93. The Wedding Present - My Favourite Dress (Reception)

One week at number one on 14th March 1987

“My favourite song has to be My Favourite Dress. David has managed to perfectly distil the tortuous agonising feelings of jealousy into three minutes of angst. The guitar hook is pretty great too.” – Sir Keir Starmer.

Well, there you go; not my words, but the words of the Prime Minister (presumably still the case, by the time this goes live). If you ever wondered what it might be like to live in a country governed by an indie nerd, rest assured you are already living that dream, although he isn't the only Labour Party "name" who is interested in The Wedding Present – years ago, the one-time Labour deputy leader hopeful Stella Creasy tweeted me about the band, and we’re not even members of the same party. There’s dedication to Gedge beyond the call of duty.

An oblivious person reading this in another country might assume that this means the group were massive, but that would be a mistake; while the music press briefly touted them as the next Smiths, the peak of the band’s achievements occurred in 1992 when they managed to crash the national charts with twelve different limited edition singles released throughout the year. All went Top 40 and one even managed to nose its way into the top ten, but prior and subsequent chart performances indicated that this was purely due to the rabidity of their fanbase – the Starmers and Creaseys of this world taking a break from their local Labour Party meeting to rush out and buy them on the Monday of release, scared of missing their ship.

For a few years, The Wedding Present felt like the biggest cult band in Britain, mightier even than The Fall, but relatively unheard outside their fanbase. When they appeared on Top of the Pops, which happened frequently, people would write letters of complaint to the mainstream pop press about the din. No new fans were gained; the existing fans simply hardened their lines of defence about the group’s earthy but unique sound.

In 1985 and 1986, however, they were still releasing records on their own label and merely attracting evening radio airplay, thousands of miles from the bright television studio lights. Their performance in the indie chart tells its own story of a group slowly building up steam, from the tentative number 17 shot of “Go Out And Get ‘Em Boy” to the confident number 3 peak of “You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends”. Each release seemed to sweep them closer towards a breakthrough moment, and “My Favourite Dress” is the one that delivered not just a number one in the indie charts, but a refreshed perception of what the group were capable of. By the time the year was up, they would have five entries in John Peel’s Festive Fifty, four of those in the top ten – votes being split in ways Starmer would doubtless cringe at.

For something that’s still lauded as being their finest moment, “My Favourite Dress” is an oddly understated sulk initially. The two chords it opens with are left to clang by themselves for the introduction before the group reluctantly grumble in behind, and Gedge joins to sing in a part angry, part tearful manner about a romantic betrayal. Despite his reputation as an earthy, jocular Leeds everyman, the lyrics are actually pearls, borderline Smokey Robinson in their attempts at understanding: “Sometimes these words just don't have to be said/ I know how you both feel/ The heart can rule the head/ Jealousy is an essential part of love/ The hurting here below/ And the emptiness above”. There’s something almost Northern Soul about those opening lines, were it not for the very C86 scraping and thudding beneath – the wheels of this song belong to a tram, not an aeroplane; it’s sticking to its own simple, dependable rhythm, not soaring off anywhere soon.

We finally move on from the two chord holding pattern when the chorus arrives, which begins to add choppiness and spikiness to the mix, but is still surprisingly slight, and over in an instant with Gedge sighing “never mind”. Then his reasonableness declines and his grievances become more pronounced in the second verse, during which it sounds as if he’s almost choking when singing about his ex-lover’s new sleeping arrangements. Following a second round of the chorus, things really start to go into overdrive and the ranting begins, and this is what makes “My Favourite Dress” several leagues above the average indiepop ditty about romantic disappointment – it starts off controlled and sane, and slowly peels away its rationality, the fury of betrayal taking an increasingly heavy role.

The final verse isn’t so much a lyric as Gedge delivering a shopping list of disappointments to his ex, bullet pointing the key occurrences in one of the worst days of his life so far – “a long walk home”, “the pouring rain”, “uneaten meals”, then, explosively, “a stranger’s hand on my favourite dress”. The key problem, the painful image. The moment the song finds both its title and its purpose. If you’re not listening closely, it almost sounds absurd.

Relationships are often portrayed in songs and films in a very simplistic way, the memories people cling on to frequently being trite in their obviousness. “I liked the way he held me when we danced”. “I adored the way she kissed”. The reality for me (and seemingly Gedge, and Keir Starmer, and probably you too) is that you don’t actually know what memory you’ll hang on to until they’re over. It might be guessed at, but it’s frequently unknowable. It could be that moment you greeted them home at the arrivals section of an airport and realised you truly loved them, the song they loved that you always hated, or something even more inconsequential than that – a haircut, sunkissed skin from a recent holiday, a perfume smell or an item of clothing. I’ve had my day ruined by women with the same hairstyle as an ex of mine, so I know only too well that seemingly trivial visual prompts have a peculiar and extremely potent magical power.

92. The Smiths - Shoplifters Of The World Unite (Rough Trade)

Four weeks at number one from 14th February 1987

Oh, how we laughed when the assistant in our branch of Woolworths played this song on a busy Saturday afternoon. He was proudly ensconced behind the display copies of the Pepsi & Shirlie singles, spinning this record loudly enough that you could hear it as far back as the garden hose display. I’m sure his supervisor gave him a thorough ticking off, but if Morrissey had ever found out, he probably would have sent him a bouquet.

A man in his mid-twenties walked past me holding hands with his girlfriend tittering loudly for everyone’s benefit, “They might have thought harder before putting this one on!” The rest of the shopping trip was mundane, so it was a relief to be provided with some kind of anecdote to tell others about later – a sense that a hit single’s subversion had been appropriated in the correct way.

I didn’t expect our Saturday mission to buy lightbulbs and birdseed to be spent listening to what was the first new indie number one of 1987, and in all probability the first indie record of the year Woolworths would have stocked. Age of Chance’s dominance of the top slot for ten straight weeks seemed to have as much to do with the lack of action going on elsewhere as its cult popularity.

“Shoplifters Of The World Unite” was “one of those singles” from the off – the “Sorted For Es and Whizz” of its era, a single which was quietly looking for trouble while disguising its ambitions behind a passive-aggressive arrangement. Morrissey ducked the issue in the press a few times, perhaps wary of a radio ban, pointing out that the idea of “shoplifting” could be about creative theft as well as actual pilfering of goods. The song doesn’t make that clear anywhere, though. Instead, it talks about the protagonist's inevitable arrest (“A heartless hand on my shoulder/ A push and it's over/ Alabaster crashes down/ Six months is a long time”) and contains two lines I loved as a teenager, which are almost Martin Gore-ish in their simplicity: “But last night the plans for a future war/ Was all I saw on Channel Four” – though these days I tend to blanche a bit at the clumsiness and oddness of that quick triple rhyming scheme.

The title of the song makes it seem as if it could be another blundering, loud hippopotamus of a single akin to “Panic”, but while The Smiths have a more forceful sound here if compared to their earliest works, in reality it seems to encapsulate the sum total of the ideas in their career so far. Listen closely and you can hear the swampy rumble of “How Soon Is Now?” coming through Marr’s guitar in the verses, the glam descends of “Panic”, and the gentle melodic strum of “What Difference Does It Make”.

If I’ve made it sound like a cut-and-shut hack job by saying that, that’s not my intention – what it seems to be instead is a group realising the scope of their identity and playing all the cards to their advantage. If “Panic” and “Ask” sounded like slight departures from the usual route map, “Shoplifters” feels like a rounded and careful reiteration of the group’s strengths by comparison; one for the proud fans as well as the Woolworths shoppers, a hooky, contentious yet surprisingly delicate 45 which stood out both melodically and lyrically.

