Bulldog

Time for that belated update then...


Whoever said music critics don't know bugger all eh As per one of a couple of posts I'm gonna make in this thread about the more endearing corners of an area of pop music that time hasn't been particularly kind to over the years, we're gonna have a quick look at what happens when a journo joins the band he's interviewing. Upon interviewing the new wave outfit Vice Versa in 1980, Martin Fry did indeed end up joining their ranks as vocalist - a move which saw the band's name change to a much more recognisable ABC. 2 years and a hit single (in the shape of funky Tears Are Not Enough) later, the time came for the quartet to record and release their debut album; Lexicon Of Love.

It's a ham-and-marmite sandwich of an album this, meaning it's no exagerration to say that you'll either love or hate it. Not in the mad as a box frogs/Captain Beefheart sense, obviously, but it all depends on your standing when it comes to that instantly-recognisable 80s synthpop/new wave sound. While this album hasn't dated as badly as, say, any given Prefab Sprout record, there's still a very early 80s sound to the percussion and synths. Very Trevor Horn, basically, who as the more retro-savvy among you may have noticed just by listening to the song below, actually produced this album. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure this album was the first huge, trans-Atlantic hit for Horn, who assembled his characteristic production team for the first time during the album sessions - Gary Langan: chief engineer; Anne Dudley: arrangements; JJ Jeczalik: programming. Emerging from the same Sheffield scene as the Human League as they did, it's not much of a surprise that ABC's debut sounds overall like a funkier version of the former's landmark Dare! album. Although there's a little bit of a lull in quality on the second side (the last two tracks in particular), Lexicon Of Love remains pretty much an essential pop album, with enough of a soft approach and melodic appeal about it (including one of my favourite hits of the 80s by a long shot) to have it rise well above mediocrity. When all's said and done, you couldn't have a pop thread without it.


In October 1980, a pivotal event in the history and evolution of pop music occured and, no, it wasn't Jim Callaghan resignation as Labour Party leader. Instead, it involved the same Sheffield scene that I was on about above (and, what the hell, I may as well focus on it with this post eh) - specifically the growing sense of dissatisfaction within the Human League at their lack of success that saw the band split up, seeing singer Phil Oakey and drummer Ian Burden retain the Human League name, while keyboardists Ian Craig Marsh and Marty Ware went the other way. While we'll rejoin Oakey and Burden in a bit, Marsh and Ware recruited a fella called Glenn Gregory as their singer, lifted their name from a Clockwork Orange and away they went, on their own path to pop stardom.

Although much more consistent than Oakey and co, meaning that any one of their first three albums are definitely worth your while if you're up for looking at bygone pillars of the pop community, their third album here is probably my pick of the bunch, or at the very least the one I've listened to enough to particularly want to write a couple of paragraphs about it. Plus, this album is the first Heaven 17 album which isn't entirely synthesized either, which makes it stand out from their early work that little bit more. As a unified sound, there's enough competent musicianship, use of what were then modern synthesizers and studio treatments and enough of an approachable vocal style from Gregory (for want of a better phrase) to set it up as a genuine pop album. Given that Ware and Marsh were side of the Human League that drove Oakey and Burden to pursue the more left-of-centre direction they did when all four of them were in the same band though, there isn't so much of an emphasis on melody as other synthpop albums of the day, but rather a lot more effort goes into creating vivid sonic pictures and delivering a good old-fashioned lefty, anti-yuppie message through the lyrics.

To sum it up in a sentence, either side of the Human League's splitting up in 1980 Heaven 17 here, while sparing no effort in giving themselves a very chart-friendly demeanour, have quite a bit in common with the earlier, more confrontational Human League records.


Now, let's have a look at the other side of that split eh. Better yet, I'll give you a bit more insight into why the split happened in the first place. There's that whole dissatisfaction with the lack of any real chart action the Human League were generating up until October 1980, but it was also down to the growing tension within the band over their musical direction, principally between Phil Oakey and Marty Ware. In essence, Ware saw the answer to this little problem the quartet had come upon being the continued pursuit of their more confrontational, more post-punk than synthpop direction, while Oakey thought it wouldn't exactly be a bad idea to lighten up and take a less aggressive appraoch to the charts. So, as I've already said, keyboardists Marty Ware and Ian Craig Marsh packed their bags and formed Heaven 17 while Oakey and drummer Ian Burden were left to pick up the shattered pieces of the Human League and start from scratch. Instead of looking for a couple more musos to recruit, Oakey made quite the odd move of picking up two girls (Joanne Cathrell and Susan Sulley) from a nightclub and employing them as backing vocalists, before taking to the studio to record a third album without any real hope of making a dent in the charts on either side of the Atlantic.

The result was an across-the-board smash of an album, propelled by the band's noticeably softer approach in the studio and the mega-hits Love Action and Don't You Want Me (which still grace many a dancefloor to this day). Not only did this album spawn two of the bigger and better hit singles of the 80s, but it was also a hugely influential landmark in that it was the first pop album to be recorded entirely on synth. Like Cupid and Psyche (my other favourite 80s pop album), it's true that you can blame this for a lot of charmless, passionless pop music to come over the next decade but, in all honesty, you can say that for just about any truly influential pop album. What matters is that the music is easily among the cream of the crop in its area and that is, of course, the case here - an album with more synth to it than you can shake a stick at, all the more charming for how 'of its time' bits of it sound, propelled by some of the most infectious hooks and catchy choruses committed to record.

To put it nice and pretentiously, this album serves as the kinda yin to Heaven 17's yang - a much brighter, friendlier sound than the just as accessible yet darker edge that Oakey's former bandmates in the latter were peddling. As I say, this is easily one of the most important pop albums of all time, and a shoe-in for any collection as far as I'm concerned.