One week at number one on 2nd August 1986
Two weeks after they vacated the indie number one spot with “Serpent’s Kiss”, The Mission returned again with this huge sounding double A-side. Rather than offering us further lumps of paisley rock, both “Garden” and “Hurricane” feel like wordy, skyscraping resignation letters to the independent sector from its latest breakout talent.
Listening to these again feels odd. While they were generally applauded by critics in a lukewarm fashion, The Mission were never given universal acclaim. There have also been very few revisions to that view since, meaning that almost all non-genre based lists outlining the best music of the eighties and nineties fail to mention their name. Subsequently, you find yourself stunned when revisiting their sudden rush of cult fame in 1986, which delivered two Top 75 singles on a relatively unestablished indie label (with this one even creeping into the top fifty). Viewing their promo video for “Serpent’s Kiss” recently, I was struck by just how playful it was, but also how much the band’s confidence over-rode the indie budget – The Stone Roses may have been arrogant sods, but their bleached-out cheapo promos didn’t contain even a grain of Wayne Hussey’s self-assuredness.
“Garden Of Delight” is the first single to really put that confidence across on vinyl. The Mission here don’t sound ‘indie’, they sound massive. Once again, Hussey tries to set himself up as the goth scene’s resident poet - “Revelation is laid, and reflects/ on the windswept liquid mirror/ of this breathless whirl, this happy death/ this elegance and charm” he declares, doubtless penning the words in elaborate, curvy purple ink – but rather than backing off uncertainly, the band around him rise to such towering declarations with the confidence of city stockbrokers. In particular, guitarist Simon Hinkler puts in another brilliant performance of complex jangles followed by uncertain, ascending tension (there’s a weird parallel universe somewhere where he never left Pulp, and they ended up making these noises instead).
For all that, though, it still sounds more like a music business calling card than an obvious single to my ears; the group offering something because it sounds big and important rather than a good candidate for a standalone 45. The inflated nature of it makes it sound like something that would appear towards the end of side one of an album rather than anything else – an end to the First Act and a sop to any wavering listeners assuring them that bigger, grander tunes were still to come.
The other A-side, a cover of “Like A Hurricane”, was given less airtime so far as I can recall, and is more along the lines you would expect, albeit having the kind of production you would anticipate from an established, successful American performer or group on their fifth or sixth album (and I did initially think Hussey was singing “You are like a hurricane/ there’s cum in your eye” rather than “calm”). Between its moments of arena pretension, though, there’s a gothic thunder in the basslines and drum patterns and Hinkler’s guitarwork moves from jangle to solid soloing and back again, acting as the focal point of interest when Hussey’s hollering gets a bit much.
For all that, I have to confess that I don’t really enjoy either side all that much. They did the job and The Mission were releasing records on a well-funded major label before the year was up, but there’s something about their grandness which I find cold and difficult, as if the group are high up on a platform, out of my eyeline and away from my lived reality, thundering on about the elements, decadence and death... but then again, I never was the type to be enticed by either aspiring Rock Gods or actual ones.
The group clearly were, though. Following the release of this single, they became a major cult act and then, with their John Paul Jones produced number two album “Children” in 1988, moved extremely close to becoming the serious international mega-rock act “Garden Of Delight” seems to hint towards; no longer merely toying with Led Zeppelin imagery, they saw fit to get a member of that band to come in and guide them forwards.
Their appeal took a significant topple in the early nineties and by 1995 they were straight back to indieland again, Phonogram having lost patience with their big proposition. More of that when (and even if!) we get to that point, but it’s hard to resist quoting Andrew Mueller of Melody Maker’s review of their LP from that period, “Neverland” - “a stadium record that is never going to fill a theatre, a defiant gurgle on the way down the sinkhole”. Nine years is a bloody long time in rock music.
This ignores the fact that The Mission’s story prior to that point is actually a triumph, with large selling albums in Britain and significant, mid-chart cult sales abroad. The fact they’ve often been ignored in stories about eighties rock may be due to the fact that, even with the close calling “Tower Of Strength” on their side, they never produced a truly enormous anthem in the UK; indeed, they join the ignoble gang of bands who may have had scores of Top 40 hits, but never quite managed to edge into the top ten.
It also may not have helped that while other members came and went, Hussey kept the band trudging forwards throughout the increasingly indifferent nineties, rather than taking the hint and resting for the decade before returning triumphantly due to public demand. There have been some moments of silence, but despite those, it does somehow feel as if The Mission have always been with us, making Missiony noises and doing Missiony things, while other groups have understood the importance of hibernating from the public when they had yet to evoke nostalgia and no longer commanded devotion.
Listening to this single again with these facts in mind feels odd, even eerie – like looking at a merry picture of a small, cocky group of university graduates and realising that you're viewing the eyes of people who thought they were about to conquer the world, but even more than that, remembering that you actually believed them at the time.
New Entries Elsewhere In The Charts
12. Class War - Better Dead than Wed (Mortarhate)
Peak position: 4
The Andrew and Fergie Royal Wedding of 1986, to borrow a phrase from Prolapse, “promised much but didn’t deliver”. Di and Charles glowed through so many cathode tubes and created so many street parties that the BBC recording of the Royal Wedding service actually reached number one in the album charts for two weeks in 1981 (and how many people who bought that damn thing actually listened to it more than once? And would you want to meet them?)
Five short years later, and the public mood seemed to have drifted, though this perhaps had less to do with increasing anti-royalist sentiments and more to do with Fergie lacking the fluid grace and charisma of Diana* and Prince Andrew always being perceived as something of an over-indulged brat. BBC Records and Tapes released some tacky vinyl souvenirs again. Common sense won over this time, and none sold very well.
This single from anarcho-punks Class War tore up the indie charts, though, with some obviously finding its lyrical sentiments irresistible: “We hear the ringing bells/ we’d rather wring your neck” sing the group. It ended up getting more publicity than any of the BBC records, feeling very much like a case of “job done”.
(* footnote – as a hormonal teen I fancied Fergie but not Diana, proving that there’s an exception to every generalisation I make, and sometimes the exception will turn out to be me).
16. Guana Batz - I´m On Fire (ID)
Peak position: 11
The prime psychobilly Gods returned to the indie charts with a Bruce Springsteen cover – well, everyone was at it in the mid-eighties – but crucially, it’s a rare example of a cover version which trumps the original. Whereas Springsteen treats it as a downbeat piece of retro rock and roll, with its clicking rhythms sounding nearer to the Crickets than Eddie Cochran, Guana Batz whoop and thump on through. Springsteen delivers it as intended, as a mournful ballad for unrealised desire, the Batz treat it like a wild mating call, and what’s interesting is that it does work perfectly well both ways.
21. James Ray & The Performance - Mexico Sundown Blues (Merciful Release)
Peak position: 13
James Ray, the lead singer from The Sisterhood single “Gaining Ground”, returns to the indie charts with his own ensemble. Featuring the unlikely combinations of pan-pipes, juddering Mode-ish synth rhythms, and the kind of groove Andrew Eldritch tended to veer far away from, it’s an ultra-mid 80s release, a record you could imagine appearing on a big-screen Hollywood soundtrack for a film about vampires or werewolves stalking hip nightclubs. They don’t make them like this anymore, though whether you think that’s a good or bad thing will depend entirely on your taste.
27. Ghost Dance – Heart Full Of Soul (Karbon)
Peak position: 4
For the full charts, please go to the UKMix Forums
Number One In The Official Charts
Chris De Burgh - "The Lady In Red" (A&M)
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