91. Age Of Chance - Kiss (FON)

Ten weeks at number one from 6th December 1986

“1) Be L-Louder, 2) Be more beautiful, 3) Be unreasonable.” - Age of Chance, January 1986.

A few weeks back, Zooey Deschanel posted an Instagram photo of herself, face thick with heavy but sophisticated make-up, wearing chic but casual clothes, thoughtfully cradling a copy of the NME C86 compilation in her hands. It was such a weird mismatch of style and media content that it almost felt like an in-joke, or a trolling attempt, or a plug for this blog (it wasn’t, sorry) – a sleek Vogue cover colliding with a spotty eighties teenage underworld. I freely admit I wanted a print of it for my wall.

It led to all kinds of speculation online about what the hell she knew about C86, but she should be given some credit here. She’s a huge fan of Belle and Sebastian and Camera Obscura, is utterly no stranger to indiepop herself – a few of the She and Him tracks unquestionably drink from that stream, even if they don’t quite get their hair wet – and if she hasn’t encountered Stump and A Witness before now, I’d say that’s more surprising than not. She beat a lot of Nuggets and Rubble heads to the sixties baroque pop group Forever Amber, after all.

It reopened the question of what C86 really was about (if anything) though. Indiepop, as we would now call it, was only one aspect of the compilation. The opening twelve minutes or so lull you into a false sense of security, making you think the whole cassette is going to be filled with naive, untutored British kids searching for sharp melodies. Then, once that’s done, Stump lurch into view with “Buffalo”, then A Witness with “Sharpened Sticks”, and what we’re confronted with is anyone’s guess. It was a compilation which was (and is) perfectly possible to own and only love in part. Some people were broad minded enough to accept the more angular aspects, but a lot weren’t.

There’s a tendency to assume that the harsher edges of C86 were fringe contributions from groups who sold few records, but that would also be a mistake. Stump shifted around 60,000 copies of their debut album, and that year, Leeds band Age of Chance – whose track “From Now On, This Will Be Your God” isn’t exactly the most challenging track, but is also far from the most commercial – briefly became cultishly huge. Unlike a lot of their compilation mates who would blush and apologise about anything that smacked of marketing, the group had a firm and keen style and graphic image; garish, bright and loud, which perfectly matched the metallic flashes of noise in their songs. This made them an editor’s dream, assuring them coverage in magazines most bands of their ilk would never have gained – pages were devoted to their beliefs, their manifestos, and their backgrounds (“We're confronting the area that we live in. The unease, unrest, dissatisfaction, things like that. The element of where we come from is prevalent in our music.”)

Their earliest singles were perhaps a touch too abrasive and combative to find broader public appeal, but their decision to cover Prince’s “Kiss” almost pushed them overground. Taking their cues from their dancefloor memories of the record, rather than actually buying a copy of it and carefully studying its arrangements, they cut, thrash and grind to the song’s hip-hop inspired beats, giving it a strangely accessible ugliness. If Prince’s original version is lipstick and cocktails with just a peppery hint of urbanity, Age of Chance take that urbanity and make it the sole feature – a pair of heavily made up lips graffitied on to a rain-stained concrete wall, or a drunken dancefloor smooch becoming an accidental headbutt.

Guitars grind monotonously, the vocals chant in protest, the song demands rather than seduces. It’s another example of a cover version which is an inversion of the original track, like staring at the negatives of a glamorous night out and trying to make sense of bright hair and white lips.

It’s hard to say how calculated it was. Age of Chance were an incredibly knowing band, also covering the disco classic “Disco Inferno” but bringing its reference to riots to the forefront, and it may just have been that they also heard an aggression in Prince’s work which hadn’t fully expressed itself. Whether accidental or otherwise, though, it was a canny move. Prince was the mainstream artist all groups and performers, whatever their background, could admire without risk. He was as admired in the pages of the tabloids as he was the broadsheets, fawned over in the IPC weeklies as well as Smash Hits and Making Music. A virtuoso musician with perplexing artistic messages and undeniable songwriting talent, he was the complicated pop star it was OK to like in the mid-eighties (a strangely divisive and hostile time).

