There’s some logic (in my mind at least) as to why there’s an interlude on this particular Sunday.
Magazine had released just four singles up to now, two of which had been non-album offerings, while the other two had involved different mixes from the album versions.
Three of the next four would all be lifted from one album, The Correct Use of Soap, recorded in the second half of 1979 with Martin Hannett, who himself had not long finished production duties on Joy Division‘s debut album. I really feel I need to talk/write about the album before shining the light on any of its singles.
The writer Garry Mullholland, in his 2006 book ‘Fear of Music : The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk and Disco’ penned these words:-
‘The third Magazine album is a key transition in British pop. There was now a generation of musicians who had been excited by the Pistols but also by disco, reggae and the pop of their childhoods. Bands began to question whether rock and the electric guitar were really the cutting edge, or just a form of codified conformity.
So it was entirely natural that a band from a punk background, but with prog-rock-standard musicians, attempted, on The Correct Use of Soap to make a radio-friendly pop, complete with funk, soul and disco rhythms, horn solos, keyboards-to-the-fore, girly backing vox, even tender ballads. Joy Division’s producer Martin Hannett was brought in to give his fellow Mancunians a clearer, less dense and aggressive sound, while keeping the mystery and edge intact and not letting it get all Boomtown Rats. Everybody involved got it dead right. And then….no one bought it.’
It’s not quite true that nobody bought it. It came in at #28 on the first week of its release in May 1980. It stayed at #28 the following week. It then dropped, but by only three places to #31. After that, it plummeted to #61 and on the fifth week after it hit the shops, it was nowhere to be seen in the charts.
It’s an album that has managed to more than stand the test of time, as I pointed out when I posted a review of it written for the Louder Than War website in 2013. I did make the observation that the writer, Amy Britten, had written the review a style akin to what some refer to as the golden era of the UK music papers, when a thousand words would be used instead of a mere handful, and it was necessary to have a thesaurus close at hand.
I did offer up my own thoughts on the album.
I’ve never claimed to be a ‘good’ writer, but I am passionate about the things I like, albeit I often can’t get beyond using words like brilliant, fantastic or amazing to describe how much a particular record means to me.
The Correct Use of Soap will always be high up on the list of my favourite albums, but not because I’m able to make all sorts of smart and obscure references from the lyrics. It’s an album in which all members of the group are at the very top of their games, and yes, it enjoys a production input from Hannett that is unusually crisp and clear without too much gimmickry. It is a record that deliberately veers all over the place, with punk, funk, pop all to the fore – it even has a soppy ballad, complete with female backing vocals which tug at the heartstrings. But I’ll just keep coming back to the fact that McGeogh and Adamson, in particular, have never sounded better.
There’s not a duff song on ‘Soap’….it would, on its own make for a perfect ICA. A position that Devoto & co. seemingly acknowledged by the fact that in 2009, shortly after their brief reformation, they undertook a tour in which they played the album in order from start to finish, before taking a short break and coming back for a second set of songs from the other albums.
I’ll get round to looking at the singles over the next few weeks. The fact that the opening track of the album was passed over for a 45 is an indication of its quality
mp3: Magazine – Because You’re Frightened
It’s also one of the finest demonstrations of just how great, and I mean GREAT, a guitarist Magazine had. It’s no wonder that Siouxsie Sioux and her colleagues would soon put in a call and ask John McGeoch to join them.
I think brilliant, fantastic, and amazing work pretty well here.
It is a great album, and some interesting reflections there. Was it really an attempt at radio-friendly pop, or was that just Garry Mulholland’s interpretation? While it was an obvious progression, it wasn’t radically different from Magazine’s arty style – not the kind of shift that, say, the Human League or Ultravox made to conquer the charts. I doubt that was ever Devoto’s plan.
Fraser – While The Human League indisputably made a stylistic shift to aim for commercial success, I’m not sure the same could be said for Ultravox. Listening to “Vienna” it sounded like they were doing their level best to continue in the vein of “Systems of Romance” with a plethora of Foxx pastiche lyrics courtesy of Warren Cann who seemed happy to do it. But in 1981 the zeitgeist (courtesy of groundwork laid by Rusty Egan and… Midge Ure immediately prior) was primed for the band. Which made all of the difference in the world to their fortunes.
“Soap” was the first Magazine album I’d seen after reading reviews in the local New Wave paper, “Dogfood” that really caught my eye. The gist of the “Soap” review there was that it was Roxy Music 2.0. Heady stuff, but in essence, not a hype! I bought the US edition in the white/off white embossed sleeve as a cutout and that was IT! I was all-in but the band would pack it up almost as soon as I became a fan. And then came the interminable wait for the Devoto post-Magazine discs.