Fucked it folks, will probably be the morra before I listen to the backlog, couldn't settle so have went on the sauce a bit earlier than anticipated.

SHED RULE

Album 540.
The Style Council..........................Cafe Bleu   (1984)











Sorry for the delay folks, had to do a bit extra work before the match Friday night, then post match drinks led onto Saturday all day then "em no' going anywhere so lave is alane" Sunday, which meant back at the graft full pelt yesterday and the day.


So, "Cafe Bleu," I bought it back n the day mainly on the back of liking the Jam, as mentioned previously there was no you tube, I tunes or Spotify back then, you had to rely on maybe the wireless or the music papers or do what I done and just take a punt.


When I seen the iconic cover I was sold, so I bought the LP and took it home, now, when I seen it turn up in the book the other day I tried to remember playing it in my hoose, but I can't recall playing it very often and to be honest listening to it again I remembered why......... I didn't particularly like it.


For this listener it was just a bit too much of a mixture that didn't leave much substance, a case of "Betty Turpin's Hotpot," throw in lots of varied styes/moods, and abiddy will like at least some o' it, and to be fair I did like some of it, "Head Start To Happiness," is good foot tapper and "Your The Best Thing," holds great memories but as we both moved on but still meet once or twice a year, my lips are sealed, but thon "Strength of Your Nature" sheeeesh!


I think a lot of Jam fans if they were truthful would have thought this a bit insipid, I much prefer the gutsy in your face style of the Jam, in a way I think I was quite unlucky as I was there at the outset of Weller's career, and for me I have tended to like him progressively less as the years have passed, whereas someone who maybe was of an age that their first encounter was when he was solo and had taken a shine to his music, and then worked their way back to through his career to the Jam surely get the best end of the bargain in my humbles.


This was just too eclectic fir me, just as I was starting to get into it he'd hit you with a jazzy track or "Gospel," holy fuck what wis that a aboot, put me right aff meh gemme. I wouldn't buy this album again so it wont be going into my vinyl collection.





Bits & Bobs;



Headstart For Happiness – the early Style Council years



When the curtain came down on The Jam in late ’82 it was undoubtedly a relief for Weller. The intensity of their message was simply weighing too heavily on his young shoulders. The music just too constrictive for his burgeoning mind. It should have perhaps come as no surprise that his next musical venture was going to be lighter in tone.


What was perhaps most shocking was just how adventurous and carefree he sounded on those early singles and albums. Formed almost immediately after the demise of his former charges Weller joined forces with South West Londoner (and fellow Mod) Mick Talbot, who had already played on a couple of Jam tracks (including, single The Eton Rifles) to rage against the Rock machine that had gone before.



 Taking MacInnes’ Absolute Beginner’s template to Modernism the duo eschewed Parka’s for continental Alan Delon style cream macs and the monochromatic punk-rock xerox machine palette was swapped for vivid spruce green shirts and pillar-box red summer-weight knitwear. Gone were the stage-shoes and white terri-towelling socks and in came horse-bit suede loafers and correspondence toned tassel loafers; shoes so beautiful that socks were simply not needed.


 The gritty high-rise and dirty-grey London town backdrops to their photo shoots were replaced first by the artful and romantic Parisienne streets; all Gauloise smoke, bitter espresso’s and La Monde newspapers before succumbing to the sun-kissed azure skies and fields of gold spun wheat, wind-blown scarlet poppies and dancing effervescent waterfalls of Europe’s capitals. Truly; The Style Council were a band that were broadening their horizons.


 Musically, the pair of passionate Modernists did what all Modernists should do and magpied the best of everything, whilst adding their own personal twist. Debut single Speak Like a Child (March ’83) was the opening salvo with its title taken either from Herbie Hancock’s ’68 Blue Note album or the possibly the single by Tim Hardin, both of whom were influencing the pair at the time; It had a joyful soul swing married to an organ groove that mined from Surrender to the Rhythm by Brinsley Schwarz. It’s light-hearted video atop an open-top bus around the desolate fields of Wales was a long way from the claustrophobic intensity of The Jam. It shot up the charts before nestling at number 4.


 Money Go Round (Part’s one and two) followed just a couple of months later. It’s title a steal from The Kinks (Lola verses The Powerman and the Money Go Round LP) and despite its taut slap-bass funk groove, trombone hook and half rap half socialist rant it is perhaps closer to The Jam sound than even later hit single Walls Come Tumbling Down – it really wouldn’t have been out of place on The Gift; alongside Precious or Transglobal Express. Far better was the track hidden away on the reverse of the 12” Headstart For Happiness.


 This beautiful uplifting song defines the spirit of the band like no other – the stunning lyrics were the new manifesto for the new breed:

 ‘Naïve and wise with no sense of time, as I set my clock with a heart-beat, tick tock
Violent and mild, common-sense say’s I’m wild, with this mixed up fury, crazy beauty…’



 Lyrically Weller was in a purple patch, and the cinematic beauty of their next single, the bona-fide classic Long Hot Summer (title from 1958 Paul Newman film) was a huge hit across Europe – provisionally entitled the A Paris EP (plaintive pieces from the Parisian pair) it also contained one of Mick Talbot’s finest contributions Le Depart, which echoed the cinematic feel of the A-side.


 Its video though was another nail in the Rock coffin – playful and coquettish and taking a visual lead from the homo-eroticism of Brideshead Revisited (not for the first time – check out the lyrics for Pity Poor Alfie) with a half-naked Weller fondling Mick Talbot’s earlobes to the synth bass-line soft bongo percussion of new drum lieutenant of just 17 summers Steve White – it had many a Jam fan spluttering into their Cappuccino. The single reached number 3 and became their highest chart position and deserved higher. A revisited and remixed version also charted in 1989.


 Steve White also appeared on the follow-up single (and fourth in a year – imagine that now kids!!!) A Solid Bond In Your Heart, which like Money-Go-Round reached No 11, was another hark back to The Jam days. The song was actually written the year before and was vetoed as their swan-song in favour of The Beat Surrender. It sounded dated in comparison to what had preceded it and despite a wailing saxophone the four-to-the-floor Northern Soul stomp belonged a life-time away. Again, significantly better was the B-side It Just Came to Pieces in My Hands. Even the video seemed to be a throw-back to a Jam Mod image, although Weller’s hair in it is rightly considered as the definite Mod barnet.


The year ended with the mini album Introducing The Style Council which was released only in Japan, Australia, Holland, Canada and the US containing their recorded output to date, but still sold well in Dutch Import sales alone.

 ‘Daylight turns to Moonlight and I’m at my best…’ is Mod captured in less than 10 words.



 The first line of their 1984 single My Ever Changing Moods with its Isley Brothers soul-funk groove was another big hit (UK No 5), including for the first time the US where it reached top 30 – Weller’s highest single chart position there; before or since. The success of the single meant that their debut album   Café Bleu released in March was renamed after the single in the US.





Café Bleu has got to go down in music history as one of the most surprising and eclectic albums of all time. It is a massive departure from The Jam (and indeed Rock in general) – It is a melting pot of the band’s influences musically and incredibly Weller (arguably the bands biggest draw) sings on less than half the tracks. The Hammond-cool opener Micks Blessing (similar to Moods B-Side Micks Company) is a great introduction its Jazz stylings and echoes throughout the album with its use of Jazzy chords and all out BeBop on the Steve White showcase Dropping Bombs on the White House.


 Guest vocalists Tracey Thorn (from Everything but the Girl) adds her haunting tone to A Paris EP tune The Paris Match and Rapper Dizzy Heights appears on cod-rap (and probably one weak track) A Gospel. In amongst the jazzy-acoustic near solo numbers are reworked versions of Moods, Headstart For Happiness (featuring new band member D C Lee) and future single You’re the Best Thing before ending on another Hammond Workout Council Meetin’ – A truly stunning debut that (A Gospel aside) still sounds incredibly fresh and vibrant today.



 Taken from the Album, You’re the Best Thing was the lead track to the Groovin’ single backed with track The Big Boss Groove a jazz-swing number complete with a wailing harmonica courtesy of Weller also charted at No 5, and up until the release of You Do Something To Me some 20 years later You’re The Best Thing was the go-to Weller Wedding song of choice, with its beautiful glissando guitar line and Curtis falsetto; it remains one of his most complete all-round songs.




