104. M|A|R|R|S - Pump Up The Volume (4AD)

Six weeks at number one from 19th September 1987

It’s a summer evening in 1987 and I’m stood on the doorstep to my parent’s garden. I'm gazing towards the fir trees at the rear, taking in the sun’s last rays and idly listening to Radio One burbling away. My Mum’s kitchen radio was a cheap and nasty thing, all treble and top-end, seemingly designed to emphasise the hiss and static of poorly tuned radio frequencies over and above any bass whatsover.

Not the best bit of kit on which to hear “Pump Up The Volume” for the first time, then, which chose that moment to leak out of an evening Radio One Dance programme. Every so often I heard the half-hearted, buried, almost robotic declaration “Pump up the volume”, followed by a series of disjointed slow wooshes, interjecting samples, and the noise of what sounded like electric guitars being scraped face-down along gravel. It’s not that I didn’t like the track, it’s just it sounded like a strange, half-hearted dub. I shrugged and played with the dog for a bit, no longer really paying much attention to the single. No point in getting too invested in something which was number 47 in the Record Mirror club play chart (or wherever). These records, these weirdly credited white labels – they came, they went. There was no reason to suppose this one would be any different.

The next time I heard the track it was through some proper speakers, and then I got it – by God, I got it. It felt breathtaking. Had I been old enough to be a clubber, I might have had some sense of where “Pump Up The Volume” came from, and why it had to happen, but I was thirteen years old and many years away from such delights. As such, the depth, the bass, the vast, almost overwhelming space to the single felt strange. The way sounds panned from the extreme right to the left hand side of the stereo, as if almost to place you as an insignificant, microscopic speck among the enormousness of the tune, felt like a new universe opening up; no wonder the promo video director made outer space the central theme.

The structure of “Pump Up The Volume” also felt interesting and novel at the time. The track’s main hook is the prowling bassline and rattling drum beats which underpin it, and that is a constant presence, along with that doomy, dramatic, reverberating piano note. It therefore feels as if you’re being driven along a brightly lit motorway, riding along the spine of that groove, but every so often, for whatever reason, the driver takes a slip road off to some strange town with different noises. You can still hear the thunder of the motorway close by, or feel its vibration, but in the meantime you’re stuck in tiny, tinpot towns along its verge, hearing weird interjections from the natives, before your driver corrects his course and lands back on the motorway again.

Samples are a huge part of the record, but they’re treated as brief visitors, strange interruptions to the transmission rather than equal partners. Ofra Haza visits, as do The Criminal Element Orchestra, James Brown (of course), Coldcut and Trouble Funk. None of these samples feels essential to the record, and none of them “sold it” as such; at first you felt you could potentially cut fast and loose and create your own version of “Pump Up The Volume” with different elements. The more you listened to it, though, and the more you absorbed, the more baked in it all became, each interruption feeling essential to the whole, an important landmark in the overall journey. Listening now, I wouldn’t want to lose any of these people, anymore than I’d want to get rid of the iron bridge across the river near my house. And despite the fact they’re nudges and strange interjections, its odd how fluid and natural they seem – even James Brown feels as if he’s always been nothing but a bit-part player in the magic.

The single finally ends on someone scratch-mixing over (what I’ve always assumed is) a record of someone whistling, like audio graffiti scribbled around someone’s strolling expression of idle happiness. The record is almost jazzy by that point, riffing on so many different grooves and elements that it feels busier than ever, but never quite losing its vastness. It’s truly fucking amazing and I never tire of listening to it.

Two groups were behind the magic, but neither had quite hinted that they were capable of something like this (and I’d argue that neither really came close again). Colourbox had been lingering around the indie charts for years with various singles. The wonderfully, beautifully lazy dub of “Baby I Love You So” is probably the closest they came to “Pump Up The Volume” prior to this point, but even that doesn’t hold a candle to it (and operates in an entirely different genre). Other singles like “Breakdown” and the twitchy, gimmicky “Official Colourbox World Cup Theme” seem to pride themselves on their busy, restless nature, their white-hot brassiness. They were deemed by the press to be smart-arse technophiles, but few thought them capable of seeing the future of popular music; just another arty 4AD band faffing about.

AR Kane, on the other hand, had recently put out the almost unprecedented “Lollita”, which sounded as if it maybe invented 21st Century Shoegazing without receiving its appropriate dues. That also sounded nothing like this, though.

