SNOW & ICE: SUGAR COATED ICEBERG/THE LIGHTNING SEEDS

Quite a metaphor, that, uncertain which is the dominant force, whether it is sugar sweetening the destructive power of an iceberg, or a the gulp of realisation following a swallow of something not quite so sweet after all. I am sure the lyric explains but I prefer the uncertainty, tending more towards the tune and the presentation. Both of which this band had, here and in general, in spades. And I notice they have some gigs lined up for next year, this late return surely worth a shout, pinned as it is on the back of the 25th anniversary of their third album, 'Jollification'. (Which was last month, with a trio of initial shows then taking place.)

I was on the bus a bit before Jollification, they, or he, Ian Broudie, having hatched the band alone in his studio, playing all the instruments and singing all the vocals on the first album, 1989's 'Cloudcuckooland'. Perhaps not quite as big an ask as you might imagine, he being already an accomplished producer of other folks records in his home town of Liverpool. But I am still ahead of myself, my introduction to Ian Broudie being through his membership of Liverpudlian semi-supergroup Big in Japan. Where, let alone anywhere else, they weren't, their fame being mainly down to where the many and various members went next, it being the launchpad for, amongst others, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the KLF, one drummer later joining Siouxsie and the Banshees, the keyboardsman joining The Teardrop Explodes. And Ian Broudie becoming producer for Echo and the Bunnymen and The Icicle Works. Not bad for a band so reviled in their lifetime as to have a petition taken out to promote their dissolution, albeit signed also by the band themselves.

Above is 'Pure', the debut single from the above mentioned 'Cloudcuckooland', I remembering well the first time I heard it. I was in full Morris Dancing costume, dancing with local side, Silhill Morris, at fabled warwickshire country pub, the Black Boy, the pub as mentioned, momentarily, in the finale of Peaky Blinders, series 5. Whilst I dare say I may not have fully dredged up this skeleton from my past, something for another day, that day some bemusement was to be had by the already punished locals by the sight of yours truly putting the song on the jukebox, repeatedly and repeatedly, whilst my colleagues danced outside to the song of an altogether older Albion. I love the music of the morris, but, that day, I was transfixed.

Next album, 'Sense', followed a couple or so years later. It was good, if not quite so, the video for lead single, 'Life of Riley', perhaps revealing why, at least for the espousedly non-football loving me, it had Broudie delineating his love for all things soccer writ large. Prejudice is a strong word, but it was enough to put me off the band. So, when Broudie then teamed up with comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, all three utter football nuts, to write and perform the (admittedly very catchy) England European Nations Championship song of 1996, I was mortified. Getting it to number one in the UK singles charts twice, it being reprised in 1998, made it worse still, the horror of when one of your favourite bands not only become well known and celebrated to all, it also being with also something you cannot admit to any love for. (Admit is the operative word, I fear, as see also Chumbawamba.)

So I missed out, at the time, on 'Jollification'. And, until this piece, had no idea the b(r)and put out a further three albums, the knowledge giving me no small amount of homework. The featured song even comes from one of them, 'Dizzy Heights'. Are they any good? Unsurprisingly, yes, they are, even if the bubble of britpop had burst somewhat, along with the laddism of football hurly-burly becoming, now to others as well, a less well received intrusion, propelled no doubt with the ongoing dismal performances of the national side. In particular, I like the more dance oriented sound on 5th album, 'Tilt'.

A ten year gap, to 2009, and their final, at least so far, committal to disc, 'Four Winds'. Resorting now more to co-writes, you might be mistaken, from the opening of 'Ghosts', below, that this represents a further change in direction. That is, until the familiar angelic vocal chimes in, a familiar clang-clang backbeat, even if surrounded by sweeps of synth. So, all is well.
 I await my show, in March, an early and late birthday present to myself. I look forward. Just don't play bloody 'Three Lions'......

New to you? This. Otherwise, that.

(If this actually is up your street, between 'Tilt' and 'Four Winds', perhaps tilting at the four winds, came 'Tales Told', altogether simpler fare, the studio tricks reined in, may be even more so, it being a solo Ian Broudie release.)

TWO WORDS: TWO TRIBES

It seems strangely apt to be looking at this song again, and the accompanying video, as relations between the US and Russia (nee USSR) become increasingly strained. (It's funny, as an adult in 1984, I can't quite recall things being that bad, even if reminding myself and reviewing, yes, they clearly were. Mind you, I would have guessed that the Reagan era was a decade or so ahead, so maybe it's my problem!)

Frankie Goes to Hollywood exploded onto and into the UK charts in 1984, buoyed on a wave of an outraged media and a keenly exploitative PR campaign. There is nothing my country enjoys more than the combination of scandal with prurience, always peeking through nearly closed fingers at the decried depravities and disgustingness. Indeed, the british press specialises therein, having a field day with this band. So, when an outraged disc jockey, those purveyors of public taste and decency, suddenly cottons on that "Relax" might be, um, rather more energetic than the name invites, with, shock horror, references to a then barely legal gay S&M scene, their star was guaranteed.

