105. Sugarcubes - Birthday (One Little Indian)

Two weeks at number one from 31st October 1987

As a kid, I developed a strange fascination for the furthest flung bits of the globe – the sparse, underpopulated areas which contained people I’d never met, whose beliefs and customs I’d never been exposed to. Living in London, I’d been introduced to all kinds of non-British people, even if they were just being irritating tourists in the street, but some places felt deeply enigmatic. I’d nag my Mum about this, initially in seriousness, then eventually just to be an annoying, repetitive arsehole.

“Mum, can we go to Greenland on holiday?” I asked.

“No. There’s nothing there,” she sighed. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
“There can’t just be nothing there.”
“It’s as close to nothing as you can get, it’s expensive, and we’re not paying all that money to go there and sit surrounded by snow and ice. If you want to go to Greenland, you’re going to have to pay for it when you get older.”

I still haven’t been to Greenland (largely because my wife isn't up for it either). I have, however, been to Iceland a few times, a country which was similarly at the forefront of my childhood obsessions. It’s not a cheap place to visit by anyone’s standards, but it is halfway to Canada, which has on occasion made it a handy stopping off point for those long trips to see my in-laws. You can pause, mood-bathe in the sheer weirdness of eternal daylight or constant nighttime, get scalped by a couple of Arctic Terns, eat some Puffin (or actually, don’t), wander around the wild coastline, or just walk the brightly coloured streets and feel as if you’re somewhere which has still clung on to its own distinct identity; which hasn’t been Big Macced up to its eyeballs. Aside from the hot thermal springs, a Penis Museum and the rugged landscape, there are no huge tourist attractions in Iceland as such, just the comforting sense that you’re somewhere which prides itself on its differences.

When “Birthday” was released, most of the music press seemed to focus on the country of Iceland rather than the group themselves – as if the entire population, rather than a single group, had released a new record. Smash Hits just listed some facts about the country in their “Mutterings” section and The Chart Show’s info boxes barely mentioned the group at all. Strange behaviour indeed, especially as The Sugarcubes weren’t even the first Icelandic group to get exposure in the UK; Mezzoforte had a sizeable jazz funk hit with “Garden Party” some years before (which we’ve covered in passing) and their parent Steinar label even had a British arm for a time, pumping out other Icelandic records to the British public by artists such as Puzzle, You And I and Joe Ericson.

The reason the music press seem to have suddenly become Icelandphiles became apparent when I finally saw One Little Indian’s original press release for “Birthday” - the vast bulk of it was covered in Iceland facts; proof if it were needed that many music journalists are idle buggers who, when faced with an inexplicable and leftfield record, would rather just copy the contents of the press release into their word processors.

Because “Birthday” is, even by the standards of 2026, a deeply strange record. The guitars whine and weep, bells ring as if struck by stray poltergeists, ponderous percussive elements wobble down stairs, then Bjork's echoing, sky-reaching howling seeps in to create something actually really very creepy. The word "beautiful" has been occasionally used to describe the single, but it's not a well sounding record to my ears; it reaches, it surges, it staggers, it collapses like a yearning ballad being played from a vinyl record on a boat at choppy seas. In fact, chances are if you investigated the noise, you would find an empty boat bereft of a crew, and a turntable inexplicably playing this – Bjork’s screech being answered by gulls.

Comparisons were made to the Cocteau Twins at the time, but while that group could stab discords and abrupt handbrake turns into their work, they were, for the most part, following fairly predictable melodic paths. “Birthday” see-saws uncomfortably, not wanting the listener to get too settled.

The video, screened on "The Chart Show" more times than I can sensibly count, adds to the sense of unease. The background picture is Bjork dancing and singing in an empty room with a darkened window. The foreground shot zooms in and out of Bjork's face, and as it zooms in she becomes pixellated like a Crimewatch video of a witness talking about a heinous murder. It's cheap and basic, but it again gives the impression of something slightly more sinister afoot.

Bjork later referred to this as a "tasteless pop song", clarifying: "It’s a story about a love affair between a five year old girl, a secret and a man who lives next door. The song’s called Birthday because it’s his fiftieth birthday... I was always changing my mind about what the lyrics should be about. I had the atmosphere right from the start but not the facts. It finally ended up concentrating on this experience I remembered having as a little girl, among many other little girls’ experiences. It’s like huge men, about fifty or so, affect little girls very erotically but nothing happens . . . nothing is done, just this very strong feeling. I picked on this subject to show that anything can affect you erotically; material, a tree, anything.”

Which doesn't really clarify anything concretely, except to say that from the foundations up (the premise, the overall sound, the delivery) "Birthday" is consciously awkward, naive and confused, reaching for past emotions it can't get to or properly explain, and seems to want to unnerve the listener with its ideas.

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

Four weeks at number one from 25th April 1987

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

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

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

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

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

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

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”.

55. Depeche Mode - Blasphemous Rumours (Mute)

 

Four weeks at number one from w/e 17th November 1984

A point that sometimes gets missed about Depeche Mode – but seems only too obvious when you get neck-deep into the band’s catalogue – is that three of the group’s founding members (Gore, Fletcher, Clarke) were regular church-goers before they formed, and the other (Gahan) had a mother who was in the Salvation Army.

While Gore has offered strange reasons for his regular attendance at his Basildon church, putting forward the somewhat limp justification that there was “nothing else to do on Sunday” (a situation that applied to most teens, including me a mere five miles or so down the road, but I managed without) Gahan’s response to his mother’s exhortations to go to church on Sunday was less honest, and he instead chose to bunk off and go cycling instead. If you had to quickly characterise the two members with childhood anecdotes, these would be good places to start; Gore being compliant and gently shrugging his way towards group activities he couldn’t entirely see eye-to-eye with, while Gahan’s life was filled with action and rebellion.