There were those, of course, who didn’t care for it, and in typical fashion fed the Morrissey shaped troll rather than rolling their eyes and walking on. Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens was incensed, referring to the track as an open ode to thievery, while Tesco threatened to sue Smash Hits for printing the song’s lyrics over the top of an image of one of their carrier bags. It’s difficult to understand what either party expected to achieve – I doubt the single inspired many people who weren’t already shoplifting to go out and give it a try, and the central message seemed to be about the hypocrisy of the fact that while bored people with light fingers serve prison time, those who engage with state sanctioned murder are lauded.

Farewell 1986

If the years 1981-85 have been comparatively predictable affairs, where familiar Indie royalty regularly bagged the number one spot with occasionally mediocre singles, 1986 was when the snowshaker really flurried. Groups on tiny new labels making scratchy sounding singles could, by a combination of press recommendation, fanzine raves and word of mouth, climb to the top with enthusiasm; the underground was beginning to poke its claws into the rubber membrane of pop again. 

The list of nineteen new number ones below tells a headline story not just of C86 or indiepop suddenly finding its way to the forefront, but also The Smiths continued dominance and goth's continuing allure.

1. w/e 15th February 1986 (1 week) - Easterhouse - Whistling In The Dark (Rough Trade)

2. w/e 22nd February 1986 (1 week) - The Sisterhood - Giving Ground (Merciful Release) 

3. w/e 1st March 1986 (3 weeks) - Shop Assistants - Safety Net (53rd & 3rd)

4. w/e 22nd March 1986 (2 weeks) - Half Man Half Biscuit - The Trumpton Riots (Probe Plus)

5. w/e 5th April 1986 (4 weeks) - New Order - Shellshock (Factory)

6. w/e 3rd May 1986 (5 weeks) - We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It - Rules and Regulations EP (Vindaloo)

7. w/e 7th June 1986 (1 week) - The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again (Rough Trade)

8. w/e 14th June 1986 (3 weeks) - The Mission - Serpent's Kiss (Chapter 22)

9. w/e 5th July 1986 (1 week) - Weather Prophets - Almost Prayed (Creation)

10. w/e 26th July 1986 (1 week) - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Singer (Mute)

11. w/e 2nd August 1986 (1 week) - The Mission - Garden of Delight/ Like a Hurricane (Chapter 22)

12. w/e 9th August 1986 (1 week) - The Smiths - Panic (Rough Trade)

13. w/e 20th September 1986 (1 week) - Depeche Mode - A Question Of Time (Mute)

14. w/e 27th September 1986 (4 weeks) - New Order - State Of The Nation (Factory)

15. w/e 26th October 1986 (1 week) - Half Man Half Biscuit - Dickie Davies Eyes (Probe Plus)

16. w/e 1st November 1986 (1 week) - Soup Dragons - Hang Ten! (Raw TV)

17. w/e 8th November 1986 (3 weeks) - The Smiths - Ask (Rough Trade) 

18. w/e 29th November 1986 (1 week) - New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (Factory)

19. w/e 6th December 1986 (10 weeks) - Age of Chance - Kiss (FON)

1987 is where things start to get confusing and certainties begin to crumble, and the only solid scaffolding you can reliably cling on to is the continued and dogged presence of the goth scene. The best and most robust of the indiepop acts continue to make their presence felt, but the more delicate and less organised ones either inadvisably sign to major labels, or fall away. If 1986 was a free for all, 1987 is the year where any acts with slightly scrappy or flaky ideas start to become dismissed by both the music press and the public (while maintaining their core cult audiences). 

Sample culture begins to make itself felt not just through the grebo bands, who have had a fine line in 3 second distorted vocal interjections so far, but through club culture as expected. The KLF emerge in their first guise to create huge music press headlines but comparatively few sales, and a smattering of club classics begin to nudge around the fringes of the chart, with the exception of one from some surprisingly old and familiar hands which goes stratospheric (and has the video to match its interstellar ambitions). Let's not spoil the surprise for anyone under the age of 45 who may be reading.

A complete playlist of all 1986's chart entries - or at least all that were available on Spotify - can be found below, with 1987's menu on the right hand side of this page. 

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.

90. New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (Factory)

One week at number one - 29th November 1986

“Bizarre Love Triangle” is an unusual phrase for New Order to use. In the eighties in particular, the tabloid press used it quite freely, being obsessed with the idea of “love rats” in their “secret love nests” who were having adulterous affairs with a priest/ biscuit factory magnate/ headmaster. Hopefully also, these affairs would involve a significant age gap and/or some form of sexual deviancy.

A big reason these stories are so enduring is partly judgement – people seem to love being shown the failings of their fellow humans so they can feel better about themselves. Another, I think, is that extra-marital affairs, and especially “bizarre” ones, are not something we encounter as often as the tabloid press lead us to believe; in my own social circle, I can only think of a couple of examples over the last few decades. Even if their marriages are failing, people tend to not want the added stress and burden of the double-bluffing, fake diary appointments and secrecy affairs seem to involve. They’re usually too busy dealing with their kids and demanding spouse, and scrolling through their phone contacts wondering whether they should start speaking to a solicitor now or give marriage counselling yet another crack. I’ve encountered more frail marriages where a spouse has been wrongfully suspected of having an affair than those where one has actually been taking place.

This is true for those of us who have average jobs and ordinary lives. For successful musicians or actors, however, temptation is a constant risk. If you’re continually away from home, living in a bubble and constantly being flattered in an over-familiar way by people who not only find you attractive but have idealised notions about you – that’s a problem. Bernard Sumner probably knew that. Ian Curtis definitely did, as is well documented. And while most of us will never be idolised in that strange way, there’s still a chance that at some point in our lives, we might briefly be thrown into dangerously prolonged proximity to someone who finds us as alluring as we find them.

“Bizarre Love Triangle” is lyrically slight, but seems to exist in that dim reverie, that fluttering queasiness which comes from a magnetic pull that is never allowed to resolve itself. You can hear it in the arrangement, which is excited and buoyant but never quite lets go, the unreleased tension of the idea of adultery never letting it rip out of its shell. The chorus is elated, but it doesn’t feel like proper joy – those twinkling keyboards and soaring strings are pure fantasy, total idealism. In a proper love song, such effects would seem tacky, almost Disneyesque in their overreach, but because Sumner is singing about a possible affair, we accept the fairy lights and the pink backdrop. It’s a dreamworld. “I’m waiting for the final moment/ you say the words that I can’t say” he sings, but you get the impression that what he wants is never going to happen. Stasis is going to be the only result.

Elsewhere in the song he circles round the idea, gibbers a bit about the elation (“I feel fine, I feel good/ I feel like I never should”) then about the regret (“Why can’t we be ourselves/ like we were yesterday?”). He also has a moment of rare, direct honesty and borderline profundity when he sings “I do admit to myself/ that if I hurt someone else/ then I’ll never see/ just what we’re meant to be”. There’s the rub. Love triangles rarely result in anything positive. They’re bound up in chaos, guilt, and at least one person (and very often two) feeling betrayed and cheated. They’re not a great springboard for a successful new relationship – they involve messiness and an external judgement few would willingly entertain.

Nonetheless, New Order create a cocktail of confusion, guilt and airy fantasy which is intoxicating to the listener – just like the tabloid press stories, these experiences are always more enticing when they’re being communicated to us, one step removed. The strings hold a continual tension, the rhythms propel, seemingly egging Sumner on, the synth hits bark out their warnings, and it sounds like a massive hit single. The group were always prone to ruining their chances with over-long tracks, flat vocals or coldness in the past, but everything holds in place so well on this that you would clearly have it pegged as a serious commercial contender.

89. The Smiths - Ask (Rough Trade)

Three weeks at number one from 8th November 1986

(Note – this blog entry contains some personal information from my past. If anyone feels tempted to send virtual hearts and flowers, or worry about my state of mind, please don’t. I was a kid. It all happened another lifetime ago. It weren’t for this record’s release coinciding with an unfortunate life choice, I’d probably never have felt compelled to write about any of it).

