Kraftwerk – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Carmel, Glove, Kinks, Kraftwerk, Madness, Style Council

DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER (8)

The month of August 1983 as delivered by the UK record-buying public.

Chart dates 31st July – 6 August 1983

Nope. There’s nothing new in the Top 40 worth featuring, while all those that are half-decent that have been in the charts for a few weeks were mentioned either last month or back in June.

A 7″ I did buy back in the day did enter the charts at #48, and eventually made its way up to #15 in mid-September.

mp3: Carmel – Bad Day

A jazz/soul group whose name was taken from that of the lead singer, Carmel McCourt. The other two members were Jim Paris and Gerry Darby. This was the lead single from their second album, The Drum Is Everything, but their first for a major label, in this instance London Records. It was produced by Mike Thorne, who at the time was one of the most-sight after in his profession, thanks to his success with Soft Cell, The The and Bronski Beat, among others. It’s well seeing I was being influenced by The Style Council at this juncture in my life.

Chart dates 7th August – 13th August 1983

At long last, after a combined six weeks of sitting at the top of the charts, Rod Stewart and Paul Young were finally displaced by KC and The Sunshine Band. Sadly, it wasn’ttty quite the way (ah-huh, ah-huh) I liked it, as the song was the rather bland and dull Give It Up.

Weller and Talbot came to the rescue:-

mp3 : The Style Council – Long Hot Summer (#8)

I’ve said enough over the years about this particular song. It was, and remains after 40 years, a real favourite. It’s certainly stood the test of time. It would, over the course of the remainder of the month, reach #3 and in doing so, be the best-performing song, chart-wise, for TSC.

I’m off to Dusseldorf with a mate very soon for a weekend, during which we will take in a couple of matches. He’s not big into his music, but I’m sure even he’s heard of that city’s greatest and best known exports:-

mp3: Kraftwerk – Tour de France (#31)

It eventually manoeuvred its way up to #22.

Chart dates 14th – 20th August

mp3: Madness – Wings Of A Dove (#19)

The 15th time that Madness entered the singles chart. This time, they threw in some steel drums and the vocal talents of The Inspirational Choir of the Pentecostal First Born Church of the Living God, who had been runners-up in a talent show organised by Channel 4, but whose performances led to Madness asking them to do the additional/backing vocals on a newly written song that was intended for release as a single. What did surprise me is that Wings Of A Dove was Madness’s second-best ever performing 45, reaching #2, bettered only by their sole #1, House of Fun.

mp3 : The Kinks – Come Dancing (#29)

The Kinks hadn’t enjoyed a hit single in 11 years, and the success of Come Dancing was a bolt from the blue. It had actually been released, to complete indifference, in late 1982 but to almost everyone’s surprise, it found favour with the American audiences, reaching#6 on its release in April 1983. The UK record label quickly made plans to have a second go with things over here, and in due course it would reach #12. It proved to be the 17th and last time the band would reach the Top 20 in their homeland.

Chart dates 21st – 27th August 1983

As with the opening week of this month, nothing new came into the Top 40 to provide any excitement. Digging deep down, I found this:-

mp3 : The Glove – Like An Animal (#52)

This was actually a rise of one place from its entry into the Top 75 at #53 the previous week.

The Glove was a side project involving Steve Severin (Banshees) and Robert Smith (The Cure). A clause in his contract seemingly prohibited Smith singing with another band, which is why Jeanette Landray, a former girlfriend of Severin’s bandmate Budgie, was recruited as the lead singer.

May 2019 was the only time The Glove previously featured on the blog. It came from a great discussion via the comments section involving Martin (Sweden) and Dirk (Germany) about the merits of this single.

Martin

I must point out that the B-side of the first single by The Glove (Like an animal) is one of the best pop songs ever recorded by RS, Mouth To Mouth.

Note I post this as a fact.

Dirk

Even better than the A-Side, Martin? Must listen to it once I get home … and if it ever comes to an ICA, ‘Like An Animal’ M.U.S.T. be included … at least as far as I’m concerned …

Martin

Dirk – In my eyes, yes without a doubt! And it has Robert singing as if I remember correctly he could for contractual reasons not do the lead vocals on any of the singles. Like an animal has Landray on vocals.

So… the contractual issue wasn’t he couldn’t sing lead vocals – he just couldn’t do it on any singles. Here’s your b-side

mp3: The Glove – Mouth To Mouth

I’ll be back again with more of the same in four or so weeks.

JC

Kraftwerk

TRUE CONFESSIONS

Once again, this is something that may turn into a regular series but it wholly dependent on reader reaction and offers to contribute further. It’s sort of a sideshow to the ‘Had It. Lost It.’ series.

The idea is to offer up some thoughts on a song that, to most reasonably-minded individuals, is held up as a classic but to the ears of the contributor is completely overrated.

I could kick things off with just about any song ever written and recorded by The Beatles. I do know, and I do fully accept, that they made a bigger single contribution to the development of pop/rock than almost anyone else you care to mention but for some reason or other I haven’t ever taken to them. I don’t have any vinyl or CDs in what is a fairly substantial collection although I do know, thanks to constant exposure to their hits and album tracks throughout my entire life, hundreds of their songs, some of which I do find passable while others just leave me cold.

Liking or not liking a classic can very easily be a generational thing, whether it being down to the song being released years before a listener developed a real interest in music or perhaps it comes from such a new era that the same listener isn’t keeping up with trends. As such, the one rule for any True Confessions features, is the song must be from the era when the contributor lived and breathed music.

My first ‘fess up is that I don’t like The Model, the song with which Kraftwerk conquered the UK charts in 1982.

While my first real love was new wave/post-punk, from which I would fall head over heels for indie-guitar from the early 80s onwards, I was someone who really enjoyed bands that incorporated synths/keyboards into their sound; indeed I think I’ve demonstrated this in a fair number of the blog postings over the years. Kraftwerk, however, are a band that I haven’t ever quite got to grips with, albeit I do have some of their singles on vinyl sitting in the big cupboard. But not The Model.

I haven’t, until now, actually sat down to think why this is the case and even trying to explain it with the sole reliance on the written word seems beyond me; it’s one of those occasions where I could do with a rammy in the pub with some close friends to tease it all out. I’m instead having to settle on an internal word-association exercise and I’m coming up with – Repetitive. Dirge. Off-key. Cold. Annoying. Hypnotic (in that it makes me want to nod off). Repetitive.

I’m even boring myself trying to write about it far less listen to it. And then, just as I get frustrated with myself and think about hitting the delete button as I’m not making much headway, I realise that, compared to other Kraftwerk songs, The Model is actually a novelty number; indeed, it’s almost a p!ss-take of the band and the sounds they were striving to develop in the infant years of electronica. Like most novelty records, the charms, if they exist to begin with, wear off very quickly and it becomes annoying to the point of never wanting to willingly listen to it again (although, wearing my DJ hat, I do accept and acknowledge that it can be the perfect tune for a particular time, place and crowd)

mp3 : Kraftwerk – The Model

Bring on the brickbats.