2. UB40 - Don't Slow Down (DEP International)

 

Number One for one week on 30th May 1981

Note – This single was a double A-side with Don’t Let It Pass You By – the NME Charts (either deliberately or mistakenly) list it solely as “Don’t Slow Down”, so that’s the side I’ll focus on here.

When you’re having conversations with someone else about music, it’s always interesting to witness the assumptions that pop up; for example, until fairly recently I assumed everyone knew that UB40 were once an extremely credible band. I took it for granted that their backstory was so enormous that it hadn’t been forgotten, even beneath the crushing weight of oldies radio exposure their biggest hits get. Very often, though, people are astonished by the idea that they were ever anything more than a very commercial Breeze FM friendly act. Their childhood memories begin at “Red Red Wine” and go back no further.

That’s a strange mistake to make. UB40, as most people reading this almost certainly realise, had deeply humble, lo-fi underground beginnings. Starting off as a Birmingham live act, they signed to the independent label Graduate in 1980 and proceeded to issue a string of successful top ten hits which felt like reggae viewed through a grease-smeared post-punk lens. Titles like “The Earth Dies Screaming”, referencing a possible nuclear apocalypse, felt more targeted towards IPC journalists and John Peel than the national top ten, but somehow pushed their way through anyway.

This period is also significant in that it produced allegedly the first ever single on an indie label to go top ten – “King”. I’ve seen this fact bandied around often, but nonetheless I doubt it’s entirely true, or at the very least it depends on what your definition of ‘indie’ is. President Records were distributed by Lugton in the sixties (a company far away from the business of major labels) and got The Equals to number one, and Joe Meek’s Triumph Records earlier in that decade also scored a top ten hit in the form of Michael Cox’s “Angela Jones”. What I think people mean is that UB40 were the first to score a major hit single while an independent chart of some form also existed, which is a clear difference.

No matter; to begin with, UB40 were certainly operating on minuscule budgets. Their debut LP “Signing Off” was recorded in a bedsit in Birmingham, and contained a reproduction of an unemployment form on the cover. It was deemed a brave, brilliant and authentic record at the time, and found support among dopeheads, students, reggae fans, soulies and casual listeners alike. I heard the LP frequently in the bedroom I shared with my brothers growing up, and when I was old enough to eventually buy a copy for myself, I did. “Signing Off” is nothing like UB40 at their commercial peak – it’s far too skeletal and dour for that – but despite that, its sound and dominant themes were entirely right for the period. Like The Specials’ “Ghost Town”, its sulk sums up the mood of the early eighties. While it may have been more compressed, boxed in and less widescreen than that record, the disc and its packaging are equally tied to an era which promised little for those in the old industrial heartlands.

Following the success of that album, the group left Graduate Records – who survived without them for awhile but never found another act who caught the public imagination to the same extent - and formed their own label DEP International, with a view to issuing their own material and that of other reggae artists they admired. The first handful of DEP records were distributed by Spartan and, in common with their previous work, entered the indie charts as a result.

“Don’t Slow Down” was the first entry for the label and managed to climb to the pole position for one week. It shows only a few signs of stepping up the group’s sound towards something more heavily produced, with a slightly more brassy shine around the edges, but ultimately remains faithful to their roots, junking any idea of anthemic pop hooks in favour of subtle, grainy melodic manoeuvres.

Lyrically, it appears to inhabit a similar space to earlier work of theirs, seeming to warn of the race against possible poverty and loneliness. “Don’t slow down/ don’t touch the ground/ you know what you will find;/ That old grey man in tattered clothes/ following behind” warns Ali Campbell in the chorus like a nagging Uncle, while the group slowly work up a feeling of placid unease in the background. It’s the sound of a laidback Sunday spent under the influence of cannabis, while the realities of daily life resuming ring in your ears, muffled, but present nonetheless and steadily getting louder.

It’s a track which should be as remembered by the public as much as any of their “Signing Off” material, but it ended up overshadowed by its follow-up, the mighty anti-Thatcherite anthem “One In Ten”, which astonishingly only got as far as number two in the indie charts. Sometimes that’s just the way things fall.

UB40 would obviously go on to become the nation’s biggest reggae band, frequently falling back on cover versions to keep them in the public eye and close to the top of the charts, but the idea that they stopped being good at some point after 1983 is also a bit of a myth. It’s certainly a case of diminishing returns for me, but their catalogue occasionally sparkles with wonder even in that period. Any group capable of producing 1987’s anti-apartheid track “Sing Our Own Song” can’t be entirely dismissed – that single is the noise of their earliest ideas scaled up, adding a laser beam of hope which cuts through even the densest dope smoke.

Trivia

DEP International was a group-founded business enabling UB40 to take greater control of their own affairs. It eventually joined forces with Virgin in 1982, and only then released material by other artists such as Winston Reedy and Mikey Dread.

In common with other record labels formed by bands throughout history, however, it very quickly scaled down into in outlet solely for their own product, though their DEP recording studios in Digbeth saw other artists pass through their doors. Sadly, the label went into administration in 2006.

Away from the number one spot

Toyah and Pigbag continue to pester the top five, though neither ever manages to reach the number one spot.

The main movers in an otherwise slightly sluggish chart are Edinburgh indie-poppers The Delmontes who are at number eleven with “Don’t Dry Your Tears” – a seldom-heard track these days whose droning sixties organ and spindly guitars sound like a harbinger of things to come.




Post-punk outfit Positive Noise are in at number 20 with the brassy racket of “Charm”, which (at the risk of sounding extraordinarily lazy) sounds like what might have happened if David Byrne had joined Haircut One Hundred – and yes, that is an enticing idea. 

A pre-fame Dead Or Alive also continue their mega-culty doldrums at Number 23 with the single “Number 11”, while Virna Lindt’s cult classic “Attention Stockholm” appears at number 28. It would only get as far as number 20 on the indie list, but its twangy film noir atmosphere guaranteed appearances on compilations and critics lists for a long time to come.

Number One In The "Real World"

Adam & The Ants - "Stand And Deliver" (CBS)

The indie charts for this week can be found on the UKMix Forums.