAN who said they “wanted to be the band that you danced to when the bomb drops”. Others like TEARS FOR FEARS wanted to explore that darker side and the psychological melancholy, which is why our book is called ‘Mad World’.
We wanted to do it decades ago, but we could only have done ‘Mad World’ now when these artists were ready to tell their stories of their careers. Plus we had to wait until a time when this kind of music was back in vogue, because no-one would have bought it even five years ago.
How would describe the way you and Jonathan’s very different dynamics combined to produce ‘Mad World’?
Jonathan is 10 years older… he’s 52, I’m 43; he’s Scottish so he was raised on the critical British music press so he’s much more curmudgeonly while during New Wave, I was a wide-eyed American teen who couldn’t get enough of MTV. So I was a fan and he was a critic… but where we meet is we both LOVE this stuff! He loves it from a critical view and he was like “Gosh, it took me a long time to realise it but this stuff is good and influential!” whereas I just bathe in it; I love DURAN DURAN and DEPECHE MODE and built my entire life around that *laughs*
I’m particularly fascinated about how Americans regarded the synthesizer as an instrument and this frequent reference to it being a keyboard, as if there was some kind of denial about it being a real instrument?
From where I sit, I think the synthesizer is essential to my favourite records. The first big record that used the synthesizer I ever heard was Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’. At that time during the turn of the decade, ’79 going into ’80 here in America, I was listening to AIR SUPPLY, Olivia Newton-John and the ‘Grease’ soundtrack! My father was into Warren Zevon. The thing is, Americans really hated disco after a while so when I first heard ‘Cars’, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard. It sounded like the future, it sounded like the space age. You have to remember not everyone was that open and a lot of people I went to school with went “that’s not music”. And just the fact that it was called a synthesizer… it’s synthesized, it’s not real!
They thought it had no skill whereas the stuff we came up on like JOURNEY and FOREIGNER, they were bands that played guitars and it was real masculine stuff! So someone like Gary Numan comes along, he’s a one-man band thanks to a synthesizer and he’s wearing make-up!
You see, David Bowie was not as big in the US as he was in the UK at the time. So you put all that together and no-one here really knew Numan was pretty much born of the rib of Bowie. So people thought it was sissy stuff and uncool… and he’s wearing make-up and making synthesized sounds! So Americans were very suspicious of it.
How would you describe the impact of Gary Numan and THE HUMAN LEAGUE in the US during the first wave of UK synth artists?
In the Europe, you also had ULTRAVOX, OMD plus of course KRAFTWERK. Gary Numan was the first to really make it big and mainstream so in the US, he opened the door for all that. But when THE HUMAN LEAGUE and EURYTHMICS came on the scene with ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ and ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’, I just felt “WOW! THINGS ARE CHANGING!”.
The reason we cover ‘Being Boiled’ in the book is an inconvenience of the fact that Phil Oakey didn’t want to talk to us, that was really disappointing. I was thinking “Do we even have a book without ‘Don’t You Want Me?’…?”; but then talking to Martyn Ware, he chatted about his beginnings with THE HUMAN LEAGUE. I realised ‘Being Boiled’ was the boiler plate for so many of the records that came afterwards; DURAN DURAN, OMD and Vince Clarke all talk about ‘Being Boiled’. So we may not have the story you expect with ‘Don’t You Want Me?’, but we have one of the beginning stories of the entire era.
There was still a very macho rockist attitude at the time… I recall John Cougar making some quite homophobic comments about SOFT CELL in Smash Hits!
Really? It’s interesting, as a young girl I didn’t think straight or gay, I was just thinking love. Music has such an emotional impact on you anyway but especially if you are a young person. I just felt that music opened up my eyes and heart to things that I hadn’t previously been exposed to. And that’s why I fell in love with DURAN DURAN… yes, it helped that they were good looking but they dressed so well and they were so interesting.