Ask, they always said. Ask. What have you got to lose? If nothing else, it will allow you to put everything behind you. Once you know for sure, you can either claim the victory or just move on. Better than stewing and giving yourself a nervous breakdown, like Frank down the road.

“Shyness is nice,” also sang Morrissey, “but shyness can stop you/ from doing all the things you’d like to”. And make no mistake, I was a shy thirteen year old when this was released. I was spotty, had thick, unruly hair, wasn’t remotely tough, wore glasses, and had a certain undisciplined intelligence but felt bored and unsatisfied at school and struggled to focus. My (bad) school reports were overly personal in their tone, and could be summarised quite neatly as “struggles with other people, struggles with his work, we don’t know what to do with him. Even open ridicule doesn’t seem to be having any positive effect”.

Amidst all this mess, most of which was just me struggling with a bleak home-life (my parents marriage was stable, but we had two very ill grandparents living with us and a heavy air of stress and hopelessness lingered) and surging hormones, there was one bright spot. I’d been friends with a girl we’ll call C since the last year of junior school, who due to weird boundary rules had been one of the handful to follow me to secondary school. Even in the last year of juniors, she was cooler than most of the children, with a blue leather jacket and a fringe she dyed like Marmalade Atkins. She was also quite pampered, openly talking about the clothes budget her parents gave her (“Don’t you have one, Dave? You should talk to your parents about that, it’s not on”) and her trips to the USA where her Dad had familial connections.

So of course, in secondary school I developed a raging crush on her and asked her out. What an idiot. If this were a work of fiction, there’s two distinct routes the above plan could take – the fairytale one, where we forged an unlikely formative alliance and amazingly ended up becoming the weird boy and girl who necked and mated for an entire year, or the one where I got rejected and ultimately mocked by the school. There’s no other possible outcome. We were friends. Friends already know they get along; you don’t need a couple of dates at the local Wimpy to work that one out. Talk to your High Street bookmaker about the odds now (“No teenage love affair, friendship shattered”: 1/4).

The fact that The Smiths “Ask” landed at this particular point in my life felt taunting, even though I now understand that while the song is lyrically simplistic, it’s also open to wider interpretations. “If there’s something you’d like to try,” sings Morrissey, which seems to be almost suggestive (how strange for him) and could even be hinting at homosexuality. “Nature is a language/ can’t you read?” he also protests, like Dudley Moore desperately hinting to an oblivious Eleanor Bron in “Bedazzled”.

Behind all this is a surprisingly unSmithsian jaunty major-chord single; a wiggling, skipping, hats-off-to-the-passing-policeman ditty which almost winks at the listener as it passes. The wheezing, chuffing harmonica beneath the melody makes the whole thing sounds like an exile from one of the last mid-sixties films made by a popular British beat combo – the central number where everyone leaps out into the street dancing. Derek Jarman directed the music video and seemed to hear that himself, creating a scratchier and more modern take, but falling back on the spinning umbrellas standby at a key moment anyway. 

The rest of the arrangement gets ambitious, the group seemingly realising that if this isn’t going to be a mere Mighty Mighty styled throwaway, they’re going to have to pile one idea on top of the other like a musical jenga tower to give it tension. Marr’s guitar explores a multitude of elaborate jangles and the rhythms almost clatter in the chorus (there’s just a micro-dose of Depeche Mode industrialism in the mix here, enough to pass unnoticed). The instrumental break, such as it is, is a slow ambient intake of deep breaths, two chords struck slowly, before the whole jig starts up again.

Similarly to “Panic”, though, it feels lyrically like a series of catchphrases in search of a T-shirt or bedroom poster to be printed on. “If it’s not love then it’s the bomb that will bring us together” feels like another mid-eighties Paul Morleyism, and only “Spending warm summer days indoors/ Writing frightening verse/ To a buck-tooth girl in Luxembourg” captures the old Morrissey richness of both witty and wordy – rather than solely dynamic - wordplay. One of the big, noticeable changes in the group’s style from 1986 onwards isn’t just the fact that their sound gets tougher and more brittle (largely thanks to Gannon) but how Morrissey’s lyrics, in turn, forsake beguiling imagery for immediacy.

88. Soup Dragons - Hang Ten! (Raw TV)

One week at number one on 1st November 1986

The Soup Dragons were one of those peculiar groups who seemed to go through several distinct phases in their career, to the point of feeling like multiple different acts. The period most people reading this will remember is their early nineties indie-dance/baggy phase, which saw them getting a top five national chart hit in the UK with a swaggering cover of the threadbare Rolling Stones B-side “I’m Free”.

If we’re not vaporised in some kind of nuclear war or I don’t get sick of writing this blog in the meantime – two big ifs – I’m sure we’ll get to that single in a few years time, but suffice to say it was written off by many journalists as a cynical attempt to score a hit. It also feels as if it’s disappeared from view in the years since; it dragged 1990’s kids on to the dancefloor, but didn’t necessarily convince the children of the future. Something about that Happy Mondays-aping lurch and groove just hasn’t proved durable.

Following that success, the group managed a minor scuff with the American mainstream with “Divine Thing”, which actually resulted in a number 35 Billboard hit, after which the line-up collapsed and interest was lost both at home and Stateside. Their final album “Hydrophonic”, issued in 1994, was one I had entirely forgotten existed until doing research for this blog entry.

Phase one of their career, though, is the one we’re dealing with here, and the period that gets me most excited. It begins with a broke group from Bellshill, Scotland (home of the hits) hanging around their local scene and pressing demo tapes into the hands of likely compatriots. One such early supporter was Bobby Gillespie, who offered them a gig supporting Primal Scream. Following this, the NME picked up on an early flexidisc the group pulled together, then John Peel threw his hat into the ring and offered them a session, though the band had to borrow £150 from him to make it down to London to record it. All extremely thrifty and earthy beginnings.

If the latter-day Dragons were louche with lots of slow, lazy movement around their hips, the band that emerged in the mid-eighties were taut, spring-wound and hyper, spitting out their pop songs so fast that they were usually all over just after the two minute mark. The Soup Dragons I knew and loved didn’t pout or dreamily sing “yeeeeah” liberally throughout their singles; they gnashed, crashed and raced towards their conclusion, not in a chaotic, ramshackle C86 fashion, but with a tight, orderly and tense drive. The closest point of comparison in 1986 would probably be The Wedding Present, but while Gedge’s group moped and stretched their ideas, The Soup Dragons had a quick, explosive fizz. As a result, they began to command numerous music magazine front covers, seeming young, spotty, naive and a bit ungainly in all of them, but with delicious grins pinned to their faces.

“Hang Ten!” is one of their finest singles, immediately thudding into life with irresistible hooky vocal harmonies, before filling every second of the two minutes on offer with blissful melodies married to a thrashed guitar scramble. The lyrics seem to be about a relationship falling victim to the other party discovering Christianity – “I don’t care whose up there” sneers Sean Dickson – but are far too flippant and clumsy to be deemed a serious protest. What the song appears to be most in love with isn’t any kind of moral or political point, but what it can achieve in its short life; the stomping chant of the chorus, the dorky retro vocal harmonies, the simple but instantly memorable guitar riffs and the ascending climax. All of it remains superb.

87. Half Man Half Biscuit - Dickie Davies Eyes (Probe Plus)

One week at number one on 26th October 1986

“Mention The Lord Of The Rings just once more/ and I’ll more than likely kill you” - there aren’t many better opening lines to songs than that. Even Neil Tennant had to highlight just how well Nigel Blackwell had nailed a common frustration with eighties life; the Tolkien obsession overhanging from the seventies into the squat and bedsit walls of the eighties student and doley generation.