In the end, the two groups claimed to work poorly with each other, with AR Kane doing the bare minimum apart from some guitar scrapes and wails on the side everyone played (“Pump Up The Volume”) and Colourbox only contributing rhythm tracks to the other (“Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)”). In common with all successful collaborations, though, the tension and the differences seem to have resulted in something neither party would have arrived at independently. AR Kane’s sonic howls give “Pump Up The Volume” a threatening, invasive edge it otherwise wouldn’t have – as well as feeling like sweeping, interstellar wails - and the beatbox rhythms on “Anitina” somehow foresee a future when dreamy indie landscapes have a place on the dancefloor. (“Anitina” is almost never talked about when this record is discussed, because despite the fact this record was a double A-side, it was seldom credited as such. It’s safe to say that it wasn’t the track which propelled it to number one in the national charts, or even really contributed much at all to its sales total – nonetheless, it is a fine piece of work in its own right which should be given your time).

That one short moment, though, changed everything. Once M/A/R/R/S formed, then promptly collapsed again, like an unstable chemical experiment, so much of the music – both the best and the worst examples - which boiled up throughout 1988 owed a definite debt to it. Some bands leave behind influential albums which birth hundreds of successful bands. Colourbox and AR Kane left behind one single which became the template for hundreds of DJs.

Despite this, I don’t know if any imitator ever bettered the idea. Some of the sound of “Pump Up The Volume” still has its dancefloor legs in the slick, smooth grooves of mid-80s clubland sounds as well as the future. It has a vast sophistication, and it feels like being driven through urban landscapes in a car with luxurious suspension, whereas so much of what came along later felt like cut-and-shut rattleboxes of cars, bangers whose car stereos were being commanded by someone hyperactive, keen to constantly play you fragments of their favourite songs. “Pump Up The Volume” doesn’t push to impress, it just casually does. It’s a staggering achievement and one of my favourite records of all-time.

More notable is the fact that it’s the first time in the history of this blog that a number one in the indie chart has also simultaneously been number one in the UK National Charts. Changes are brewing in other respects too.

New Entries Elsewhere In The Charts

15. Into A Circle - Forever (Abstract)

Peak position: 13


28. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - Whitney Joins The J.A.M s (KLF Communications)

Peak position: 10

If M/A/R/R/S was a collaboration due to natural circumstances, this is a collaboration by either ambush, theft or stealth. Sampling meant that if a major star didn’t want to join forces with some bedroom DJs on a record, they could just be dropped into it instead, without permission. The KLF have joyous fun with this idea here, Bill Drummond audibly pleading with an invisible Whitney Houston on the record (“You saw the reviews, Whitney! Please, Whitney, please!”) before elements of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody Who Loves Me” are dropped in and he exclaims “Whitney Houston Joins The Jams!”

The rest of the track incorporates elements of “Shaft” and “Mission Impossible” and shuffles along entertainingly. It hangs together better than “All You Need Is Love” and is a good joke with a solid foundation, but still palls in comparison to their better, later work.

Meanwhile, the promo which consists of Drummond and Cauty recording themselves on a camcorder driving to the Chart Show’s offices to “deliver the video” has been lost, though a brief snatch of it did appear on the programme’s indie chart rundown. 

29. Dub Syndicate - Night Train (IDL)

Peak position: 24

On-U Sound enter the charts with another sprawling dub effort, which doesn’t feel a million miles away from some of Colourbox’s earlier work, sliding along with time on its side and pulsing basslines in its chest.

30. One Thousand Violins - Locked Out Of The Love-In (Dreamworld)

Peak position: 16

More compressed and cramped, boxed-in psychedelia from Sheffield’s thwarted hopefuls. “Locked Out Of The Love-In” uses sixties language in a knowing, kitschy way and occasionally feels as if its looking back with laughter rather than bathing in reverence. If All About Eve’s “Flowers In Our Hair” got criticised for seemingly meaning it (man), One Thousand Violins take no chances here and err on the side of plausible deniability, littering the garage with hippy phrases torn out of Archies comics. It’s alright, I suppose. 

