Jimmy Nail 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore'

Chart Peak: 3

YouTube

Regular readers, if any, may recall that the first time Jimmy Nail cropped up on here (on Now 32) I was fairly positive about him. Perhaps I was in too good a mood then but I do somewhat stand by it: he was never one of the world's greatest singers but on a good day he could come up with something that worked through force of personality.

Ten years earlier, things were a bit different. This cover version was the only hit single from his debut album Take It Or Leave It (most people seem to have preferred the latter option, as the record never made the Top 100). And successful as it was its own right, it didn't eastablish him as anything more than a dilettante in music. In fact he didn't manage another hit for seven years, and I'm not sure he even tried. It has every hallmark of a famous actor cashing in and trying his luck at pop, and in that context it's harder to forgive the poor singing, especially on such a slow song. The really scary part is, I can remember Roger Taylor (yes, he of Queen) explaining that it took him a long time as producer to get the vocal right. What can the outtakes have been like?

It seems to stop quite abruptly too, at least on the versions I've found online,as if everyone involved just can't go on any more. It seems almost apt as a finale to Now 5, which as I've probably made fairly clear, isn't one of the ones I actually have my own copy of to work from; thus I can neither confirm nor deny that it's the first album in the series to use a swear word ("crap" in the Style Council song)> I can confirm that it's been a bit of a disappointment to me, both as listening and as writing fodder. I might take a few weeks off to recover while I work on other blogging projects, but I hope to arrive refreshed in the 1990s again.

Also appearing on: Now 22, 30, 32
Available on: Pure Love

Howard Jones 'Life In One Day'

Chart Peak: 14

YouTube

You don't often see Howard Jones compared to the Damned, it's fair to say, but the one thing they do seem to have in common is that they were approaching the end of their hitmaking careers (in the UK at least) by 1985, and yet both remain very much in the business. Musically, though, this is a bit of a swerve from the rock-oriented sound of the Side 4 so far. Howard Jones is one of the hardest people to write about on here, not least because a fellow blogger whom I respect is a big fan and has been known to read here. Moreover, though, he's somebody where I find it very hard to shake off the eightiesness and hear the music as it was presumably originally intended; even though I always want to like him. He certainly seems more admirable than many of a star of this or indeed any pop era.

This time around I actually have a slight head start, because I have no memory of hearing the record at the time, let alone since. Even without external evidence, I wouldn't have mistaken it for any other time, but at least it arrives without baggage. It also arrives with that remarkable video which, especially for the time is a tour de force of imagination and technology - the only problem being that it's hard to imagine any TV channel actually daring to show it. For once, it's true to say that a video is truly ahead of its time: it only really made sense 20 years later when somebody invented YouTube. Anyway, it's worth a look if you've never seen it, but it can be a bit of a distraction from the song itself - you can find a sound-only version (without Tony Blackburn!) here.

The title lyric, repeating an "old man"'s warning not to try and live your life in one day seems almost the diametric opposite of stereotypical 80s values, although on more detailed inspection it seems that this is more a matter of trying to enjoy the present days and resist worrying about the future than a call to indolence. It's a good idea, even if not a very deep one, and I have to admit that in the few days since I first looked this song up I can't get that chorus out of my head. 1-0 to Mr Jones there, then.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 2, 3
Available on: The Best of Howard Jones

The Damned 'The Shadow Of Love'

Chart Peak: 25

YouTube

One of the slight curiosities of the Now albums is acts who make their only appearance early in the series when they're already veterans of a sort. And whilst they're probably not the most obvious example of this (not least because a version of the band is still going even now), the Damned seem to qualify in terms of their chart career, as their hit singles span 1978-87. That said, this inclusion is a slight reversal of the frequent tendency of this album to cover follow-ups to big hits: the highest-charting Damned single was of course their version of 'Eloise' in early 1986.