In that sense, you could cover “Kiss” and only risk the wrath of a few of the man’s most eager fans. Music journalists would applaud your impeccable taste, major labels would note your pop ambitions, and you had nothing to lose. And Age of Chance certainly didn’t lose, at least not in the short-term. Partly bolstered by the slow movement of the indie charts around December and January, but mostly enabled by constant waves of impressive sales, “Kiss” managed a chart-topping run only rivalled by the likes of “Blue Monday”. John Peel listeners also showed their appreciation by voting it number two in the man’s Festive Fifty; an impressive result for a song released late in 1986, which started to gain traction after the ballots opened.

For such a momentous charging rhino of a single, what’s most surprising is how poorly it has endured, and how quickly it fell by the wayside (by the time I was old enough to go clubbing four years later, it was already off the playlists of most DJs). I think there are a few factors at play here. Firstly, Age of Chance may have been one of the first unlikely groups to mesh a Prince song with their own style, but other artists would follow suit, not least Tom Jones who rescued his career from daytime television and ill-advised country albums by covering the same track with Art Of Noise in 1988. That group began their careers with a similar crashing, slamming brashness to Age of Chance, but by the late eighties they were increasingly in the business of presenting a more soluble and easily digestible side to themselves on 45. Their version eclipsed Age of Chance’s with shocking ease, turning it into a footnote (even though I think it’s knowing, showboating, overblown crap – a blight on both the house of Jones and the Art of Noise).

In addition, despite their press coverage and the fact that Virgin jumped in to sign them, the group also never again created a single that captured the public’s imagination so easily. “Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Noise” was too unforgiving to act as a breakthrough moment, and for all the relative poppiness of their later singles, the glare of their work almost blinds you to the hooks.

Finally, though – and this is just my opinion – this version of “Kiss” feels strangely dated now, like a 1986 Tomorrow’s World edition about what edgy pop music might sound like in the future. It admittedly inspired the Grebo acts around them, but they absorbed their abrasion for their own uses, frequently to better and more dancefloor friendly effect. It seems like 1986’s equivalent of one of those early sixties, pre-Beatles rock hits which almost but don’t quite understand what was coming next. In that sense, Age of Chance are indie’s equivalent of Johnny Kidd and The Pirates – cool, unique, knowing, striking to look at and wise beyond their budgets, but ultimately a footnote (unfairly so?) in the grand scheme of things.

New Entries Elsewhere In The Charts

Week One

10. Wire - Snakedrill EP​ (Mute)


Peak position: 7


Wire reforming was greeted with warmth in 1986, but not an absolute bombardment of publicity. The seventies most inventive art-punks may have left behind three classic albums, but they were no longer young or current, and the group being picked up by Mute also seemed like a strange anomaly.

Daniel Miller signed them because he saw them as a rock group whose methods of composition and arrangement most closely mirrored synth-pop. On this EP, that’s exemplified and it’s easy to hear what he’s talking about – taut, precise rhythms and cold vocals dominate, and there’s a mathematical precision to the work which is likely to alienate as many people as it entices.

Problematically, while lead track “A Serious Of Snakes” is a fine piece of work, it’s not as astounding as any of Wire’s earlier singles, so the Snakedrill EP felt like a faint step backwards. Their later releases would get better – I happen to think that some of Wire’s greatest singles were actually released in the eighties – but this was only given a cautious welcome.

15. Talulah Gosh - Beatnik Boy (53rd & 3rd)

Peak position: 5


17. Talulah Gosh - Steaming Train (53rd & 3rd)​

Peak position: 4


To some music critics, Talulah Gosh were almost a parody of indiepop, the worst elements of the sound grabbed and amped up to unbearable degrees. Both these singles make a virtue out of merry-happy tweeness and shy, understated vocals, and feel like third wave records – making you suspect that if The Pastels were inspired by the scratchier end of post-punk, Talulah Gosh were just inspired by The Pastels. In fact, the only reason they formed was to try and get a support slot with that band.

They lacked ambition, telling the press that they would never be truly successful, because their parents wouldn’t let them leave university the pursue the band properly. They were also keen to point out that their work wasn’t meant to be entirely serious, and that they were leaning on the camper aspects of the Shangri-Las as well as The Pastels. It’s an acquired taste at this stage.

23. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - I Want You (Demon)


Peak position: 10


24. Gaye Bykers On Acid - Everything's Groovy ​(In Tape)

Peak position: 6


Debut shout for The Bykers, who along with PWEI were early holders of the Grebo torch. Unlike PWEI, however, they had a disjointed and threatening edge which made them sound like the missing link between that scene and the artists on Ron Johnson Records. “Everything’s Groovy” is tamer than they would become, but even here it’s possible to hear the spirit of acidic garage rock and Captain Beefheart somewhere amidst the sledgehammer rhythms.






