Underneath The Ivy

Since I saw the video for ‘Wuthering Heights’ on Noel Edmonds’ Multi-Coloured Swap Shop when I was about 13, I’ve always loved Kate Bush – and I’ve just spent a solid day reading Graeme Thomson’s fairly new unauthorized biography ‘Under the Ivy’ while on holiday.

I found the book to be extraordinarily insightful into Kate Bush’s canon of work – clearly the author is a devoted fan  — but it’s also quite an infuriating and frustrating book in many ways.  The Bush family and close friends operate a bizarre sort of omerta – keeping a level of privacy that is so obsessive that it was only an indiscretion by Peter Gabriel two years after the event that put the news that Kate Bush had become a mother into the public domain.

So despite this book being the exact opposite of a hatchet job, there’s no co-operation from anyone in the Bush family or anyone in their direct sphere of influence – they speak but through the author’s incredibly diligent researching of contemporaneous press interviews, which themselves became more opaque with the few interviews to promote ‘Aerial’ as likely to discuss her home baking as any musical influences.

Although Thomson has interviewed many in the outer orbit, including record company executive, musicians, dancers and so on, one has the impression that their stories are not exactly candidly told. Only record producer Hugh Padgham admits to his time working with Kate Bush as not necessarily the most amazing and wonderful.

It’s a shame because the overt narrative of the book leaves many questions (such as what caused Kate Bush to break up with Del Palmer, her boyfriend of 15 years) but there are various suggestions that the author and interviewees know a lot more than they will share with the reader . The nearest the author gets to shedding  light on the reason behind the obsessive privacy is in reference to Bush’s requirement for complete editorial control over an edition of the BBC’s 2009 programme ‘Queen of Pop’– ‘sometimes it’s hard to tell what exactly it is that she’s afraid of’.

There’s a clear divide between the biographical detail, where the author is very keen to couch his words in a way calculated to be diplomatic and not to cause offence, and his comments on the music, which are rather opinionated  — he’s not afraid to say a track’s rubbish – even though he might be wrong (I think ‘Experiment IV’ is fantastic and I wish I had a copy). It’s almost as if the fairly brutal trashing of some of the discography is a proxy substitute for having his hands tied by non-co-operation and libel laws – ‘I can’t say what I think happened in her life story but I’ll damn well say what I think about the music’.

He takes something of the Ian MacDonald view (as in the book about the Beatles – ‘Revolution in the Head’) that there’s an arc in an artist’s career, peaking in the middle. As McDonald tended to bend the argument that Revolver and Sergeant Pepper were the apogee of the Beatles’ career then Thomson cites ‘Hounds of Love’ as the apex of Kate Bush’s.

I agree that ‘Hounds of Love’ is a fine album and one that has quite personal associations for me as its innate Englishness helped me deal with the culture shock of moving to California at the time it was released.

However, looking at the songs on the Kate Bush back catalogue, not so many of my favourites are from ‘Hounds of Love’. I made a playlist of my favourite tracks from the six of her albums that I had close to hand on ‘CD’ (excepting  ‘Lionheart’ and ‘The Red Shoes’) and found the following:

  1. ‘The Kick Inside’ has seven: ‘Moving’, ‘The Saxophone Song’, ‘The Man with the Child in his Eyes’, ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘Feel It’, ‘Oh To Be In Love’, ‘L’Amour Looks Something Like You’ (the latter three make a stunning sequence).
  2. ‘Aerial’ (6): ‘King of the Mountain’, ‘A Coral Room’, ‘Sunset’ (mainly the first few seconds ‘Could be honeycomb’ – what a beautiful phrase), ‘Somewhere In Between’, ‘Nocturn and Aerial.
  3. ‘The Dreaming’ (5): ‘Sat in Your Lap’ (genius), ‘Pull Out the Pin’, ‘Suspended in Gaffa’ (ditto), ‘Night of the Swallow’, ’Houdini’.
  4. ‘Hounds of Love’ (5): ‘Running Up That Hill’, ‘Hounds of Love’, ‘The Big Sky’ (especially the 12” version – ‘That cloud looks like industrial waste’), ‘Cloudbusting’, ‘Hello Earth’ (possibly her second best melody)
  5. ‘Never for Ever’ (4) although it should get extra for its absolutely extraordinary cover art: ‘Babooshka’, ‘Delius’, ‘The Infant Kiss’ (her most stunning melody – it goes into unimaginable directions, rather like the lyrics), ‘Night Scented Stock’.
  6. ‘The Sensual World’ (3): ‘The Sensual World’ (IMHO her best track ever for multitudinous reasons), ‘Rocket’s Tail’ and ‘This Woman’s Work’.