This single once came up for discussion when I was in the pub with friends, and we all realised that when we first heard the song, each of us related the opening line to somebody we knew (although admittedly three of us were all thinking of the same individual). Every damn one of us knew someone who, however unrelated the conversation, would find some unlikely way of relating the situation back to Tolkien’s works. These days the opening line would probably have to be about Terry Pratchett or Doctor Who, but in the eighties and the early part of the following decade, Middle Earth still held a surprisingly firm grip.

Perhaps partly for those reasons, “Dickie Davies Eyes” is Half Man Half Biscuit’s strangest and bleakest early work; whereas their other material prior to this point had been a knowing, jokey three chord thrash through daytime television and the suburban shopping parade, DDE begins with opening instrumental lines that can’t decide if the song wants to be maudlin or jaunty. That marching drum beat seems to be designed to push bottoms off sofas towards a waltz with a partner, but the organ seems to be playing an anonymous fugue for somebody’s funeral. It doesn’t feel like much of a joke, and it continues in the same vein despite Nigel Blackwell’s lyrical interventions.

Besides Tolkien, it references football commentator Brian Moore, whose “head looks uncannily like London Planitarium” – a line which would eventually become the title of a football fanzine – the erotic Cadbury’s Flake adverts doing the rounds on television, and science fiction writer Michael Moorcock. Unlike their other tracks, it feels unfixed, drifting, the sharp observational eye replaced by an indecisive pre-REM sleep brain, picking up the frustrated or underwhelming memories of the day. Blackwell sings not with a rant or a cry, but a mumble, to himself rather than anyone else.

For a long time, I regarded this as one of the least satisfactory HMHB songs as a result. Blackwell’s lyrics are usually razor sharp – as a lyricist, his output is usually far funnier than most comedy poets, whose wit is often blunted by an apologetic tweeness and bounciness (performance poets are often slightly embarrassed about their craft and are desperate to try and make friends with the audience as quickly as possible). “Dickie Davies Eyes” is, by comparison, adrift on a coffee table raft in the middle of what passes for a frustrating friend’s living room, desperately grabbing at the detritus in the hope that something might provide a helpful anchor.

At some point in the last ten years, though, I’ve decided I actually like that. For one thing, the instrumentation on this is interesting and sometimes gets stuck in my head by itself – a queasy folky jaunt which sounds as if it might ordinarily be accompanying a tale of the sole survivor of an ancient shipwreck. Half Man Half Biscuit have been compared to folk music a few times in more recent decades, and you can hear the beginnings of that on this single. Punk rock it isn’t, except for the aspects which despair of hippy culture.

The promotional video also feels as if it ties in neatly with the surrounding C86 movement (whether that was Blackwell’s intention or not). The poet, musician and artist Edward Barton once said that the streets of the eighties seemed to be filled with discarded children’s toys from Boomer children who had grown up, their infant years left abandoned at the kerbside. Barton saw poetry and meaning in this and collected and appropriated them in various ways, as did less obviously “artistic” people like Stephen Pastel who could be found playing with battered Action Man toys at people’s parties. The video features endless examples of such childish behaviour, presented blankly and almost through a fog of boredom. If The Pastels seemed thrilled to be back out in the back garden playing with Stretch Armstrong again, Blackwell and his cohorts seemed to be pointing towards this discarded kinder-trash as the only thing that was freely available to him on a bored Tuesday (though the ride in the mechanised child’s toy in the shopping centre must have cost at least ten pence).

86. New Order - State Of The Nation (Factory)

Number one for four weeks from 27th September 1986

I don’t often delve into other people’s blogs or forum posts while researching for this site, purely because I don’t want to be unduly influenced by other people’s takes on these records. For “State Of The Nation”, though, I found myself sufficiently perplexed to want to scout around. It sometimes feels as if it’s the serviceable New Order single nobody has a strong opinion on one way or the other, their equivalent of “Lady Madonna” or “Heart” (cue the inevitable complaints from Beatles or Pet Shop Boys fans).

I uncovered nothing much at all during my scouting mission, apart from a few forum posts asking “Why does everybody hate ‘State of the Nation’?” during which nobody replied with anything negative at all, only expressing the view that they quite liked it. No-one seemed particularly compelled to jump in and scream that it was a blight on New Order’s catalogue, which made sense to me (I wasn’t previously aware that it was supposed to be).

Then I went over to my Last.fm profile to see how often I’d played it, and was a little bit surprised to see that it was my tenth most listened to New Order track – amazing since I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d bothered (if anyone cares, it’s marginally ahead of “True Faith”, “Perfect Kiss” and “Regret”, all singles I could have sworn I’ve spent more time with). Obviously the views of a few Internet randoms and my own listening habits are not a precise scientific study, but it does feel as if “State” – New Order’s seventh indie number one – has been strangely neglected, rarely (if ever) played by the group live since its year of release and allowed to drift into the background.

This is peculiar. Musically speaking, “State Of The Nation” is an enticing, though admittedly never quite exciting, mix of sweet and sour. The keyboard lines are filled with exotic pan flute noises while the guitars are distorted and scraping, sounding like a hailstorm falling on abandoned sheet metal. Rhythms twitch beneath all this, jitterbugging almost threateningly, and throughout the full six-and-a-half minutes on the twelve inch, they manage to stretch what seem like quite limited ideas out into interesting new shapes and destinations; say what you want about New Order but they were unbelievably bloody good at writing epic pop songs. Whereas most groups start to dawdle and repeat themselves after the third minute, they’re still bursting with fresh ideas in double that time.

The single seems to pick up the most criticism for its lyrics, and deservedly so. Sumner here feels as if he's delivering guide vocals camouflaged as social commentary; a dirty trick to play on the neurotic mid-eighties public. “My brother said that he was dead/ I saw his face and shook my head” he sings, almost disappointed rather than upset by the fact that his sibling was either literally or metaphorically deceased. “The state of the nation/ that’s holding our salvation” he informs us, before telling us it’s also “causing deprivation” (I always swear he sneaks “death inflation” in there somewhere as well, but that’s possibly just a long-standing misheard lyric of mine).

85. Depeche Mode - A Question Of Time (Mute)

One week at number one on 20th September 1986

By the time this reached the pinnacle of the indie charts, it had been over nine months since Depeche Mode had last been there. Their singles had once been considered shoe-ins for the top spot, their position a coronation rather than a competition, but things had changed since 1985 – the independent charts were now bustling with new life (no pun intended) from increasingly challenging forces.

Great news for lovers of music in 1986, who were feasting on all manner of new and exciting talent. Bad news for Depeche Mode fans, including me – I would have loved more of a chance to talk about “Black Celebration” on here, one of my favourite albums of all-time. While it's often been described as a left-hand turn following “It’s Called A Heart”, in reality there were hints all along. Depeche didn’t suddenly overhaul their sound so much as gradually grow out of their origins.

Despite this, “Black Celebration” can be heard as everything finally falling into place beautifully; it's filled with accomplished and stirring symphonic pop, delicate baroque synth lullabies and thundering disgust at modern life. Stuffed with obvious singles, however, it wasn’t. “Stripped” depended upon its expansive, gradually swelling arrangements rather than obvious golden hooks, and the closest thing to a traditional single, “A Question Of Lust”, was essentially mid-sixties Walker Brothers balladry with synthetic knobs on – a strange retro futuristic step which seemed to ultimately tickle neither the public nor their fans.

“A Question Of Time” was the last throw of the dice, and was also atypical of most Depeche Mode singles prior to this point. The central hook is a sampled guitar line (or at least, a guitar sound sampled and replayed through a synthesiser) which is almost rockist in its aspirations – a lick to punch your fist in the air to. The rhythm beneath it too is an ugly, churning sound, like an overloaded truck rattling along a dirt track. It’s not necessarily a novel step. It is, however, unexpected for this band, who usually preferred to pulse rather than grind.