Amazingly the run of incredible singles continued with soul stomper Shout To The Top, with a strident piano and uplifting lyric it reached number 7 in the charts. Perhaps a little at odds to the earlier singles was the use of Warsaw in the video with its purveying greyness and communist brutalist architecture showing the way to the following year of Miners, Militancy, Live Aid and Lenny Henry as well as an increasing political bent. The B-side, the haunting and sombre beneath the gun-towers love song of Ghosts of Dauchau was as sobering as the 12” companion The Piccadilly Trail, again flirting with homoerotic tension, was as uplifting with its summery percussion.


 The Style Council became a household name across the World in 1985 and released their best-selling album Our Favourite Shop – it was a return (in part) to the intensity of The Jam albeit with perhaps more direct lyricism and less direct musical assault, and as brilliant as it is I can’t help but miss those first two years of incredible spiritually uplifting output and simple joie De Vivre that so defined their sound. It remains one of Weller’s favourite times musically ‘like being in a youth club’ as he once described it… and who doesn’t want to relive their youth every once and a while.




"The Whole Point Of No Return"



A call to arms for the common man to rise up against, in this instance, the British peerage system, but more broadly those in power who oppress the weak. This is serious stuff, not theoretical change by referendum and policy. This is guillotine style revolt.



"My Ever Changing Moods"
 
Composed by lead singer Paul Weller, this song is a homage to Curtis Mayfield with overtones of nuclear threat. Weller told Mojo: "It started from the title. I thought, 'What a great title, My Ever Changing Mood. But it's about nuclear holocaust as well. 'The hush before the silence, the winds after the blast' and all that. I think it's probably like a lot of songs I've done... they start of being about myself and then I get bored with it and I make it into something else."



The song peaked at #29 on the Hot 100. It remains Paul Weller's greatest success on the US charts (including his releases as a member of The Jam and as a solo artist). Cafe Bleu was renamed Ever Changing Moods in America to cash in on the song's success.




The official UK debut arrived in March 1984 with producers Weller and Peter Wilson constructing a soulful and emotionally appealing disc that showed the outfit in an eclectic light with songs ranging from jazz soaked instrumentals – Talbot’s speciality – to perfect pop.


Adding Honourary Councillors Ben Watt and Tracey Thorne, from Everything But the Girl, Weller then-wife Dee C. Lee on vocals, specialist horn players and Bobby Valentino’s violin, this excellent album is also noteworthy for the use of bass and brass synths, Weller on the bass guitar and flute sound and many other surprise delights. Dizzy Hite’s rap on “Gospel” is one; the clavinet on “Council Meeting” is another. Weller’s  “The Whole Point Of No Return” is a slice of bliss and producer Wilson’s subtle drum programming is vital to the effect of “You’re The Best Thing”, a piece that should delight anyone who loves Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions.


The perennially popular “My Ever Changing Moods” with its sax and trumpet funk arrangement reached #25 in the American chart and it was decided to rename the US release with that title.


The Jam this was not: Weller it most definitely was.



On being a mod: "I still love the whole look, the music, the imagery, the attitude, even the scooters. It will always be in my heart."



On Coldplay: "I've met Chris Martin and I don't want to slag him off because he's a lovely lad, but his music is too fucking bland."



On looking sharp: “I come from a time when every kid dressed up. Everybody. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to hang out. It was very tribal. There's nice things in that. It's culture, it's roots for me.”



On bands who reform: "I find it really sad. It’s a sad statement on the music, really. There’s loads of great new bands out there. Why do people get off on nostalgia? I don’t get it.”



On preachy rock stars: "People like Bob Geldof, setting themselves up as spokesmen for the kids, make me spew."  (maybe a wee bit pot & kettle no?)



On fashion: “[In the 70s/80s] You'd see people in the street and know exactly what they were into. Which you can't really say about people today, when they're wearing tracksuits as daywear.”



On the lost art of album artwork: “You could take out the inner sleeve, and spend ages just looking at and reading it. Now you don't even have that – people just download the music and that's it.” (Amen to that!)



On reforming The Jam: "That will never, ever happen. Me and my children would have to be destitute and starving in the gutter before I'd even consider that, and I don't think that'll happen anyway. I'd get a job working on a van or with the builders. I'm against all bands reforming - I think it's really sad."



On experimentation: "I went through my 'confused sexuality' time in The Style Council. But it never went further than me and Mick Talbot stroking each other's ear lobes in a video. The truth is I don't really fancy blokes."



On Sting: "He's a horrible man. Not my cup of tea at all. Fucking rubbish. No edge, no attitude, no nothing."



On being stereotyped as The Modfather: "I don't really give a fuck, to be honest with you. I don't really mind how people perceive it; I'm only interested to see if they get it. You can't really stop people's preconceived ideas, can you?"   No you wanker...............sorry, got all preconceptionist all of a sudden.



 
 

arabchanter wrote:

Album 542.
Echo & The Bunnymen.........................Ocean Rain   (1984)













While their peers U2 and Simple Minds were playing stadiums, Echo & The Bunnymen were touring islands off the west coast of Scotland. Ocean Rain proves which ultimately was more rewarding (artistically.)


Epic and romantic, but less cryptic than previous albums, it employed an orchestra to add soaring strings and flourishes, also Ian McCulloch who crooned and occasionally stuttered out lyrics that shunned self-indulgence in favour of warmth and poetry never sounded better.


The confidence of Ocean Rain means it stands the test of time better than any other Bunnymen album. "Our definitive statement," said McCulloch











 

Listened to this again whilst getting on with some life admin.  Decent background but imo not a patch on U2 or Simple Minds and quite different.  Reminded me why I didn't get into them first time around - didn't mind them, but there was better stuff out there.

Album 541.
Tina Turner..........................................Private Dancer   (1984)











So Tina Turner eh, great voice---ish, great pins, wouldn't have minded going three rounds with her back in the day, although she would probably tossed me roond the room like a rag doll, but I'm no' one fir complaining right enough.


On this album Tina Turner does show her talented vocals to their upmost, but fir this listener I can only go her in small digestible chunks, two or at most three songs back to back, any more grates on me as much as a Shaba/BoJo  interview would.


Production wise I thought it was of a higher grade, and I did like "What's Love Got to Do with It" no usually my type of thing, "I Can't Stand the Rain" and "Let's Stay Together" but being an old fart I have to say I preferred the originals of the last two tracks by Ann Peebles and Al Green, but good tracks none the less.


I liked Tina Turner probably more in the Ike days, not so much "River deep" but "Nutbush City Limits" and "Proud Mary" but then again I did like CCR's original version of that one a lot better, so this album was a bit hit and miss fir me, I've mentioned the hits but what about the misses, thon "Private Dancer" seven fuckin' minutes, that can get tae fuck straight away, and "Help" and "1984," away and throw shite at the moon you lunatic, who thought she'd carry them off FFS.


This album wont be going into my vinyl collection, and I've just put myself in a bad mood thinking about them tracks, but calmed down thinking aboot them fishnets she's wearing on the cover, stockings or tights? I'd like to think the former.






Bits & Bobs;



Turner is known as a consummate professional when it comes to recording. Rupert Hine, who did songwriting and production work on three of her '80s albums, said: "She's extremely special and I've never ever witnessed such a one-take wonder as Tina Turner. And that's because she approaches things in such a diligent way and she 'owns the song' - that's the phrase she used to use, which basically means she sings along with it at home. I give her a songwriter's demo and then she'll sing it in her key. And then the point where she sings along with the tape and she feels she's got it, it's now her song. Then she'll call me up and say, 'Okay, it's my song now. I'm ready.' Then I literally go and pick her up, take her to the studio, and with not even a cup of tea or any sort of small talk, she'll go straight up to the microphone and give it one take. She'd be professionally happy to give you as many takes as you'd like, but you don't need it. The one take is just extraordinary. And if you ask her how she does that, she says, 'I do it the same way I do all my live vocals. When I go up and stand in front of a quarter of a million people in Brazil and sing at one concert, each song I only sing once.'"


 
The 1993 movie What's Love Got To Do With It is about her life. Angela Bassett stars as Turner.


 
Her real name is Anna Mae Bullock. Ike Turner convinced her to change it, and he like the name Tina because it sounded like "Sheena," who was queen of the jungle.


 
She married bandleader Ike Turner in 1958. She divorced him in 1978 after years of abuse. She had four children with Ike. She took nothing in the divorce and supported them on her own, briefly living on food stamps.


 
A 24-year-old Bryan Adams was her support act on Turner's Private Dancer tour, and would perform "It's Only Love" with Tina on stage. Adams said: "I used to go to see her in the clubs when I was in my late teens/early 20s before she hit the big time. It was incredible to watch her. Amazingly when we toured together years later, I never saw Tina walk through a performance, she always put on a great show, and was gracious and grateful to her audience."