26. One Thousand Violins - Please Don't Sandblast My House (Dreamworld)


Peak position: 26


Sheffield’s One Thousand Violins felt like a name to drop at this time, but they never became indie chart big hitters, with subsequent singles never quite attracting the same degree of attention."Please Don't Sandblast My House", from its absurd title to its polite bone china vocals and cheap but almost early Floyd-ish Turkish Delight keyboard hook (is that the same keyboard as Half Man Half Biscuit were using on “Dickie Davies Eyes”, I wonder? Was there a cut price sale on them at Rumbelows?) feels like a slice of melodic sixties pop-art transplanted into the eighties. The chorus is also surprisingly potent, to the extent that you're left to wonder how this track has become less of an indie-pop staple in recent years.

Guitarist Colin Gregory would later go on to become a key member of psychedelic revivalists The Dylans in the early nineties, another group who were much touted, but never quite heated up either the indie sphere or the mainstream.

Week Two


19. Joy Division – The Peel Sessions (Strange Fruit)


Peak position: 3


20. The Undertones – The Peel Sessions (Strange Fruit)


Peak position: 15


25. The Ruts – The Peel Sessions (Strange Fruit)


Peak position: 12


Weeks Three and Four (only one chart published)


9. Mighty Mighty - Throwaway (Chapter 22)


Peak position: 7


Rather like The Chesterfields, Birmingham's Mighty Mighty - initially, at least - brought Orange Juice inspired melodic pop to the forefront of their sound, eschewing arrogant rockisms for polite, considered pop and roll. On later singles they would sound slightly more developed, taking on a robust, angular beefiness, but "Throwaway" was an - erm - throwback to those good old early sixties guitar pop values.

"Like the bubblegum when the flavour's gone/ Why does love throwaway/ Well, those throwaway pop songs are all I play/ Can't you hear what they say?" the group ask, predating the philosophical musings of bloke-lit author Nick Hornby by a whole decade. Once again, I'm inclined to think that better things were to come from the group, but "Throwaway" sets out their stall neatly enough.

13. Close Lobsters - Going to Heaven to See If It Rains (Fire)


Peak position: 6


The Close Lobsters divided opinion hugely in the eighties, with journalists like Everett True regarding them among the worst groups the indie scene had to offer, and others to proclaim that they were one of the most neglected groups of the era.

Their cult appeal endures, and the drawling, despondent, jangle-mope of “Heaven” is something you’ll either immediately understand or feel repulsed by. It’s indie-pop wearing a long macintosh with books of cut-up poetry concealed in its giant inner pocket – a sound very few other people seemed inclined to copy, leaving the Lobsters very much out on their own.





14. Into A Circle - Inside Out (Abstract)


Peak position: 14


17. Batfish Boys - Justine (Batfish)


Peak position: 17


22. Thirteen Moons - Suddenly One Summer (Wire)


Peak position: 22


A pearl among this fortnight’s entries, “Suddenly One Summer” peeks into the lower end of the Top 30 with an almost apologetic chamber-pop arrangement, careful vocals and a prettiness that is occasionally undone by unexpected crashes and swells. Like something off Suede’s “Dog Man Star”, only years before that album ever appeared, it’s a record to hold tightly to your chest on sleepless nights.

Thirteen Moons were from Sweden and prided themselves on their subtle arrangements, favouring saxophones, cellos, synths and even fugelhorns when most alternative groups of the era were still thumping and crashing around. In common with Yeah Jazz, their existence points towards the fact that this kind of music didn’t suddenly emerge in the mid-nineties without precedent – it was on the fringes even in 1986.






Week Five – the first chart of 1987


6. Wiseblood - Stumbo (Some Bizzare)


Peak position: 3

Jim Thirwell again, this time working with Roli Mosimann rather than operating under the Foetus moniker. Not that you’d notice the difference – “Stumbo” is the usual epic chattering, grinding nonsense which seems to have half its brain in the sandpit and the other half in the kind of black and white B-movies you used to see on Channel 4 at one in the morning.

I’d personally question whether it needs seven minutes to make the above point, even if it does up the intensity gradually as it goes along.