Over the top of this, Gahan delivers Gore’s uncharacteristically rambling lyrics, which feel like an unvarnished rant about the sexual manipulation of young women. “I’ve got to get to you first” he declares, which sounds ominous (what for? He can’t lock her away, but any other potential readings of this lyric are unflattering to say the least) before clarifying later on “You’re only fifteen/ and you look good/ I’ll take you under my wing/ somebody should/ they’ve persuasive ways/ and you’ll believe what they say”. The song builds up to the pinnacle of its angst with the staccato delivery of the lines “It won’t be long until you do/ exactly what they want you to”, after which it gives up, feeling as if it can stretch itself no further, lets a snare beat introduce a second of silence, before starting all over again.

In my mind’s eye, Martin Gore is frothing mad and circling his study while writing these lyrics. They have moments of furious focus, but then also points where he circles around his own ideas frustratedly. “Sometimes I don’t blame them”, he shrugs at one point, then concludes “I know my kind/ what goes on in our minds”, which asks any male listener to assume that Gore thinks his mind (because it definitely is men being addressed here) works the same way as theirs – a common assumption among kinky men with bags of testosterone to spare. Guilt and shame drip off this record.

There are a number of interpretations you can put upon the lyrics here, and Gore has never been easily drawn on what inspired them. It feels plainly obvious that the drive behind their concern is the sexual manipulation of pretty teenage girls, though. There are whole chunks of the lyrics which sound paternal, with Gore acting as the doting, concerned father who knows his daughter’s period of innocence is likely drawing to a close. There are also possibly accidental parallels with tabloid imagery (The Sun ran a celebratory countdown to Emma Watson’s sixteenth birthday, a perverse idea which always reminded me of this song – a clock counting down before tabloid journalists decided they could afford to treat a young actress in a more titillating way). Of course, we also can’t ignore the possibility that Gore was writing about a young Depeche Mode fan he found attractive but knew he shouldn’t, and that she is the catalyst for the song’s concern. It would explain a lot, but if that’s the case, he’s perhaps wisely never said so.

The imagery of the fifteen year old’s childhood being destroyed by adult desires was revisited again on their next album “Music For The Masses”, with “Little 15” flipping the gender roles so instead of a girl, it’s a teenage boy being ushered around and used as a plaything by a woman. “Such a thing would never happen!” I hear you cry. Oh yes it bloody did, and presumably still does. Two bored housewives both embarked on liaisons with fifteen year old schoolboys on the very suburban cul-de-sac I grew up on, for the very reasons largely outlined in the song (“You help her forget the world outside”). The matter was largely hushed up but the community gossip did what it always does, and it was naturally the talk of the neighbours for many years after. Either Gore heard about this matter, which I deeply doubt, or it’s more common than we suppose (to note - I don't have all the details about these liaisons, so I've no idea if they truly crossed the line into abuse, but something strange was clearly afoot). 

83b The Mission - Garden Of Delight/ 84b The Smiths - Panic

Garden of Delight returns to number one for one week on 16th August 1986

Panic returns to number one for two weeks on 23rd August 1986

Garden of Delight rebounds to number one again for one week on 6th September 1986

Panic returns again for a further week on 13th September 1986

Have you absorbed all those chart facts above? Good. Rebound number ones were never unusual in the NME Indie Chart, but the dogfight between Morrissey and Hussey (speaking in sales terms, rather than literally) which occurred throughout the dying summer months of 1986 led to a confusing ping-ponging at the top rather than letting in any fresh blood.

It’s probably not worth saying much more about this beyond the fact that it might seem surprising that at this point, The Mission were such a big deal that they could compete easily with one of The Smiths biggest and most well known singles. They were managing to capture the imagination of a broader cross-section of the public than Hussey’s old band The Sisters of Mercy, and certainly other long-standing goth acts besides. 

Other than gesturing towards that fact, let’s take a peek lower down the charts.


Week One


21. Mighty Mighty - Is There Anyone Out There (Girlie)

Peak position: 11

“The summer brings out the best in girls and the worst in me” hollers singer Hugh McGuinness early on in this 45, before singing about suntanned legs being among his favourite things. The song is essentially a twee ditty about the typical loneliness of your average anorak wearing dork in 1986 rather than a perv-out, and its trilling, twanging melodies underline the innocence of the whole thing. Honest.

22. The Toy Dolls - Geordie's Gone To Jail (Volume)

Peak position: 15

This is an unexpected about-turn. The Toy Dolls' vocalist Olga generally bubbled and squeaked his way through their songs, but on this single the whole group let rip not only with something approaching a snarl from Olga, but also a roaring anthemic second wave punk chorus. 

It’s not clear who the Geordie is the group are referring to, except that he's going to jail even though he didn’t kill anyone – he’s also never taken any drugs “only penicilin when he’s got a headache”. The old novelty lightness of touch remains throughout this single, but I did find myself filling up with doubt and started hunting around to find out if there was actually a serious back-story here; it’s about as sincere sounding as The Toy Dolls get, even if that sincerity is only just on the right side of Tenpole Tudor. 

24. Poly Styrene - Gods & Goddesses EP (Awesome)

Peak position: 24

Poly Styrene of X Ray Spex emerging on the Awesome label (which was largely reserved for Danielle Dax products) might seem surprising but the whole thing not only does sound a bit like Dax, but also gels with Poly’s style unbelievably well. Lead track “Trick Of The Witch” is a giddy brew of heavy rock riffs, psychedelia, bubbling electronic pulses and Poly’s wide-eyed vocals. While her post X Ray Spex records are undeniably patchy, it’s hard not to have admiration for her ability to move forwards away from the constraints of punk rock; while some of the people from that scene continued to thrash away in 1986, Styrene dared to push forwards.

27. Demented Are Go - Holy Hack Jack (ID)


Peak position: 23


Week Two


17. Pop Will Eat Itself - The Poppies Say GRRrrr! (Desperate)

Peak position: 14

The Poppies second release is an oddly subdued recording, with lots of sweet, spritely melodies and only slightly distorted guitars in the mix. At this point, they were clearly trying to stay close to the C86 pack and hadn’t forged a clear identity of their own, and to that end it’s not a particularly impressive listen, whizzing unmemorably through your stereo speakers like the last demo your work colleague’s little teenage brother sent you. You can only nod encouragingly at the progress – they did become a much more brittle and modern group in very short order.

21. Yeah Jazz - This Is Not Love (Upright)

Peak position: 20

Kitchen sink indie drama from this market town (Uttoxeter) mob from Staffordshire, singing of unwanted teenage pregnancies and forced relationships in a manner which could have been either cloying or overly heavy-handed, but manages to strike the balance beautifully. Yeah Jazz use diverse instrumentation to colour the drama and tumultuous emotions in the lyrics, sounding impressively like early precursors to Belle and Sebastian in the process. The first genuinely surprising track I’ve heard for an age while researching this blog.

84. The Smiths - Panic (Rough Trade)

One week at number one on 9th August 1986

Oh God, do we really have to do this? ("Never begin blog entries expressing reluctance, it just puts readers off" – the ed in my head). At its time of release, “Panic” was one of the most-discussed and debated Smiths songs by fans, foes and journalists alike, and the reverberations from its release are still felt as writers continue to highlight this as the point where “Morrissey started to go wrong”. 

It’s a den of bears I don’t particularly want to walk into, especially as I doubt I’ll manage to sneak back out past Papa Bear with any kind of shiny prize. The cave is now damp and barren, with just a few cobwebs in the corner and the rotten bones of the last person to try and make sense of it all. Still, it slid into the number one indie spot with comfortable ease, so discuss it we must. Those are the rules (even if they are my own rules and nobody else's) and as much as I'm tempted to just post "Oh, fill in the blanks yourselves, why don't you" in giant 78pt Semplicità font, I hate the idea of cheating myself. So here we are. 