 
She sang with Mick Jagger at Live Aid in 1985. In the '60s, she and Ike toured with The Rolling Stones in the US. Turner complained later that Mick Jagger had stolen many of her dance moves.


 
In 1985, she acted with Mel Gibson in the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and also sang the theme song. Other movies she's appeared in: The Big T.N.T. Show (1966), Gimme Shelter (1970), It's Your Thing (1970), Tommy (1975), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) and Last Action Hero (1993).


 
Tina's hair fell out in 1960 after she tried to bleach it - she's been wearing wigs ever since.


 
Her nose was surgically reconstructed after it was repeatedly broken by Ike.


 
She was a cheerleader and played on the girl's basketball team while in high school.


 
Turner has been a practicing Buddhist since 1975.


 
She is part Navajo and part Cherokee.


 
At the Grammy awards in 2008, Tina was the subject of a tribute where she performed "Proud Mary" with Beyonce, who introduced Tina Turner as "The Queen." The introduction didn't go over well with Aretha Franklin, who is known as the "Queen Of Soul."


 She had the highest grossing tour in the year 2000.


 
Tina was the top grossing act of the year 2000. Her farewell tour made $80 Million in 95 performances.


 
Tina Turner married German music producer Erwin Bach in a discreet civil ceremony on the banks of Lake Zurich in the summer of 2013. David Bowie, Sade and talk show impresario Oprah Winfrey were among the more than 120 guests who were invited for a private celebration at her lakeside chateau.


 
Tina Turner's legs were described by George W. Bush as "the most famous in show business."


 
Tina Turner has been living in Switzerland since 1994. She relinquished her US citizenship in 2013 and is now a Swiss citizen


.
 
When Tina Turner was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016, she opted for homeopathic remedies to treat her high blood pressure instead of medication. This caused kidney failure; Turner considered assisted suicide until her husband, Erwin Bach, donated a kidney to her.






By the dawn of the 80s, as the MTV generation was about to awaken, Tina Turner was seen as a relic from an earlier generation. Oh, her music and her legendary live performances weren’t forgotten — the work she did with her husband Ike Turner still resonated — but it was “oldies” music. The press was more interested in the shocking details of her years of torment at the hands of her husband, her dramatic escape from his clutches, and their bitter and acrimonious divorce proceedings. After her harrowing escape from their brutally abusive marriage in 1976, Tina tried to resuscitate her career with minimal success. She performed in Vegas, was a regular guest on variety TV shows, and toured regularly — but she wasn’t able to make a dent on the charts, and radio wasn’t interested in what she had to offer. She was a legend at the time of her peak, sure, but those years had long past. Tina’s first album without the input of her ex-husband was 1978’s “Rough,” a disparate combination of rock, R&B and disco that was widely ignored. She followed that with “Love Explosion” in 1979, a much more heavily disco-influenced album that also sank without a trace. Although she continued touring with some degree of success with her Vegas-style show, relying heavily on her old hits like “River Deep, Mountain High” and “Proud Mary,” her career was going nowhere.
Tina’s signing with manager Roger Davies turned out to be a key turning point. He helped refine her live act, changing it from a 70s-style costume-heavy review inspired by variety shows to a more straightforward, stripped-down rock set. It worked, and her live performances started generating buzz. Davies booked her at a series of key clubs like The Ritz, where stars lined up to see her. She landed a gig opening a few nights for the Rolling Stones on their tour in support of the massively successful “Tattoo You” album. Tina started getting some great press for her live performances.


 Despite all this new momentum, a record deal remained elusive. It was a fortunate chance encounter with two new-wavers from Britain that would eventually start the path that led to Tina Turner’s spectacular comeback album, “Private Dancer.”  Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh were early champions of electronic music and original members of The Human League. They clashed with Human League vocalist Phil Oakey over his desire for a more commercial sound, and they ended up leaving the band in 1980 (prior to The Human League’s major success with the “Dare” album and their iconic single “Don’t You Want Me”). The duo would go on to form the core of Heaven 17, and they worked together on a number of other projects. One of them, released under the name B.E.F. (British Electronic Foundation), was a compilation called “Music of Quality and Distinction Volume One,” which featured various artists recording classic R&B tunes.  They invited Tina Turner to record The Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion,” and she delivered a powerhouse vocal performance. Featuring an edgy new wave, synthesizer-heavy approach, it was a different, new, exciting sound for Tina. “Ball of Confusion” was released as a single and became a substantial hit in parts of Europe. It proved to be the spark Tina needed, and the template for how to bring her into the modern era. The success of “Ball of Confusion” drew the attention of Capital Records A&R man John Carter, and despite strong doubts by upper-level management at Capital, he signed her to a record deal.


 Tina continued to tour while also recording a variety of material in search of the right single and material to formulate her first album for Capital Records. She recorded a handful of tracks with John Carter overseeing the sessions, including a searing cover of The Animals “When I Was Young,” a strutting version of The Motels’ “Total Control” (which would eventually wind up on the “We Are the World” benefit album), and the track “Rock ‘n Roll Widow” which at one point was mooted as a possible single (she performed it, along with future “Private Dancer” album track “Steel Claw” on the Johnny Carson show in 1982, two years before the album’s eventual release. “Rock ‘n Roll Widow” would eventually end up as the b-side to “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” and several other tracks recorded during this period were included on the expanded reissue of “Private Dancer” that was released in the late ‘90s).


 She also recorded several additional covers with Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh:  they tried Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” and “Having a Party” and two by  Al Green: “Take Me to the River” and a stunning version of  “Let’s Stay Together.”




Tina Turner’s recording of “Let’s Stay Together” with Ware and Marsh was the comeback single she had been waiting for. A slow-grooving alchemy of new wave, disco and sensual R&B, Tina delivered a knockout vocal on the first take. Released as a single in late 1983 in the UK and in January 1984 in the US, “Let’s Stay Together” began a slow ascent up the charts and eventually landed at #26 on the Billboard Hot 100, #3 on the R&B Chart, and it hit the top of the American Dance Chart. It was her first hit in America since “Nutbush City Limits” over a decade earlier. The song also did well in the UK, reaching #6. Tina Turner was back.


 With no album to promote, and momentum building at a feverish pitch, the rush was on.  Suddenly the previously reticent Capital Records wanted an album, and they wanted it pronto. Roger Davies and Tina decided to record in England, where they were already working with Ware and Marsh, and a number of other cutting-edge, talented producers were available. They wanted the album to have an edgy, modern feel that merged the electronic/R&B hybrid work she’d been doing with Ware and Marsh and a more straightforward rock and new wave approach


.With “Let’s Stay Together” already in the can, they assembled a set of material and producers, and the album began to take shape. British producer Terry Britten was brought in to work on several tracks. He was a songwriter of note (he penned dozens of hits over his career), and had collaborated on a track with Scottish songwriter Graham Lyle that he thought was perfect for Tina. Like many of the songs that ended up on “Private Dancer,”  “What’s Love Got To Do With It” had been sitting around for quite a while. It had been intended for Cliff Richard, a huge star in England and a frequent collaborator with Britten, but he chose not to record it.  Britten shopped it around to other artists, offering it to Donna Summer and Phyllis Hyman with no luck. Tina herself was initially reluctant to record the track, but she finally relented, and a classic was born.  



The “Private Dancer” album and the “What’s Love Got To Do With It” single were released nearly simultaneously at the dawn of the summer of ’84. “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” a catchy, reggae-tinged number with a vocal that Tina delivered with real soul and feeling, rocketed up the charts. Helped along by a memorable video that received substantial MTV support, “What’s Love Got to Do With It” hit #1 in the US in early September and stayed lodged at the top for a full 4 weeks.  It was Tina’s first ever #1 single in the US, and paved the way for the “Private Dancer” album to become a worldwide smash. It hit #3 on the Billboard Album Charts and went platinum in the US five times over. 


 The next single was the rock/new-wave hybrid “Better Be Good To Me.”  Written by prolific songwriters Mike Chapman, Holly Knight and Nicky Chinn, the track was another one that had been sitting around for a while before landing in Tina’s lap. Holly Knight’s band Spider had recorded the track several years earlier, but it didn’t gain any traction.  Producer Rupert Hine, who was coming off substantial success with The Fixx’s “Reach the Beach” album and their cutting-edge single “One Thing Leads To Another,” was brought in to produce a couple tracks for the album, including “Better Be Good To Me.”  He enlisted members of The Fixx, including guitarist Jamie West-Oram and vocalist Cy Curnin, and Tina delivered yet another stunning, passionate vocal.  A song of defiance that tied into her life story perfectly, “Better Be Good To Me” kept Tina’s momentum building and became a Top 5 hit in the US.  She had proven that she could hit with an R&B dance song, a pop song, and now an edgy rock track.