Had I had considered ‘Lionheart’ then I’d certainly include ‘Wow’, ‘Symphony in Blue’, ‘Oh England My Lionheart’ and, probably, ‘Hammer Horror’. I’d also want to have ‘December Will Be Magic Again’ on any playlist at any time of the year (‘See How I fall’) – the only version I have is an 80s remix on a compilation with some detestable bongos added.  There are also a number of excellent B-sides like ‘Passing Through Air’, ‘Lord of the Reedy River’ and ‘My Lagan Love’.

I’d be tempted not to include anything at all from ‘The Red Shoes’ – any album with Lenny Henry on it really can’t be taken seriously, even if it is by Kate Bush – although, at a push, ‘Constellation of the Heart’ is quite jolly.

So my arc doesn’t have a pattern much at all – maybe a rollercoaster pattern in very quickly ascending the heights at the start, then dipping a little, building some more momentum, then plunging erratically into the doldrums before straightening out a little and levelling into some consistency towards the end. But what a ride!

Van Halen meets Cerrone meets Nu Shooz?

The music in the video of Sebastien Tellier’s ‘Kilometer’ doesn’t really do justice to the remixed versions of the track, which are wonderful pastiches of late 70s/early80s disco. So I’ve found the Aeroplane Italo 84 Remix on YouTube and I’ll embed it below.

Right through the majority of the track is a high-pitched synthesizer riff that sounds exactly like Cerrone’s ‘Supernature’ — a sci-fi inspired track I remember on its own merits but according to Wikipedia was also the theme tune to Kenny Everett’s Video Show — all in the best possible taste.

There’s also a sort of plucked arpeggio guitar (or synth-guitar) riff, similar in some ways to reggae, which is very like the guitar on Nu Shooz’s classic ‘I Can’t Wait’.

What’s most arresting about the sound of the remix though is it seems to sample the synthesizer from Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ throughout — there’s a superb part when the synth is first introduced followed by a really ELO-Mr-Blue-Sky-like vocoder. And there’s lots of camped up panting which fits the theme of the original video.

It’s almost like a tribute to the most over-the-top electronic disco — the whole effect is a bit like Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ meets all of the above.

Right Over the Top

Oddly enough I’m a great fan of chillout electronic music — at least the types that remind me either of classical music or 70s/80s disco. I’ve got quite a number of compilations — mainly Ministry of Sound. It’s amazing how often this sort of music is heard as the backing for television programmes — ‘Hayling’ by FC Kahuna was on the Panorama programme about Battersea Dogs’ Home last night.

The French seem to do well in this sort of ambient electro-chillout music — Air, who’ve made some superb tracks like ‘All I Need’ and ‘La Femme d’Argent’ are perpetually played in the background on TV — usually in irritating ten second bursts.

One that’s grown on me quite a bit is a track called ‘Kilometer’ by the interesting French artist Sebastian Tellier. It’s off an album called ‘Sexuality’ and a quick look at the video for the track (see below) shows the name is no co-incidence. I found quite a strange interview with ‘cult Parisian composer/producer’  on the Time Out website in which he comes out with quotations like ‘I’m very happy to live in the sexual society! Ha ha ! Because I love to watch and I feel very okay with the naked body of a woman, and so I want to kind of say thank you to all the people for sex…Before, I did some ’70s-type records, but I don’t want to have ’70s sex. Too hairy.’

Kilometer is a fascinating video but the version of the track used is a bit slow and uninteresting compared with the faster 70s disco pastiche that is on the Ministry of Sound Chilled II compilation.

It’s very visually interesting as he looks as hairy as a Dulux dog himself in the video — a sort of French Demis Roussos with sunglasses. The video itself is so over the top it must be a complete parody of the idea of the French louche love god — Tellier is enjoying the company of many young ladies who are parading around in their underwear — there are ample shots of womens’ bottoms. It’s a The dancing hot dogs surely and the toothpaste mean it cannot be serious.

Flooding Out The Wombles?

