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.

77. New Order - Shellshock (Factory)

Four weeks at number one from 5th April 1986

After four successive indie number ones from bands who had never graced the top spot before, here we are, back with the big boys on terra firma, gazing with wonder at their luxurious Peter Savile sleeves. Right from the start of this blog, New Order have had a dominant presence, scoring the eighth number one with “Everything’s Gone Green” then afterwards failing to reach the top (with a non-import release) only once.

Both they and Depeche Mode have been the two constant presences throughout, and that throws us a distinct challenge; whereas Depeche grew up in public and reacted against their earliest material in some interesting – and very occasionally misguided – ways, New Order eventually became (and indeed remain) comparatively staid fellows on vinyl. Dressing up games and intense, friendly interviews with the media were not their thing; the group’s lack of tolerance for the latter was summed up neatly when Peter Hook roared with laughter at an innocent business question following the collapse of Factory, then said “You journalists. You think you know it all”.

What that leaves us with is the recorded evidence and its gentle, unforced evolution (yeah, I know - the fiends) and also the reaction from outside their fanbase, which tended to vary from bowled over (“Blue Monday”) to frankly indifferent – their previous single “Sub-Culture” failed to even get inside the National Top 60.

“Shellshock” marks something of an about-turn in their declining commercial performance. Possibly helped by its appearance in the “Pretty In Pink” soundtrack and the fact that it wasn’t available on any other album, the single returned them to the Sunday chart rundown with a number 28 peak. Perhaps mindful of the fact that they’d pushed the twitch and groove of modern club music into the background of their more recent singles, they collaborated with producer John Robie whose 1983 club hit “One More Shot” they had admired.

It subsequently becomes the basis for “Shellshock” without a single riff being wholly lifted; but its ghost is there in that jerky, propulsive beat, in the continued sense of peril and danger (though it eschews the broken glass noises, which perhaps felt as if they were tempting fate on the dancefloor). The cries of “One! More! Shot!” get replaced by the blare of “Shellshock!” and the track stammers into life, introducing the symphonic touches New Order were always compelled to use when they were at their most ambitious. Picked strings meet autumnal, world-weary melodies, thrashed guitars, a stuttering drum machine and one of their most powerful and purposeful choruses in a long time. While I prefer the “Substance” edit of the 12 inch for taking the correct decision to cut the most hesitant verse and leave it on the studio floor, ten minutes doesn’t necessarily feel too long for this track. It has enough drama and enough of a groove to hold its own.

What it also has throughout is a noticeable itchiness and irritation. New Order singles were very often led by Sumner sulking about life’s personal disappointments like a moping child – a tendency some critics were keen to mock. “Shellshock” positively bristles, though, with Sumner discovering he can actually growl. Listen to the almost Jon Bon Jovi-esque snarl of “Another day goes by and ALL I do is cry”, or the finger-stabbing delivery of “All I get from YOU is Shellshock”. This isn’t an insolent, murmured objection behind the privacy of a closed bedroom door. It’s the sound of a tin can being hurled down the street, a young adult man’s stomp loud enough to get the neighbour’s curtains twitching.