Sunday, May 25, 2025

The NME on Strike! (But here's The Cult, The Smiths and The Damned anyway)

























9 weeks until w/e 4th August 1984

Here’s where things get tricky and a messy, charred hole emerges in our narrative. In the summer of 1984, IPC went on strike putting all of their publications either completely out of print (in the NME’s case) or operating to a greatly reduced degree. Some of IPC’s comics made it out into the shops, for example, but with reduced colour and using repeated strips from the seventies. This meant that if you were a kid in 1984 you perhaps had to deal with the unexpected surprise of Sid’s Snake out of Whizzer and Chips alarming a punk rocker, or found yourself trying to make sense of a background gag about some 1978 chart hit you couldn't remember. Everything, very suddenly, went black and white and childhoods were catapulted backwards in time.

For the older brothers and sisters of those kids, however, it just went black. There was nothing emerging from Kings Reach Tower, so if they wanted a weekly music fix, they had to read Sounds, Record Mirror or Number One magazine instead, none of which really captured the tastes or tone of their favoured Express.

More problematic than that, certainly where I'm concerned here and now in 2025, it also meant that absolutely no NME indie charts were published for that entire period either, so I’ve nothing to show you for summer 1984; however, one possible compromise emerges from this mess. 

The Independent Singles Chart compiled by MRIB continued as usual, so we can get a likely sense of what might have been number one from the data presented there. This should be taken with a pinch of salt. MRIB’s chart tended to treat pop hits by the likes of Black Lace and Renee and Renato with much more favour than the NME’s somewhat more streamlined, specialist approach. In the summer of 1984, for example, Black Lace’s “Agadoo” got to the top spot on the MRIB Indies, but due to its more modest placing in the NME’s listings, we won’t be discussing it at length on this blog (something of a shame as it would have presented an interesting challenge for me, even if I doubt anyone would have bothered to read my subsequent thoughts unless I turned them into some kind of “Ahhhh! But it is pop perfection, do you see?” styled clickbait).

As a result, here are the MRIB Number Ones for that period, presented more briefly than usual, and to be treated with kid gloves by everyone reading them; none will be added to the Spotify playlist of NME Number Ones or referred to in any of the blog’s lists. These are only possible lost number ones, some more likely than others, but not to be treated as "official" chart toppers in the NME listings. 

1. The Cult – Spirit Walker (Situation Two) one week on w/e 2nd June




Given the way this one was galloping up the NME Indies when we left them, prodding away at a track whose sales were already descending sharply (“Pearly Dewdrops Drops”) I see no reason to doubt this one would have got to the top; but having said that, this single feeble week at the top of the MRIB charts doesn’t exactly point towards a dominant presence.

“Spiritwalker” saw the final emergence of The Cult following the dissolution of Southern Death Cult and the amendment of the subsequently named Death Cult. The group, like some kind of chemical conglomerates company who were desperately perfecting their name to make it sound less garbled to the public, obviously realised keeping things sharp and simple was best.

It’s tempting to say that “Spiritwalker” was evidence of this tightened and more commercial ambition, but in reality the progression feels very slight. The opening introduction of the track is the biggest difference, acting as a very trad rock, hollered clarion call to listeners – as a non-fan, I was genuinely surprised by how engrossed I was in the first few seconds when I played it back for the first time in years.

What happens after that is a strange mixture of more Death Cultishness combined with occasional flashes and sparks of classic rock fetishism. The rhythm section certainly still have one foot in the gothic grave – the bass guitarist rumbles and rattles out root notes like a Peter Hook inspired pro, and the drummer pounds and thuds on the skins rather than the metalwork like a medieval minstrel. Elsewhere in the group, however, a clear love of noticeable guitar hero licks is emerging from Billy Duffy, and Ian Astbury is now starting to sound fully in command.

“Spiritwalker” sounded great on the alternative rock dancefloor at 1am on a Saturday night, but what it didn’t have was the feeling that the group could begin to make sense to others outside their fanbase. Its approach is too leaden, too glued to the central rock riff to become anything close to anthemic; its commitment is admirable as you get the sense the group knew enough at this point to turn it into something much more conventional, but decided to keep their heads focused on the oddballs that made up their existing fanbase. That kind of stoic commitment would not last forever, though.




2. The Smiths – “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” (Rough Trade) – three weeks from w/e 9th June




So I’m sat watching “Top of the Pops” with my Nan in 1984 – an experience she weathered rather than enjoyed, only offering grudging respect to whatever stray hit Paul McCartney or Cliff Richard had mustered up – and Morrissey emerged onscreen. “I was looking for a job, and now I’ve found a job/ And heaven knows I’m miserable now” wailed everyone’s hero, and she immediately puffed her cheeks out in shock and disgust.