But you compare that to the guy at school who may be the equivalent of a John Cougar in the jeans and T-shirt. That may work on some girls but that’s your average guy to me, whereas you had DURAN DURAN on these exotic beaches, wearing these fantastic clothes and having these great accents. And Boy George, I didn’t think if he was straight or gay, I just thought he was beautiful. At the time, boys looked like girls and girls looked like boys but it didn’t necessarily mean they were gay. SPANDAU BALLET dressed up and sometime wore as much make-up as LIMAHL did. But he said at that time, you just didn’t talk about… but he was not in the closet either.
I think we were so much more progressive back then we are now. During the Grammys this year, we had Macklemore standing up for gay rights. But back in the 80s, you didn’t need a straight white rapper to do that because you had gay pop stars in the charts.
OMD are an interesting conundrum as they were part of that first wave yet didn’t make it at the time, but they then made progress later when they supported THOMPSON TWINS and THE POWER STATION before ‘If You Leave’ was a hit?
OMD are a good example of where the difference between me and Jonathan is vast. Jonathan loved them right from the beginning and really understood their KRAFTWERK pedigree. Me? I happened by accident to get into OMD because I had tickets to see THE POWER STATION.
SPANDAU BALLET who were due to support had to pull out of the tour as Steve Norman had broken his leg! So I saw OMD with them instead and they played this song from a new movie called ‘Pretty In Pink’. I was thinking “who is this guy with the crazy dance moves?”, but I could see he was really into it and I loved the music.
So I went backwards from ‘If You Leave’ and discovered ‘Architecture & Morality’; I fell in love with the pair of love songs about Joan Of Arc and I was like “THIS IS JUST INCREDIBLE!”. To this day, OMD are definitely in my top three favourite bands. I saw them in concert this past summer and they were my favourite of the year. I still think record after record, they make fantastic music and I say in the book, if no other band existed in the genre of New Wave, I’d be happy to hang my hat entirely on just OMD and say they are a genre unto themselves because I think they are that spectacular a group!
Now, with OMD’s early stuff compared with the later stuff, I think it’s apples and oranges because with ‘If You Leave’, it’s from ‘Pretty In Pink’ which is my favourite of the John Hughes films. I have a soft spot for Ducky… which girl who grew up in the 80s didn’t? I grew up with freckles so I really loved the fact that Molly Ringwald was considered a really beautiful girl. Until her, there were no pretty teenage girls I could look up to, so all of that is wrapped up in ‘If You Leave’. It’s definitely a part of the whole John Hughes nostalgia thing. But when I think of early OMD, I think of ground breaking seminal electronic music.
It’s interesting you feature THE NORMAL in the book, but not KRAFTWERK. KRAFTWERK seem to have made more of a cultural impact on the US urban dance scene rather than New Wave pop?
We look at KRAFTWERK as being a parent figure to this era rather then being a part of it itself. So when I think about who inspired all of these artists, it’s KRAFTWERK, ROXY MUSIC, T-REX, CHIC and David Bowie. Then you put it through the punk blender because none of these New Wave artists would have picked up an instrument if it wasn’t for punk. Bowie, Roxy and Bolan were too much on a pedestal, you could never imagine emulating them because they were true rock stars.
But when punk and KRAFTWERK came around, two things happened; punk made you feel you could do it with just three chords while KRAFTWERK taught you that you didn’t even need a band, just one piece of equipment which was the synthesizer. So that’s why there isn’t a chapter on KRAFTWERK, but they are mentioned many times throughout the book.
The chat with Peter Hook must have been quite revealing considering his Joyless Division with NEW ORDER?
Peter Hook was one of my first interviews for the book actually and he is one of my favourites, I probably talked to him about five times. He was very generous with his time, his memories and he was very candid. Some people think he’s overly angry about the situation but as he says in the book, he gave 30 years of his life to the band and he feels really burnt by it. He said it’s a divorce and as someone who’s been through one, I wasn’t married for over 30 years but I can’t imagine what it must feel like; he calls the new version of NEW ORDER “New Odour”. I really liked talking to Peter and one of the reasons is because he is proud of his legacy and loves his own music, both as JOY DIVISION and NEW ORDER.
