97. The Smiths - Sheila Take A Bow (Rough Trade)

Four weeks at number one from 25th April 1987

Prior to the release of “Sheila Take A Bow”, it might have felt as if The Smiths were treading the backwards path, understanding their initial appeal and returning to their original ideas. Craig Gannon was out of the group, and previous single “Shoplifters of the World Unite” was (instrumentally speaking) chock-full of Smiths tropes, all bowed together into a fresh new song. And for “Sheila”, Sandie Shaw was invited back into the studio to do vocals. So far, so very 1984 (in calendar terms rather than Orwellian terms, obviously).

However, everything seemed cursed from the off. At the aborted sessions for the single in December 1986, Morrissey declared himself ill and only Shaw turned up. She was dismissive of the song, calling it “horrid”, and was slightly reluctant to play second fiddle as a backing vocalist. She spoke to Morrissey on the phone and demanded that he sing down the telephone line what he wanted her to do, and he obliged, but the session was deemed unworkable and ultimately scrapped.

Stephen Street later picked up the pieces and produced the version which was released, which might be one of the oddest singles The Smiths put out. The tumbling, thumping intro with its honking brass, almost sounding like a factory klaxon, makes it seem as if we’re in for another “Panic”, only for it to suddenly and inexplicably start to do musical high kicks, like an aborted show-tune (it’s rather like Madonna’s “Hanky Panky” or Geri Halliwell’s “Look At Me” in that respect). Just when you think it might deviate from this path and explore different avenues, it sticks fairly rigidly to the concept and even leans into it towards the end – “You’re a girl and I’m a boy/ la la la la la la la la la!” sings Morrissey at the end, beaming towards the imaginary West End theatre audience before him (I suspect this bit might have been written with Shaw’s contributions in mind).

It wasn’t the first time The Smiths had created something which sounded as if it might work in a musical. “Ask” had its moments too, but it was never such a constant, unending feature of the track. Nor had Morrissey ever written lyrics which felt so much like a parody of a sixties Tin Pan Alley tune – with the exception of “boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear”, the song is filled with fairly cliched imagery which feels almost tossed-off. The thunder and swing of the group’s backing helps it to achieve a small amount of heft, but there’s an incessant and deeply unSmithsian sugariness to the rest of the contents – an overwhelming taste of honey which gloops down your gullet and dominates your tastebuds in an unwelcome way for the rest of the afternoon.

Behind the scenes, the first obvious signs that all was not well in The Smiths were beginning to make themselves known to those outside their camp. Brixton Academy had been booked for the filming of a promotional video, but Morrissey refused to show up for the filming, resulting in a significant waste of money and a promo-free song. Given that he failed to turn up for the first recording session as well, a certain pattern was clearly establishing itself which continues to this day – Morrissey the diva hiding under the duvet whenever obligation knocks. Johnny Marr would not tolerate this for long.

You could also argue that “Sheila” stylistically fits in with his solo material better than The Smiths catalogue, given that its daffy, showy sensibilities feel akin to his moments of levity there – neither “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” or “Certain People I Know” fit neatly alongside “Everyday Is Like Sunday” or “November Spawned A Monster”, but they’re in his discography nonetheless, those attempts to impress the ghost of sixties pop impresario Larry Parnes with bits of easy-to-swallow rock and roll. “Sheila” has that same breezy flexibility and is as family friendly as a tub of Peak Freans biscuits, but something feels very wrong here; the song is catchy, jolly, and has a spirited glam charge, but the melody feels more like an adland jingle for a carpet warehouse than a proper pop song.

96. Wire - Ahead (Mute)

One week at number one on 18th April 1987

Where do I even begin with Wire? Getting the chance to write about one of my favourite bands is both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because I want less enlightened readers to understand just why they’re so special (of course). Also a curse because groups you have spent most of your lifetime admiring become strangely hard to pin down. You know you love them, but describing why feels like resting on a therapist’s couch and being asked to remember where those feelings began. You scribbled the details down in a notebook somewhere decades ago, but now it just feels like second nature. You want me to explain?