That didn't make the cut though, so the only time they crop up on here is during their goth phase. Of course, they have a good name for the genre and for all I know this might actually sound good to goth fans. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them and this doesn't seem to be one of the few genre hits that can break through to the wider public. In fact, I spent most of the four minutes trying to work out what that bassline reminded me of. Any ideas, anyone?

Available on: Phantasmagoria

Gary Moore & Phil Lynott 'Out In The Fields'

Chart Peak: 5

YouTube

Moore & Lynott's first collaboration outside Thin Lizzy, 'Parisenne Walkways' was a bit of a laid-back classic. 'Out In The Fields' is rather the opposite, a loud, angry rock track of the sort that only really seemed to exist in the eighties. It rails against war and racism in a way that I'm not inclined to disagree with - but I can't really take this sort of thing seriously, not even Moore's widdly guitar solo, which was apparently once voted among the Top 100 of all time.

And there's some more fake-studio footage in the video, where Moore inexplicably reminds me of Cliff Richard. Lynott is already looking somewhat the worse for wear, and in fact this was his last known recording before he died. Still, he could have ended his career in a worse way than this.

Gary Moore also appears on: Now 6, 9
Available on: Out in the Fields: the Very Best of Gary Moore

Katrina And The Waves 'Walking On Sunshine'

Chart Peak: 8

YouTube

It must have been the irony department of my subconscious that caused me to wake up with this song in my head a couple of days ago on one of the least sunny mornings of the year today. I mention that because the most surprising part of the experience was that I actually kind of enjoyed it. Like many people, I suspect, I'd got used to thinking of this song as an ubiquitous irritant, and the band reportedly earn a substantial amount of money from synchronisation rights every year, so it clearly is getting used plenty; it's for this reason that I'm not going to bother trying to describe the record at all, as I can't imagine anyone who cares enough to read this post not already being familiar with it.

And yet on that morning, it somehow clicked for me for the first time in about twenty years and I got a sense that I was being unnecessarily harsh to such a joyful piece of music. That doesn't mean I'm a complete convert, and it's obvious that a little goes a long way, which is why I don't feel the urge to own a copy of it. But I guess I've grown up enough to be able to like this when I hear it now.

Oddly enough, in all the hundreds of times I must have heard this song I'd never seen the video before. It's not very good but there are good supporting performances by some ducks between about 2:34 and 2:45.

Available on: Top Of The Pops - Eighties

The Style Council 'Walls Come Tumbling Down!'

Chart Peak: 6

YouTube

In some ways, this song seems a bit like a sequel to 'Shout To The Top'. The lyrical message is similar, but slightly more explicit - and perhaps not coincidentally, the result is a bit less good. The churchy organ intro seems like a warning that Paul Weller is going to be more Father than Mod here, delivering what sounds rather more like a sermon than a song, and is often awkwardly unmetrical in its phrasing. I don't know whether this was an intentional movement on Weller's part because he didn't think enough people had got the point before, but even that doesn't excuse the notorious rhyme of "those who have and who have not" with "dangle jobs like a donkey's carrot".

If nothing else, though, Weller gets credit for the conviction with which he delivers these words. Indeed, in another universe where he'd acquired a different set of convictions, he could have been quite the gospel singer. And the music does do a lot to make up for, or at least distract from, the words, punching hard in the chorus and building up tension in the verses. Still, I do find myself in the unusual position of saying this is more preachy than the U2 track.

Also appearing on: Now 3, 5, 10, 14
Available on: Sweet Loving Ways - The Collection

U2 'The Unforgettable Fire'

Chart Peak: 6

YouTube

Side 4 starts here. Which isn't very surprising, because this would be an amazingly difficult segue from the previous track, even by the broad-church standards of the Now albums. It's a struggle to believe that these two tracks even existed in the same universe, let alone that they were briefly in the chart together.