“Hark at him! He wants to think himself lucky he’s got a job!” she snapped. “I certainly wouldn’t have him”.

At the time I didn’t understand the depths of her sudden outburst and laughed it off as being just one of those things the older generation barked in front of the family while watching Top of the Pops, but I remembered this moment a few months back and felt a bit uncomfortable. She left school at fourteen, lived through the thirties depression and worked as a cleaner alongside my grandfather’s poorly paid job, purely to keep a family fed, housed and clothed. If she didn’t understand why a foppish, flimsy pipecleaner man with a quiff was on national television groaning on about hating having a job, she could surely be forgiven. A sense of gratefulness for every penny earned, no matter how horrible the graft, was a core part of her identity and pride.

Even in 1984, though, this was a somewhat contentious line to come out with. Youth unemployment was a massive problem, to the point where every television comedy, drama or soap seeking a young audience felt the need to include a plot addressing it. The Government also persuaded the BBC to tack a feature on to the end of their news broadcasts showing job losses and gains across the country, just so the British public could feel reassured about the work that was being done to reinvest in “forgotten areas”. Even that very frequently showed some minor chemical factory in Consett creating 125 jobs while an ailing electronics company in Dudley lost 750.

UB40 addressed the issue sympathetically with “One In Ten”, where the youth unemployed in the West Midlands are seen as a “statistical reminder of a world that doesn’t care”. Morrissey on “Heaven Knows” could, on the other hand, be seen to be tone deaf by comparison. Alternatively though, you could argue that he knows exactly what he’s doing. During times of high unemployment, organisations can become bullish and assured, convinced that little effort is required to keep the staff engaged or provide career progression. The fear of the dole queue alone is enough to keep people clocking on. "Be grateful for your lot, sonny Jim, others would be thankful to have a job right now". 

“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” thereby sums up the entry-level doom and gloom of 1984, the grand, long sought-after promise of “A Job!” revealing itself to be a very repetitive and monotonous activity taking place in a hostile environment, too close to the abandoned school playground for comfort. Morrissey nails both scenarios well – “You’ve been in the house too long she said/ And I naturally fled” and “Why should I waste valuable time/ with people who don’t care if I live or I die?

The song meanders along a despairing trail, and Johnny Marr seems to see this as an opportunity to deliver some of his most Felt-ish (or at least, most Maurice Deebank-ish) guitar work – all pretty, intricate lines which fold just as you think they might be about to lift off somewhere else.

It’s an extremely uncommercial record which makes its success a little baffling, and there are moments where, despite the sharpness and prettiness, I do have to wonder if it’s a sulk which never quite manages to resolve itself melodically; Morrissey’s dog howl of “if I live or I die” barely qualifies as a chorus. As statements go, though, catapulting this into the charts in 1984 feels like a deliberately provocative act, even if I can’t remember it being discussed as such outside my family home. The song nails the honest hopelessness of the human condition - however basically comfortably we may live compared to the worst off in society, there are always limits to our gratitude, especially when we're young and feel our ambition and optimism has been betrayed. How immoral or foolish this tendency might be is another philosophical debate, and not one pop or rock music is necessarily there to resolve - and Morrissey was never going to shy away from an uncomfortable truth. 




3. The Damned – Thanks For The Night (Damned Records)two weeks from w/e 23rd June





A real transitory record, this one, being the final independent single from The Damned (they would sign a much-needed deal with MCA shortly after this) and also the group’s last effort with Captain Sensible (who wrote it) and their first with Roman Jugg as a full member. On the flip side a new track called “Nasty” was also offered, which had only recently been aired on the TV show “The Young Ones” – despite the fact they were reduced to putting records out on their own label, they were at least, by their own confession, getting more business savvy at this point.

It probably shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did on relistening that there’s a certain lack of sure-footedness about this compared to most of their earlier singles. “Thanks For The Night” eschews some of the psychedelia of their more recent work and returns to a certain punk brashness, except it almost feels as if it’s going to recoil again at any moment. Vanian sounds unusually hesitant and polite against the rumbling bass and simple stomp of the drumkit, almost as if he’s internally asking himself “Is this who we still are?”

For now, it was, and while it’s probably reading far too much into it, you could almost hear “Thanks For The Night” as one last hurrah for the old ways of doing things. “The fires ignite/ All down the road/ The scene explodes and I say/ It's been alright/ Thanks for the night” obviously isn’t a farewell from the group themselves – although the Captain may have meant it to be a farewell from him – but it could just as easily refer to their memories of punk. By the time we would hear from them again, they appeared to be more effectively representing a certain goth-rock subset of the mid-eighties than their old punk roots, but who could blame them? The Damned, along with The Banshees, could have been argued to be at the roots of it all, and they had nothing to lose and everything to win by playing that hand.