Lyrically speaking, “Panic” was supposed to be poking the mainstream establishment and setting up The Smiths as the slayers of mediocrity. Both Morrissey and Marr insisted that the point of inspiration for the record was Steve Wright on Radio One launching into Wham’s “I’m Your Man” immediately after news of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster broke. Listeners had potentially just been given information about a serious incident which may have a profound effect on their health – at the time the crisis occurred, nobody truly knew what the outcomes would be – but were then invited to party on down to an upbeat hit. Pop was being used, you could argue, as a diversionary tactic to keep national spirits up while lethal radioactivity drifted across the ocean (it’s interesting to contrast this with the way Radio One responded to Princess Diana’s death years later, but I digress).

The group’s response was immediate disgust, and the lyrics were apparently inspired by the situation*, although as numerous other people have pointed out, they actually focus their agitation on club DJs rather than radio ones. “Burn down the disco,” Morrissey states. “Hang the blessed DJ!/ because the music they constantly play/ it says nothing to me about my life”. Radio One doesn’t get a mention; rather, Morrissey seems to be jabbing his finger at the discotheques of the mid-eighties where people gathered at the weekends to get blitzed and forget their worries. How irredeemably shallow of them.

Journalists were quick to notice this and accuse Morrissey of racism, pointing out that his issue seemed to be with black music rather than daytime radio playlists. The group, and particularly Marr, were initially quick to challenge these allegations, pointing out that New Order, for instance, had no black members, but Morrissey helped matters little with other comments he made in interviews at this time. During a Melody Maker piece (which can be found online in full here, and is definitely worth a read) he opined:

“I don't think there's any time any more to be subtle about anything, you have to get straight to the point. Obviously to get on Top Of The Pops these days, one has to be, by law, black. I think something political has occurred among [television producer] Michael Hurll and his friends and there has been a hefty pushing of all these black artists and all this discofied nonsense into the Top 40. I think, as a result, that very aware younger groups that speak for now are being gagged.”

Morrissey had a tendency to grandstand and make inflammatory comments for effect, but this was a particularly dumb statement which defies many soft reinterpretations. For one thing, Top of the Pops was by its very nature a chart show, and favoured appearances by whoever was moving up the charts in any given week. On some weeks that may have caused more black artists to appear, but the programme invariably tended to feature the latest cute success stories with big money behind them; key exceptions like Prince and Michael Jackson aside, those tended not to be black (and let’s not get on to the topic of MTV, who had a serious allergy to any black artists at this time, whether they had hit singles or otherwise). What Morrissey seemed to be indulging here was the standard right-wing political trope of “seeing” blackness everywhere and drawing up imaginary race ratios in a disapproving fashion, interpreting any decrease in inequality as a threat to "his culture". When Reform UK politicians do the same thing today, Nigel Farage gets called upon to fire them.

If we want to be kind – although personally I don’t see why we should be – we can frame his comments in the light of some long-forgotten mid-80s culture wars, which did indeed see lots of fey young kids into guitar-based music feeling that the music they enjoyed was not being given a fair airing. I will concede that this is true, but it had little to do with them not being black. In the case of groups on minor indie labels, the low production values of their work instantly led to issues. There’s a parallel universe somewhere where Steve Wright thought Bogshed’s “Morning Sir” was hilarious – problematically though, its weak production values would have felt jarring and made it seem incompatible with the rest of his polished playlist that day, so even imagining something as simple as that is a huge reach. The eighties were about advancing technology and spit and polish, and indie was very often a reaction (intentional or otherwise) against that perfectly airbrushed world; incorporating its sound and ethics into daytime playlists would have caused endless stylistic issues. C86 operated under financial constraints Britpop seldom had to worry about. 

Away from the world of lo-fi kids with weird or big ideas, other storms were also brewing, particularly Stateside, which saw DJs and musicians producing increasingly groundbreaking and fascinating work; it’s always struck me as interesting that “Panic” was released the same year as Farley “Jackmaster” Funk’s “Love Can’t Turn Around”, the first single which truly made House music sound like a commercial, rather than purely clubland, force. One song is a series of would-be revolutionary slogans set to a retrograde glam rock beat, the other simply is sonically revolutionary, the eighties equivalent to “I Feel Love”.

In the middle of the eighties it was hard not to get the impression that rock music was possibly a dying force creatively and commercially, and that led to desperate statements from others too. “Keep Music Live” stickers began to appear more frequently on guitar cases. Music television featured members of supposedly radical bands bleating in interviews like weary war generals about the lack of passion and humanity to be found in samplers and drum machines. “Real” musicians got angry. Somewhere in Melbourne, the writer and satirist John Safran wore a Def Jam baseball cap on the tram, and a metaller removed it from his head, ripped it, and threw it to the ground, believing that anyone who approved of rap or hip-hop being mixed with metal was perverse and lucky not to be given a beating. These were strange, insecure times which provoked some frankly silly reactions which barely make sense today - apart from the nakedly racist ones, obviously, which remain a cultural issue. 

“Panic” was one of the more extreme examples. Lyrically, it’s not even consistent with Morrissey’s own beliefs – he seemed to have plenty of time for Northern Soul and Motown, both of which tended to produce not especially politicised works (obvious exceptions aside) – and nor is it consistent with human nature which requires art and entertainment which is joyous, frivolous and communal as well as study-bound and introspective. We cannot get all our emotional nourishment from Leonard Cohen records alone. Morrissey surely knew this, but despite this, the track can be heard as their ‘war effort’, The Smiths attempt to take sides to tell the world that they were above mere pop music. 

83. The Mission - Garden of Delight/ Like A Hurricane (Chapter 22)

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. 

82. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Singer (Mute)

Number one for one week on 26th July 1986

If anybody working for Columbia Records in 1968 thought Johnny Cash’s new track “The Folk Singer” had potential, they did little to invest in it. The big '68 hype where Cash was concerned was the release of his unprecedented “At Folsom Prison” live LP, where the man can be heard brewing up a storm while performing to a gaggle of assembled felons. The label were initially worried about the idea, fearing that it might cause Cash to lose some of his Christian audience, only for the album to become one of those near-perfect combinations of both quality and newsworthy novelty – something that almost marketed itself.

“Folsom Prison Blues” was released from the album as a single, and an ordinary studio recording of “The Folk Singer”, co-written with Charles E Daniels, was chosen to sit on the flip. It might then have rested there largely unnoticed, but Burl Ives was quick to spot its mournful charms, recording it for his album “The Times They Are A-Changin’” in the same year, staying broadly faithful to the concept. It’s a wordy yet – on the surface – fairly simple tale of a forgotten singer who finds himself suddenly ignored by a public who once wanted to crowd and pester him with their admiration. The singer’s inability to adapt to his new empty environment is broached early on (“I pass a million houses but there is no place where I belong/ All I knew to give you was song after song after song”) with typical Cash-esque hints at his outsider status. Whoever the 'singer' is, you're left pretty convinced that there's nothing else he can usefully do with his life. 

It’s not clear whether Cash was worried about his own future when he recorded it, but it’s not unfair to speculate that he might at least have been looking over his shoulder at those whose careers had been less successful, acknowledging that in the music business, longevity is often a fluke, not a given. Speculation online is rife about who he might have been thinking about, but the candidates are numerous; the tale of talented musicians, appreciated briefly when their talent peaked and happened to align with the public’s tastes, then rapidly forgotten, was not new even in 1968.