In fact, this track doesn't entirely seem to belong anywhere, although the very fact that it went straight into the Top 10 (albeit for a relatively short run) seems a sure sign that U2 had arrived at true stardom and now had a big enough fanbase who'd rush out to grab the limited double-7" single. That's not to say that it's anything other than brilliant, but it's by no means an obvious pop hit. It made so little impression on my seven-year-old self that I don't remember hearing it at all until I started listening to Radio 2 a couple of decades later, and even then I struggled to remember which one it was. Once I had my own copy of the album, it was a different story and this swiftly became one of my favourite ever U2 tracks, instantly engaging with its rock-solid rhythm section but also admirably resisting the big obvious chorus it always seems so close to. And one of Bono's best vocal performances too, for my money: entirely committed but without the huffing and puffing that mar so much of his work in the Joshua Tree and Rattle And Hum eras. Around this Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois have built a soundscape that defies detailed description; and that's not just a cop-out on my part, it seems like it'd ruin the mystique a bit. It's for the same reason that I've tried to avoid thinking too hard about what the lyrics are supposed to mean: I know the song and album title were influenced by an exhibition of photos of Hiroshima, but the actual content doesn't seem to be that linear, and the mood is as uplifting as it is gloomy in the end.

Also appearing on: Now 4, 20, 22, 32, 36, 37, 41, 47, 48, 49, 53, 57 [LMC vs U2], 60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 72
Available on: The Best Of: 1980-1990

The Commentators 'N-n-Nineteen Not Out'

Chart Peak: 13

YouTube

Despite what I said in the previous post, we don't quite get a whole side of R&B, because we take a slight detour here. We do still get a slight convergence with some of the other stuff on the album though - Paul Hardcastle's '19' was yet another big hit of 1985 that eluded the compilers, and whilst he did appear with some of his later hits, his first representation was in the form of this parody. It's rumoured that Hardcastle produced this version himself under a pseudonym, which could account for the speed with which it was released, only a couple of weeks after the original had dropped from the top of the chart.

Anyway, this is the first intentional comedy record ever to show up on a Now album, and, I think we can safely say, the only cricket-themed novelty single ever to reach the Top 19. It was also the first most of us would have heard of Rory Bremner, a few years before he began starring in his own TV shows (though I think he may already have been working on Spitting Image by this time). I have to wonder how he must regard this now that he's better known as a satirist, as this is much closer to the broad showbiz comedy he first made his name with. It's probably also funnier if you understand more about cricket, although I do get the central premise that David Gower's batting average in the 1984 West Indies series was only 19 - apparently that's actually true, whereas Hardcastle's numbers are somewhat disputed. Some people might question the taste implications of the parody as well, especially the "side-on" line, although for my money it's silly enough to get away with it. Not that you'd want to listen to it too many times, I suspect.

Even if you did, as far as I can tell the track's never been released on CD. But the wonders of the Internet enable you to hear it, and indeed the 'Second Innings' B-side, which is largely more of the same but slightly less good. It does at least clarify that the voice that sounded a bit like Zippy is supposed to be the late John Arlott. Also thanks to the net, we can see what might be the oldest extant image of monkeys playing cricket.

Loose Ends 'Magic Touch'

Chart Peak: 16

YouTube

OK, so I had at least heard of Loose Ends. They were so famous, they even got namechecked in a Richard Blackwood song, and I thought I did recall them having hits. But I realised that I didn't actually remember any of the songs, and even after listening back to this track now I can't be terribly sure whether I'd heard it before. It seems like there's an inadvertant theme on a lot of this album of the series missing out on somebody's biggest hit ('You Spin Me Round', 'Some Like It Hot', 'Kiss Me') and then ending up with the slightly less successful follow-up, and that's sort of what's happened here too, although in fairness this wasn't much less of a hit here than 'Hanging On A String'; it failed to match up to the same success in America though.

In fact, we're staying with the same sort of post-disco soul as we've had on the rest of Side 3, which I think is the longest sustained sweep of stylistically similar music yet on a Now album, though it seems to have acted as a template for the long runs of indie and dance on some of the Nineties releases. Like those, it rather taxes my ability to find fresh ideas for each post, since I so often find mysef thinking "This'd probably sound good in a club". But you know, it probably would, it just isn't doing a lot for me. There are rumours of a reunion tour, but I don't think I'll be going.