The title song became the next single.  Released in late October, “Private Dancer” featured a striking video with Tina as a jaded ballroom dancer. The song was produced by John Carter and written by Dire Straits front-man Mark Knopfler. It was a leftover track from their previous album “Love Over Gold,” as Knopfler felt the song should be sung from a female perspective and they only recorded an instrumental.  Dire Straits (minus Knopfler, whose guitar part was played by Jeff Beck) were brought in to record the song. The long, moody, sensual track became one of Tina’s signature songs.  Featuring a terrific sax solo by British musician Mel Collins (who had also performed the famous sax solo on the Stones’ “Miss You”), it became another Top 10 hit in the US and reinforced Tina Turner’s incredible ability as a vocalist — nobody can deliver a line like Tina.  She infuses just the right phrasing for the moment, the right amount of drama and passion:  “Deutchmarks or dollars, American Express will do nicely, thank you! Let me loosen up your collar… Tell me, do you want to see me do the shimmy again?” It’s impossible to imagine anybody but Tina delivering those classic lines.


 A couple more singles followed. The American market got the straightforward blues-rocker “Show Some Respect,” another Terry Britten composition and production.  It was a minor hit in the US when it was released in early ’85.  The rest of the world got another Terry Britten-produced track, Tina’s cover of Ann Peebles’ 1973 R&B hit “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” Built around a simple, repetitive looping keyboard riff and augmented by synthesizer bursts, it was another terrific performance and a great song-choice for Tina. 


 “Private Dancer” is best known for its classic singles, but there really isn’t a weak cut on the album. The finest moment on the album may be its opener, the hard rocking “I Might Have Been Queen (Soul Survivor)”. One of the few tracks written specifically for the album, the lyrics were penned by songwriter Jeanette Obstoj (who would go on to co-write several tracks with The Fixx, including their hit “Secret Separation”) and the music by producer Rupert Hine and guitarist Jamie West-Oram of The Fixx, who would also perform on the song. It’s a remarkable track. Listen to the bridge, starting at the 2:28 point, as it slowly builds intensity and power until the song’s dramatic emotional release at the 3:04 point as Tina belts out defiantly “Oh, I’m a Soul Survivor!”  Indeed she is.  


 Along with their previously recorded “Let’s Stay Together,” Tina recorded another cover with the duo of Marsh and Ware:  a dramatic take on David Bowie’s nugget from the “Diamond Dogs” album, “1984.” John Carter produced the frenetic rocker “Steel Claw,” a song written by acclaimed Irish songwriter Paul Brady that Tina had been performing in her live show for some time. “Steel Claw” features one of the best vocal deliveries on the album — her phrasing is dead-on, wickedly perfect.  


 “Private Dancer” is nothing less than the epitome of a phoenix rising from the ashes.  Forgotten and forsaken, reduced to performing her old hits in Vegas-style reviews and appearing on cheesy TV shows, Tina Turner deserved far better. Her legacy of remarkable R&B and rock recordings with her husband Ike is legendary, and her perseverance and strength in escaping her hellish nightmare with him was so extraordinary that it was turned into a major feature film, the acclaimed “What’s Love Got To Do With It” starring Angela Bassett. “Private Dancer” remains one of the most important albums of the decade. It would garner four Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “What’s Love Got to Do With It” and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for “Better Be Good To Me.”  That night at the 1985 Grammy Awards belonged to Tina.  Her appearance on stage in a stunning red dress to perform “What’s Love Got to Do With It” was a significant moment of triumph that was lost on nobody who was watching. From escaping an abusive marriage by checking into a hotel room, all alone, with no money — to being the Queen of the Ball at the Grammy’s, performing her #1 signature song in front of rock royalty and millions of fans… quite a journey.  “Private Dancer” shouldn’t have worked, but somehow it did. The material on it came from disparate sources — covers, songs that had been passed on by other artists, some new material — by various songwriters and producers.  But it had terrific songs, a talented group of producers and musicians, and, most importantly, what tied it together and made it gel into a cohesive album was Tina herself. Her sheer presence, the power of her vocal delivery and interpretation, and the overriding endurance and strength in the face of obstacles that would have been impossible for most to overcome infused the album. Once she hit with “Let’s Stay Together” and released a killer single in “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” the media, critics and fans were all on her side. Her story was so compelling, her music so extraordinary, her performances so kinetic and fearless – – everyone wanted her to be successful.  She was an inspiration, and remains so to this day.


 Released when she was 44 years old, “Private Dancer” would launch a second, far more successful and long-lasting career for Tina.  She would go on to score more major hits over the years: “We Don’t Need Another Hero” from the film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” in which Tina delivered a knockout performance as Aunty Entity, “Typical Male”, “What You Get is What You See,” “The Best,” “Steamy Windows,” “Goldeneye” from the James Bond film of the same name, and “I Don’t Wanna Fight” just to name a few. She’s continued recording and performing, and is an undisputed musical legend.  Now 73, her public appearances have started to slow in recent years, but she toured as recently as 2008-2009 with a set of dates billed as “Tina! 50th Anniversary Tour.”  “Private Dancer” is the album that set all of these things in motion, and brought Tina Turner the stature and success that she deserved — and when it comes down to it, we can all thank former Human League and Heaven 17 members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh for providing the spark that led to “Let’s Stay Together,” which started the whole transformation. A remarkable album, an even more remarkable story. Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” is the greatest comeback album in rock and roll history. 




Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock, and brought up in the tiny Southern town of Nutbush, Tennessee, which she celebrated in her self-penned 1973 funk anthem, Nutbush City Limits.



When she was in high school, her sister Allene took Tina to Club Imperial in St Louis, where she met the R&B bandleader Ike Turner. When, in 1960, the singer due to record Ike's latest single, A Fool For Love, didn't show up at the studio, Tina gladly substituted for her. Her debut scored a number two hit in the R&B charts, and made the top 30 in the pop chart.







Ike created her raunchy on-stage persona, with golden wigs, flailing legs and breath-taking mini-skirts. Ike figured that any wife of his had to be seen to be the baddest woman in town, but often would fly into a jealous rage as a result.



One lothario smitten by Tina was Mick Jagger, who hired Ike and Tina on The Rolling Stones' ill-fated US tour of 1969. Tina later claimed that Jagger had stolen many of her moves.



Another admirer was the producer Phil Spector, with whose help Ike and Tina sought to break out of the black R&B market. During sessions for River Deep, Mountain High, Spector reputedly pushed Tina to the limit in a baking hot studio, to the point where she performed without a shirt.



Ike and Turner's biggest hit was Proud Mary, a cover version of a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival, which reached number four in America and won a Grammy.



Ike lost control of his cocaine habit, spiralling into violent rages, chillingly documented in Tina's autobiography. In 1974, contrastingly, Tina became a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, after being converted by a friend. Much later, while on tour in the Eighties, she would chant for three hours a day.



Her first two solo albums, including 1975's Acid Queen, which aimed to capitalise on her appearance in the Who's Tommy movie, both flopped disastrously.



In 1976 she fled from Ike after a violent row before a show in Dallas. She left, carrying 36 cents and a gas-station credit card. They divorced in 1978, with Tina accepting responsibility for debts incurred by cancelled gigs and unpaid taxes.



Two further solo albums, one filled with rock covers, the other a disco affair, also flopped. She toured as a lounge act in America, and, by 1981, no record label would touch her. Her career only perked up after a trip to Europe to work with Sheffield's British Electric Foundation, an offshoot of the Human League.



Her big breakthrough came with a sweeping rendition of Al Green's Let's Stay Together. With 1984's What's Love Got to Do With It?, Tina became the oldest female artist to have US number one hit. However, she reputedly found much of the accompanying Private Dancer album too wishy-washy: she'd wanted to cut a hard-rock record in the style of AC/DC.



With Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, she launched a movie career. Of her startling debut role as Aunty Entity, Tina said: "She was not as fierce as I wanted her to be… I don't want you falling asleep in my movies."



After leaving Ike, Tina didn't get into another serious relationship until 1985, when she met a German record executive 17 years her junior named Erwin Bach, while at Heathrow Airport. They started dating, and soon moved in together in Cologne.