Above that, though, there are hints towards the growing invisibility of the older person in society, the slick young buck with his fresh ideas being reduced to a husk. As he wanders through streets he may have once been chauffeured through wearing his old fashioned clothes, he suddenly finds no eyes being drawn in his direction in either condemnation or admiration. His rebellion has become meaningless, and his only hope is that the children of the future reappraise his efforts – a problem that most creative people are left to desperately confront. 

The original arrangement is simple and nigh-on perfect, greeting the singer’s fate with subtle arrangements and gorgeous downwards guitar twangs, which might be why Burl Ives wasn’t tempted to tamper with it much. Glen Campbell, on the other hand, took the flipside and exposed it to peculiar degrees of sunshine in 1970 – his version is a sweet yet daring finger-picked, bitter-sweet melody, “the singer” still singing his heart out rather than moping and dragging his heels.

Nick Cave’s version in 1986 was somewhat unexpected, but takes the cautious Ives approach of “don’t fuck with a classic” rather than the more radical Campbell move. So similar is it, in fact, that the only major difference is that Cave throws in the f word towards the end, something even Cash would never have considered in ‘68. It makes “the singer” seem threatening, a Grim Reaper character pointing his finger at the comfortable and the ignorant, rather than a completely defeated outsider. Cave makes you think the singer will be back, if not due to reappraisal, then perhaps on the headline news for some act of public indecency. It shifts the tone of the work slightly, but not enough to make it feel like an overhaul.

“The Singer” was released at a time when Cave appeared to be repositioning himself as a performer. His earlier work with The Birthday Party was demented, raucous and deliberately niche – punk rock at its loudest and most unrelenting. Two minutes spent listening to a Birthday Party track could feel strangely exhausting, and in his public’s mind Cave was a ferocious performer and unpredictable loose cannon. Once that group ceased to be, the Bad Seeds were formed and his moves became more measured (though often no less ghoulish).

80b. The Mission - Serpent's Kiss (Chapter 22)

Two further weeks at number one from 12th July 1986

It's been awhile since we've seen a rebound number one on the NME Indie listings, but if you were settling comfortably in your seat expecting not to be interrupted again, you reckoned without the enduring popularity of "Serpent's Kiss". As soon as the already battle-weary "Almost Prayed" plummeted from the number one position, Hussey and co were ready to take back the throne again for a whole fortnight. 

As always, the only relevant question to ask at this point is "What was happening lower down the charts, then?"

Week One

13. Bogshed - Morning Sir! (Help Yourself)

Peak position: 4

Well, Bogshed pushed forward one of their best known singles for a start off. "Morning Sir!" is a delight and a curiosity in that it's one of the biggest and strangest hooks the indie chart saw in 1986, but the group lost none of their downright provocative oddness as a result. The chorus of "Morning Sir!" will stay in your brain for the rest of this week - indeed, I even thought about making it my mobile's alarm sound for a bit - but that doesn't stop the song as a whole from sounding warped, detuned, scuffed and discourteously kicked around. 

This is like modern-day skiffle if it were composed by village outcasts rather than handsome and clean-cut kids in Soho coffee bars which, in case you need telling, is a good thing. Suck on that, Terry and Gerry. 

20. Age Of Chance – The Twilight World Of Sonic Disco (Riot Bible)

Peak position: 20

The Age of Chance were rapidly getting closer to becoming one of the more "important" C86 acts, but at this stage, "Motor City" off the "Twilight World" EP shows no signs of them budging from their own tinny and uncompromising groove - it's stark, harsh and devilish, and as Steven E repeatedly urges "If you can get through my wall of sound" beneath the metallic beatings, it's hard not to hear it as a direct challenge to you, the listener. 

28. The Mekons - Hello Cruel World (Sin)

Peak position: 20

29. Hawkwind - Silver Machine (Samurai)

Peak position: 29

Week Two

14. The Creepers - Baby's On Fire (In Tape)

Peak position: 6

 

Marc Riley and his cohorts covering Brian Eno must have raised a few eyebrows in the old Fall camp at the time, with Mark E Smith doubtless opining that he was right to sack him. Nonetheless, in much the same way that his original group used cover versions as templates to scrawl their own impenetrable avant doodles over, The Creepers rip "Baby's On Fire" to pieces, making it somehow feel even more menacing as a caterwaul of sound builds up steadily with each instrumental break.

81. Weather Prophets - Almost Prayed (Creation)

One week at number one on 5th July 1986

To casual viewers of the indie charts and non-readers of the NME or Melody Maker, The Weather Prophets must have seemed like a strange and sudden flash on the scene; that try-hard band name conjuring up images of your best friend’s cousin’s group who were signed to Creation on one of Alan McGee’s whims. The truth is somewhat different. The Weather Prophets were actually formed following the messy end of The Loft, a promising group whose two singles, “Why Does The Rain” and “Up The Hill And Down The Slope” are still remembered fondly (and playlisted heavily) by those who know their mid-eighties indie.

Despite the fact he had an established platform to build on, it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that the group’s lead singer Pete Astor was lucky, however. Fate seemed to slap him encouragingly on his leather trousered arse wherever he went in the mid-eighties. In 1984 Janice Long, at this point presenting an early evening show on Radio One, selected their single “Why Does The Rain” as one of her three favourite singles of the year, an unexpected boost for both the band and a tiny, cash-strapped label like Creation. Intriguingly, I’ve also never met anyone else who genuinely believes it to be in the top three best records released that year – but if you’re going to win those kind of wild plaudits with anyone, a national radio DJ is surely your best outcome.

Then in 1985, journalist Danny Kelly was at a football match where he met Peter Hadfield, the manager of Terry Hall’s new group The Colourfield. Kelly enthused about The Loft, and Hadfield wondered if they might be available to support his group on a major venue tour of the UK. No money changed hands, and sweet and simple arrangements were made to give The Loft a lift on to the professional circuit. As anyone who has ever been in a band will tell you, things seldom happen this easily without meetings, pluggers and expensive tour budgets being involved.

Despite all this, Astor was unhappy, feeling as if he had little in common with the rest of his group and mumbling to McGee and other parties that he didn’t see them as a long-term proposition. He eventually split them up live on stage at the Hammersmith Palais while supporting the Colourfield, a move some deemed legendary and others strangely cold. Vague insults were directed at other band members, and the whole thing drew to a messy close – two singles and endless love and good fortune later, the group were no more.

Astor decided before they even split that The Weather Prophets sounded like a good name for his next group, and they were up and running relatively swiftly, recording a radio session for the ever enthusiastic Janice Long before a single note was captured on vinyl. “Almost Prayed” featured on that debut session and McGee felt strongly it should be their first single, but numerous attempts to re-record it at other studios ended unsatisfactorily, with the group failing to capture the snap and spontaneity of the BBC session. Eventually, all concerned had to reluctantly lease the recording from the BBC for commercial release, though the text on the rear of the sleeve informing you of the fact is written in such a tiny font you might miss it.

There’s a simple reason both Creation and the band were a bit ashamed of this step. BBC sessions often differ from the finished product in many ways, but are usually more stripped back and basic. Fans of bands will often nudge those not in the know and tell them that actually, the John Peel session version of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” has a bite the single version didn’t, or that Microdisney’s Peel Session versions of the “Crooked Mile” era material punch more forcefully than the Lenny Kaye produced LP. Despite this, the suggestion that any polished, professional recording following a session simply wasn’t as good as the BBC’s quick efforts would be embarrassing for any up-and-coming band, especially one the major labels were keeping a close eye on. It carries suggestions of amateurism and an inability to hold it together as soon as the grown-ups leave the room.

The Weather Prophets would eventually re-record “Almost Prayed” for their debut major label album “Mayflower”, and sure enough, even with WEA’s money and time being spent on it, it remains feeble by comparison, as if the group have been asked to imagine the song being covered by Big Country. So what did producer Barry Andrews (no relation to the ex-XTC member) get right at Maida Vale that everyone else got wrong?