29. Xmal Deutschland – The Peel Sessions (Strange Fruit)


Peak position: 29


Week Six


14. Coil – The Anal Staircase (K422)


Peak position: 14


Coil were a side-project formed by John Balance during breaks away from his Psychic TV dayjob, and endured until his untimely death in 2004. “Anal Staircase” was their third single, and sounds much as you’d expect – threatening, chaotic and faintly unpleasant. Discordant synth-runs ignore the conservative, metronomic backing beats, and the howling vocals sound beamed in from another song entirely.

This kind of material has found a clear home in the indie chart from 1981 onwards, never being flushed away completely despite the emergence and retreat of other trends around it. 

21. BMX Bandits - The Day Before Tomorrow (53rd & 3rd)


Peak position: 21


The Daniel Johnston fan flag is being flown proudly here, as the Bandits strum and tap their way through a naive love song while singing in an American drawl. This was a huge cult single at the time, appealing to the same kids who bought the Talulah Gosh singles – namely, people who wanted records which were handmade and simple, and aspired towards nothing beyond getting their backroom spun notions out to as welcoming a circle of friends as possible.

24. Misty In Roots – Own Them Control Them (People Unite)


Peak position: 24


“All that I can see/ Pain and strife in the city/ Men working in iniquity/ To achieve only vanity” – well, don’t go thinking things will get better, lads. “Own Them Control Them” is a surprisingly bubbly reggae single given the darkness of the subject matter, circling its light to expose the rats in the pantry.

Week Seven


20. The Icicle Works - Up Here In The North of England (Situation Two)


Peak position: 20


Ian McNabb files his report from the north, like a telex from one man’s rehearsal studio to a corporate newsroom. Unlike some of his earlier works, “North” drags its heels and scuffs its toecaps against its own misgivings, introducing little in the way of the group’s usual elation or paisley powered sky-scraping. In fact, its yet another example of the dreaded Eighties Statement Song – “We used to build the ships but now we’re going down/ look at the state we’re in!” he sings, so wrapped up in his sentiment that he goes sailing straight past any chorus. No, it’s not an Icicle Works track I’m particularly fond of, unfortunately.

Week Eight


16. bIG*fLAME - Cubist Pop Manifesto​ EP (Ron Johnson)


Peak position: 7


Another record from the Flames which tantalising hangs together for fractions of seconds before chopping itself down and collapsing again. Lead track “On Baffled Island” even features a referee’s whistle used as instrumentation, which sounds somewhat like a studio hand trying to restore calm and order, only to be utterly ignored. 

27. Taffy ‎– I Love My Radio (Midnight Radio) (Transglobal/ Rhythm King)


Peak position: 16


Katherine Quaye, aka Taffy, was apparently baffled to be in the indie charts, telling a journalist that she “didn’t really know anything about indie music” but felt privileged to be in the rundown anyway.

“I Love My Radio” is another example of a single sneaking in due to a label (in this case the Mute-affiliated Rhythm King) noting the clubland popularity of a sound and moving quickly to release it. In the weeks and years to come, Rhythm King becomes an increasingly dominant label, scoring both mainstream and indie hits, but “Radio” was the first – a propulsive, merry Italo Disco sound which probably had Vince Clarke’s head bobbing along, but wouldn’t have impressed Jim Thirwell.

It was a national top ten hit in the UK, and its subsequent slide into a weird cultural oubliette is regrettable; it’s actually a charming pop single which deserved to endure.

29. The Smithereens feat. Suzanne Vega - In A Lonely Place (Enigma)


Peak position: 9


Suzanne Vega’s solitary appearance in the indie chart, offering backing vocals to The Smithereens. While I try not to lean on comparisons to other artists too much, this one definitely has the distinct scent of Costello about it, right down to the careful arrangements, classic jazz and Bacharach leanings and lyrical bitterness.

The lyrics were in fact largely adapted from dialogue in the Humphrey Bogart film of the same name, making “Lonely Place” a very knowing, sophisticated bit of bossa-nova for the person in your life who keeps a copy of Halliwell’s Film Guide on their bookshelf. While Vega’s name may be up in lights, she’s strictly the supporting artist here, cooing soothingly as Pat DiNizio sulks.

Even now I’m a middle aged man, something about all this feels far too adult for me – almost as if it's time for bed and I shouldn’t be listening in to this adult conversation, and I don’t quite have the cultural points of reference to understand the woe. 