I didn’t think much about Katie Melua when she first established herself as, what seemed to me, a fairly bland singer of twee songs, particularly the rather excruciating one about nine million bicycles in Beijing. She also had an association with the king of commercial bilge going back to the cheesy songs in Seaside Special in the 1970s and, of course, the Wombles – Mike Batt. I was surprised he was still around although I seem to remember him trying his hand at classical crossover music some time.

So I was amazed to hear ‘The Flood’ – Katie Melua’s recent single which seemed to have been designed preternaturally to include almost everything I like in a pop music track. The song is wonderful in just about every way imaginable – and credit is due largely to Melua’s new producer and writing collaborator on ‘The Flood’, William Orbit. I’ve liked Orbit’s work ever since I bought what was just about the first single he was involved with – ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ by Bass-O-Matic in the late 80s. He then went on to work on some of the most seminal music of the 90s – including the hypnotic ‘Pure Shores’ by All Saints and quite a bit of stuff with Madonna.

‘The Flood’ is an utterly schizophrenic track. The first couple of verses and choruses are a slow ballad sung over an adamant bass line and orchestral accompaniment. The chorus is fantastic: Katie Melua’s voice suddenly soars octaves above the chorus – demonstrating that she has far more than the few tones range of most pop singers. It’s slightly reminiscent of the sort of dramatic music that Kate Bush would make.

Then the song suddenly speeds up with the introduction of a folky-acoustic guitar into double time (something that The Beatles ‘A Day in the Life’ does for its final verse). For a glorious minute or so the track turns from something that could have been in a West End musical into a track one could imagine being played in one of these party-until-the-sun-comes-up Ibiza events. Everything in the production is used so economically and subtly – for example the distorted guitars and the muted brass backing the vocals from ‘turn up the light’ onwards. What’s most bizarre is the halting snare drum used on the off-beat to push the rhythm forward – very similar to the Beatles (again) in ‘Get Back’ –but also almost like a marching military band.

The vocals on the fast section are a complete contrast to what came before and comes afterwards. Katie Melua sings like some kind of cosmic oracle in (yet another Beatles echo) a vocal like John Lennon’s on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.

The lyrics are full of imperatives too, which helps the effect, ‘Don’t trust your eyes…Know in your heart…Turn on the light and feel the ancient rhythm.’ I’m particularly taken by this as Katie Melua looks a bit to my mind like Sarah Brightman did in her Hot Gossip days when the classic ‘I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper’ was released in the late 70s and I can imagine her belting out this section like a female character in ‘Blake’s 7’ (Servalan anyone?).

And then sung against the incantatory vocal is a counterpoint line of backing vocals – and I love songs that suddenly pull together two simultaneous melodies. These backing vocals echo the first, slower part of the song (‘Nothing is to blame’) which creates a fantastic tension.

I like percussion in a track and always feel that it’s consciously very underrated but plays a huge role in subconscious appreciation of a piece of music. ‘The Flood’ suddenly seems to collapse under the weight of the above mentioned tension in a massive crash of cymbals and bass drum beats – slowing the fast beat like a juggernaut and re-instating the previous ballad for a climactic ending. It’s brilliant – like some of the best classical music it simultaneously unites a seeming cataclysm with a serene calm.

It’s one of the oddest and most original pieces of music I’ve heard in a long time – and I can listen to it repeatedly and still enjoy it enormously.

I bought the album ‘The House’ – which has taken a while to grow on me and is filled with material that’s more conventional Melua style – pleasant, whimsical meditations about aliens and red balloons. The album has also had the Rick Nowells treatment on a few tracks. He’s a producer who seems to provide a certain type of female singer with sure-fire hits – starting over 20 years ago with Belinda Carlisle, then moving on to Stevie Nicks, The Corrs, Dido (‘Here With Me’) and (I think) Madonna.

There’s a track on ‘The House’ that’s almost comically Nowells – which might end up as a single. It’s both lyrically and musically ludicrous – it’s called ‘Plague of Love’ – and has an incredibly catchy chorus.

I’ve almost done a complete reversal of opinion on Katie Melua. From thinking she was a bland, MOR vehicle for a past-it Svengali, I now think, if you look carefully enough you’ll find she’s incredibly original and quite odd – and one of the genuinely subversive type of artists I most respect.