I wasn’t there obviously, but my suspicion is that “Almost Prayed” is one of those songs which gets duller, rather than shinier, the more you scrub it up. In its BBC form, it’s a thing of beauty, three minutes of simple indie-pop which jangles and thumps through Astor’s angst about the fluidity and unpredictability of life; the phrase “You can never go home again” given its best representation on 45. The song’s fuel comes from the almost folky simplicity of its hooks (you can imagine “I almost prayed” being murmured repeatedly at a folk night) and its directness. Place a mid-eighties production over that, and you’re smothering the track in padding when its bare bones need to be visible. Here is a song, after all, with limited chord structures and a simple swing which veers close to something approaching pop, but is ultimately too melancholy – it’s the sound of damp, drizzly nights spent by the coast attempting thought-walks, an introvert’s basic whistling tune. It’s not a daring, bold statement, which is what the band probably wanted their debut single to be, but it is strangely beautiful, which is all that matters in the long term.

So here it is... Merry Christmas

 

This will be the last blog entry until the absolute tail end of December, so myself (and Wayne Hussey and Noddy Holder above) would like to wish you a Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading the blog and I hope our journey from 1983 through to the middle of 1986 has been a pleasurable one - we started by dining on Goth Rock and the final specks of meat on the Oi! carcass, and have finished on Goth Rock, not by design, but by sheer luck... and if you thought Wayne Hussey wasn't remotely Christmassy, you'd obviously forgotten about the Metal Gurus above. Serendipity is our friend this Yuletide. 

I'm hugely grateful for everyone who has stuck around reading this year - you've been a loyal audience with barely any sign of dropping away - but this is still a fairly niche, obscure blog and it could really use a lift. If you like it and want to share the joy on social media, or better still want to link back to it from your own site, I'd really appreciate it. I do this for pleasure rather than any attempt to build a profile, but nonetheless having an influx of new readers would definitely spur me on throughout 2026.

At this risk of sounding like I'm doing an Alan Partridge/ Noel Edmonds styled address, there have been a small number of people over the last year who haven't enjoyed this blog, but (to my relief) almost all of the criticisms were pre-empted by the FAQ when I launched. Of course, nobody reads FAQs, so it's worth reiterating the fact that this blog can never function as a fansite. If you're a particular fan of a band or artist being covered, there may be moments when it gets frustrating because it feels as if I'm stating the obvious or even moving towards cliches, but that's for the benefit of all the people out there (non-UK readers in particular) who may never have heard a note of their work and just need some basic scene-setting. Once we've got that out of the way, I try, to the best of my ability, to try and find something new to say. Of course, if your favourite group didn't ever hit the Indie Number One spot, then you're really stuck in the land of pith (this pains me sometimes as well; I'd like to have written more about Felt and The Fall in particular, but neither group ever reached the top spot in the NME rundown). 

Here's a thought, though - in 2026, why not start your own blog? It's a dying hobby, but in these challenging times the world needs more enthusiasm and passion, in whatever form it comes. Be the change you want to see and give us all a better year. I want more things to read! See you again soon.

80. The Mission - Serpent's Kiss (Chapter 22)

Three weeks at number one from 14th June 1986

During my final year of sixth form college, I developed a slight crush on a goth girl in the year below (Cliche alert - I realise this isn’t remotely uncommon. Almost every male friend my age has suffered a similar predicament, and almost every female goth has had to toss away unwanted Valentines). Shamefully, I can’t remember her name for certain – which indicates that she obviously didn’t work her way into my affections to an unhealthy degree – but I can still remember how studiedly and absolutely she embodied ‘the look’, even getting angry when she ‘caught some sun’ and freckled her nose at an outdoor gig, ruining her pale skin plan. I also loved the confident way she played up to her dorkiness rather than trying to hide it under self-conscious posturing. She seemed friendly, quietly funny and unbelievably cool in a way almost everyone else I knew wasn’t.

I thought I’d kept my admiration for her on the downlow, but obviously not, because one night outside the local nightclub one of my friends drunkenly blurted out “Oi Dave, it’s that goth girl you fancy!” while she was within earshot. Clearly my poker face needed work. After she split with her unbelievably lanky, long-faced and permanently weary looking boyfriend, who it seemed had been her other half since birth, she awkwardly initiated further conversations with me and gave the impression she might be interested.

Reader, as I’m sure you’ve already gathered, it didn’t happen. I can’t remember the reasons, but her finding another suitor who was just more gothic than me was almost certainly the prime factor. I had something of a quiet aversion to the key things that made her world revolve, feigning interest whenever we spoke but probably never being able to successfully conceal my doubt. Some time before this, a friend or acquaintance gave me a C90 compilation tape of current goth sounds and I listened, trying to get to grips with it. By the thirtieth minute, I was bored shitless and realised I was never going to commit to a lifestyle that had so much dreary sludge as its soundtrack. 

Thanks to this blog, I’ve been thinking back to that sliding doors moment a lot lately, and wondering if maybe my friend did me – and goth in general – a disservice. He focused on the long, soporific aspects which leaned towards the seriously morbid and epic. While ploughing through the indie charts for this blog, I’ve been forced to remember that musically speaking, goth was actually a much broader genre than that, to the point of near-meaninglessness. Besides the punk originators (The Damned, Siouxsie And The Banshees) and their Batcave heirs, there were also groups who performed camp electronic nonsense (Alien Sex Fiend), arena-eyeing rock God goths (The Cult, Gene Loves Jezebel, *coughs* The Stone Roses) and also a bunch of groups I now think of as paisley bloused goths, adding loose-fitting hippydom to their sound (The Cure, The Bolshoi, All About Eve). These little sub-genres don’t necessarily always make sense or fit, and the groups I’ve mentioned tended to jump between them periodically, but they’ve helped me to make sense of a movement which stylistically sprawls in a number of directions.

This was perhaps demonstrated by Wayne Hussey and Andrew Eldritch's falling out while both were members of the Sisters of Mercy (which we’ve already covered in quite dramatic detail). One of the issues seemed to be that Eldritch had written new songs for the Sisters Of Mercy which were far too minimal for the rest of his group’s tastes, whereas Hussey’s were seen as too unusual. It’s not really clear how much of that eccentricity found its way into his subsequent group The Mission, but on the strength of their debut single “Serpent’s Kiss”, it would seem not much.

It starts predictably enough, filling your ears with dank guitar lines, wilted flowers and lyrics like “Ash on the carpet and dust on the mirror/ Chasing shadows and the dreaming comes clearer”, proving that Hussey had the poetry of his audience down pat. Where it suddenly shifts gear and shows its true colours – which aren’t entirely black – is in that zippy, celebratory chorus. “Screaming howl and the children play/ Serpents kiss for the words you pray” may be words which sound as if they need a reverberated steady backbeat and a gravelly vocal, but The Mission launch into them as if these child-bothering snakes are actually a good thing. It’s closer to Jim Morrison celebrating the dark arts with a forceful chorus than Bauhaus, shimmying and shaking its tight-trousered butt around the imagery rather than screaming about it.

Hussey, like Robert Smith, also gave the impression that taking the piss and even misleading the public was one of his motivations in life as well as trying to write great songs. When asked if he had “a type” when seeking out ladies, he responded with glee that his slogan could be “Wayne Hussey – he’s not fussy”. You can’t imagine Andrew Eldritch giving his game away so easily. The cheap and cheerful promo clip for “Serpent’s Kiss” is a thing of strange colour and joy too, filled with lipstick kisses from Uncle Wayne, while the group twirl multi-coloured umbrellas, and leap, lark and generally tit around in the country. Visually it has more in common with a Dukes of Stratosphear video than the rainy, rockist visuals which accompanied The Sisters “This Corrosion”.