Two weeks at number one from w/e 2nd November 1985
One opinion piece in “Splintered” had such a lasting effect on the impressionable teenage me that I would quote it to friends endlessly. It talked about the rapid passing of time, and the way that youth wasn’t a period of life to be drifted through. Why, it argued, it’s literally the only period of your life when you’re likely to have the Energy to Experience new things and the gumption to create, so Do It Now. Pick up the pen, the guitar or the paintbrush – or even all three! - at once, or end up becoming one of those old, crabby no-marks who either did nothing, or has only just started to try, and has found out that in the winter of their lives, they are flapping, empty binbags with nothing left to say.
There were a number of individuals the article could have picked on to prove its point, but for some reason it zeroed in on Ian Astbury for particular abuse, pointing out that he had started his career as an innovative, considered lyricist for a sharp and original post-punk band, then reached his late twenties and found himself capable of little more than some monosyllabic “yeahs” and “babes”. What a disgrace he now was, we were told, and what more evidence did we need of the undignified effects of the ageing process, which removed all poetry from the soul.
I wonder what the author of that piece thinks now he’s in his fifties (or possibly even his sixties). I hope he’s kinder to himself, and also gentle to every other writer who is still compulsively Just Doing It and never knew how to stop.
Should he have been kinder to Ian Astbury? When Southern Death Cult first emerged in 1982, there was definitely something primitive and spiky about the group, the hard right angles of the rhythm section meeting Astbury’s commanding howls. His lyrics couldn’t really be described as poetry, but fulfilled the dank, morbid brief the group’s austere clattering provided him; the frame needed to be filled with theatric wordplay rather than flowery verse.
As the years progressed and the group’s membership changed, The Cult simplified not just their name, but their whole approach – gradually, at first, then by the point of “She Sells Sanctuary” the metamorphosis was complete. The Cult became not “just” a rock and roll band – they didn’t look like another Motley Crue, Poison or Twisted Sister, and they certainly didn’t sound like them either – but certainly something closer to one than not. For all the flowing goth clothes and mystic hand shapes they displayed onstage, their reliance on anthemic riffs, almost meaninglessly simple lyrics and the good, solid thunder of a reliable backbeat became central. They emerged from the confused tarpit of early British goth and ended up somehow influencing Guns N’ Roses. It seems an unlikely story.
If “She Sells Sanctuary” was a glorious mix of everything great about the commercial and underground aspects of mid-eighties rock music, “Rain” is just Desert Rock – an attempt at a rousing stomper tailor-made for a video featuring the band rolling through an arid landscape in a jeep (in the event, the promo defies your expectations and just sees the group pouting and throwing shapes on a studio stage set, so obviously Beggars Banquet’s budget didn’t stretch to a shoot in the outback).
Lyrically speaking, its complete rock conservatism, riddled with cliches - “Hot sticky scenes/ you know what I mean”, begins Astbury, “I've been waiting for her for so long/ Open the sky, and let her come down”. The rest of the song just repeats the lines “Here comes the rain”, “I love the rain”, “here she comes again” and the words in the first verse over and over, making it deeply minimalistic. Clearly the lyrics do their job and allow the listener to forge an accurate impression, but they’re so effortless as to be almost childlike.
The group stride and volley around Astbury, Duffy plucking victorious, celebratory riffs out of the air and creating something that’s a bit like an anthem, but… look, if the God’s honest truth be told, for all its simplicity and attempts at immediacy, “Rain” feels as if its doing so little as to be wallpaper; and not that interesting, florid wallpaper you tried to buy for your teenage bedroom until your Mum made you buy the “sensible” rolls instead. No, it’s more like the nicotine-stained stuff you saw in pubs at the time, functional, plain and unnoticeable.
I’ve played “Rain” several times now, and every time I finish it I have to put it on again a few minutes later to remind me of what just happened so I can crack on and write this entry. There are very, very few indie number ones I’ve covered where that incessant attention is necessary. It usually applies when a track is too complicated or radical to immediately get to grips with. In this case, it’s more that there’s so little to grip full stop; the song is smooth and slippery due to its lack of texture and substance.