After appearing at Live Aid with Mick Jagger in 1985, Tina was joined on stage during a televised show by David Bowie. Bowie had always admired her from afar, but rarely met her, until they sang Tonight together that night. According to legend, when he whispers in her ear, he's making an unequivocal proposal. She laughs, and they spend the rest of the song in a cosy clinch.



Towards the end of 1988's Break Every Rule tour, which was billed as her farewell, Tina broke the world record for the largest paying audience at a solo concert – 184,000 people, at the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro.


She's still listed in the Guinness Book of Records for selling more concert tickets than any solo performer in history. She has sold around 200 million records.



In 1994, Tina and Erwin took her now considerable fortune and moved to Switzerland. They also have a villa on the Côte d'Azur. In 2013, Tina relinquished her US citizenship, after becoming a Swiss citizen.


The Tennessee State Route 19 between Brownsville and Nutbush was named Tina Turner Highway in 2001.



On her election by the Kennedy Centre Honours in 2005, President George W Bush, at the White House reception afterwards, noted that her legs are "the most famous in showbusiness". Others paying tribute included Al Green, Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé.



Performing with Beyoncé at the 2008 Grammy's, Tina made her first major appearance since 2000. In October 2008 she began her last tour to date, marking 50 years since her first recording.




"I Might Have Been Queen"


 The song talks about spirituality, and the Buddhist belief in reincarnation. In fact, the singer became a Buddhist  in the 70s.

 Rupert Hine and Jeanette Obstoj wrote it while spending an evening with Tina at Rupert’s house. The singer talked about it in the book Classic Albums:


They ended up writing about the spiritual side of my life. You know, I might have been queen, all that I’d lived through. We talked about everything.




What’s Love Got to Do With It What's Love Got To Do With It was the third single released from Tina Turner’s fifth album Private Dancer.

 The song was first offered to Cliff Richard, but it ended up being rejected. Then, the song was given to the late Phyllis Hyman who wanted to record the song, but Clive Davis (from Arista Records) didn’t allow her to.

 Donna Summer was later offered the song, but never recorded it. Before Tina Turner recorded What’s Love Got to Do With It, Bucks Fizz was offered the song and it was supposed to be featured on their album I Hear Talk, but after Tina released the song as a single, their version was shelved until 2000.

 The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 3 weeks in 1984 and was certified Gold by the RIAA. It also peaked at #8 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and managed to chart on Billboard’s dance music and R&B singles chart.

 Internationally, What’s Love Got to Do With It topped the charts in Australia and Canada. It also peaked at #3 on the U.K. Singles chart.

 The song won three awards at the 1985 Grammys for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.


"Show Some Respect"

 Show Some Respect is a single released from Tina Turner’s album Private Dancer.


 The song peaked at #37 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #50 on Billboard’s R&B Singles chart. It also managed to chart in Canada & New Zealand.



"I Can't Stand The Rain"


This is about the Ann Peebles version

 
This steamy heartbreaker is about a woman who can't stand the sound of rain against her window, since it reminds her of her lost love (note the double meaning of window pane/pain in the lyric).




The African American singer-songwriter Ann Peebles wrote the song with her husband, Don Bryant, and the radio broadcaster Bernard "Bernie" Miller. The number originated from an offhand comment made by the singer when the threesome were preparing to head out to a Blues show one evening and it began tipping down with rain. "It was pouring outside and I just said, I can't stand this rain," recalled Peebles to Mojo magazine March 2014. "And I think it was Don who perked up: 'That's a good title.' We sat down and began to write. We started writing and forgot all about the rain."


 


The dramatic raindrop intro was provided by an electronic timbale, which was newly installed in the studio. It was an unusual choice, as Pop songs generally evoked rain via pizzicato violins in those days.


 
A Disco version of this song was an international hit for Eruption in 1978. Eruption was a British-based American R&B act who were taken under the wing of Boney M's producer Frank Farian. He signed the group with Germany-based Hansa Records in 1977 and they covered this song for their first album. It became the group's biggest hit, peaking at #18 in the US and #5 in the UK.


 
Tina Turner recorded the song for her 1984 Private Dancer album. Released as a single, it found minor success in the US and UK, but sold well in continental Europe, reaching the Top 10 in Germany and France.


 
The chorus of Missy Elliott's 1997 debut single "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" is based around this song.


 
This was one of John Lennon's favorite tunes. In a Billboard magazine article he commented, "It's the best song ever."








"Better Be Good To Me"


This song was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman. She told the story: "I was seeing a guy at the time who kind of had this adorable little crush on me, this German guy. He came to my house and left me some flowers and a note, and it said something like, 'If you're good to me.' And I'm thinking, you know, if I can twist that around I can make it into a song."


 
Chapman and Knight wrote this for Knight's band Spider, who released the original version in 1981. Chapman and Knight wrote several hits together, including "Love Is A Battlefield" and "The Best, but this was the first song they ever wrote together. Chapman was an established songwriter, but this was new to Knight, who quickly learned she had a talent for composing songs. Says Knight: "I didn't know I was a songwriter 'til Mike Chapman told me I was. I was playing keyboard since I was 4, but I only wrote because everybody else in my band Spider was doing it, and they kind of sucked."


 
On Holly Knight's My space page, she has a video of her performing the song with Spider along with Tina Turner's version. Says Knight: "You can see how much she respects the way the song sounded, because she's not a writer. Although in my opinion the only song she wrote was one of her best ("Nutbush City Limits"). She's very good at hearing something and appreciating how it was done, and leaving it that way. So you can really hear the original singer doing it, who's a white girl, that had a very soulful voice. And you know, our record didn't do anything. The production is similar, but ours is more like Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side," hers is a little bit more upbeat and stuff. But nonetheless, it's very similar."


 
Holly Knight also wrote the Animotion hit "Obsession." She explains: "That song is very similar to 'Obsession' in as much as it's two chords. It shows you the ability to write a hit song with very little, sometimes the fewer chord changes you have the better, because then you can really write anything you want on top of it. And when you start writing a lot of chords, you have to follow the chords with the melody and you're limited. So it's a very simple tune where the chorus and the verse are the same, but the melody is different, and the instrumentation's different, and the chord inversions are different. So it doesn't necessarily occur to you that it's the same chords."


 
Nicky Chinn also received a songwriting credit for this, although he didn't work on the song. He had a deal with Mike Chapman where they shared credits.



 Rupert Hine produced this track and played all the instruments except guitar. He was working with the Fixx at the time recording their Phantoms album, and agreed to take a week off to work on Tina Turner's Private Dancer, where he produced "Better Be Good To Me" and "I Might Have Been Queen," which he also wrote. According to Hine, Turner's manager Roger Davies sorted through hundreds of songs searching for the right ones to get her comeback rolling. The only song that was written specifically for Turner was Hine's "I Might Have Been Queen."


 
Since their producer was taking some time off to work on the Tina Turner album, the Fixx guitarist Jamie West-Oram got in on the action and played on this track. Fixx lead singer Cy Curnin added backing vocals along with Rupert Hine, who played the rest of the instruments. The male backing vocals were unusual and gave the song an edgier sound that helped set it apart from similar productions.


 
This won for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female at the 1985 Grammy Awards. Turner also won that year in the category of Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for "What's Love Got To Do With It."


 
In the book Classic Albums, Turner said: "This song was very me. I could just see myself performing it. It was just right – the words and the delivery, the performance of it - and what I liked about what Rupert Hine did with it is his style of keyboard. It just blared through, and wherever you heard it, the first thing you got was that bass line that he added. That was what made that song a hit. It was my vocal and Rupert Hine's keyboard. He's got something, and it works."


 
This song was used in the season 1 episode of Miami Vice, "Give a Little, Take a Little," which aired December 7, 1984. The song peaked at #5 on the Hot 100 just two weeks earlier, so it was still very hot when the show aired. This was a boon for Miami Vice, which was fashioned after MTV and relied on contemporary music from big-name artists. In an unusual move, NBC released a soundtrack album to the series that featured this track along with others used in season 1, "Smuggler's Blues" and "In The Air Tonight" among them. It was wildly successful, going to #1 on the Albums chart in November 1985, where it stayed for a remarkable 11 weeks.


"Let’s Stay Together"

Let's Stay Together is a cover version of Al Green’s 1971 hit song.

 Tina Turner covered the song for her 1984 album Private Dancer. Her version peaked at #26 on the Billboard Hot 100, #6 on the U.K. Singles chart and topped Billboard’s Hot Dance Music\Club Play chart for two weeks in March of 1984.