Available on: The Best of Loose Ends

The Conway Brothers 'Turn It Up'

Chart Peak: 11

YouTube

This'll be another of the tracks that occasionally show up on here that I've never heard of at all. Not even the (admittedly less than memorable) name of the Conway Brothers rang any bells.

As it transpires, we're staying on the dancefloor for this number, even if the Conways themselves seemed to have a little bit of difficulty dancing to it on Top Of The Pops. It's a very solid funk production, if a little dated-sounding now, but it's a little too clubby to make sense to me in my living room. The gag about people asking them to turn it *up* wears thin over the full length of the track, but I expect I'd like this a lot more on a night out.

Available on: 100 Hits - 80s Dance

Steve Arrington 'Feel So Real'

Chart Peak: 5

YouTube

Another one for the list of songs I don't really recall from the time but have become familiar with since. Arrington had previously been the singer and drummer in the funk band Slave, whom I don't remember at all even now, but apparently they had a Number 64 hit in 1980. His biggest UK hit as a solo artist came with this track which sounds quite typical of groove-oriented music of the time. It's actually rather good, but doesn't provide a lot of fodder for discussion.

Of course, talk of "feeling real" sounded like pure disco-speak at the time. However, Arrington had apparently experienced a religious awakening around this time and soon quit secular music for almost twenty years. Only in recent months has be resumed recording, evidently. So perhaps this song can be read another way too.

Available on: Smash Hits 1985

Simply Red 'Money'$ Too Tight (To Mention)'

Chart Peak: 13

YouTube

It feels strangely topical to be writing this post now. Not only for economic reasons, but because the seemingly endless Simply Red retirement, which seems to have been going on for longer than some bands' entire careers, is finally winding to a close, with a Greatest Hits album back in the midweek Top 10 thanks to ITV. Back in 1985, though, I don't think many people could have guessed from this successful debut single how enduring an institution Mick Hucknall and his employees would become. Admittedly, this hit didn't launch them on the fast-track to stardom:
their next three singles peaked at 66, 51 and 53.

Although I'd gleaned somewhere down the line that this was a cover version, I hadn't actually heard the Valentine Brothers' original until today - indeed, until fairly recently I'd assumed it was a much older song than it actually is. Actually, aside from dropping a verse, this version hasn't really reinvented the song all that much; the most notable shift of emphasis is that Hucknall seems to downplay the reference to the "almighty father", reading that line as if it's his literal parent. That and the "ad lib" at the end of "Did the earth move for you, Nancy?" which of course I didn't understand at the time. Still, he was in pretty fine voice back then and the record is a good pop track, even if it's too smoothly done to sound realistic.

Also appearing on: Now 7, 9, 20, 21, 23, 24, 32, 33
Available on: Picture Book (Collectors Edition)

Mai Tai 'History'

Chart Peak: 8

YouTube

It's difficult to agree with the YouTube commenter who says of this "I love these simple eighties' videos as they concentrated on the talent of the singer(s) more than the glitz and glamor of the visuals." There's even a computer in the first shot, and a bloke who, intentionally or not, looks a bit like a low-budget version of Prince in his 18th-century costume.

The record itself is clearly aiming for the same territory as Sister Sledge sometimes were, but despite the lack of big names involved it's much more effective - even if it carries no more wait, it's a much more convincing production and danceable enough to move you physically if not emotionally. The lyric may be acidic "Our love is history/Gonna burn the letters you been sending me" but the emphasis is clearly on the freedom of finally kicking the guy to the curb. Every bit of footage I've found of them performing this shows them having a whale of a time, and I'm not at all surprised.

