JG Judgementally Comments…

The expression “imperial phase” is a term coined by Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys to denote a musical act who are at the height of their critical and commercial success, when they can apparently do no wrong, and where success seems all but guaranteed. He used the expression in 1988, around the time of Introspective and “Domino Dancing”, but few bands have had an imperial phase quite like Pet Shop Boys in 1987.

Continue reading “We’re Number Two: 1987 – “What Have I Done To Deserve This?”, Pet Shop Boys With Dusty Springfield”

It’s not like the fact that “Rocket Man” is “Space Oddity” Mk II is exactly a secret. There’s a mash-up that pretty easily combines both songs and makes the overlap pretty explicit. John himself played both “Rocket Man” and “Space Oddity” as a tribute to Bowie after his death, segueing from one to the other. If he’s prepared to do that, well, there’s not really a lot left to say on that subject. Both strike a distant, melancholic tone, though “Space Oddity”’s loss is literal whereas “Rocket Man” is more concerned with the ennui that comes from an ordinary job, even when that job is flying off to Mars and leaving your family behind.

Continue reading “1972 – Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time), Elton John”

Prince is, it will come as no surprise to anyone to discover, an astoundingly talented individual. He’s one of the icons of the 80’s, a gifted multi-instrumentalist and, during his Imperial phase, apparently incapable of touching anything musically that didn’t immediately turn out to be insanely successful. This gets mentioned because “Manic Monday” – a song written by Prince – was held off the Number 1 in America spot by “Kiss”. A song written by Prince. Sometimes it just seems like showing off, y’know? He’s playing synth and piano on this version too. There was just no stopping him.

Continue reading “We’re Number Two: 1986 – “Manic Monday”, The Bangles”

Whatever artist Jim Steinman is writing for you pretty much always know when it’s one of his songs. Whether it’s Meat Loaf, Celine Dion, Air Supply or this week’s entry Bonnie Tyler, Jim Steinman songs always sound like Jim Steinman songs and nothing else really does. He’s practically a genre unto himself. You can expect big, operatically over-the-top production. Whatever the song is it will be bombastic in the extreme. There will be a sense of things moving very quickly, even in slow-moving power ballads (which is quite the trick). As often as not the song will incorporate a catchy, easy-to-remember phrase that’s either lifted from somewhere else (“bat of out hell” perhaps being the most obvious) or put together to make it sound like it might have been but you just haven’t come across it yet. Like, for example, holding out for a hero. I mean, it’s kind of an expression but it’s not exactly in everyday use.

Continue reading “We’re Number Two: 1985 – “Holding Out For A Hero”, Bonnie Tyler”

Let us begin this week by getting something out of the way right off the bat. The problem with “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” is straightforward – it just isn’t a terribly good song. That’s a shame, because it clearly means well, Lauper is a fantastic performer (well, usually) and as 80’s feminist songs go its clearly coming from the same place as Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox’s “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” or the we-can-have-fun-too vibe of Bananarama. “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” is rather more political, though, and “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” isn’t laying claim to any specific political agenda, just that girls… well. You can guess. They want to have fun.

Continue reading “We’re Number Two: 1984 – “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, Cyndi Lauper”

One of the consequences of the development of comparatively cheap synthesizers is the ability for more music to be produced by fewer people. Bands no longer need to consist of four, five or more members as per a traditional rock act. Instead they can consist of one or two people, a box of electronics and, as long as the song is halfway decent, away we go. Obviously two-pieces aren’t a unique development of the 80’s – hello Sparks! – but synths made it substantially easier for them to exist.  There’s dozens of 80’s acts who fall into this category – to take a random selection let’s say Tears For Fears, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Yazoo and, of course, Eurythmics.

Continue reading “We’re Number Two: 1983 – “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)”, Eurythmics”

Credibility has never been much of a barrier when it comes to reaching the upper echelons of the charts. Lots of point-and-laugh bands have made it. Scraping into the Top Ten, or indeed any position on the charts, does not require cool, or sophistication, or talent, or anything else. It requires, as we know, popularity alone. The place of the “credible” as opposed to the “popular” reaches its zenith in the 90’s, when the Authenticity Wars would leave many a causality in its wake but it’s a process that exists here, too, in the 80’s.

Continue reading “We’re Number Two: 1982 – “Private Investigations”, Dire Straits”

In the same way that “Bohemian Rhapsody” did not invent the music video, MTV did not invent the idea of music television. That’s not to suggest that either of those two events aren’t significant features in the development of their respective fields, but neither are the originators. The idea of “videos”, in the modern sense, had been around since at least 1966 with The Beatles recording specific promo clips for “Paperback Writer” and “Rain”, and arguably could be tied all the way back to A Hard Day’s Night. And certainly the song portions of Magical Mystery Tour, free of any other contextual connection to the movie they’re in, are straightforwardly music videos.

Continue reading “We’re Number Two: 1981 – “Vienna”, Ultravox”

More people should talk about Marco Pirroni. He’s awesome. Quite apart from the fact that he appears to be a fantastically chilled, intelligent and knowledgeable individual he’s also a spankingly good guitarist and an incredibly important figure in the punk scene. He’s also one half of the powerhouse behind practically all of Adam And The Ants / Adam Ant’s 80’s success (co-songwriter and musician), he’s all over Sinead O’Connor’s best work, and of course there’s the whole Siouxsie And The Banshees time. He’s just one of those musicians who adds to absolutely everything he appears on but never seems to get all that much in the way of recognition.

Continue reading “We’re Number Two: 1980 – “Antmusic”, Adam And The Ants”

Glam. Disco. Punk. New wave. Heavy metal. Funk. Prog. There are a lot of emergent movements in the 70’s, some of which overlap – the distance between glam and disco is nearly nothing – and some of which clearly don’t. But what all these genres have in common is that they will have legacy going forward. The Long Seventies extend a decent distance into the Eighties, and there’s a fair argument to be made in the case of disco they extend all the way until now, and the multiplicity of genres which develop in the 70’s will, ultimately, go on to have more direct resonance than anything the 60’s produced. The Long Sixties died in 1970. The Long Seventies dig well into the 80’s – probably at least until 1983. The obvious question here, then, is why? What is it about the Seventies that meant their cultural impact has a momentum that the Sixties, despite the mythological placement in the cultural memory, didn’t?

Continue reading “The 1970’s”