‘Comfort is for Tw*ts’

Apparently that’s Paloma Faith’s ‘life motto’ as reported in an interview in ‘The Independent’. I like the general sentiment of the comment — similar to lots of exhortations to hard work and so on — but I like the phrase mainly because a creative writing tutor once marked me down because I wrote a line in a screenplay where a female character (about Paloma Faith’s age) says the word ‘tw*t’ (only asterisking this out so it doesn’t get so easily indexed by p*rn websites). She said that a woman would never use such a word!

I’ve also bought Paloma Faith’s album — ‘Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful’ — which I really like. I particularly rate the title track. It seems like she’s being marketed as the next Amy Winehouse, which is always going to self-defeating. I don’t think the music or singing is that similar to Amy Winehouse either — it reminds me of the Mark Ronson ‘Version’ album on which Amy Winehouse does her cover of ‘Valerie’. It’s quite theatrical music, which is unusual. I also like the premise of the title track — a bit of the same conceit used by Fleetwood Mac in ‘Little Lies’ — as it goes to the heart of a lot of human relationships — do you want to hear the truth or something that’s more enjoyable. It could be said to define the idea of fiction too.

It’s a shame she looks so ridiculous. The photos in the CD booklet have her in ludicrous hairdos and costumes except for one which shows she’s actually rather pretty. I heard her perform live on Simon Mayo’s Radio 2 show when she did a short interview in which she sounded astonishingly stupid and inarticulate. The album shows that, in reality, she’s certainly neither. No one stupid could write a song like ‘Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful’.

‘A Compromise Would Surely Help the Situation…

…Agree to disagree but disagree to part, but after all it’s just a compromise of the Things We Do For Love’.

This is one of the few modern pop songs to feature a gong. It’s smashed three or four times during the course of the song and I realised when I heard it on Radio 2 this morning, half asleep, that its’ such an incredibly enervating song. Notwithstanding the avant-garde influence of Godley and Creme, who left 10cc because they thought this song was too commercial, I think it’s the band’s best track, despite having a tedious playout. The wonderful harmonies are self-evident but the drumming is engagingly stop-start throughout…and the organ is incredible.

Best Albums of the Last 30 Years?

‘My arse,’ as Jim Royle might say.

Radio Two listeners are having to pick the supposed best album of the last 30 years out of the motley list below. Maybe the list is selected from only the people who can be bothered to turn up to receive the award at the Brits? It’s difficult to imagine a bigger bunch of crap — who on earth shortlisted this rubbish? In many cases the album isn’t even the best that the artists concerned has made.

A Rush Of Blood To The Head – Coldplay: they might be a decent band if they got a singer. I thought ‘Viva la Vida’ was ok but most of Coldplay is pretentious whining — cock rock for middle-class students.

No AngelDido: this is actually a very good album and balances the pop influences of Rick Nowells (Stevie Nicks, Belinda Carlisle) with the trip-hop influences of her brother’s band Faithless. At least with names like Dido and Rollo, they had to admit they were posh — not kids off da street like most middle-class musicians. Because of inverted snobbery by middle-class music journalists the only people who were allowed to admit they liked Dido were those who had impeccably ‘street’ credentials — like Eninem, who knew a good tune when he heard one.

Diamond Life – Sade: this one is good too. It has the mark of a good album in that some of the non-single tracks are equally memorable as those that got in the charts. It’s got a lot of period charm.

Hopes And Fears – Keane: I don’t know anything about this one or Keane, in fact, apart from their song ‘Spiralling’ was ok.

What’s The Story Morning Glory – Oasis: a load of over-hyped, third-rate bombastic imitiations of Beatles tracks

No Jacket Required – Phil Collins: unbelievable — ‘Face Value’ was genuinely an album of its time with a single that has endured (even if the drumming gorilla didn’t save Cadbury’s). ‘No Jacket Required’ was loveable geezer Phil at his showbiz worst.

The Man Who – Travis: I’m the man who can’t remember anything about Travis, let alone their supposedly brilliant album

Rockferry – Duffy: OK but largely a throwback to the 60s in musical style — is imitating 40 year old music something that makes the best album of the last 40 years. At least it isn’t Amy Winehouse.

Urban Hymns – The Verve:I bought this on cd when it first came out, listened to it once and then never bothered again. Good opening tune but wasn’t it derived from the Rolling Stones?

Brothers In Arms – Dire Straits: like the Phil Collins selection, not their best album — they did some decent stuff a few years earlier but this is stadium formula bloat-rock.