Also appearing on: Now 6
Available on: Ultimate Woman

Sister Sledge 'Frankie'

Chart Peak: 1 (4 weeks)

YouTube

After the numerous US Number Ones (by British acts) that cropped up on the first disc of this album, we have to wait until the top of the second disc to find the first and only track that topped the UK chart. Ironically, it's by an American group, but it's a single that was unsuccessful in their homeland, peaking only at 75.

Sister Sledge claim their place in pop history largely thanks to a series of hits from their 1979 album We Are Family, written and produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic fame. Some of this material was revived over here in 1984 with such success that it seemingly helped pave the way for them to chart with new material the following year. It's probably also the reason why I keep getting them mixed up with the Pointer Sisters, but that's another story. Remarkably, Rodgers is back in the producer's chair for this track (which makes him the third ex-member of Chic to fall from grace on this album, after the contributions of Edwards and Tony Thompson to the Power Station track). The song could hardly be more different from the lush, hedonistic disco of their earlier collaborations though; instead it's a rather childish song, which doesn't get away with it even by admitting that it harks back to a teen romance, because the melody is just too facile. In fact, I think I even liked it when I was seven, which just proves the point, really. And the arrangment and performance is quite astonishingly stolid and one-dimensional; it might just about make sense as the work of children but the whole premise of the song is an adult woman meeting Frankie (a name that doesn't lend itself well to singing, by the way, but I suppose it's gender-neutral enough for the songwriter to have been hedging her bets). Perhaps you could compare the storyline to Hot Chocolate's 'It Started With A Kiss', but with none of the depth.

Also appearing on: Now 3, 24
Available on: Definitive Groove: Sister Sledge

Phil Collins 'One More Night'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

After what feels like a very long time we finally - finally - get to the end of the first disc with another US chart-topping single. Over there this was the first single from his most successful album, No Jacket Required, whilst it was held back for the second single in this country, presumably because it was so slow.

I admit that the subject matter of this song makes the slowness seem logical. Like a lot of his work from this era it's about romantic abandonment, although I'm not entirely sure whether the lyric "Give me one more night, cause I can't wait forever" actually makes sense. It's painfully obvious that he wrote this song to a drum machine, as he often did, because it gives a rather stately effect that completely undermines the desparation he's trying to portray. By the time the obligatory sax solo shows up things have got so dull that in the video even Collins himself walks out during it.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 3, 6, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 27, 41, 44, 68
Available on: No Jacket Required

China Crisis 'Black Man Ray'

Chart Peak: 14

YouTube

Most of the songs on this album so far seem to fall into one of two categories: either they're painfully overfamiliar, or I've never knowingly heard them before. This one certainly falls into the latter category, although I had at least vaguely heard of it. After this and 'Wishful Thinking' I'm rather getting the impression that China Crisis were one of those bands where you had to be there.

There seem to be all sorts of theories about who or what Black Man Ray might have been (see here for the most interesting treatment of the issue I've found) but there's a vagueness about the whole thing, musically and lyricially, that makes the question fairly uninteresting to me. Producer Walter Becker (the one from Steely Dan who wasn't selling solo albums) polishes this to a fine sheen but leaves it too smooth to grab onto; the result is pretty but ineffectual. And just like their biggest hit, it seems to doze off and fade out at the end, without leaving much trace in my memory.

Also appearing on: Now 2
Available on: Flaunt the Imperfection

Power Station 'Get It On (Bang A Gong)'

Chart Peak: 22

YouTube

A couple of albums ago, a commenter suggested that the All Saints version of 'Under The Bridge' was the worst cover of all time. Would that we could be so sure. Power Station were, you may have the misfortune to remember, a supergroup formed by some of the hundreds of people called Taylor who were members of Duran Duran during a lull in group activity (I presume it was a lull in the lull that produced 'View To A Kill'). The brought in ex-Chic drummer Tony Thompson, who probably should have known better and Robert Palmer, who might not have. Their self-penned hit 'Some Like It Hot' seems to have eluded the Now series, which instead finds itself representing them with the rather less successful follow-up.

