57. Jesus and Mary Chain - Upside Down (Creation)

Number one for four weeks from w/e 2nd February 1985

Success in rock and pop music occurs due to happy accidents more frequently than managers, artists or labels alike would care to admit. This has always been true, from Mick Jagger bumping into Keith Richards by chance at Dartford train station, to the Sex Pistols dropping swear words on the “Today” programme. Had the former not met in adulthood, or the latter found themselves without an opportunity to offend on prime time television, it’s difficult to say what holes rock history would be left with.

Similarly, the Mary Chain’s “legendary” debut bottom-of-the-bill gig at Alan McGee’s Living Room club in London in 1984 feels somewhat like the music of chance. As is well documented in the excellent biography “My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize”, McGee had very few plans for the Jesus & Mary Chain after hearing their demo tape; just the offer of a London gig and the possible inclusion of one of their songs on a (never realised) compilation of unsigned bands. By the time the group took the stage to soundcheck, though, addled by both overconsumption of alcohol and their own inexperience (they didn’t even understand what a soundcheck was) they churned out a curdled, feedback-ridden cover of Pink Floyd’s “Vegetable Man” largely by accident. Not all of the chaos and the piercing noise was intended to be a feature of The Mary Chain’s sound, and much of the mess was purely unintentional. The group left the stage feeling as if they’d failed, to be greeted by an over-enthusiastic McGee who offered them a deal, believing it to be one of the most mind-blowing spectacles he had ever witnessed.

The gig itself was, according to the dozen or so people who actually saw it, even more shambolic, the sound of a group who couldn’t play, taking their rudimentary abilities out on cheap instruments with missing strings. This shambles was submerged beneath a yelping screech of unintentionally vigorous feedback and a broken fuzz pedal, and the set ended with all the group members punching drummer Murray Dalglish, much to the amusement and entertainment of the small audience (who included a couple of music journalists). 

Under a different promoter and another set of circumstances, it’s probable this story would have ended right there, with JAMC sent back on the next coach to East Kilbride, asked to buck their ideas up – which you sense they were incapable of doing by themselves – or go back to their factory jobs. While they played their live set, however, Alan McGee worked overtime running around the quiet bar spaces in the venue trying to convince everyone that he had witnessed combustible genius, the next big sound. When the group had finished bruising each other (literally and metaphorically) he then wandered about swearing at the non-attendees for failing to witness the historic event.

As we’ve witnessed ourselves through this blog’s journey, Creation Records were a curiosity in 1984 rather than a fashionable indie label. Their roster of acts prior to 1985 issued under-produced but melodic records, each of which has waited decades to be reappraised, but ultimately hasn’t passed the test; they’re (mostly!) decent discs, but all are playing with very predictable and well-tested elements. The Jasmine Minks had a sharp pub punk edge, but even Paul Weller didn’t want to sound slightly like The Jam in the mid-eighties. McGee’s own group Biff Bang Pow sounded like that competent local indie band you knew, who might possibly have got somewhere if only they could have found That One Great Song down the back of their sofa – and there were no signs this was going to happen soon. The mysterious Revolving Paint Dream dribbled out pleasant but cliched psychedelic pop which, if it were suddenly put under another band name on Spotify tomorrow, would probably stand accused of being an AI created project. In short, McGee currently didn’t hold an impressive hand. This was music which might brighten the world of the obsessive record buyer, but wasn't going to be front page news in the music press.

He must have known that he needed a volatile, combustible group with the sound to accompany their mayhem to push Creation Records from the margins of the indie scene to the centre. In offering The Jesus and Mary Chain a contract based on nothing more than a demo tape and a live performance consisting of little more than explosive disarray, he saw opportunities to turn himself into Malcolm McLaren with the group as his Sex Pistols. And so the mission began. He fed bogus news stories about their antics to the music press and ultimately tabloid press, booked gigs where riots broke out – though in at least one instance, the word riot should probably have quotation marks around it – and issued this single.

As is often the way with rock classics, from The Kinks “You Really Got Me” to the Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”, the gestation period of “Upside Down” wasn’t necessarily straightforward. Two versions had to be recorded before the group came out with something they felt really represented their sound. In a strange inversion of the normal rules, though, the “right” version was one which had been recorded in a cheap 4-track recording studio rather than their initial attempt, which had been recorded in a more professional facility.

It sounds like it, too. “Upside Down” absolutely revels in its amateurism. Seldom has such a loud, confusing nettle soup of noise sounded both so low fidelity and also so dour. Beneath the squeals of feedback and on top of the metronomic drum patter grumbles a vaguely buoyant sixties melody. It feels like the levers were up in the recording studio on two things happening at once; a sonic art experiment akin to Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music”, plus a few moody teenagers testing out their idea of a perky tune with an absence of feeling or commitment. They sing “uh-huh-huh” like Elvis, but it sounds reluctant and sullen, like a Teddy Boy muttering it under his breath as a policeman walks past.