Week Two


10. The Motorcycle Boy - Big Rock Candy Mountain (Rough Trade)

Peak position: 3

Edinburgh's The Motorcycle Boy consisted largely of ex-members of Creation noiseniks Meat Whiplash, and were led by ex-Shop Assistant Alex Taylor. They only hung around indieland for this one single before jumping on board Chrysalis's boutique label Blue Guitar. By the time they finally issued their grown-up work in 1989, the public had largely lost interest - a common story throughout this blog (major labels obviously hadn’t learned that the indie kids were as fickle as anyone else, and band’s talents should be captured quickly while they were still hot).

"Big Rock Candy Mountain" is a pretty and melancholy single with a driving, chugging riff which occasionally sounds like a Flatmates record played at the wrong speed, or a country song being given to the Shop Assistants. The band promptly became NME cover stars, then there was silence for nearly two years and momentum was lost. "Big Rock" was a damn fine single, but very much of its moment, and not quite good enough to stretch interest in the group to the degree where a long break would have had no ill effects on their career.

Sadly, Alex Taylor passed away in 2005.

14. The Wedding Present - Anyone Can Make a Mistake (Reception)

Peak position: 3

Record Mirror made the observation that the “Ben Johnsons of indie go so fast they run straight past any tune” for this one.

That's a bit unfair, actually. "Anyone Can Make A Mistake" has become slightly sidelined in the Wedding Present's catalogue, but it's actually a brilliant little single, combining some superbly melodic, growling guitar riffs with an unstoppable energy. Even at this point before they signed to RCA, you can hear that their future would include "Kennedy" – this contains the same thrash and snap, albeit in a less thunderous form.

21. Derek B - Get Down (Music of Life)

Peak position: 14

Derek B was the first British rapper to start getting proper chart hits (let’s leave Kenny Everett and Roland Rat out of this) and while “Get Down” sounds quaint by 21st Century standards, it is strangely charming. Even his bragging about his pulling technique feels too overstated to be taken seriously, feeling like some caricature of the person Hip-Hop wanted him to be rather than the real deal. His shout-outs to the key people on the London scene also paint a vivid picture of a close-knit movement, when rivalries were few and communities were to be treasured. 

25. These Immortal Souls - Marry Me (Lie! Lie!) (Mute)

Peak position: 25


26. Flux Of Pink Indians – Neu Smell / Taking A Liberty EP (One Little Indian)

Peak position: 26


27. Lords Of The New Church - Real Bad Time (New Rose)

Peak position: 27

Thanks to their goth fans – who formed part but by no means all of their following – The Lords were still managing to make hay this late in the eighties. “Real Bad Time” really isn’t very goth at all, though, sounding more like the mean garage muse of The Godfathers than The Mission or Sisters of Mercy. It chops and snaps away with a pout, but never quite seduces me.





28. Bubblegum Splash! ‎– Splashdown EP (Subway)

Peak position: 28

Week Three

8. Pop Will Eat Itself - Beaver Patrol (Chapter 22)

Peak position: 4

In which the nation’s favourite grebos cause offence at IPC Towers by covering an old garage rock track by The Wilde Knights about cruising and picking up women. “Beaver Patrol” had already been doing the rounds on garage compilations at this point, and given its moderately positive reception among that crowd, PWEI might have wondered why nobody wanted to hear it from them. Once again, it’s such a fine line between clever and stupid; The Wilde Knights single could be safely regarded as a kitschy artefact from less enlightened times. PWEI’s cover, on the other hand, just sounds like a load of Brummie beer boys shrieking at women from a passing car, and their sledgehammer approach does it no favours. If you’re going to try to impress ladies, it’s better not to do it with a collective war cry; even Derek B would tell you that.

Still, it was yet another example of a non-chart single which did well with many of the boys in my school who loved to run around chanting it, though I never heard any of the girls talking about it, strangely enough.

18. Erasure - The Circus (Mute)

Peak position: 3

Among all of Erasure’s top ten hits, this seems to be one which has been broadly forgotten – a wheezy organ grinder’s ditty to unemployment and the death of industry. It sounds both futuristic and antiquated simultaneously, two steps away from an old school Music Hall squeezebox number and two steps back from New Romanticism; a true oddity in their catalogue.

If lines like “there was once a lifetime for skilful hands” feel a bit laboured at times, the song’s eccentric, rickety melody holds it all together and maintains interest. It still sounds closer to Clark’s earlier work with The Assembly than an Erasure track, mind you, having a similar rustic, autumnal feel.