Perhaps aptly, given the transatlantic origins of the group, their title seems to split the difference between the UK and US releases of the T-Rex hit, which were called 'Get It On' and 'Bang A Gong' respectively. And that's about the only aspect of this rather constipated cover version that I can call appropriate. Even in this heavily edited single version there's room for excesses of guitar and bass solos, and Palmer's rather earnest delivery sheds exactly the wrong sort of spotlight on Marc Bolan's playfully nonsensical lyric, and the overall effect is that they seem to have emphasised precisely the wrong elements of the song. Somehow, this version is more obviously about sex than the original, but it's not even a fraction as sexy.

Available on: The Power Station

Simple Minds 'Don't You (Forget About Me)'

Chart Peak: 7

YouTube

Another film I've never seen, and if you feel like making connections even further back, a song that Bryan Ferry apparently refused to record. In fact, even Simple Minds themselves reportedly turned it down at first, but were ultimately persuaded by their record company. And it seems to have been something of a decisive moment too: it gave them a US Number One single (and a long-running UK hit, despite its surprisingly low peak here) but at the expense of a certain amount of their reputation. To be sure, they'd already set off on the path of stadium rock, as can be heard on the very first Now! album with 'Waterfront', but recording an off-the-peg song for a film soundtrack seemed like the point of no return down that road. Of course, they made a fortune in the ensuing years, but when in later decades they tried to return to their art-rock origins, the genie wasn't going back into the bottle.

As for the record itself, I find again that listened to with a critical ear, it's not quite as bad as I thought, but I still wouldn't say it was actually good. The bombast that comes as standard with Jim Kerr seems particularly out of place with such light material, and he sounds utterly punchable by the closing la-la-la-la's. There are some mildly interesting bass parts, but all the rest sounds exactly what it is: part of the dressing for a mid-80s teen movie, and not really comprehensible without that context, or at least the memory of it.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 6, 7, 14, 15, 23, 30
Available on: EMI Presents 'The Great Big Scottish Songbook'

David Bowie (with the Pat Metheny Group) 'This Is Not America'

Chart Peak: 14

YouTube

Yes, this track is from The Falcon And The Snowman, which I've never really heard of outside the context of this song. Somehow I'd always assumed it would be a cartoon or something, but I learn now it's actually about a couple of men spying for the USSR. I suppose that explains why they got an experimental jazz fusion band to do the soundtrack, and why they'd have conjured such a bleak atmosphere. It also gives me a hint of what Bowie's lyric might actually be about, although I presume it'd make more sense over the closing credits.

Be that as it may, on the single, or on the Best Of Bowie album where I first heard it, the song has to stand on its own merit and in that context it's still rather good. Not the sort of thing I'd have been able to get my head around when I was seven (if I ever did hear it then, I didn't notice) but it seems most effective to me now as a sort of soundscape. That synthesised horn sound that decorates some of the choruses seems very lonely and Bowie's singing is well-judged, if a little stagey. Perhaps that artificial element is even a help, because it helps add to the mood of isolation; in fact, I might almost go so far as to say that this saves me the effort of seeing the film, because I think I can understand the central character's motivation. Perhaps that wasn't the desired effect, but never mind.

Also appearing on: Now 2, 7
Available on: Platinum Collection

Bryan Ferry 'Slave To Love'

Chart Peak: 10

YouTube

Perhaps Ferry's most popular solo song, and despite my general dislike for his music I admit I don't really mind this one. It helps, perhaps, that this is his own song rather than one of the many awful covers he tends to inflict on us, although it does seem a little similar to the late Roxy Music hit 'Avalon'. As there, he seems to rein in the most affected parts of his crooning and set up a mellow, slightly jazzy mood. In fact, the major flaw of this track is that it's so laid back it's easy to overlook it, even when you're trying to pay attention so you can write a blog post about it. Sorry Bryan.

Also appearing on: Now 13, 24
Available on: Best Of