1985

  What have the 1984 indie charts taught us, exactly? The longer I plug away at this project, the more I wonder if calendar years are reliable markers for stories about popular (and unpopular) culture at all. Very often, a calendar year will sever the story at an inconvenient point of development rather than act as a natural close. 

That said, I do think 1984 is the first year where you can sense order and professionalism sneaking into the indie chart, where the hand-made and the DIY starts to be pushed to one side. It doesn't feel entirely coincidental that Crass caved in on themselves as an act very early in the year and the presence of punk rock is otherwise absent from the top slot, except in the form of The Toy Dolls novelty hit. Punk seems to have been increasingly shunted towards the lower end of the Top 30 to sell to an increasingly ageing audience. Taking its place at the top are the new breed of post-punk "hitmakers", stealing punk's do it yourself ambitions but sweetening them with strong studio enhanced sounds. 

In turn, some proper household names finally started to assert themselves. Cocteau Twins, The Smiths, and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds all became dependable players alongside the Depeche Modes and New Orders of this world. The hall of fame becomes more bloated as a result, and niche acts begin to find it harder to reach the number one slot outside of slow periods (its notable that March Violets and The Senate both reached the top during the traditional summer sales slump). 

That dominance of big names is only going to get stronger in 1985. It won't stay this way forever, and there will be cultish surprises to enjoy in the years that follow, but - without wanting to put any of you off continuing reading - it really is a year where there are fewer surprises at the top. The bands everyone loves will only assert themselves more forcefully than ever, and the oddballs and the weirdos will struggle to reach the top five. 

The one big odd development in 1985 - which I have massive issues with and casual readers are going to get very confused by - is the NME's decision to allow some small labels with major label backing into the charts until mid-December (at which point they were promptly ejected again). Beggars Banquet, Stiff and Go! Discs - owned, part-owned or distributed by Warners, Island and Chrysalis respectively - are all given space alongside tiny household run ventures. There also appears to be no consistency to this thinking, so despite these labels getting the green light, Fiction Records and ZTT don't. Was 1985 the first year the philosophical debates around what indie labels actually were began? It would make sense if so, but the paper's final conclusions feel absurd, even if they don't upend the charts as much as you may think they might. They do, however, create one ludicrous and long-lived chart-topper, but more on that when we get to it. 

The playlist featuring everything to chart (within reason) in 1984 can be found below one last time. The new 1985 playlist can be found on the right hand side of the page. Tuck in. We've got another long road ahead. 

56. Toy Dolls - Nellie The Elephant (Volume)

Number one for seven weeks from w/e 15th December 1984

So then – where were you when you last heard the collective cry of “WooooooOOOOOOAARGH”? In my experience, it can be heard in the following strict set of circumstances:

1. As the enthusiastic accompaniment to somebody “downing a pint”.

2. As the tense sound made by football supporters during a critical penalty shot (usually followed either by cheers, an “ooh!” of disappointment, or even a deflated, almost sarcastic “Oh.”)

3. The noise made shortly before a group of pissed-up beef-necked overgrown schoolboys start throwing increasingly heavy objects around in a pub. It might start with beer mats and end with chairs. Usually, deep down, you know you should have left the place long before this occurred.

4. The sound shortly before the chorus of “Nellie The Elephant”.

Spot the odd one out there. We’ve encountered The Toy Dolls multiple times in our journey through the indie charts, and on every occasion it’s been noticeable just how much they inhabit their own world; it’s an absurd but not particularly sophisticated cross between the abrasive and the fey, the childlike and the rough. 

The group’s roots were firmly in the Punk Pathetique subgenre of Oi, where banal and trivial working class observations combined with a general air of frivolity and stupidity; if most of those groups focused on simple comedic situations such as trying to get served in a bar before closing time (Splodgenessabounds) or being caught kissing someone else’s woman and having to make your escape (Peter & The Test Tube Babies), the Toy Dolls were essentially doing the same only writing with thick crayons. Titles like “Cheerio and Toodle-pip”, all delivered in Olga’s high pitched music hall voice, felt as if they had emerged from ancient episodes of “Watch With Mother”. You got the impression that in Olga’s opinion, the whole of adult society hadn’t moved far beyond the kindergarten, so why should he?

Their cover version of the Mandy Miller song “Nellie The Elephant” had been released in 1982 to indie chart success, but didn’t really make much of a mark beyond the kind of dancefloors where punks gathered. The track never quite disappeared from those club playlists, though, and slowly and steadily found a fresh audience in 1984 thanks to stray bits of Radio One evening airplay getting noticed by the daytime crew (though John Peel, interestingly, consistently ignored it in favour of other Toy Dolls material). The track was reissued, and entered the lower reaches of the Top 100 in November, building up steam and then finally gatecrashing the Top 40 by early December.

Its popularity feels almost entirely due to the absurdities of the British Christmas market. Record buyers at Christmas time will happily part with money to hear anything which sounds as if it might evoke collective fun, whether that’s songs with superhumanly anthemic choruses, tracks their children could also appreciate, or novelty records which are frankly stupid but annoyingly catchy. For all its chugging punk rock stylings, “Nellie The Elephant” managed to tick all those boxes, and found itself appreciated by kids both literal and overgrown - the children at home getting excited about Christmas, and the ones in the outside world getting drunk at the works party; the Olgas and the Juniors of this world, some growing up and others falling down.

