Posts Tagged ‘The Sex Pistols’

How to win friends and influence people

Posted: April 11, 2013 in music, Record reviews
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Siouxsie & The Banshees
Tinderbox
1986

Siouxsie & The Banshees are proof of the power of networking. Susan Dallion was one of a group of early Sex Pistols fans who were inspired to go out and make music too. She changed her name to Siouxsie Sioux, which is impossible to type, and recruited the first Banshees in 1976.

Siouxsie’s drummer, John Ritchie, changed his name to Sid Vicious and joined the Pistols. Her first guitar player, Marco Perroni, kept his name but joined Adam & The Ants. She got a guitarist back from the Pistols, Steve Jones, but it didn’t take and he ended up recording with Bob Dylan, Joan Jett, and Iggy Pop. This is starting to read like a LinkedIn profile. When two other band members quit during a tour in 1979, Siouxsie recruited Robert Smith of The Cure and a drummer named Budgie to fill in. Budgie had already changed his name from Peter Edward Clarke. Still with me? Smith eventually went back to The Cure. Budgie eventually married Siouxsie. None of this ever happens at the monthly lunches of the Oregon Columbia chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

I’ve written about Siouxsie & The Banshees in my round-up of female acts of the 1980s. I called them (and The Cure) “goth outfits.” That was doing them an injustice. They’re much more than stereotypical black-clad, pale-skinned, bloodless disciples of H.P. Lovecraft who long for death’s ashen caress. They also rock with considerable force…though not on this record.

Tinderbox is not only misnamed (I don’t hear much on it that’s flammable), it’s so smooth that I can’t always tell which song I’m in. The exceptions, however, are more like the Banshees I remember. “Cities in Dust,” an unblinking glimpse of the apocalypse, was the hit. It’s good – it takes The Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone” one step further and almost makes it danceable – but “Cannons” is the real sleeper. I also like “92 Degrees,” which starts slow but builds to a satisfactorily melancholy finish.

Tinderbox is a record for confirmed Banshees. As for the rest of us, keep networking, because a) you never know, and b) you never know.

Random 1986 Pan of the Day 1
Pretty in Pink soundtrack
When I posted this in 2013, I made Pretty in Pink a Pick. I’ve changed my mind. Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Bring on the Dancing Horses” is the only superlative song, and it’s available everywhere. However, this album is notable for a rare appearance by the strangest name of the 1980s, Belouis Some. Some, who was Neville Keighley when he made his first appearance on earth, had two hits that were popular in ’80s dance clubs: “Some People” and “Imagination.” His contribution here, “Round, Round,” is not in that league. Overall, the Pretty in Pink soundtrack is still better than the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club (1985), but not within a light year of the soundtrack to Singles (1992).

Random 1986 Pan of the Day 2
The Church, Heyday
Midnight Oil without the grit. So otherworldly it can barely be detected through the Hubble Telescope. They had a hit in 1988 with “Under the Milky Way,” which was easily within Perry Como’s comfort range.

 

She may be a dancing queen, but she’s still underage

Posted: August 21, 2011 in music, Record reviews
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Gold: Greatest Hits
1993
More ABBA Gold
1996
What? Still Gold?
OK, I made that one up
ABBA

There was a time in the late 1970s when ABBA ruled. Though they captured the #1 spot on the U.S. Top 40 charts only once (with “Dancing Queen”), everything they recorded for about three years caused a global commotion. ABBA was a cultural force. Without ABBA we wouldn’t have had the film Mama Mia, obviously, but we also wouldn’t have had Muriel’s Wedding. The absence of ABBA would’ve punched a big hole in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I don’t know if it’s a shame or a blessing that ABBA existed before MTV.

Even U2 likes ABBA, or at least they like “Dancing Queen,” and come on, who doesn’t? It’s one of the iconic songs of the ’70s, the perfect companion to The Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” and the antidote to just about anything by Queen. Whenever I put on a dance, I could count on “Dancing Queen” to draw every woman onto the dance floor the way Jupiter suctions up moons. Even women who had already left the building felt a disturbance in The Force and surged back inside.

But it’s clear in hindsight – it was clear even while it was happening – that most of ABBA’s songs were solidified crud. It was just a higher grade of crud than what most mainstream pop bands of the era were peddling. Bread and Rod Stewart, for example.

The good songs, though, are very good. “Dancing Queen” exists in a realm beyond criticism. “Take a Chance on Me” is a terrific sing-along number. “S.O.S.” is fun, unless Pierce Brosnan is trying to sing it. “Knowing Me, Knowing You” is not only ABBA’s most complex song, it’s their only song that can be compared to The Beatles without looking ridiculous. How many bands have even one song that can do that? Which reminds me: “Waterloo” should’ve been recorded by Ringo.

Which further reminds me: One of ABBA’s contemporaries, The Cars, are the U.S. version of ABBA. This is particularly evident on “You Might Think” and “Tonight She Comes.” The Cars replaced the female voices with male voices and brought the guitars forward, but otherwise it’s the same froth, different beach.

So here’s a tip of the critic’s pointy hat to Agnetha, Frida, Bjorn, and Benny, and not just because the boys also made the musical Chess. Life wouldn’t have been the same without you. Though I wouldn’t mind living in a world where there was no Fernando to hear the drums and Agnetha and Frida could reliably find a man after midnight.