Seems like whichever nerd put the shortlist together selected their favourite album (probably Keane or Travis) and then put it up against a load of other dross to ensure it wins — while milking Radio Two listeners for phone votes. It will be interesting to see how the women artists compare. I think anyone with any independent taste should organise a Rage Against the Machine campaign to make Dido’s ‘No Angel’ the top album of the last 30 years. It’s certainly the best there but that says everything about the competition.

I’ll try and think of my own list.

Alas Poor Knitted Character, I Knew Him Well

It was good to see the Knitted Character making a last minute appearance on ‘Harry Hill’s TV Burp Review of the Year’. The little fellow even had a seasonal Santa Hat on.

Boxing Day was an interesting polarisation of high and low culture on the terrestrial channels. BBC1 had the incredibly banal ‘Celebrity Total Wipeout’ which, if such a thing can be imagined, is like a dumbed-down version of ‘It’s A Knockout’ done on the cheap. In fact, the presenter, Richard Hamster Hammond made a great song and dance about how he’d bothered to turn up on the set rather than just voice-over from the studio.

Perhaps to compensate BBC2 ran a worthy ‘Hamlet’ for those with more than a couple of braincells and so needing more cultural nourishment than ‘Celebrity Total Wipeout’ could offer. It wasn’t quite as high-minded as it may have been as it was a celebrity vehicle in itself — with David ‘Dr Who’ Tennant. It’s obvious that he originally decided to do ‘Hamlet’ for the RSC as part of a mutually beneficially arrangement whereby he would avoid being typecast and reveal himself as an ‘AC-TOR’ while they could coin in the cash from pubescent girls wanting to wet their pants while watching him in Stratford. In a similar vein I guess that the BBC2 version of ‘Hamlet’ may well be an updated, ‘contemporary ironic’ version in which Hamlet might use the Tardis to go back in time to witness the death of his father (unlike that Hackneyed ghost rubbish) and some of the baddies could be re-cast as Daleks (Claudius or Laertes maybe and certainly Rosencrantz and Guildernstern). Ophelia is obviously a classic Doctor’s assistant part — more Billie Piper to my mind than Catherine Tate.

Our recording equipment was going into overdrive with these three cultural offerings happening simultaneously — it was too difficult to decide between Wipeout, Hamlet and Harry Hill. The lure of the Knitted Character won out in the end with Harry Hill being the first programme watched. The great thing about Hill is that he’s quite happy to make a total berk of himself — something one doesn’t imagine David Tennant’s Doctor ever really would. TV Burp has grown on me recently — and it’s really a triumph of good editing as much as anything else. The formula is hilariously rigid — the ritual fight before the adverts and the crap song at the end. I wonder what anyone in another country might say about an ending with two men in drag (one as Susan Boyle) being joined by a pantomime guitar-playing horse singing an Osmond’s song (guess which one). It will certainly be watched by several times as many people as Hamlet — even with Daleks.

‘Shock’ Swearing — How Subversive?

The Facebook campaign to make ‘Killing in the Name’ by Rage Against the Machine the Christmas number one is another demonstration of the amazingly puerile applications of internet technology and a continuing reminder of the enduring collective idiocy of the human race. (Maybe it’s appropriate that this should be shown in the run up to Christmas — a time when we should reflect and take stock.) It’s also typical of the counterproductive type of demonstration that only serves to re-inforce the importance of what is being protested against. It brings further publicity to the X-Factor and will only make Simon Cowell even more money as all Joe’s fans go out and make sure they buy the record in case he’s in danger of not making number one. (Perhaps Cowell thought up the whole stunt?)

It also makes money for the band themselves. They seem to be stuck in a timewarp where they think swearing on live radio or television is some sort of subversive act. Since Bob Geldof’s famous rant during Live Aid, which surmounted the Sex Pistol’s famous swearing a few years earlier, there have been no barriers left to push — anything else is just gratuitous. Madonna’s swearing during Live 8 was just a cheap and nasty attempt to seem ‘edgy’ and ‘dangerous’ when, in fact, it was just a desperate load of bollocks designed to make a bit of money from doing something incredibly easy.