Now, when I talked to like Vince Clarke, it was really hard to get him to talk about his own music. But once I started asking him about his heroes, he completely opened up about people like Simon & Garfunkel and THE CURE. So he had no problem talking about that, but had a problem talking about his own music because it’s too close to him. Peter Hook is not like that, he is enjoying preserving his legacy and you can see that; he’s written two books on his career so far and has another on the way about NEW ORDER. I think he’s a great storyteller.
Did you talk to Bernard Sumner as well?
Yes, I also interviewed Bernard but he really avoided as much as possible talking about Peter Hook and the problems they had. He said NEW ORDER’s music, particularly ‘Blue Monday’ has been passed down through the family like a gold watch, meaning people who are in their 40s and 50s have passed the music down to their teenage kids who now find it cool. The JOY DIVISION and NEW ORDER chapters are two of my favourites.
My heart hurts for Peter because I’m a very sensitive person too and I can tell that this whole situation with Bernard has broken his heart. However, this is not something that happened recently, this has been a slow boil for many years. Peter said they only shared one phone call over 35 years and that was because Bernard’s car had a flat battery and he need a lift to a gig!
This first wave paved the way for prettier bands like DURAN DURAN and DEPECHE MODE plus electro-soul hybrids like HEAVEN 17, EURYTHMICS and YAZOO in the US. Was there a big difference in these acts that made them more appealing to Americans? Was it really just down to videos and MTV?
A good video is a good video, but a great video can’t rescue a crappy song! So it was much more than that… the truth of the matter is, DURAN DURAN became as big as they are in the United States because they spent many months touring here. In 1984 on their biggest tour, they spent half the year here. So America got used to these bands whereas HEAVEN 17 never set foot here.
Martyn Ware talks about HEAVEN 17 never coming to the US and thinks that hurt them. HEAVEN 17, YAZOO and a few of the others, they appeared on video and it was so new, it got them all around the world at once. So they thought “MTV in America play videos, why do they have to see us live? We don’t need to go to Australia, we’ll send them the video!”
If HEAVEN 17 had toured and put in the time, they had the songs that would have made them big here… ‘Temptation’ had a lot of potential in the US. YAZOO were sizeable here and not just with ‘Only You’. When I was in High School, everyone loved ‘Upstairs at Eric’s’ and they played ‘Situation’ to death.
Photo by Deb Danahay
What about DEPECHE MODE?
DEPECHE MODE are interesting in that they’re really two bands… in this book, we talk about the early Vince Clarke Depeche that was really, a different group to the one that came over towards the end of the decade and sold out the Rose Bowl. And when Vince Clarke left, they really didn’t know what was going to happen because he wrote all the songs and produced.
It took Martin Gore a few albums to step up; ‘People Are People’ was a slight hit here but it wasn’t until they really put the time in to breaking in America that they made it. In fact, their first huge hit here wasn’t until ‘Enjoy The Silence’ in 1990. To me, DEPECHE MODE and THE CURE are the Holy pair of New Wave graduates who then went into the alternative music scene and started playing stadiums. I believe if THE SMITHS had stuck it out, they would have been doing so too.
With DURAN DURAN and their sound particularly, were their disco and rock elements also a factor in their American appeal in that they were not a pure synthesizer group?
I think you’re right. I’m the world’s biggest Duranie and I have to say, I think the magic is that the five members made incredible music and were the best at what they did. Nick Rhodes was a great synthesizer player and a producer behind the scenes in putting these records together; Simon Le Bon has an interesting and unique voice; John Taylor is a hell of a bassist who many contemporary artists look up to; you had Roger Taylor who Mark Ronson and Nile Rodgers both talk about what a strong drummer he is; and then there’s Andy Taylor who Mark Ronson says gave “a Steve Jones element” to the band. So you have this confluence of disco and synth sound with the crazy rock guitar element, it was a unique combination. With DURAN DURAN, you had the best of all worlds. You didn’t have that in SPANDAU BALLET!