Whether you blame Astbury’s advancing years for that (which is ridiculous, in my adult view) or something else – a desire to sell more records, perhaps – what’s interesting is his own perspective on the situation. After performing “Rain” to an enthusiastic audience at Wembley Arena in 1989, he asked his fans “So you like that one?” They roared their approval, only to be met with Astbury shrugging “Well personally I don’t, but there you are”.
His bafflement was surely tested further when the single peaked at Number 17 in the national charts. Mine certainly was when I checked the stats before writing this entry, so that makes at least two of us.
New Entries Elsewhere In the Charts
Peak position: 12
An anthem of a different kind from The Cult’s labelmates here, swapping rock militancy for paisley patterned euphoria. The somewhat over-polished production of “When It All Comes Down” hampers it slightly, smothering something that should be unbridled and ecstatic with a certain sleepy comfiness, but McNabb’s songwriting shines through.
The mid-eighties might not have been completely ready for the Icicle Works, but if they had emerged early in the following decade, it would have been interesting to see what happened.
22. The Fall – Cruiser’s Creek (Beggars Banquet)
Peak position: 8
Brix brought many things to The Fall – glamour, brightness and immediacy being the most commonly noted areas – but the thing that always feels most apparent to me is her arrival reigning in the group’s prior tendency to sprawl. Where previous singles rambled and circled around Smith’s spiral of concerned and absurd outbursts, the Brix era sees tightness and conciseness enter. “Cruiser’s Creek” is a simple garage rock shuffle imbued with energy and power; the entire band sound as if they’re injuring themselves on their instruments trying to punch the ideas through.
Whether this is a better or worse Fall than before depends upon what you want from the band, but to me “Cruiser’s Creek” is a joy of a single. Hard, fast, hooky and yet still not lacking the strange shapes the band always offered.
Week Two
11. New Order – Sub-culture (Factory)
Peak position: 2
“Sub-culture” is the first New Order single (imports aside) not to top the NME indie charts, and was a grotesque failure in the National Charts too, peaking at number 63. An odd outcome for a track which sounds so obviously like a hit record (and, had it emerged two or three years later, certainly would have been). Once again the curse of 1985 strikes; even at their most commercial, New Order were seen as too imperfect and unpolished to succeed.
Taking a few steps back, though, it’s also perhaps not their finest work on 45. While it may deliver a strong chorus and come with the bonus of some gutsy backing vocalists to distract from Sumner’s weaknesses, it lacks the detail and surprise of a lot of their other prime work. It really is just marginally strange pop, an electro jitterbug of a record Pete Waterman might have studied with a pleased nod while Neil Tennant lost interest after the second chorus.
14. Butthole Surfers - Cream Corn From The Socket Of Davis EP (Pray)
Peak position: 14
First appearance for the Buttholes (if we can call them that) whose endless indie chart entries over the years have added acidic wit – in every sense of the phrase – and absurdity into an underground that often took itself too seriously.
Lead track “Moving To Florida” starts off like some deranged, plodding dictaphone blues then erupts three-quarters of the way through like The Fall at their most rabid. It barely makes sense, but very little of their work would.
17. Bog-shed - Let Them Eat Bogshed EP (Vinyl Drip)
Peak position: 4
Speaking of which… Bogshed make Butthole Surfers seem conventional with their debut effort. Lead track “Panties Please” combines rattling rhythms with busy, elasticated burping basslines and yelping vocals, making the comedic song title seem strangely earnest and almost threatening in the process.
The group’s period of recorded activity would be brief, but as we’ll see over the coming couple of years, they rarely ever wasted an idea, nor seemed to have any desire to be more than a bunch of marginal eccentrics taking their misshapen creations out to visit anyone who might be interested.
26. Xmal Deutschland - Sequenz EP (Red Rhino Europe)
Peak position: 8
27. The Nomads - She Pays The Rent EP (Wire)
Peak position: 27
For the full charts, please go to the UKMix Forums
Number One In The Official Charts
Jennifer Rush: "The Power Of Love" (CBS)
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