If people want to be subversive then do something that takes genuine effort and wit — not do something that anyone else capable of speaking in English could do. Also, those who want to demonstrate how radical they are should do something that has a bit of risk attached. Once upon a time perhaps swearing might jeopardise a musician’s career. Now it’s almost expected of them. Rather than swearing they should perhaps have a go at the real sacred cows.

Mancy Deadmau5

I love Deadmau5’s song ‘I Remember’ and I found on the web that there’s a version of the video that features a bunch of Mancs and some seedy locations in Manchester. It’s all about planning a rave, which is not really my thing at all, and has some obnoxious Mancy character in expostulating about counter culture values. Maybe it’s meant to be a bit of a period piece from the 90s. The music is so good it could come from the late 80s.

I’ll Be Popular This Christmas

I’ve just ensured my enduring popularity this Christmas — or perhaps guaranteed myself some exile from others’ jollity — as Amazon have just told me my copy of ‘Christmas from the Heart’ by Bob Dylan is on the way. I look forward to inflicting it on whoever I can.

If Dylan’s croaking, out of tune versions of ‘Winter Wonderland’ or ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ was used as backing music on the procession of television adverts crossing our screens at the moment then perhaps I’d feel more charitable towards the retailers who try and convince us it’s the season of peace and goodwill to all men already (when will they realise that’s for one day only?).

Weirdest Album of the Year

Among the myriad things that Charlie doesn’t like are (in general) Bob Dylan’s music and discussing anything related to Christmas until we’ve had Guy Fawkes night (and preferably not until we’ve opened our advent calendars). But the new album released by Bob Dylan seems so bizarre that it’s worth a mention at the end of October. The reviewer in The Independent referred to it as “a… musical atrocity committed in the names of Christmas and charity;” and “downright weird”. I heard something from it on the radio and it sounded a complete joke — like someone doing their worst impression of Bob Dylan’s appalling singing voice and setting it to the most unlikely material — such as ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. I read another review in Time magazine that said it should be viewed in the context of Dylan paying homage to what most Americans of his age regarded as vernacular folk music — the easy listening crooners of the 40s and 50s, such as Bing Crosby and early 60s. It’s also possible that some of the stick the album is getting is from the miltant Dawkins types — one wonders whether Dylan would have been treated with reverence had he sung songs based on another religious tradition. Whatever, I might buy it for the novelty value and to enjoy inflicting it on over-jolly people over the festive period.

Mr Modesty?

Web cvs are obviously designed to promote their subject but Anton du Beke surely goes just a little over the top with his: ‘Witty, charismatic and a natural entertainer, Anton’s skills in front of an audience extend far beyond his exceptional ballroom talents.’ My own cv is a minor masterclass in bullshit but Anton is leagues ahead. Does ‘skill in front of an audience’ extend to being knocked into a tank of water by a huge polystyrene wall as in ‘Hole in the Wall’? This is a programme that makes Jeux Sans Frontieres of the 1970s look like a philosophical treatise. Remember Stuart Hall crackling and wheezeing down a phone line ‘Ha ha ha, just look at the Belgians, ho ho ho’?

Good to see that Anton and Erin (Boag his professional partner who’s also on Strictly Come Dancing) have realised that they can tap the corporate market. Compared to some of the egos and bullies they’ll come across on their management team building dance workshops, Anton will be the model of modesty.

Tonight’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ was notable for having an act in the intermission that danced to a particularly superb song of the 60s — although the house band’s arrangement followed the Santana 70s version. ‘She’s Not There’ is an iconic song — its languid verses contrasting with an increasingly frenetic chorus. The negative of the song’s lyrics echoed by the drumming on the off-beat.

1958

I was just checking on Gary Numan’s birthplace — after Antony correctly challenged my Essex assertion (maybe it was his later association with Shakatak that confused me). I found that Gary Numan was yet another famous musician born in 1958. This year produced a pretty impressive collection of musical luminaries who came to prominence in the late 70s and dominated music well into the 90s between them. Most people will probably know that Michael Jackson was born in 1958 but so was Madonna — and, my favourite, Kate Bush. The rather nice Belinda Carlisle was also born then. A similarly disproportionate number of well known actors and rather nice actresses were also born in 1958: Annette Bening (American Beauty — the film with the best soundtrack ever?), Holly Hunter, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Bacon,  Michelle Pfieffer and Sharon Stone. There are bound to be a lot more but I can’t find anything better on the web that lists people by birth year than this. I suppose it was probably a big year demographically but that probably doesn’t fully explain the distibution. It’s a bit like the huge number of famous people that come from Rochdale — Cyril Smith, Gracie Fields, Anna Friel, Bill Oddie, Andy and Liz Kershaw, Steve Coogan (sort of — he comes from Middleton which is in the metropolitan borough), Don Estelle, Lisa Stansfield, Kieron Prendeville (of That’s Life), John Virgo — and plenty more. Bizarrely, I found on Wikipedia that there is a novelist called Nicholas Blincoe who apparently comes from Rochdale. This is a very unusual surname and so I think it must be someone whose family I knew of as a child — they lived about 200 yards from me next door to one of my friends. If it’s the same family then I didn’t know the children too well as they went to the private school. I may have to look his books up on Amazon.