Photo by Virginia Turbett
It’s interesting you say that, I briefly spoke to John Taylor once and asked him when he realised DURAN DURAN were going to trump SPANDAU BALLET and he replied “To Cut A Long Story Short”…
…he said to me that he ran out and bought that record, listened to it and was like “alright, nothing to worry about”. A thing that come across in the book is how competitive all of these groups were. Duran were super competitive with Spandau and that gets a lot of ink.
But also, DURAN DURAN were worried about ABC and John Taylor says in the book how nervous he was when ‘The Lexicon Of Love’ came out. And ABC were looking over their shoulder at THE HUMAN LEAGUE. And Gary Numan was competing with OMD. Back then, there was a race and ABC’s Martin Fry talks a lot about that race to put out the freshest, coolest, newest sounding record. And they were all competing in it.
They were all very much trying to come up with the next sound. So it’s interesting with ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’; SPANDAU BALLET started as a New Romantic band, then they come out with this funk dancefloor hit ‘Chant No1’, AND THEN became much more of a ballads band with ‘True’.
Look at today’s music scene… no bands are blowing up the formula between records like they did then! That’s what made it so exciting and so interesting. John Taylor went rushing out to buy ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’ because he had no idea what it was going to sound like; whereas today, when Katy Perry puts out a record, you kinda know how it’s going to sound! And so many of today’s artists use the same producer so they do sound the same! *laughs*
Photo by Brian Griffin
ULTRAVOX who are in the book never made it in America despite their cinematic videos. Were they just too European and too old for the MTV Generation?
It’s funny, with ULTRAVOX, I think Americans had no idea where Vienna even was, so they couldn’t get into it! *laughs*
But for us Anglophiles who understood and liked DURAN DURAN and SPANDAU BALLET, it opened up Europe to us. The first time I ever went to England was to see a DURAN DURAN concert. Nick Rhodes said the same thing about Bowie, he had never even left the country but through Bowie, he felt he could understand what it could be like to go to Berlin or Paris. In general, only 2 out of 10 Americans even had a passport and that’s true to this day. Andrew Farriss of INXS said that people in America were getting them confused and thinking they were Austrian instead of Australian! The accents couldn’t be more different! *laughs*
But Midge Ure is one of those really important driving forces of the entire movement because not only was he in ULTRAVOX, but he was a big part of VISAGE and co-wrote ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ so he had to be in this book 🙂
How do you subscribe to the thought that a number of these British acts that made it huge in America were effectively softened versions of acts that came before eg DURAN DURAN with JAPAN, and PET SHOP BOYS with SOFT CELL?
I’ve never thought of PET SHOP BOYS ever as a softened version of SOFT CELL, but I can see where you’re coming from. The first time I heard ‘West End Girls’, it blew my mind, I’d never heard anything like it before and I still haven’t. SOFT CELL’s ‘Tainted Love’ was a tremendous hit here, it’s up there with ‘Sweet Dreams’, ‘Cars’ and ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ but SOFT CELL never really followed it up here.
As far as DURAN DURAN and JAPAN went, it’s like Gary Numan and David Bowie. I didn’t know until years later about JAPAN because they weren’t big here. But I remember listening to them and thinking “Wow! I can really hear DURAN DURAN in this”.
Now Duran may have started out with that influence but let’s not forget about SPANDAU BALLET. DURAN DURAN may have blown them out of the water eventually, but they have Spandau to thank. If there wasn’t a Blitz Club, there wouldn’t have been a Rum Runner so if there wasn’t a SPANDAU BALLET, there wouldn’t have been a DURAN DURAN. But Duran kept it going and they’re the elder statesmen of the entire era.