"Private Dancer"

 
This song is about either a prostitute or stripper who prefers to consider herself a "Private Dancer." It describes how empty she feels inside. It was an unlikely title track to Turner's wildly successful comeback album, as the subject matter didn't relate to the singer's life or her return to fame.


 
Mark Knopfler wrote this song for his band Dire Straits, but realized that it didn't work with a guy singing it, so he pitched it to Turner, who was beginning her comeback. In a 2004 interview with her fan club, Tina Turner described her reaction when Knopfler played her the song: "Mark said this song is not for a man, it's a girl's song. He recorded it but won't use it so when he put the demo on, he sung 'I'm a private dancer, dancer for money, do what you want me to do,' I told him, 'I think you're right, it's not a song for a guy. I liked it a lot. I wasn't sure whether the girl was a hooker or a very classical private dancer but I thought I'd take it."


 
Turner didn't realize until after this song was released that is was perceived as being about a prostitute. Early in her career, she did private shows (the musical kind) in Texas, so she saw the "private dancer" as someone who performs very innocently at these events. "I can be naive about some of these things," she said in the book Classic Albums. "I took it because it was an unusual song. I'd never sung a song like it."


 
Members of Dire Straits played on this track, including their bass player John Illsley and drummer Terry Williams. Jeff Beck played the guitar solo, as Mark Knopfler did not perform on it. (wanker)


 
Turner chose this song as the title track from the album after the photo was taken for the cover. In that shot, she sits in a chair wearing a classy dress while a black cat stands in front of her, staring into the camera. She felt the photo suited the "Private Dancer" character better - it's also a more compact title than "What's Love Got To Do With It"
 


 

Album 543
Minutemen.........................Double Nickels On The Dime   (1984)







Double Nickels on the Dime is a double album by the punk-esque trio The Minutemen. The production of the album was inspired and spurred on by the release of Husker Du’s Zen Arcade double album. The Title Double Nickels on the Dime refers to driving 55mph (double nickels) on the dime (exactly) which was a joke about the Sammy Hagar song "I Can't Drive 55". (“On the dime” also refers to Interstate 10, one of the principal freeways in greater Los Angeles.)

 While growing from a punk environment, the music on this album is a diverse blend of funk, traditional rock, jazz, country music, along with hardcore punk rock. The lyrics revolve heavily around the Vietnam War and working class life.

Album 544.
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions....................Rattlesnakes   (1984)












The world conjured by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions debut album was a rarefied one. One of the finest debut album of the 1980's, Rattlesnakes is at once literary and doomed, managing to sound both European and American. Rattlesnakes was the fantasy of an intense Glasgow University philosophy  student determined to stuff as many references as possible into his songs.


It should have been ghastly, but Cole managed to imbue his lyrics with enough desire, confusion, longing and regret to stay on this side of pretentiousness. His lyrics were funny to, a line such as "must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love you knowing nothing" is as sharp as anything by pops other literate funny man Morrissey.

Tek wrote:

Mr C.

I am gonna try and post a few pics back everyday, to try and get your thread back to it's former glory.

Actually, sack that! Only seems to be page 1 of the thread that's affected.☺

Thanks for that message Tek, I wasn't looking forward to going all the way through the thread again, and thanks for sorting my avatar, going to have a wee sorty the now, cheers once again

Album 545.
Youssou N'Dour....................Immigres   (1984)











A teenage star in his native Senegal, N'Dour was still unknown beyond Africa when his band, Super Etiole De Dakar, arrived in Paris. Within a year of recording this mini-album inspired by what he saw in France, he was on such a steep incline that he was able to tour America for the first time.


The music was clearly designed for dancing........and that voice.


Will try and catch up a bit today.

Had never heard of Minutemen, so thought I'd give "Double Nickels On The Dime" a listen on Spotify today.

Listened to the first few, which I enjoyed, then thought the songs began to sound a bit different.

That's because Spotify plays random selections periodically based on your own selection, so I'll give it another go under my own control tomorrow. The boy's a good guitarist though.

Album 544.
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions....................Rattlesnakes   (1984)













Holy shite, this was a lot better than I ever wanted it to be. I was thinking "Perfect Skin? eh no' bad ay" but the rest will probably be a bit keech with Mr la-di-da Cole pontificating with his alleged prowess with prose, and his but it seems I misread the script, 'cause even starting off with the attitude of "em gonna hate this" I've ended up liking it which I suppose should speak volumes tor this offering.


This certainly was a wee diamond from the eighties, which couldn't be mistaken for any other time, nor should it. This for me is well worth a listen, I enjoyed "Speedboat" although I hate the comparison with Lou Reed, I can kinda see  where people think this, but Cole for me wisnay fit to  wipe Lou Reeds arse!


This was a well written album, great instrumentation and production, full of great hooks and sing-along jangly pop tracks, and to be fair I don't think there's a dud number on this album which really came as a bit of a shock.


This album wont be going into my album collection as I can't see me playing it that often, but it will be getting downloaded and shuffled with other tracks, but who knows in the future.





Bits & Bobs;




Always a contention for argument around the pubs and clubs into why an Englishman should receive numerous accolades in polls as a top “Scottish” act, LLOYD COLE (born 31st January 1961, Buxton in Derbyshire) is indeed an honorary Scot, having served his musical apprenticeship at Glasgow University studying philosophy and English, while forming the foundations of Caledonian cruisers, The Commotions. From wry, sophisti-pop group hits, `Perfect Skin’ and `Forest Fire’, to venerable solo star with a penchant for off-the-cuff electro-noodling (his work in 2013 with CLUSTER man Hans-Joachim Roedelius an example), cool COLE, is, by anybody’s “Standards” (the title of a second set that year!), an artist with a long and distinguished CV.




It was in the summer of ’83 when the singer-songwriter/guitarist, along with keyboardist Blair Cowan formed LLOYD COLE AND THE COMMOTIONS, roping in fellow students, Neil Clark (guitar), Stephen Irvine (drums) and Lawrence Donegan (bass) to try their hand in the burgeoning post-Postcard pop market; only the latter musician – son of skiffle legend LONNIE DONEGAN – had previous experience as a member of Scots popsters, The BLUEBELLS.




Within months they’d signed on the dotted line at Polydor Records, while fellow student support around the city’s toilet circuit of venues, helped boost sales of their classic debut single, `Perfect Skin’, wherein it cracked the Top 30 the following spring. Although not as immediate or as fruitful as their inaugural hit, `Forest Fire’ paved the way for the quintet’s seminal, Paul Hardiman-produced debut set, RATTLESNAKES (1984). Treading the thin line between brainy bard and pretentious poseur, COLE had the critics fawning over his subtle and sophisticated retro-pop. The man scored extra points for the intellectual ruminations and name-dropping (of Eve Marie Saint and Simone de Beauvoir) into the lyrics of the title track, while the jangly `Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?’ (soon-to-be a comeback hit for chanteuse SANDIE SHAW) did similar for Norman Mahler and LOVE’s Arthur Lee. COLE’s languorous croon a model of detached cool inevitably drawing comparisons with LOU REED, the record was an auspicious start to their career, and sold well enough to guarantee a Top 20 place at a time when The SMITHS were indie kingpins.




More readily endearing, `Brand New Friend’’s lilting pop melancholy was characteristic of the general mood on the Langer-Winstanley-produced Top 5 sophomore set, EASY PIECES (1985) , although the blackly humorous `Lost Weekend’ upped the tempo and provided the band with a second Top 20 hit. By this point, COLE and his Commotions, had graduated from being the darlings of the college circuit to achieve considerable crossover success and the future looked bright, even if `Cut Me Down’ only scraped into the Top 40.




Containing a few hits in the wordy-rappinghood of `My Bag’ and the fragile `Jennifer She Said’, third set – this time produced by Ian Stanley – MAINSTREAM (1987), sounded lacklustre in comparison, only `Sean Penn Blues’ (described by Lloyd as “Mr. Madonna”) partly recovering the sly wit of old. After a further flop EP (`From The Hip’) and a relatively successful swansong “best of” compilation, the band went their separate ways.




Inevitably, LLOYD COLE embarked on a solo career (having married American Elizabeth Lewis), taking Cowan, and relocating to New York, where he recruited ex-LOU REED players, Robert Quine and Fred Maher; solo artist MATTHEW SWEET played bass. The resulting album, LLOYD COLE (1990) achieved a respectable, near Top 10 chart placing but a muted critical reception, despite some genuinely evocative moments such as minor hits, `No Blue Skies’ and `Don’t Look Back’.