The Toy Dolls suddenly found themselves in the Christmas number four position, right behind the Three Kings of Band Aid, Wham’s “Last Christmas” and Paul McCartney’s Frog Chorus – all monstrous sellers. It was a colossal achievement for their tiny Sunderland indie label Volume, who were usually only used to worrying about getting enough copies of their singles pressed to keep them in the Indie Top 20. In this sense, “Nellie The Elephant” is an eccentric British victory for the rank outsider, the everyman partaking in daft follies in his spare time and then finding himself eyeballing an ex-Beatle for a top three chart position. And at Christmastime too! It’s a wonderful life indeed.

It has to be said that it’s not really a great piece of work in itself, though, and Peel’s reluctance to engage with it is not surprising. It’s a groundbreaker in that it feels like one of the first attempts by a punk or metal band to create a single out of unlikely source material. In the decades to come we will be treated to ironic covers of children’s songs and "cheesy" pop hits by no end of young men wearing studded leather jackets, but even taking that “innovation” into account, the single is really just a boozy racket.

In this respect, the gap between “Nellie” and Scaffold’s 1968 Christmas number one “Lily The Pink” is actually quite narrow. Both depend on the same stomping, chugging rhythm, perfect for bashing beer tankards on tables to. Both sound perfect for the kind of overly raucous Christmas party I must admit I never got along with – the toxically mixed kind which occasionally saw somebody fired from their job in the New Year, or saw old rows between good friends being resuscitated. Sometimes the line between the jolly drunken cry of “WooooAAARGH” and much more aggressive screaming and shouting can be very fine.

55. Depeche Mode - Blasphemous Rumours (Mute)

 

Four weeks at number one from w/e 17th November 1984

A point that sometimes gets missed about Depeche Mode – but seems only too obvious when you get neck-deep into the band’s catalogue – is that three of the group’s founding members (Gore, Fletcher, Clarke) were regular church-goers before they formed, and the other (Gahan) had a mother who was in the Salvation Army.

While Gore has offered strange reasons for his regular attendance at his Basildon church, putting forward the somewhat limp justification that there was “nothing else to do on Sunday” (a situation that applied to most teens, including me a mere five miles or so down the road, but I managed without) Gahan’s response to his mother’s exhortations to go to church on Sunday was less honest, and he instead chose to bunk off and go cycling instead. If you had to quickly characterise the two members with childhood anecdotes, these would be good places to start; Gore being compliant and gently shrugging his way towards group activities he couldn’t entirely see eye-to-eye with, while Gahan’s life was filled with action and rebellion.

Sunday service appeared to fascinate Gore, however, and he developed a morbid obsession with the prayers being offered for the sick parishioners there. “The person at the top of the list [of names] was guaranteed to die, but still everyone went right ahead thanking God for carrying out His will,” he later remarked. Long after Gore had bothered attending church, these memories appeared to feed their way into the group’s twelfth single, and final release of the most commercially fruitful year of their career.

If “Master and Servant” tested the waters topically and almost got banned by Radio One, “Blasphemous Rumours” was, from start to finish, the biggest act of commercial suicide committed by the group so far. A diatribe against the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Christian faith, there are no gentle metaphors on offer here, Gore instead choosing to tell his tale in plain language as if he’s spluttering in an outraged fashion in the local pub.

“Girl of sixteen, whole life ahead of her/ Slashed her wrists, bored with life” Gahan rattles off like a telex machine listing the facts. “Didn't succeed, thank the Lord/ For small mercies”. After the first run of the damning chorus about God and his sick sense of humour, we then learn of a girl of eighteen who “found new life in Jesus Christ” and was subsequently “Hit by a car, ended up/ On a life support machine”. It’s not clear if it’s the same girl, whose boredom has been replaced two years later by a sense of virtuous purpose only for her to be killed off in a ho-ho ironic fashion, or a different one – but the effect is the same and God is, as Neil Tennant would later opine in Smash Hits, given a “thorough ticking off”.

If the central message alone was likely to get the church and Christian figures irritated, the song is strangely unsubtle, in places forsaking melody in favour of discordant lines more likely to be favoured by horror film soundtracks, combined with slowly collapsing metallic clangs and gurgling, sucking noises. It not only wants to mention a life support machine, it wants to give you an impression of what one sounds like (I remain thankfully ignorant of whether the group's attempts are accurate or not, but they do seem to strangely imitate a trip to the dental hygienist).

The overwhelming effect is close, lyrically speaking, to second wave punk rock delivered in a synthetic, ambient way. If you took these lyrics and transplanted them to a three chord rant delivered by the likes of Blitz, little would feel out of place; only the context of the mournful pop chorus changes things. “Blasphemous Rumours” is angry in its own strange way, favouring the use of 1984’s sampling technology to get its point across over the previous decade’s brutal and simple lo-fi thrash.