I loved JAPAN but they were too bloody minded and David Sylvian was too arty to want to become pop stars…
DURAN DURAN never minded and wanted to embrace the mainstream. They were huge and maximised every opportunity whether it was videos or their good looks or the fact that they were good songwriters and musicians. They were a team and shared songwriting credits on every song.
SPANDAU BALLET broke in two because Gary Kemp was being sued by three members of the band for royalties.
DURAN DURAN never had to worry about that kind of thing. I’m really proud to be a Duranie because they’re survivors. Have you seen DURAN DURAN live?
Oh yes, several times. I didn’t see them until 1988 unfortunately, but I went to one of the 2004 shows at Wembley Arena and it is still one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to!
I was at every single one, I loved those Wembley shows! OH MY GOD! They blew me away!
This will make you laugh, one of the things about being a male DURAN DURAN fan, you didn’t admit it when you were younger. But you don’t have a problem with it when you’re older. So when me and my mate got to the Wembley gig, we thought “where shall we stand? Oh, let’s stand towards the left” because of course, that was where all the girls were… waiting for John Taylor! 😉
You’re right, guys did not admit to liking them when they were younger but now you go to a Duran concert and there tons of guys there… and they’re not just there to hold the wife’s handbag! *laughs*
Who’d have thought the majority of the acts that feature in ‘Mad World’ are still active as brands and live performers. So should these artists keep touring and how do you feel about them recording new material?
When we interviewed Andy McCluskey, he feels that a lot of bands from this era shouldn’t be doing new music because they have nothing new to say. He felt that when OMD made the last two albums, they had to dig deep to really challenge themselves to say it was not to make a quick buck off the audience. That’s why Tom Bailey has to this day not done an acoustic album of THOMPSON TWINS hits or a reunion tour because he feels he doesn’t have it in him… although for the first time, he’s going to be touring solo in the US with Midge Ure and Howard Jones.
But I look at a band like DURAN DURAN; Simon Le Bon said to me that they are “career musicians”, they would not know what to do with themselves if they did not have a tour to do or a studio to go into… they are driven to make new music. Some people think the record ‘Red Carpet Massacre’ with Timbaland was a mistake, but it’s one of my favourites… I’m really look up to Duran because they take chances. I always say hats off to acts like them and U2 for trying new things.
Of course, I see why Duranies were so excited about the Mark Ronson produced ‘All You Need Is Now’ album because it brought them back to ‘Rio’ and that sound. As long as bands are inspired to keep going and can, they should. INXS cannot keep going; they called it a day last year and Andrew Farriss said he has a hard time writing with someone who isn’t Michael Hutchence. Imagine working with someone for so long and suddenly they’re not there anymore?
So the bands that do continue, by and large, none of them disappoint me. I like some records better than others but even if I don’t like what they produce, I love the spirit with which they produce it.
I guess the end result of this New Wave legacy in America is that there’s great cinema like ‘Donnie Darko’, but also terrible new bands like FUTURE ISLANDS…
…I’m not a huge fan of FUTURE ISLANDS either… I was on my way to do a radio interview and I could not remember what they were called, I was thinking “Fantasy Islands? No, that’s not right!”*laughs*
The thing is, when I saw FUTURE ISLANDS on ‘The David Letterman Show’, I thought it was a comedian doing a skit on what they thought an 80s New Wave band was like…
…really? That’s so funny, I can see that! *laughs*
So how do you view the long term cultural significance of New Wave?
What I do like is that the sound continues… I like CHVRCHES, I think they’re good. On ‘American Idol’ the other evening, it was ‘80s Night’ and they had DURAN DURAN on there. Even a lot of this EDM is really a direct descendant of New Wave and electronica. Daniel Miller of Mute said that he can’t stand that term EDM aka Electronic Dance Music, but it’s what New Wave sort of was.