Save your boots, Mark E Smith: when the Commotions shot to fame, their workload made Lloyd Cole feel like he was kicking himself to death. But now he’s back in tune with his past and hitting the road, Cole has declared 2016 his Retrospective Year. He looks back with Rob Hughes

 

 They say it’s better to be reviled than simply ignored. Though in Lloyd Cole’s case, particularly during his 80s tenure as leader of the Commotions, the brickbats were sometimes a little too personal. When The Fall recorded a version of LA for John Peel in September 1985, Mark E Smith barked into a megaphone: “Lloyd Cole’s brain and face are made from cow pats!”


 This was a mere frippery, however, compared to an interview that Smith gave to The Hit earlier that month. Having run through a predictably caustic list of his current pet hates – from Frankie Goes To Hollywood and The Face to middle-class people with pullovers – he finally settled on a designated target. “Lloyd Cole’s the worst though. He’s an animal, a real A-level sixth form product,” declared Smith, adding that he was less than impressed when Cole dismissed a Fall single on Radio One’s Roundtable. “I don’t mind being slagged off by someone really good, but not by some little ponce who can’t write his way out of a paper bag… Lloyd Cole is a complete charlatan. He ought to be kicked to death.”


 This reaction may have been unduly vicious, but the Commotions were a band who left few people undecided. Theirs was a bookish, artful pop, full of ringing melodies and subtle detail, led by a sulky-voiced singer who looked like the pouty progeny of Elvis and Priscilla. Cole’s songs were dotted with literary and pop-culture motifs, from Grace Kelly and Arthur Lee to Eva Marie Saint and Simone de Beauvoir. “Yeah, we were somewhat polarising,” admits Cole from his adopted home of Easthampton in Massachusetts. “Mark E Smith used to namecheck me in his songs because I represented everything he hated. Melody Maker was the first magazine to put me on the cover, then they spent two years trying to make up for it. People thought I was showing off or namedropping, all kinds of things. But I was just writing songs, using proper nouns in the lyrics as a pretty good way of creating an image. I mean, the line ‘Grace Kelly car’ [from Four Flights Up] is pretty straightforward. There’s only one kind of car that can be. It’s only three words, after all.”


 As befitted a former student of English literature and philosophy, Cole approached lyrics like an artisan, diligently weighing his words against one another in an ongoing quest for nuance and meaning. For some people though, Commotions’ songs were overly precious. “The Smiths and Prefab Sprout started around the same time as us,” Cole recalls. “And there was still a kind of post-punk sensibility, certainly overriding rock criticism, that said street credibility was more important than intelligence. That’s one of the things Morrissey, Paddy [McAloon] and I took a stand against. It was me against the cap-sleeved T-shirts and I was very happy to be in that fight.”


 The recorded legacy of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions may be relatively slim, but it contains an array of pop wonderment. Between 1984-’87 they issued three studio albums, all of which went gold, and totted up five Top 40 hits. The first, Perfect Skin, happened to be the band’s debut single, landing them a spot on Top Of The Pops and making a MM cover star of Cole. All within three months of the Commotions signing a record deal. 


 It was a dizzying ascent by anyone’s standards, compounded by further hits in 1985 with Brand New Friend and Lost Weekend. Cole even completed a notable double: “Being a pop star was the goal,” he states. “The main things to tick off, to see if you’d succeeded in being that thing your heroes had been, were the cover of NME and appearing on Top Of The Pops. We got both of those in the first year. And to get Top Of The Pops on our first record was astounding. The only thing that was difficult was all of a sudden you never had a spare minute.”


 The Commotions’ output was repackaged last year in the shape of Collected Recordings 1983-1989. A five-CD boxset with a DVD of promo videos, it traces the rise and recession of the band, from their beginnings in Glasgow to their final send-off at an unmemorable festival in Italy. The extensive liner notes offer a rich account of this journey, including the time at university when Derek MacKillop (who went on to become the Commotions’ manager) first clapped eyes on fellow student Cole in ’81. 


 While everyone else was kitted out in jeans and trainers, a besuited Cole strolled into the seminar room smoking Players’ full-strength. MacKillop’s initial response was that “he looked like a total prat”, but he quickly became fascinated with this self-contained character. “Was I as confident as I seemed? No, I don’t think so,” says Cole. “But I realised I had to present something if I was going to make anything of myself. The way we dress is similar to animal mating rituals: we’re trying to attract the kind of people we want to be friends with. When I was younger I was at least confident enough to dress in a certain way that would alienate the people I wanted to alienate. I don’t think we can ever really be sure about who we’re attracting, but we can be pretty sure about who we’re annoying.”


 Among those that Cole did manage to attract were keyboardist Blair Cowan (a psychology student who answered his ad on the union noticeboard, looking for people who were into Television and Talking Heads), and guitarist Neil Clark. The latter had been introduced to Cole by the owner of the Tascam portastudio that he’d been borrowing to record demos. Initially billed as FUN, the trio soon morphed into The Casuals. The group lasted just two gigs, during which time Cole had already begun to move away from post-punk and into classic US R&B.


 Cole had played bass in a punk outfit, Vile Bodies, in his pre-uni days in Chorley, Lancashire. It soon lost its appeal. “Punk rock became boring pretty quickly,” he explains. “As soon as bands like Crass came along I thought, ‘Fuck this, this is rubbish!’ But I was still interested in trying to find music I hadn’t heard before. I was in the sixth form at the time and there was a record shop across from where I was living. Chic were happening and somehow I had a gut understanding that they were great, though a lot of punks didn’t want to get into that. So I started listening to “There was still a kind of post-punk sensibility, certainly overriding rock criticism, that said street credibility was more important than intelligence” people like Derek Jarman to make them. We could’ve done something like that too, and survived quite happily, but we didn’t. And that was basically because we’d gone from having a lot of time on our hands to having none at all. All of the visual ideas I had went into the Perfect Skin video. Then when it came time to make the second one I was lost. I had no idea. It was the same with 12” singles, ‘Yeah, let somebody else do that.’ Our 12” singles were shit.”


 Rattlesnakes had been in the shops for less than six months when Polydor, eager to capitalise on its success, persuaded the Commotions to start work on a follow-up in early 1985. Wholly unprepared, the band were exhausted by a schedule that involved dates around Europe and the US. Paul Hardiman was again drafted in to producer and they cut a bunch of demos at North London’s spacious Wessex Studios. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sessions were messy. 


 The Commotions’ label bosses, who were more hands-on this time around, insisted that production should instead be given over to Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, shapers of commercial records by Madness, Dexys and Elvis Costello & The Attractions. According to Polydor’s A&R man Malcolm Dunbar, the decision led to an almighty argument with Cole and co. “We didn’t want to stop working with Paul,” recalls Cole. “But in retrospect, listening to those recordings that we did at Wessex, they were weak. The singing on Brand New Friend, for instance, is awful. It’s in the wrong key. Also, we went from working in The Garden, a relatively small, mid-priced studio, to recording in this big place. I think The Specials had just finished making an album at Wessex [The Special AKA’s In The Studio]. So we went from a pretty small-scale thing to a big-scale one, and we didn’t transition easily. When the record company suggested getting Langer and Winstanley in to produce, I just remember thinking, ‘OK, let’s do it. Let’s just get on with it.’ The only regret was that we allowed ourselves to be scaremongered into the idea that if we didn’t get an album out in ’85, people would’ve forgotten who Lloyd Cole & The Commotions were by the following year. Which is obviously rubbish, because people would’ve waited for as long as we wanted for our second album. Looking back, none of us came from wealthy backgrounds, so we all had that working-class and lower middle-class insecurity.”


 Easy Pieces, issued in November ’85, was indeed a sweeter confection than its predecessor. Langer and Winstanley layered and buffed the songs with meticulous attention to detail, with keyboards softening the rough edges that had distinguished their more guitar-led debut. Cole admits today that the band might’ve been better off making Rattlesnakes II, though at the time he was happy to cite the example of his heroes as a model of how every great artist must evolve. He was a songwriter caught between his ambitions and his limitations. “You couldn’t go round and round doing the same thing,” he offers. “Looking back, it took me until about 1995 to realise I’m not like David Bowie. I’m probably closer to Van Morrison or something, in that I’m not a one-trick pony, but I don’t have an infinite variety of worlds that I can present to people.”


