Showing posts with label Violators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Violators. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

41b. The Smiths - This Charming Man (Rough Trade)

 















Returned to number one for six more weeks on w/e 3rd December 1983

The Assembly's "Never Never" may have been a huge chart hit, but The Smiths finished 1983 as an ever-growing and unstoppable cult, and in the world of the indie charts, the ferocity of the cult is everything. The underground kids are the ones marching towards Rough Trade en masse to buy the most important new record, after all, not the biggest pop hit. 

That "This Charming Man" managed only week at the top in November felt implausibly stingy at the time, so it's no surprise to see them back on top and managing to hold that position until well into 1984. It's a result that disrupts the natural flow and timeline of this blog somewhat - it would have been much better to see out 1983 and begin 1984 with a brand new track - but sometimes an excess of liquid causes the jug to overflow, and all we can do is mop up the mess around the table as best we can.

Here is what happened in the rest of the indie charts while The Smiths were back at number one.

Week One

12. Birthday Party - "Mutiny! EP" (Mute)

Peak position: 3

The final release following Birthday Party's split in mid-1983, the "Mutiny!" EP shows Nick Cave clearly moving towards the Bad Seeds style. While nobody would dare to suggest that the title track "Jennifer's Veil" was anything approaching pop music, the chaotic fury of their earliest releases has now totally been replaced by something much more controlled but no less sinister. Cave is the clear leader here while the rest of the group twang and strum behind. 

20. The Higsons: "Push Out The Boat" (Waap)

Peak position: 14

Charlie Higson and his boys were deeply unlucky not to score a genuine hit in the early eighties - if Pigbag managed to cross over with their angular dancefloor friendly post-punk, there's absolutely no reason why The Higsons frequently more commercial singles couldn't have become a bigger deal as well.

"Push Out The Boat" probably emerged far too late in the day, just as the tide was going out for this kind of affair, but it's an absolute triumph, combining taut dancefloor grooves with a sense of urgency and purpose so many of their compatriots were too cool to get close to. If it weren't for the fact that Higson eventually became best known as a comedy writer and performer, chances are he would have enjoyed a stronger reappraisal at the turn of the 21st Century, but by that point he didn't seem obscure enough or "serious" enough for the Hoxton Hipsters. 


21. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - He's Read (Red Rhino)

Peak position: 21


27. !Action Pact! - Question of Choice (Fall Out)

Peak position: 19


Week Two

15. New Model Army - Great Expectations (Abstract)

Peak position: 15

New Model Army would rapidly go on to become a huge cult rock band, simultaneously blessed and cursed with a fanbase who were almost as fanatical as The Smiths' tribe, but often more confrontational. Stories abounded of interested punters casually turning up to their gigs and being beaten up for not looking the part. 

Unlike The Exploited, it's hard to imagine New Model Army encouraging this behaviour. While their political ideologies were often strict and puritanical, the group themselves were keen for the ideas to reach as large an audience as possible. Their second single "Great Expectations" is a sneering attack both on the way naive capitalist ideas worm their way into both the education system and parenting. "They said 'Son, it could all be yours, you just work hard and pay your dues/ Don't be content with what you've got, there's always more that you can want/ Everybody's on the make - that's what made this country great" - these are words which could just as easily have been written yesterday as in the Thatcherite sunlit uplands of 1983. 

Unlike a lot of the political rants that bind up the indie charts, NMA put across their ideas with both a degree of intelligence and relish. "Great Expectations" is a tight morality tale accompanied with a sneering thrash, and a chorus which Paul Weller (who they probably hated) wouldn't have been ashamed of. 



Tuesday, December 17, 2024

28. Yazoo - The Other Side Of Love (Mute)

























Number one for one week from w/e 4th December 1982


By 1982, it was becoming unusual for artists to issue singles which weren’t tracks on their current or subsequent albums. The major labels in particular had begun to work to a very simple and successful model, which saw singles as potentially loss-making promotional devices for the albums. As well as forking out for expensive videos, they were even happy to bundle expensive free gifts with singles in chart-return shops; famously, there’s the case of Rod Stewart’s single “Baby Jane” potentially reaching the top spot in ‘83 thanks to the free Adidas t-shirt that accompanied it in the “right” stores.

Indie labels couldn’t afford to play those kinds of games, and besides the financial constraints, Indie artists often had ideas of their own, asking to put out stand-alone singles which didn’t appear on any of their studio albums. There were a number of motivations for this – perhaps they were sitting on something which didn’t fit thematically with their current LP, but felt too good to be left cooling on the shelf. Maybe they wanted to experiment with a new direction, or had enough similar ideas for an EP but not a whole album. Possibly they felt that making fans pay for the same songs twice was just a rip off. Or sometimes… and this is harsh, but hear me out… perhaps it dawned on them that the track just wasn’t good enough to put on their next 33rpm platter.

“The Other Side Of Love” is an example of one of these orphaned singles. As the first piece of fresh Yazoo material to emerge since the release of their debut album “Upstairs at Erics”, it should have created much more of a buzz than it did, but the end result was a number 13 national chart placing, their only single to fail to reach the top three in the UK. When the group reformed in 2008 for some live shows, Alison Moyet was asked why it had no place in their set list. She described it as “A bit wank. It’s my least favourite track”.

In truth, “The Other Side Of Love” isn’t terrible but it’s certainly the pair’s weakest single. Built on a backbeat of cheapo electro-bongos and Binatone bleeps and trills, and fleshed out with a repetitive, “Just Can’t Get Enough” styled riff, it feels as if Clarke was reaching backwards for inspiration rather than looking forwards. Moyet does her best to insert some passion into her delivery, but for the first time it sounds mismatched – the song needs lightness of touch to succeed as a piece of bright synthpop, and instead gets a treatment that’s almost too loaded for it to bear.

At the risk of sounding like a Disc and Music Echo critic from 1965, the main thing the track has in its favour is an upbeat, catchy charm that slowly becomes more appealing after the first few listens. Speaking purely from personal experience, though, “The Other Side Of Love” is the only Yazoo single whose melody you can’t recall if it’s been a few years since your last listen. It sticks to an extent, and the central riffs are naggingly insistent, but it never burns itself into your brain, forever remaining one of those forgotten singles whose contents are doomed to be on the tip of your tongue until you press “Play” on Spotify.