So it continues and it’s cool that the artists we love are finally getting recognition for really paving the way 30 years ago. I mean, there was the 90s when nobody would give OMD or Gary Numan a record deal because people thought no-one wanted to hear that music. John Taylor said he would have crawled into a hole in the ground if it wasn’t for Nick Rhodes keeping DURAN DURAN together, because they felt so shunned by popular culture.
What’s nice, whether or not you like EDM, FUTURE ISLANDS or CHVRCHES, is they’re continuing the tradition of the artists we love and allowing them to get their proper due finally. I really hope that in the next few years, DEPECHE MODE get inducted into The Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Fame. It’s about time one of these bands gets properly recognised for ushering in an entire era of amazing electronic music.
Moby, who does the afterword in ‘Mad World’, said to you he’d have liked to have been in DURAN DURAN. I always wanted to be in OMD and still dress like Paul Humphreys circa 1981! Which New Wave band would you have liked to have been in?
This is a hard question… to me DURAN DURAN are so good at what they do, I can’t even imagine being a part of it. Do you know what I mean? Whereas I look at a band like BOW WOW WOW, they had a female singer Annabella Lwin and I talk a lot in the book about how she was my first girl crush. She had a Mohican and she was so freaking cool! It seems like it was a party to be part of BOW WOW WOW although you learn from the book that it was nowhere near a party and that she barely hung out with the guys! But from a distance, it looked really fun to be in BOW WOW WOW?
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reminded people why the classic line-up of 
. ‘Drive’ was a haunting drama about domestic violence that was given extra poignancy by a ghostly guest vocal by Tracy J Cox. There was also the frantic ERSAURE on Stella Artois of ‘The Chase’, the rousing schaffel stomp of ‘Round Again’ and the refined CAMOUFLAGE meets VANGELIS atmospheres of ‘Inner Voice’. But the biggest surprise was ‘The Last Time’, a cinematic masterpiece involving an orchestra that cascaded into an epic Pan-European journey across The Steppes. The virtual symphonic strings and gothic choirs gave an indication as to what OMD might have sounded like if Jim Steinman had been producing!
via Sony BMG Records
via Mercury Records
via Cherry Pop
via London Records
via Music Club
via Cherry Red
via Virgin Records
via Eagle Records
via EMI Music
via Warner Music
via Music Club Deluxe
via Rhino Records
via RCA / Sony BMG Records
via EMI Music
via Virgin Records
via EMI Music
via Sony Music
via Blue Noise
via Mute Artists
delves into the spirit, the politics and the heartache behind some of the best songs ever recorded, regardless of genre. The book does bias towards a Stateside viewpoint courtesy of self-confessed Anglophile and Duranie Lori Majewski, but the content is balanced by the critical input of LA based Glaswegian Jonathan Bernstein.
as “pure punk music” as opposed to “punk rock”, due to it adopting that true punk ideal of do-it-yourself. Meanwhile, Martyn Ware waxes lyrical about the realisation of ‘Being Boiled’
… the chapter was to have been about ‘Don’t You Want Me?’
but with Phil Oakey’s continued refusal to give interviews about the past has ensured its omission. At the end of the day, Oakey misses an opportunity to reflect and give his story of the era.
from the film ‘Pretty In Pink’
may not be the greatest song he and 
by A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS was a huge MTV hit, but it only started going up the US charts and being played on radio after people were requesting it because they saw the video on MTV. So they rode a wave that was not available in their own country.
in the book is an inconvenience of the fact that Phil Oakey didn’t want to talk to us, that was really disappointing. I was thinking “Do we even have a book without ‘Don’t You Want Me?’…?”; but then talking to Martyn Ware, he chatted about his beginnings with THE HUMAN LEAGUE. I realised ‘Being Boiled’ was the boiler plate for so many of the records that came afterwards; DURAN DURAN, OMD and Vince Clarke all talk about ‘Being Boiled’. So we may not have the story you expect with ‘Don’t You Want Me?’, but we have one of the beginning stories of the entire era.
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