The feelings certainly didn’t begin in the logical place for me – the place most Wire fans entered. The first track I heard was the chiming, beautiful but oblique 1988 single “Kidney Bingos” on a compilation I owned, which remains one of my favourite Wire singles (and one I’m sure we’ll get to in due course). From there, I found a cheap second-hand copy of “Outdoor Miner” (minus its picture sleeve) in Gumby Records in Southend, and played it about forty times the night I bought it, utterly obsessively. It became my favourite single of all-time and remains such. You could ask me why, but if you did, I’d just get distracted and this entire entry would be about that record. 

You’re probably expecting me to say that I then tracked back to their first three albums, but I don’t recall seeing many of them on record store racks at that point. This may or may not be the reason I bought “The Ideal Copy” first, their fourth album, their first in eight years, and their debut for Mute Records.

This is another reason why having to write about this single is a curse. “The Ideal Copy” was strange enough and strong enough to hold my attention and establish me as a fan, but clearly imperfect and vaguely chilly. It has moments of bright, faintly broken pop (“Madman’s Honey”, “The Point Of Collapse”) and the usual shattered, jagged melodies which sound in danger of breaking down but always hold their steely nerve (“Ambitious”) and in that sense, offered us what Wire always did.

Where the output differed was the precision of the approach. The group emerged having embraced electronics and feeling determined that they needed to undertake the work with a “modern” mindset. Out went Robert Gotobed’s live percussion, which was replaced by painstakingly created loops and programmed rhythm tracks, with anything that approximated cymbals or hi-hats also thrown by the wayside. Eccentric, rubbery, rapidfire yet “non-funky” (their words) basslines were laid on top, a unique approach the group referred to as “dugga”.

Gotobed has gone on record as being unimpressed by this, stating in Paul Lester’s book “Lowdown” that he felt sidelined and unable to offer much towards the creative process. While the group beavered away in Hansa studios in Berlin, he instead whiled his time going for walks around the city, occasionally popping back to grapple reluctantly with the technology. Other members were also going through challenging changes in their personal lives, ego battles commenced in the studio, and singer Colin Newman briefly walked away from it all; he was only coaxed back when he realised that it wasn’t a major label’s money he would be draining by quitting, but that of Mute boss Daniel Miller – a friend with limited resources. By moving to an independent label, Wire’s future was possibly saved.

“Ahead” was the only single taken from the album and unveils itself confidently – those slow, loud bass notes at the start act as a fanfare, and almost immediately afterwards the group jitter and judder into view, oblique as ever. “Lips growing for service/ Eyes steady for peeling” Newman begins, before enthusiastically declaring, like a market stall holder, “Bring on the special guest!/ A monkey caught stealing” (which remains one of my favourite Wire lyrics for its pure absurdity and the joyful acidity of Newman’s delivery). I’ve never fully understood what Wire were on about with this one, and you can find a variety of fans online who are absolutely, unshakeably certain what it means, but all give different accounts – so it’s either definitely about oral sex, or animal vivisection, or corruption, or being used in a relationship. In common with many Wire records, establishing the facts is almost futile, and you’re instead swept along by the melody and the intention, which in this case is urgent and irritated, yet somehow sunlit too. Blue Monday-esque monk chants drone in the background while bright synths beam dramatic hooks and Newman gibbers discontentedly “I remember/ I remember/ making the body search”.

This doesn’t make “Ahead” sound like anything close to pop music, but miraculously, it’s closer than most of the contents of the indie charts in this particular week. The group display their usual knack for taking mis-shapen lumps of ideas and convincingly presenting them as shining jewels – the urgency becomes compelling, the sentiments somehow jolly, and the synths heavenly. I don’t agree with fans who hold it up as one of their finest singles – they’ve released better work in the last fifteen years alone – but its shine and gleam definitely have a captivating effect. Only a strange, stuffy rigidity and a determination not to edge one micro-second away from the click-track prevents it from truly realising its potential.