How Northerners and a Few Essex Boys Changed the Music World For the Better

There was a great 90 minutes of nostalgia on BBC4 last night — an account of Synth Britannia — the story of electronic music in the late 70s and very early 80s (the fantastic track list is on this page). The origins of the movment and their inspiration in terms of novels, films and Kraftwerk was all very interesting but the best bit was when some of the musicians started talking about their iconic records and demonstrating the synthesizers actually used on the record. Dave Ball from Soft Cell played ‘Tainted Love’ (one of the candidates for best synth track ever) along with the electronic percussion that makes the record still so memorable (there doesn’t seem to be a pattern to when it comes in). He spoke in a bluff Yorkshire accent and talked about coming down to Soho with Marc Almond like a pair of country hicks.

One remarkable aspect of the bands featured was they overwhelming came from two regions — northern industrial cities and Essex. Liverpool had OMD, Manchester Joy Division, Leeds for Soft Cell, Sheffield the Human League and Heaven 17. Essex produced Gary Numan and Yazoo/Depeche Mode.

Numan was the subject of some revisionist history — Andy McCluskey from OMD said it was a scandal that Numan’s career was effectively cut short by press sniping. Numan himself admitted he was not a particular sociable person and this may explain his faux pas in openly supporting Thatcher in the 80s. Many more bands completely embraced Thatcherism in their desire to ‘make lots of money’ but were smart enough to maintain a left-leaning image as a sop to the music press. Apparently the established bands like OMD and the Human League who were struggling to get in the charts were a bit put out that ‘Are Friends Electric’ steamed in to number one in 1979. Listening to it now, they shouldn’t have been surprised. It’s probably still the best synth track ever although it has guitars and acoustic drums. The drumming is the making of the track IMHO — a fantastic relentless sound that complements the mechanical synth lines.

I have a soft spot for the Human League and it was good to see Phil Oakey talking about how they made some records. Apparently they had the first Linn drum in the country and put it hurriedly on ‘Sound of the Crowd’. It was interesting to see how Suzanne Sulley and Joanne Catherall had aged. I always preferred Joanne (the dark one) but she now looks like one of the panellists on ‘Loose Women’. Suzanne still looked quite good, albeit with lots of make up and an extravagant hairdo. 

Martyn Ware (or was it Ian Craig Marsh) from Heaven 17  described how he was motivated to outdo the Human League, having been fired by them (Phil Oakey said something about not turning up to a photoshoot). Dare and Penthouse and Pavement were apparently recorded simultaneously in the same studio — Human League by day and Heaven 17 by night. I love both albums and Dare is probably the best album as it has two classic tracks (‘Love Action’ and ‘Don’t You Want Me’) and the rest are pretty strong too. Yet Penthouse and Pavement has a fantastic redolence of place and time — although I didn’t really get to know the album until a couple of years after it was released. The title track of the album seems to reflect the 80s political point of inequality and contrast (hence Penthouse and Pavement) in its musical arrangement: descending piano chords and dance beat contrasting with the rambling woodwind soundg synth introduction and Glenn Gregory’s laconic vocals — ‘Sweat my youth away’. Breathy female vocals and the fast percucssion give a contrasting sense of urgency to the chorus.

As with the Electric Dreams technology programme, the music in Synth Britannia — and particularly ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ show what a huge societal change occurred in the 1980s. The cover of ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ anticipates the arrival of the yuppie culture — and the Essex types took the title of ‘Let’s All Make a Bomb’ literally — despite the group’s ideological standpoint being to look back to the industrial society of the north — out of which this music was created in the first place.