Sunday service appeared to fascinate Gore, however, and he developed a morbid obsession with the prayers being offered for the sick parishioners there. “The person at the top of the list [of names] was guaranteed to die, but still everyone went right ahead thanking God for carrying out His will,” he later remarked. Long after Gore had bothered attending church, these memories appeared to feed their way into the group’s twelfth single, and final release of the most commercially fruitful year of their career.

If “Master and Servant” tested the waters topically and almost got banned by Radio One, “Blasphemous Rumours” was, from start to finish, the biggest act of commercial suicide committed by the group so far. A diatribe against the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Christian faith, there are no gentle metaphors on offer here, Gore instead choosing to tell his tale in plain language as if he’s spluttering in an outraged fashion in the local pub.

“Girl of sixteen, whole life ahead of her/ Slashed her wrists, bored with life” Gahan rattles off like a telex machine listing the facts. “Didn't succeed, thank the Lord/ For small mercies”. After the first run of the damning chorus about God and his sick sense of humour, we then learn of a girl of eighteen who “found new life in Jesus Christ” and was subsequently “Hit by a car, ended up/ On a life support machine”. It’s not clear if it’s the same girl, whose boredom has been replaced two years later by a sense of virtuous purpose only for her to be killed off in a ho-ho ironic fashion, or a different one – but the effect is the same and God is, as Neil Tennant would later opine in Smash Hits, given a “thorough ticking off”.

If the central message alone was likely to get the church and Christian figures irritated, the song is strangely unsubtle, in places forsaking melody in favour of discordant lines more likely to be favoured by horror film soundtracks, combined with slowly collapsing metallic clangs and gurgling, sucking noises. It not only wants to mention a life support machine, it wants to give you an impression of what one sounds like (I remain thankfully ignorant of whether the group's attempts are accurate or not, but they do seem to strangely imitate a trip to the dental hygienist).

The overwhelming effect is close, lyrically speaking, to second wave punk rock delivered in a synthetic, ambient way. If you took these lyrics and transplanted them to a three chord rant delivered by the likes of Blitz, little would feel out of place; only the context of the mournful pop chorus changes things. “Blasphemous Rumours” is angry in its own strange way, favouring the use of 1984’s sampling technology to get its point across over the previous decade’s brutal and simple lo-fi thrash.

44. The Smiths – What Difference Does It Make? (Rough Trade)

9 weeks at number one from w/e 28th January 1984

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, despite their enviable string of hits, have not been given much respect in the UK. Besides belonging to the cohort of groups with bloody silly names which sound gimmicky rather than mysterious, they were fronted by ex-copper Dee; he may have been the first policeman on the scene of the car crash which killed Eddie Cochran, but other than that didn’t really ooze rock and roll. In every single one of his video performances online, he gives the impression of being the steady pop professional, delivering the songs of others with gentle, almost suppressed stage flourishes (he even cracks a whip in “Legend of Xanadu” like he’s trying to flick the residue of some treacle off his hand.)

The songwriters behind the group, Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard, were a different matter. Both were gay men who had worked with Joe Meek and penned songs which occasionally nudged and winked towards homosexual society for anyone paying enough attention. The Honeycombs 1964 flop single “Eyes” is a painful, agonised track about finding love in secret, shadowy places away from society’s gaze, combined with disordered pinging guitars and almost proto-post-punk pattering drum patterns. Meek adored it, the public begged to differ. Then, in 1968, they foisted the ominously titled “Last Night In Soho” on to DDBMT.

In typical fashion, “Last Night In Soho” isn’t explicit, but over a keening, grumbling cello, dramatic church organ flourishes and almost hysterical orchestrations, Dave Dee protests that he thought “I’d find strength to make me go straight”, “I’m just not worthy of you”, and “I’ve never told you of some things I’ve done I’m so ashamed of”. These, however, are coupled with the notion that something else happened in Soho that night which was criminal but not sexual; references are also made to a mysterious “little job” some lads in Soho have offered to Dave Dee, which he should take if he doesn’t want “aggravation” – but anyone waiting for the song’s conclusion to tell them exactly what the protagonist has done would be wasting their time. It is locked up tight as a mystery, a riddle wrapped in a lot of hand-wringing drama, though even in 1968 you have to wonder how anyone could have concluded that perhaps he held up a Post Office. The camp hysteria gives the game away by itself.

I’ve no idea if Morrissey was thinking about “Last Night In Soho” when he penned the lyrics for “What Difference Does It Make”. I somehow doubt it, but given his eclectic tastes in sixties pop, it’s possible. Whatever the facts, it falls back on the same narrative devices, teasing and riddling the listener, just less hysterically. It addresses an unknown other and begins on the line “All men have secrets and here is mine/ so let it be known” before failing to actually reveal the issue to the listener, only telling us the person the song is directed at, whom Morrissey would “leap in front of a flying bullet” for (why was he always so obsessed with sacrifice?) is now disgusted by his revelations. This is seen to be foolish - “Your prejudice won’t keep you warm tonight”, he warns. This feels, shall we say, similar, but there’s a different tone here. There is no begging for forgiveness, no shame; whatever will be will be.

Once again though, some plausible deniability creeps in and the idea is aired that Morrissey’s crime might actually be an arrestable offence by 1984’s standards – “I stole and lied and why?/ Because you asked me to!” The idea that this is just about something darkly illegal is also hinted at by the record’s sleeve, showing actor Terence Stamp cheerily holding up a chloroform patch; the still in question is from the film “The Collector”, in which Stamp’s character stalks and kidnaps an attractive female art student. There’s an alternative lyrical reading here which is altogether nastier than someone simply coming out of the closet, by the standards of any age.