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.

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.

64b. The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary (Beggars Banquet)

 

Five more weeks at number one from w/e 10th August 1985

If there's one consistent pattern on this journey through the indie charts, it's that the summer period sees a reduction in new releases combined with a general sales slump. 

On an interesting week, this will allow relatively minor groups (such as The Men They Couldn't Hang or March Violets) to claim the top slot. On less fascinating occasions, it just means that a dominant single can reclaim the crown again for a longer period, and by jingo, that's exactly what The Cult do on this occasion, gluing themselves to number one for a further five weeks.

As always, we'll pass the time by looking at what was stirring lower down the charts.

Week One

8. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Tupelo (Mute)

Peak position: 2

Frontrunners to kick The Cult off the top spot, Nick Cave and his bad blokes nonetheless failed to do the necessary with "Tupelo". In its own strange way, the single has perhaps been just as enduring as "She Sells Sanctuary", its stomping, stropping, thumping and snarling core defining what the average casual music listener probably thinks the Bad Seeds are all about - a kind of agitated, gibbering modern blues. 

"Tupelo" is one of those unusual records which sounds as if it could have been recorded and released in any decade before or since. The fact it's loosely based on a John Lee Hooker track gives it a certain amount of that timelessness, but the dirt, grime and agitation stretches far beyond those basic roots. 

12. Terry and Gerry - Banking on Simon (In Tape)

Peak position: 4

1985 seemed to be riddled with indie performers whose visibility was largely limited to that single year, and here are our favourite skiffling twosome back again with another whipsmart ditty. "Banking On Simon" is like "Making Plans For Nigel" if it had emerged on Pye Nixa in 1956 rather than on Virgin in 1979, and you can probably already imagine how it goes - it almost feels as if the duo are grinning and winking at you through the stereo speakers. 

While they were indisputably bloody good at this sort of thing, you can easily understand how they became a novelty flash rather than a long-term smoulder; in the absence of any kind of surrounding skiffle revival, they were strange outliers, a retro peculiarity for the anti-fashion kids and an easy and unusual topic for the music press to write about that summer. 

15. APB - Summer Love (Big River)

Peak position: 15

APB got funkier as time went on, and "Summer Love" is their most commercial single yet, mixing fat distorted guitars with superb grooves, orchestral hits and vocals which are oddly celebratory for a post-punk record. Had it been released a year or two earlier, this probably would have been an actual proper hit, but no matter - it still caught enough ears in 1985 to make a vague dent in the public consciousness.

20. Icicle Works - Seven Horses (Beggars Banquet)

Peak position: 15

28. Minor Threat - Salad Days (Discord)

Peak position: 15

Week Two

16. The Janitors - Chicken Stew (In Tape)

Peak position: 10

We're nearly three quarters of the way through the year at this point, and the C86 beacon is starting to flash with greater intensity. Primal Scream and The Pastels have already covered off the twee jangly end of the spectrum, and while The Janitors here may never have found space on that "seminal" (TM) cassette compilation, their approach here echoes the wigged out treble-heavy earfuck of the more experimental end. 

Guitars bend and squeal, the Casio click track shuffles, and "Chicken Stew" sounds cheap and might even be nasty, but only in the rock and roll sense of the word. Whatever blues Nick Cave is going through on "Tupelo", The Janitors are arguably also kinda feeling here, but on a Fostex Four Track with a drum machine. Proper indie, in other words, as opposed to Depeche Mode bankrolled indie - if such things matter to you. 

23. Peter and the Test Tube Babies - Rotting in the Fart Sack (Metal Knob)

Peak position: 8

26. The Bomb Party - New Messiah (Abstract)

Peak position: 26

 

Week Three

12. The Triffids - You Don't Miss Your Water (Til Your Well Runs Dry) (Hot)

Peak position: 7

By 1985, Australians were beginning to take up more and more space in the music press as the groundswell of talent from the country made itself internationally known. That Triffids seem to have subsequently have become a footnote isn't really indicative of the fuss they stirred up at the time, and "You Don't Miss Your Water" showcased a band with almost head-spinning confidence. While a number of UK post-punk bands occasionally nervously licked the outer edges of country rock, this single sees the group confidently plunge the depths, and they return to the surface with reluctance, as if they always belonged deep down there.

58. The Smiths - How Soon Is Now (Rough Trade)

Two weeks at number one from w/e 2nd March 1985

There’s a huge “what if?” surrounding “How Soon is Now?”. It's one of The Smiths most enduring tracks; when I was round my friend’s houses as a teen, it was there. When I was finally old enough to go to alternative nightclubs, it shot out loud and proud. When I packed up my things and went to university, it followed me, and whenever anyone mentions The Smiths in a brief piece on radio or television, it is still to this day somewhere in the background.

Very few bands are lucky enough to write songs which end up becoming slightly clumsily described as "legendary". Most amble their way through their brief careers pushing out material which is well-liked by a small section of the public, but usually left behind by radio and television a few years later, only fondly reminisced about by fans who complain you don’t hear them in public often enough nowadays.

Ironically then, nobody at Rough Trade foresaw that “How Soon Is Now?” would be so highly regarded. They worried that it didn’t sound sufficiently Smithsian and, as a result, relegated it to the B-side of the twelve inch single of their previous release “William It Was Really Nothing”. Only the growing number of fans bothering DJ’s with requests to hear it on evening Radio One shows and continued club play forced a panicked reassessment of the situation and its eventual re-release as an A-side, but by then, everyone who owned a copy of the 12” single of “William” already had it, and the new B-sides “Well I Wonder” and “Oscillate Wildly” on the reissue didn’t seem to be creating as much excitement.

The net result was the peculiar situation of a potentially huge single peaking at number 24 in the UK chart (though it managed a fairer number 5 in Ireland) and a mere couple of weeks on top of the NME indie chart. Oops.

In Rough Trade’s defence, you can understand their concerns. The group were still establishing themselves, and the previous Smiths singles had been chiming, intricate and melodic affairs. “How Soon Is Now” consists of Johnny Marr locking himself into a shimmering but dirty hypnotic groove, offering only anguished howls from his guitar as any kind of diversion or punctuation. If The Smiths other singles are restless with possibility, with Marr’s guitar lines ricocheting all over the place and unearthing a new melody every thirty seconds, “How Soon Is Now” is locked on one killer hook and trusts it implicitly. Grooves, even of the swampy, unconventional kind, were not the kinds of things Smiths records entertained prior to this point.

On top, Morrissey delivers his anguished tale of being unloved and unlovable in some of the most unusually direct language heard on a Smiths 45 prior to this point. The opening line “I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar” is probably the most poetic. The rest descends into direct emotional bloodletting which may or may not have been inspired by the singer visiting gay clubs – my lawyer has instructed me not to speculate – but nonetheless said something a lot of teenagers, whether gay or straight, wanted to hear.

As an adolescent, there’s a tendency to believe that everyone around you is either being adored by a significant other, or could be if they so chose. It’s only in adulthood that most of us look back and realise that the two 14 year olds we knew who held hands and kissed for an entire year were freaks rather than a couple to be envied, and everyone else was either being dumped and publicly humiliated by a different person every third week, or being ignored like the other 75% of the school year. Morrissey singing “I am human and I need to be loved/ Just like everyone else does” was catnip to thousands of underdeveloped brains and souls who felt that only they were missing out on tenderness, but it also became a clear message for those who were shy and awkward adults, or just plain undesirable (and there are many cruel ways people can end up “difficult to love”, often outside their control). Heard one particular way it’s a teenage whine. To another person in another set of circumstances, it’s a banner to be held aloft at a protest march society has yet to schedule.