 Impressed with the string arrangements of Rattlesnakes, Langer and Winstanley were savvy enough to recognise the importance of Anne Dudley to the Commotions’ sound. They duly re-enlisted her for Easy Pieces. “Anne was brought in earlier and the songs weren’t necessarily as well formed,” says Cole. “Sometimes they worked really nicely, like on Brand New Friend, and other times it was less successful and less focused. I wanted brass on Easy Pieces, because I liked Rocks Off by The Rolling Stones at the time. I thought it would be that easy, but it wasn’t. What we also found out on the second album was that we’d been really lucky with Rattlesnakes, where everything had just fallen into place.”


 Despite Cole’s misgivings and less-than-enthusiastic reviews, Easy Pieces was a bigger hit than its precursor, selling more in its first week than Rattlesnakes had in a year. It parked itself at No 5 on the album chart, aided by a two Top 20 singles in the form of Brand New Friend and Lost Weekend.


 The success meant that the Commotions were now financially comfortable. Yet the process of making Easy Pieces had, in many ways, compromised the pure artistic vision that had guided Rattlesnakes. And while they were never cut out to be a stadium band, their newly-polished sound demanded bigger settings. In Australia, for example, they found themselves playing in 10,000-seater venues. The conundrum was evident. Did they want to be arena-filling types like Simple Minds or Dire Straits? Or something more down-scale and indie? In the end, they couldn’t quite decide, in Cole’s words, “whether we wanted to be Talking Heads or The Rolling Stones”.


 The gestation of the Commotions’ next album was protracted and painful. Producers were tried and discarded – the Pistols’ old hand Chris Thomas and ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland – before they settled on Ian Stanley. A former member of Tears For Fears, Stanley had helped mould arrangements on the mega-selling Songs From The Big Chair. The recording of Mainstream, its title a wry summation of the quandary Cole found himself in, dragged on for months. Having shifted from one London studio to another, the final cost was circa £300,000.


 Cole’s songs had taken on a different complexion. As Lawrence Donegan was later to point out, they were “more introspective, so the stadium rock idea gradually went out the window”. What emerged instead was a beguiling set of tunes – My Bag, Jennifer She Said, Hey Rusty and the gorgeous 29 – that often seemed to suggest that Cole was prepping himself for a solo flight. The experience, meanwhile, had been draining for all concerned. “It was such a hard album to make and I think it’s the most beautiful-sounding record we ever did,” asserts Cole. “But was it the right album to make? Did we want to make this expansive synth-pop/rock record or was there another direction we could’ve gone in? We were sort of leaning towards REM-type rock or [The Smiths’] The Headmaster Ritual-type stuff, but we became more and more democratic and just couldn’t quite decide what it was that we wanted the Commotions to be. So we fell into this sound of Mainstream.”


 The sessions over at last, Cole had simply had enough: “When the record was finished we knew that we were done [as a band]. I announced [to the band] that I wasn’t making any more Commotions records and we agreed we should do a tour to promote the album, because we’d spent a bloody year-and-a-half making it. We wanted to give the record a chance, so we kept the fact we were splitting up secret for about a year.” 


 Released in October ’87, Mainstream cracked the Top 10 but didn’t sell in anywhere near the same quantities as Easy Pieces. Nor did it spawn any big-shifting singles. Both Jennifer She Said and My Bag had failed to set the charts alight in the way the band had hoped. Eventually, their valedictory tour became a long funeral march: “We thought My Bag would be a hit, and it wasn’t, and the same went for Jennifer She Said. And from then on it was kind of a struggle,” Cole sighs. “But you book the tour and we weren’t the kind of band that cancelled tours.” 


 After their final show in Italy, the Commotions bade their farewells to one another. “It’s not like we were high school friends who formed a band,” reflects Cole. “We became friends because we started working together in a band, but we were still close. I split up with my long-term girlfriend at the same time, so it was a very difficult period for me.” In hindsight, does he wish it had all lasted longer? “It should have lasted longer, because we should’ve taken some breaks in between,” he ponders. “If we’d led a sensible life it would’ve taken us seven years to do what we did in five. But we didn’t. Derek, our manager, God bless him, came from a similar background as the rest of us and I think he really did believe that if we didn’t keep working then we might be forgotten. So we just worked non-stop. I remember when we finished making Easy Pieces – or it might have even been Mainstream – I finally had a holiday. I went to Corsica with my girlfriend and we were only there for just over a week. On the eighth day I’d finally managed to get into relaxation mode, because the last year had been so stressful. Then the next day I had to go on tour.” 


 By his own admission, adjusting to life after the break-up of the Commotions proved problematic. Cole lacked a band and a plan. “I just wanted to figure out what to do with the rest of my life,” he recalls. “I didn’t leave the Commotions to go solo; I left because I didn’t want to be in a band anymore. And I really didn’t know if I could be a solo artist at all. The early months, when I was still in London, were very blurry and the whole time was very depressing. Those six months in limbo, from the end of the Commotions, were kind of like dead months. I very nearly bought a pied-à-terre at one point. I had put in an offer and had already bought a mini-fridge and a single bed, which was absolutely ridiculous. Luckily, the surveyor came back and told me the roof was dodgy and I shouldn’t buy this flat. Again, it was one of those lovely light-on moments where I suddenly thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing? I shouldn’t be committing myself to being a depressed single person for the rest of my life. I should really go and do something else.’ ” 


 That meant a complete change of scenery. In 1988 Cole opted to make a home in New York City, one of his favourite places to visit during Commotions’ tours of the US: “Luckily I’d made enough money from being a musician that I could afford to do that. The other thing was that Polydor and the publishing company still wanted me to make records. As soon as I got to New York I set up in this place that was kind of similar to what I would’ve been living in back in Glasgow. I took a studio apartment, turned the living room into a demo studio and started working. And within a couple of weeks I realised I could do it. All of a sudden I had the same kind of excitement making my first solo record as I’d had making Rattlesnakes. Everything I tried to do I realised I’d learnt from the Commotions. I was a much better guitar player than I’d thought I was, for instance, and I could do full string arrangements, even though previously I’d just sung the melodies to Anne Dudley. So it was very exciting. I met people in New York and immediately started working with the likes of [ex-Scritti Polliti and Lou Reed drummer and producer of Reed's New York among others] Fred Maher and [lead guitarist] Robert Quine.” 


 At his studio apartment in lower Manhattan, he set about writing songs for a solo album. Maher and Quine (best known for his distinctive guitar work with Lou Reed and Richard Hell & The Voidoids) were aboard for Cole’s self-titled debut in 1990. As were his old mucker from the Commotions, keyboardist Blair Cowan, and US bassist-songwriter Matthew Sweet. It proved a watershed moment for Cole. His songs were still crisp and introspective, but they were often dirtier and louder. He grew out his hair, got married, honeymooned in Paris and stayed on to promote the album’s release. Life-size cut-outs of Cole were pressed into record store windows throughout Europe as he threw himself into a concerted publicity campaign with gusto. 


 It signalled the beginnings of a whole other post-Commotions career, about to be anthologised and celebrated with the release of a second boxset in September. Spanning 1989-’96, it will include Cole’s first four solo albums and a “lost” fifth effort, plus rarities and videos. Meanwhile, all of his live sets in 2016, he’s decided, will comprise songs from 1983 to ’96. 


 “I must revisit and rediscover material,” he says of collating boxsets and planning performaces. “I’m necessarily in retrospective mode and have decided to embrace it.” 


 It’s a process that naturally has had the effect of sparking other memories from the past. “It’s quite funny actually,” he laughs, “because I finally met Mark E Smith 10 or 15 years after he’d said those things about me. And he was lovely. He was like, ‘How you doing, mate? Great to meet you…’” 





 

 

Minutemen: like I've said, had never heard of them, but generally enjoyed the album. It was the CD version I finally got, so I think three tracks from the original double were missing.

Lots of styles, often a bit funky, then the beauty of 'Cohesion' which displays D Boon's versatility and talent. 'Political Song for Michael Jackson' reminded me of a Pink Fairies song (Never Never Land, so I'm thinking that they were an influence for that song). Some poor stuff too on the album: just for the quality of the recording, I don't know why they bothered putting the CCR track on.

The later songs (side four) were meant to be fillers and leftovers, but in amongst them is 'Jesus and Tequila', which is one of my favourite songs on the big collection.

Thanks, A/C, for bringing this band to my attention. 

Last edited by PatReilly (21/9/2019 7:58 am)

PatReilly wrote:

Thanks, A/C, for bringing this band to my attention. 

You do realise they're Yanks Pat
 

PatReilly wrote:

You're poking gentle fun at me and my petty prejudices, aren't you? 🙉