23. The Siddeleys - What Went Wrong This Time? (Medium Cool)

Peak position: 23


25. Moss Poles - One Summer (Idea)

Peak position: 25

1987 was really The Moss Poles year; well, until very recently it was their only year, in truth. They released two singles (this and “Underground”), one LP (“Shorn”) then split up and inexplicably regrouped during lockdown in 2020 to utterly pour their music all over the interweb, making up for lost time.

“One Summer” is another underproduced indiepop song with bottom-heavy bass and rumbling guitars and a surfboard chorus; like Jesus & Mary Chain without the air of threat. 

26. The Shamen - Christopher Mayhew Says (Moksha)

Peak position: 19

The Shamen may have found success as commercial purveyors of Dance Music, but way back when, they were actually a neo-psychedelic rock band who gradually introduced beatbox loops and samples into their particularly suspicious brand of mushroom soup. 

"Christopher Mayhew Says" incorporates samples of the Labour/ Liberal MP Mayhew taking a mescaline trip while a film crew recorded him. The Syd Barrett inspired interstellar guitar screeching was certainly trad psychedelia, but the hammering beatbox and thrashing guitars were not. Listen to this while on LSD, and your trip might not necessarily be a happy one. It's a collision of two worlds, the old and the new, which works in a unique way and acts a signpost to the future.

"Christopher Mayhew Says" sounded astonishing at the time too, certainly to this young listener. Heard for the first time on "The Chart Show", it sounded like an adrenalin packed cocktail of The Beatles, early Floyd, Grebo, the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, Sonic Youth, and God knows what else. Whether it sounds tamer now or not - and I'd guess that it almost certainly does - in 1987, it felt simultaneously confusing and exhilarating. The psychedelic pop revival was in full swing in London in small clubs in the mid to late eighties, but little of it sounded quite like this.

For his part, Mayhew continually insisted that he had enjoyed long, heavenly and real experiences outside our standard concepts of time while under the influence of mescaline. He passed away in 1997.

Week Four


19. Alien Sex Fiend - Here Cum Germs (Anagram)

Peak position: 19


21. Mark Stewart + Maffia - This Is Stranger Than Love (Mute)

Peak position: 10

The beginnings of trip-hop? If you want to be exceedingly liberal with the definition, possibly. Certainly “This Is Stranger Than Love” is both blissful and a bit frightening, combining Satie’s “Gymnopedie” with the confused, delirious groaning of the song’s title which sounds too sinister to be of the carnal kind. Mark Stewart ends up seeming like a character in Chris Morris’s Bluejam rather than a loverman; this is ideal 3am listening.

29. Gwen McRae – Funky Sensation (Rhythm King)

Peak position: 29


30. The Wonder Stuff – Unbearable (Far Out)

Peak position: 17

The Wonder Stuff’s first and last appearance on the indie chart (though it would bubble back up again in future years), “Unbearable” is probably also their best song; although the re-recorded machine gun precision version on “Eight Legged Groove Machine” far usurps the slightly demo-sounding original.

Of all the so-called grebo bands on the block, The Wonder Stuff were deemed by A&R departments too hot to be left in indieland for long. Singer Miles Hunt returned home from work one day to find a letter from WEA unexpectedly on his doorstep. He later joked to a journalist “I thought – Wolverhampton Education Authority? What do they want with me?” His words shouldn’t be taken seriously. He had family connections (his uncle Bill Hunt was in both Wizzard and ELO) and he was almost certainly more music business savvy than he pretended.

Polydor eventually got the signature to issue all their records from this point until the end of their 20th Century phase. For now, though, “Unbearable” is all sass (“I didn’t like you very much when I met you/ and now I like you even less”) pristine melodies, one of the best riffs of 1987 (even if they were accused of stealing it from That Petrol Emotion’s “Big Decison”) and vocal harmonies which sounded beamed in from 1968. Unlike their friends and compatriots in the Midlands, The Wonder Stuff weren’t big on samplers or beatboxes (although some did appear in the earliest work) and tended to favour sugary hooks and needling melodies on top of their sandpaper rough guitar-work and breakneck rhythms. Later work such as “Who Wants To Be The Disco King”, which slated rave culture, even seem deeply fogeyish compared to the eclecticism of PWEI and Gaye Bykers.

A lesser band would have faltered on that basis as the late eighties dawned – The Stuffies survived through their songwriting abilities, offering an arsenal of stomping singles (and one astonishingly brattish debut album) which still sound effective.