Week Nine


20. The BMX Bandits - What A Wonderful World (53rd & 3rd)


Peak position: 20

Oh bloody hell Mum, the kids on their bikes are outside again, and this time they’re singing Louis Armstrong songs while doing wheelies on the front lawn. “What A Wonderful World” has a strangely persistent presence in the indie charts; by the nineties, Shane McGowan and Nick Cave would also take it there, singing an equally threadbare and amateurish version.

In this case, the Bandits are like a bunch of college kids busking outside the Student Union raising funds for rag week; except the only charity involved here seems to be the general cause of indie-pop. A perplexing state of affairs.

25. SCHOOLLY D - Saturday Night (Rhythm King)


Peak position: 17


26. Chatshow - Shake It Down (Federation)


Peak position: 26

Obscure goth rock from the oddly named Chatshow (well, if you had a goth band, would you call them that? It brings to mind early evenings, beige sets, hosts with fluffy grey hair and lines of polite enquiry as opposed to the Batcave). They’re also punchier than you’d expect, peddling an anthem which practically demands that fists are raised along to the chorus. For all their obvious commercial appeal, however, they never did quite break through.

30. The Stitched-Back Foot Airman – Wouldn't You Like To Know EP (Eat)


Peak position: 30


John Peel favourites who were essentially a devil-may-care collective of loose discipline and ideas, swapping instruments during live shows and releasing records whose effervescence and playfulness sounded entirely genuine. Somewhere in the tangle of lead track “Some People” there might be an indie hit, but they’re having too much fun to get the Brasso out of the kitchen cupboard and polish it up as such; with professionalism comes duty, and with duty comes boredom, so they leave well alone.





Week Ten


6. The Soup Dragons ‎– Head Gone Astray (Raw TV)


Peak position: 2


An early and rare burst of child-like despondency from the Soups - “Climb a big tree to see what I can see/ But then find out that nothing's for free” they shrug, wary even of the free gifts of nature.

If "Hang Ten" was supersonic indiepop, "Head Gone Astray" is a bit more contemplative and jangly. It also gives clear pointers to where the Soup Dragons heads were at during this point in their careers - this has the Bellshill sound running through it like a stick of rock, and while eventually they would go careering all over the place with their sound, it's possible that if they'd held their nerve they could have developed this particular direction into something more successful, akin to Teenage Fanclub's later achievements.

Ignoring the "What-ifs", "Head Gone Astray" doesn't make its strengths fully apparent on the first play, but does steadily worm its way into your affections with each subsequent listen. And releasing it straight after "Hang Ten" was a canny move - it did a lot to cause critics and listeners to realise that they weren't just a thrashy indie band producing two-minute punk pop songs. Why, they could take faintly Byrdsian melodies and string them out to three-and-a-half minutes instead.

This was also the first song of theirs to chart in the "grown up" Gallup charts, albeit at a modest number 82. For a band of their ilk in 1987, these achievements were rare and important; suddenly, The Soup Dragons were future bright hopes. 

11. Pop Will Eat Itself - Sweet Sweet Pie (Chapter 22)


Peak position: 2


The first PWEI single that really sounds as if they might have more to offer beyond scrappy thrills – “Sweet Sweet Pie” is a rollicking, rolling, dustbag of a ditty, the noise of men who were too in love with their lives and their noise to contemplate being angst-ridden for a second. The guitars rattle, the rhythm section marches, and the group move towards their next phase.

22. The Bible - Mahalia (Backs)


Peak position: 19


The Bible would later slide on to daytime radio with the continually re-released “Gracelands”, and “Mahalia” showcases a group who even at this point were probably more at home on Dolby sound systems than the cheap transistors of indie teens.

The single is a tribute to gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and is intricate and carefully earnest, sharing its style with Roddy Frame but also its ambitions with Deacon Blue. 

For the complete charts in all their ten-week glory, please go to the UKMix Forums

Number Ones In The Official Charts

Europe - "The Final Countdown" (Epic)

The Housemartins - "Caravan Of Love" (Go! Discs) - meaning The Housemartins go on to the rare list of indie chart acts who reached number one in the National Charts, alongside Dr & The Medics

Jackie Wilson - "Reet Petite" (SMP)

Steve 'Silk" Hurley - "Jack Your Body" (London)

George Michael & Aretha Franklin - "I Knew You Were Waiting For Me" (Epic)