73. Easterhouse - Whistling In The Dark (Rough Trade)

One week at number one from 15th February 1986

Regardless of their claims otherwise, the “serious” music press have always been just as susceptible to hype as glossy teen magazines. Unlike Smash Hits and their metaphorical "dumper", however, they have often been more coy about their failings, crowing about their successes while hastily burying their dud predictions. The itinerary of NME hopefuls whose subsequent careers were either cruelly brief or never got off the ground is long; from Department S to Gay Dad to Terris to Brother (all of whom were cover stars) sometimes it's been hard not to wince at the risky long shots or desperate decisions.

As 1985 drew to a close, Easterhouse began to be sold as a solid proposition. Formed by brothers Ivor and Andy Perry in 1982, their credentials were impeccable – the group's association with The Smiths was strong, beginning with a Manchester support slot in 1983, and Morrissey and Marr had loudly proclaimed their brilliance to anyone willing to listen. The band also gave socialist diatribes to a music press happy to run over the word count for such things, and their first two Martin Hannett produced singles on London Records, while poor sellers, indicated a charged yet serious band.

Despite having all these credits on their side, London Records didn’t feel it was worth the effort investing further and dropped them, leaving them to be rescued by Rough Trade where, somewhat miraculously, the press enthusiasm continued unabated. One listen to “Whistling In The Dark” gives the game away as to why; this is an incredibly good and staggeringly robust record. It opens on a swinging Motown beat which subsequently dominates throughout, but that beat is augmented with hard, heavy guitar sounds – walloped metallic bass lines meet rhythm guitar lines which sound as if they’re echoing around a steelworks. “Let’s get to the point/ Get to the heart of it” bellows Andy Perry at the start, making it immediately clear that this was a band for whom toughness and directness were seen as virtues.

In a world where a band’s presence in the indie charts increasingly meant either deeply experimental music or delicate whimsy (or in the case of the Cocteau Twins, both) “Whistling” suggests that the powerful ideas birthed by punk rock weren’t necessarily exhausted. The music press were quick to suggest that Easterhouse may be Rough Trade’s Clash to The Smiths’ Pistols as a result, but in reality the bark and swing of the track feels as if it owes a bigger debt to The Jam; there’s the same strident, hectoring edge combined with a muscular but nonetheless irresistible delivery. 

Just when you think the track has shot its load and made its point, the final few moments turn out to be among the finest – “Don’t get caught the same way twice/ You give them money for old rage” yells Perry and the group completely let loose, thrashing, jangling and upping the dynamism past the point you thought it possible for them to go. It is, in short, a fine single and one I still play to this day.

Despite this, Easterhouse’s problem in the long term was multi-faceted. Firstly, a straightforward political punk revival clearly wasn't going to happen; even Paul Weller didn't want his records to sound like The Jam by this point. Besides that, the mid-eighties were a confused period in the music business, and nobody at either Rough Trade or any of the major labels seemed to effectively predict the way the wind was blowing. One of the common bets being placed by journalists and A&R reps was that if alternative music was going to crossover, it was going to have to adopt mainstream arena rock's production values and delivery. Throughout 1986 and slightly beyond, groups such as Goodbye Mr Mackenzie and Love And Money took the attitude and the sound of the alternative sector but turned their noise on vinyl into something airbrushed, vast and blown out. In the mid-eighties, any indie band getting signed to a major may have ended up sounding faintly like Big Country or Simple Minds in the end.

39. New Order - Confusion (Factory)

Three weeks at number one from w/e 10th September 1983

In 1991, a peculiar, almost unprecedented chart quirk occurred. Bryan Adams’ single “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” held firm at number one for so long that his label A&M were faced with a tricky decision – should they hold back his follow-up single “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” until it ran out of steam (which it showed no imminent signs of doing) or just put it out anyway and risk it being overshadowed?

Ultimately, A&M took the latter route, leading to the absurd spectacle of “Can’t Stop” rising, peaking and falling out of the charts before its elder brother had fallen from the top spot. Radio stations gave it some begrudging plays and DJs asked daft questions like “I wonder if he can do it again with this one?” but everyone knew the answer to that question already. In 1991 at least, Bryan Adams was going to be The Bloke With The Robin Hood Song to Mr and Mrs Woolworths.

Obviously I’m troubling you with seemingly unrelated Bryan Adams trivia because New Order were faced with a similar flattering but awkward problem in 1983. “Blue Monday” was proving to have such longevity with both British post-punk kids and common-or-garden clubbers that any follow-up single was going to find itself competing with its predecessor both critically and commercially. On the official charts “Confusion” did lead the way for a few weeks, peaking at a very respectable number 12 (the same peak position as Adams’ “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started”, serendipity fans) before being usurped by their earlier release rising back up above it. It was almost as if “Confusion” served the purpose of reminding the public that New Order had another better single in the shops at the same time.

Despite being one of New Order’s biggest eighties hits, “Confusion” doesn’t seem to have quite recovered from being overshadowed. I can’t remember the last time I heard the original mix on the radio and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it played in a club (although this is certainly an "age thing" – the US club charts point towards lots of turntable spins over there at least). It was slightly grudgingly well-reviewed at the time, with lots of luke-warm praise littered with reservations; Tom Hibbert's half-hearted verdict of "vaguely toe-tapping" in Smash Hits not being entirely atypical. It didn’t appear to be what people expected.

I have to wonder if the shadow cast by “Blue Monday” was the only problem here. Immersing myself in this single again, the first thing I’m struck by is a hesitancy and uncertainty we haven’t heard from New Order since “Everything’s Gone Green”. Bernard Sumner feels fractionally out of time with the rhythm track and strangely ill at ease with the limits of his vocals for the first couple of minutes at least. Arthur Baker was one of the most credible American producers of the era, a painfully cool operator despite his unremarkable hairy appearance, and the group sound almost cowed, desperate to impress and slot neatly alongside his plans.

Eventually everything coheres, but the boisterous, Americanised chanting of “Why can’t you see – What – You – Mean – TO – ME!” feels tacked on, like a badge of New York street credibility piercing the skin of an underfed, pale Manc kid. More than on any post-Blue Monday record of New Order’s career, the group sound like they know what they want to be rather than aware of the strengths of who they truly are, but an unexpectedly monstrous hit will often create these schisms.