"Two Tribes", the follow up single, was barely a cats whisker behind, vaunting straight to the top of the charts, remaining there for longer than any other single of that whole decade, even sucking "Relax" back up the charts in its wake.. It's true that ZTT, the record company, were at the peak of their game, manipulating the charts and feeding a product hungry population: this was way before such science fiction as downloading and streaming. This was largely black plastic. With 5 varying mixes across the domains of 7 and 12 inches, all marketed as essential, with the collected sales all counting toward the same song, is it any surprise sales were massive, the last great surge of physical product. In truth the song is a slighter variation of its predecessor, both being, arguably, more the product of producer Trevor Horn and his Fairlight synthesiser than of 5 scallies from Liverpool, even if the singer, Holly Johnson exuded as much charisma as the others mostly lacked it. (And was the only one with a surviving career of sorts.) But, as a sound, as a template it is huge, a tsunami of rattly bass, clattering percussion and swathes of keyboard, vocals with echo on their echoes. The different versions varied largely as to what else was chucked into the mix, varying samples scatter gunned over the none-more-exuberant Mr Johnson. These came from sources as disparate as Public Service films around what to do when the  H bomb drops, to snippets of speeches from, amongst others, Hitler and lyrics from Don McClean, all fed into the mouth of Ronald Reagan, via  UK uber-mimic, Chris Barrie. The video came from ex-10 cc band members, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, and featured actors disguised as Reagan and the then USSR supremo, Viktor Chernenko. (No, me neither.....) Tussling in a boxing ring, compered by Holly Johnson, as fellow world leaders look on. It doesn't end well. There was also a substantively longer versions, with yet more samples of speech, but, given the original was deemed to strong, without edits, for MTV, this had little exposure. (Have I got it here? Sure I have.)

The song, in al its myriad versions, had a long life, eventually even reaching the US Billboard top 50, just, at 43. Re-releases came again in '89 and '94, with a 3rd assault in 2000. This time the remixes were by external parties, usually several available in each iteration, now on CD, with up to 5 versions on each disc. I have to say the song, in the majority, still excites, galvanising frissons of nostalgic glee in my ageing bones. The triad of songs, "Relax", "Two Tribes" and follow up, "The Power of Love" are, in my opinion, as strong a launch pad as any new band can or could offer, certainly compared to the fickleness of now where longevity seems more often down to luck than talent. Afterwards? Well, no such luck for Frankie as, sans Horn, the band were but a shadow of what once was, with little left to say, eventually dissolving in a sea of rancour and regret.

Fill your boots!!!

Homonyms: Power Of Love

Martha Reeves: Power Of Love

[purchase]

Frankie Goes To Hollywood: The Power Of Love
[purchase]

Huey Lewis and the News: The Power Of Love
[purchase]

Luther Vandross: Power Of Love (Love Power)
[purchase]

Give or take a definite article, singers seem to have an affinity for the power of love. In 1985, three separate songs by that title populated the UK charts. Two are featured here, but there is no good reason for anybody to own 1985’s version of waterboarding, perpetrated by Jennifer Rush (and inevitably later covered by Celine Dion).

The best of the four Powers of Love is Martha Reeves’ cover of soul singer Joe Simon’s hit. Written by Simon with the maestros of Philly Soul, Gamble and Huff, it appeared on Reeves’ eponymously titled 1974 album.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood enjoyed a third consecutive UK #1 with their “Power Of Love”. The plan was that it would be the Christmas #1, always a big deal in Britain. Carefully released in late November 1984 to accomplish that goal, it entered the top 10 on 1 December and it topped the charts the following week (succeeding the dreadful “I Should Have Known Better” by Jim Diamond, a possible candidate for the present theme). But the week after it was knocked off the top, almost from nowhere, by Band Aid’s rush-released “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. But even without that mammoth hit, FGTH wouldn’t have had the Christmas chart-topper: number two to Band Aid over the season was Wham!’s “Last Christmas”.

Huey Lewis’ “The Power Of Love”, which scored the glorious Back To The Future, came out bang in the middle of the middle year of the 1980s, and it very much sounds like it. The thing is, Huey and his pals had a reputation as a pop group that referenced the 1950s while yet sounding modern, so “The Power Of Love”, as used in a movie that timetravels from 1985 to 1955, ought to have sounded more like “If This Is It” than the synth-heavy, ’80s movie soundtrack by-the-numbers throwaway number it really is (it’s still superior to the other song Lewis did for Back To The Future).

Finally, Luther Vandross sort of spoils things for us. His 1991 hit is called “Power Of Love”, but then he dicked about with parentheses and almost had himself disqualified from this post. The song is really a stew of at least two incomplete songs. It’s all a bit formulaic, but it has a sense of joy, and it has Luther Vandross singing it.

By the time he passed away, Luther’s reputation was a bit shot by the unfair backlash to ’80s soul and his latter tendency to record pedestrian material. But we must never forget that Luther Vandross was one of the great soul singers of any age. And, as my friend Jason would point out, more people were conceived in New Jersey to records by Luther Vandross than to those of any other singer. And isn’t that really the power of love?

(Graphic borrowed from homelifeweekly.com)