95. Rose of Avalanche - Always There (Fire)

One week at number one on 11th April 1987

By the late eighties, the goth movement – if it could sensibly be called a "movement" – had become one of the most unbudging aspects of alternative music. I’ve now spent over two years writing this blog, covering six years worth of music; goth was there from the off with Bauhaus and The Birthday Party, and their surviving (metaphorical) kin and offspring only seemed to get stronger and reach ever-larger audiences following their demise. Goth didn’t fade from view like anarcho-punk or the quirkier jolts of New Wave, it sat enigmatically in the corner of the nightclub recruiting more and more people to its cause.

As the decade progressed, a pattern emerged which is typical of most sub-genres and movements; there were groups deemed goth royalty whom nobody was allowed to blaspheme against, whose inevitable second-week chart peak appearances on Top of the Pops were deemed victories for the sect. Beneath those honoured few, however, lay scores of bands who might, if they were lucky and a fair wind was behind them on a Spring afternoon, score a high placing indie chart entry. Despite this, they would never be radio playlisted or let close to any television programme which wasn’t The Tube or the Oxford Roadshow, and as such would remain fringe concerns. Your Dad might have sung along to The Cure’s “The Lovecats” when it came on the radio, but he wasn’t getting anywhere near Red Lorry Yellow Lorry’s “Open Up” (though nor would you have wanted him to - I mean, imagine that).

Sometimes, if the indie charts were soft and not much else was happening, they might even score a number one. We saw this with the March Violets in the typically sleepy August of 1984, and Rose of Avalanche repeat the trick again close to the Easter period of 1987. They were always one of the more straightforward goth bands; loyal to their leaden, reverb-heavy and spartan drumbeats, sombre melodies and slowly scaling ideas which sometimes stretched beyond the five minute mark (their single prior to this one, “Velveteen”, was an epic tribute to Nico which is probably their most enduring song in both length and subsequent reputation).

In common with many goth bands, they disputed ever being part of the movement, and in this case I’ll sympathise. They often seemed like university students who had tried too hard to impress the kids who dressed like Velvet Underground members in their first year, and found themselves shunned and dealing with their next closest compatriots instead. Never quite hip enough, always wondering what might have happened if they’d just played it a bit cooler during Fresher’s Week.

They were, to all intents and purposes, a band who could just as easily have been on Creation and hanging out with Pete Astor and Bobby Gillespie. They loved psychedelic rock and The Doors, they wore leather jackets and sunglasses at night, and they weren’t against wearing paisley clothing. As you’d therefore expect, their music occasionally lifted its head out of the mourning bow to shuffle, boogie and stride; they were never averse to a simple garage rock chorus or an airy, stoned rock-out.

Which is essentially where we come in with “Always There”, which sadly isn't a cover of Marti Webb's version of the "Howard's Way" theme, but a pretty jangle and stride through verses and choruses you wouldn’t be surprised to find on a sixties obscurities compilation. If the chorus of “I know death won’t find us” is very goth indeed, its surrounding melodies, harmonies and production would have been equally at home on a House Of Love single. Their only drawback is their straightforwardness – where Terry Bickers would have found space to scrape and wail around unpredictably, The Rose of Avalanche are steadfastly loyal to the central rhythm and riff, seeming afraid to wander too far off the track in case they lose grip of the plot.

In that sense, then, they were very goth; the band themselves acknowledged this paradox, calling themselves “too rock for goths, too goth for rockers”. Many of the minor goth acts clutched on to their basic ideas and drum machine patterns tightly, offering a shady safeness from guitar hero licks or skittering dancefloor rhythms; there’s a reason that many goths held Joy Division close to their bosoms but could be faintly sniffy about New Order, and it had everything to do with the way the latter used their drum machine to lift feet off the floor rather than keep them anchored with a dead weight.