“Thanks For The Night” feels threadbare and occasionally confused, but by the time their metamorphosis was complete, they would seem unbelievably assured – from punk stalwarts to cult rock stars. Sadly, that change occurs outside the remit of this blog, so we must bid them farewell at this slightly inconvenient point.





Number One In The Official Charts


Wham! - "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" (Epic)
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - "Two Tribes" (ZTT)

12 comments:

  1. I remember running across IPC's 1984 strike while doing research of my own and being similarly frustrated. I used to be a huge fan of 2000 AD, and compiled what was, once upon a learn-HTML-from-a-book time, one of the first issue-by-issue guides to the comic online. 2000 AD was published for the first part of the strike period, but was finally shelved starting in July, and that had me hopelessly confused until more of a fandom community emerged and someone in the UK could explain why there was a month gap between progs 376 and 377.

    I choose to believe that IPC's staff was striking for very good reason, but it's still a little bittersweet that their decision leaves a coverage hole for you during such an interesting period. Even with the asterisk, using the MRIB chart seems like a good compromise for you.

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    1. It's interesting that while a very lengthy strike obviously occurred during that period, I can't find anything online about what the union's demands were and why it dragged on for so long. It's highly probable there's not much of a story here beyond "They were holding out for a 5% pay rise and were only offered 1%" but even a flicker of background detail would be useful. At the time it must have seemed like quite a big deal.

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    2. It's funny but I read 2000AD every week at this time, but I have no memory of a break in publishing...

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  2. "Morrissey was never going to shy away from an uncomfortable truth" is almost the opposite of what you wrote regarding "What Difference Does It Make" -- and in the name of "speaking his truth" these days he has made many of his fans uncomfortable with his prejudices.

    I saw The Damned a few weeks ago during their current US tour, and it was a real pleasure. Dave is in excellent voice, The Captain sounded great, Rat Scabies earned his rounds of applause and Paul Gray is rock solid on the bass. Five decades on from the "mindless directionless energy" of their early days, they are indeed rock stars and were treated as such by the appreciative crowd. They covered "Alone Again Or" and "White Rabbit" to acknowledge their psychedelic roots, and they thanked the late Brian James, "without whom..." (I couldn't hear the rest).

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    1. I accept that it was slightly tactlessly worded, but there was a particular uncomfortable truth Morrissey was shy about addressing in the 80s and 90s - one that was very close to home. Where just about everything else was concerned, he could barely hold off.

      Obviously I'm going to have to plough through a lot of Smiths material between now and 1987, and the spectre of his current beliefs and opinions is always going to be in the background. I don't know if I can directly reference it each time, though. I would also have encountered the same problem if I'd needed to write about 8 more Anti-Nowhere League singles (which, thank God, isn't going to be a problem for me or anyone else).

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  3. Sorry to throw a spanner in the works, honestly, but you mention a nine-week IPC chart gap and the three prospective chart toppers' summit durations total six weeks. Was there some uncertainty about what might have been top in the July / August period of the MRIB charts, or were there three separate number ones to be covered in the next episode?

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    1. I thought somebody might ask that! The truth is that the only unique MRIB number ones which didn't otherwise reach the top of the NME Indie Charts either before or after the strike period are the ones I've mentioned.

      So a number of outcomes are plausible:
      - Each of these would have spent slightly longer on top of the NME Chart than the total they managed on the MRIB compiled one
      - The next number one we're covering would have managed more than one week at the top (very likely, I'd say - it managed 4 weeks on top of the MRIB chart)
      - There would have been another unknown number one in the mix somewhere, unique to the NME chart, but if there was, we don't have any hints as to what it might have been.

      So this is all really sketchy outline working. We'll never know for sure. I'd go with bullet point two, though.

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    2. Aha. Righto. Thanks for the clarification. My query wasn't meant to be a criticism or whinge, I was just curious.

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    3. Not to worry Arthur, genuinely not taken as a criticism. I did ponder about whether to expand on this in the original entry, but I thought the finer workings behind it all might bore some people.

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  4. I always thought the "I was looking for a job" line was not about unemployment but about how if you are the miserable type (or chronically depressed) you'll stay miserable regardless of your circumstances. Getting what you think you want won't cure your dissatisfaction with life or whatever.

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  5. Dave, I'm surprised your Nan didn't also comment on the whopping great tree branch Morrissey was wearing as an accessory for that TOTP performance!

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    1. I think that almost certainly caused a tut.

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