Week Five


21. The Membranes - Time Warp 1991 (Glass)

Peak position: 21

Not, unfortunately, a cover of the Rocky Horror Show classic, but a piece of psychedelia with all the foundations of a hastily strung together cobweb in a gale storm. Sometimes fragility on indie records sounds charming, but this one sounds too weak to stomach – listening in, I’m close to worrying that the whole thing will disintegrate in front of my eyes. Let’s take it off before I have a funny turn.




24. The Very Things - Let's Go Out! (One Little Indian)

Peak position: 11

A piece of the Very Things catalogue I hadn’t heard before today, and it’s astonishing how much it sounds like a Shriekback single – whereas previous Things releases were blessed with originality and strangeness, this just sounds like a pale imitation, a Nosferatu dancefloor number without any real humour, quirk or charm. Both a botched crossover and a shame at the same time.

25. The Møb - Package (All the Madmen)

Peak position: 25

Effectively a budget-price quickie singles compilation for the anarcho-punk mob, rather than new material – they hadn’t issued anything fresh since 1983. Cheap it may have been at the time, but this compilation is now hugely collectible, so if you have a copy you don’t want, seize the moment and sell it to a wealthy anarchist. There seem to be surprising numbers of them out there. 

26. The Mekons​ - Hole In The Ground (Sin)

Peak position: 24

As the eighties drew on, The Mekons became increasingly obsessed with country rock, combining an American cultural obsession with occasional anti-American (or at least anti-capitalist) sentiments, seemingly at war with themselves. “Hole In The Ground” shows them flying at full force, and in time they would become critically acclaimed in the USA in a manner few British country outfits ever managed.

27. The Hunters Club - Animal Lover (Trashcan)

Peak position: 27


29. The Vaselines – Son Of A Gun (53rd & 3rd)

Peak position: 29


First time out, it was extremely hard to imagine “Son Of A Gun” being covered by anyone to any great degree of success; Edinburgh's The Vaselines felt like the gentle new kids standing against the inevitable collapse of indiepop and nothing more. Metronomic beats meet loose strums and strained vocals, and this sounds as if it could be more campfire than anything Michelle Shocked recorded.

Nirvana did the business with it, though – as we all know – and made it sound huge and urgent in the process. As such, what might have become just another track on a Cherry Red C87 CD compilation has become a touchstone. God bless the royalties. 

30. Coco, Steel, & Lovebomb – Crucifixion Of DONNY (Instant)

Peak position: 30


Week Six


21. Scraping Foetus off the Wheel - Ramrod (Some Bizzare)

Peak position: 7

For reasons he never quite explained, my Dad yelled with fury at Jim Thirlwell’s chosen group name here, finding the idea of fast cars running over pregnant women completely unacceptable. He would tolerate the Sex Pistols, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and The Dead Kennedys (even laughing at the song title “Too Drunk To Fuck”) but he was not having this. “No, it’s not funny David, it’s disgusting!”

The single itself is the usual rambling, sprawling industrial mess which makes surprisingly fleeting use of an extremely potent chorus (their finest yet). Long stretches of meandering rattling leave you yearning for those desperate cries of “Ramrod” in the centre, but as usual, they don’t want to make it easy.





23. McCarthy - The Well Of Loneliness (Sept)

Peak position: 15

Probably McCarthy’s first truly great single, where bitterness combines with sprightly melodies and the brew starts to ferment. “The Well Of Loneliness” remains lyrically simplistic and unlike their wordy screeds from their later years, but it shimmies and shakes while pondering the disappointments of modern life.

27. Mighty Mighty - One Way (Chapter 22)

Peak position: 16

Birmingham’s biggest rattling indie-pop hip-shakers return with a ballad which ultimately turned out to be their last significant release – while they would plough on for a bit after this, the relative failure of their 1988 album “Sharks” seemed to take the wind out of their sails and they shut up shop not long afterwards.

“One Way” is also a disappointment, feeling like a band reaching for Bacharach styled sophistication which is slightly beyond them. If the intention was to prove that they were more than just a rough and tumble combo with a way around some sprightly beat tunes, this would only have increased the doubts.

 
For the full charts please go to the UKMix Forums

Number Ones In The Official Charts

Rick Astley: "Never Gonna Give You Up" (RCA)

M|A|R|R|S: "Pump Up The Volume" (4AD)

Bee Gees: "You Win Again" (Warner Bros.)