Jukebox Junior: Playing records to a girl called Junior
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Singles Of The Year 1983
[8] Duran Duran, 'Is There Something I Should Know?'
Careless memories are flooding back: this record was important to me, the first release I ever anticipated. Up to March 1983, I’d only ever bought singles or albums already in the chart, and certainly not on the day they came out- but, for ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’, I was in WH Smith during lunch break on the Monday, flicking through the lesser-thumbed racks beneath the Top 40 wall. There it was in its smart, yellow-logo-ed cover, nestling in a PVC sleeve. No fanfare, no multiple copies, as if they didn’t know it was hurtling straight for the No.1 spot.
It wasn’t commonplace in those days. When ‘Is There Something…’ entered the chart at the top on March 26th (of course I didn’t need to look that up), it was the first single to do so since The Jam’s ‘Beat Surrender’ in December, but more significantly it was only about the 15th (how difficult can it be to find out this sort of stuff in the digital age?) in over 30 years of charts. Now it’s nearly every single No.1. The Jam were adept at the trick when it was a trick, as were Slade, and Blondie pulled it off too. The Beatles didn’t make the sort of habit of it you’d expect and Duran Duran- enjoying vaguely comparable levels of hysteria- never repeated the feat.
It happened here because a true modern marketing buzz had built up. The first new material since the ‘Rio’ album had made global in-roads, it was anticipated like few others. Even 10 year old me was sat in front of BBC2 in good time to see the debut airing on the Oxford Road Show, and who knows how I found out about that? When they appeared on Top Of The Pops a week later, Simon Le Bon was kitted out all smart, miles from what we expected of our pop stars. At school the next day, a classmate came up to me and said, “Did you see Top Of The Pops? Dig the suit.” Dig the suit.
In a fortnight, it was over. Bowie had snuck in at No.5 the same week, crept up the chart, knocked it off and ultimately outsold it.
After all that, what of the song? Well, it’s odd: an opening chant backed by “jungle drums”, trademark cod-clever lyrics, unusually stark guitar, a harmonica solo, and a chorus-to-fade with pretty much acieeed synths playing it out. I didn’t expect it to sound odd today. Just goes to show.
Junior switched it off after about 20 seconds. When she agreed it could be played a second time, she ran around looking for her shoes, before offering some cursory dance moves towards the end and a polite cheer as it finished. In 24 years she’ll find its hidden depths.
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[9] The Style Council, 'Speak Like A Child'
Great logo, great sleeve, great move, great record. Junior and I scoff at the Jam purists who turned away in drainpiped disgust at this pop betrayal. Hadn’t they listened to any Jam records, for crying out loud? Particularly the soul-tinged efforts of the previous 12 months or so. Rarely has a career change been so glaringly signposted, and the Style Council’s fourth single, ‘Solid Bond In Your Heart’, was even meant to have been a Jam release. No, I never understood the fuss- Weller was a soul boy, always had been, and it was right that he should show more ambition in his sonic and lyrical reach. ‘Speak Like A Child’ is an instant smile from its very first blare of horns. I admit I play it too loud: Junior hid behind my legs for the first bar until I turned it down.
Little else to say. Have I ever mentioned that the Style Council were one of the last bands to respect the value of the single, to make each release a collectable little gem in itself, neither a promotional tool nor a tossed-off obligation? I think I have, but it’s worth repeating.
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[10] The Police, 'Every Breath You Take'
‘Every Breath You Take’ has had a rough ride over the years: first there was Puff Diddy defecating all over it from his gaudy, jewel-encrusted throne in an early example of his desperate flogging of the Notorious B.I.G. corpse dressed up as tribute- it’s not as if anyone even cared about B.I.G. anyway. Erm, God rest his soul. Secondly, there are the scores of people telling you that, like, wow, it’s actually a stalking song. Really? I never knew. Maybe I shouldn’t have self-lobotomised when I was nine.
I bought the single with one of the WH Smith tokens I was given for my 11th birthday- the others were spent on Bowie’s ‘China Girl’ and a late purchase of Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’, minutiae fans- and it had a pleasing, glossy sleeve. Probably not too environmentally-friendly, you know, Sting. I never loved it, but sensed its quality and relevance. I still quite like it, with its strength, bassy rigidity and catchy middle eight.
As for Junior, she found the groove in the creepy half-ballad and wanted me to appreciate it too. I hope I still have a finger somewhere near the pulse, but my daughter makes me dance to The Police. I won’t be spending hundreds of conned pounds on a reunion gig ticket though, believe me.
Someone comment, for pity’s sake- enough people seem to be reading. I don’t listen to these records for my own benefit, you know. Well, maybe. Ok, I do.
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[11] Depeche Mode, 'Everything Counts'
Perv skirts akimbo, it’s the ‘Mode and they’re here to skewer big business and the corporate carrot. With a melodica.
It’s a marvellous pop tune, reducing the vagaries of the European market to “a suntan and a grin”. It all seemed frightfully relevant when I was 11- quite beyond my ken, but also allowing me a qualified insight into what people’s dads were doing. My dad was being a flying ace. None of those flipcharts and balance sheets for MY dad.
What else to say about ‘Everything Counts’? I think its chorus was our first opportunity to hear Martin Gore sing on a single, and what a pretty noise it was; still, nothing would ever suit the band better than Dave Gahan’s monotone drone, no matter how vocally adept the others were. Oh, the single was sitting on my chest of drawers the night I left my bedroom window open during a storm. For years I thought the water-damaged sleeve was my fault, but it looks like that anyway.
Junior wanted to waltz with her dad again and applauded as Gore and his melodica faded away, but she was mainly unbothered. She’s waiting for something special, and the top 10 has no shortage of pop pearls. Well, pretty much the same old stuff, really. You know the drill.
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[12] The S.O.S. Band, 'Just Be Good To Me'
Extraordinary things were happening in soul music in 1983, and they were all down to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Their distinctive clattering swing beat ruled r’n’b for half a decade, giving disco and rare groove the quantum boost it needed by this point, a laser shot of shoulder-padded bling with future accessories. Think The Neptunes, 15 years sooner.
This song became even more famous seven years later, when Norman Cook glued the lyric to the ‘Guns Of Brixton’ bassline and made the soundtrack to my A-Level summer, but no matter how “now” that sounded, it couldn’t hold its own in the noughties like the S.O.S. Band version can. The mark of a great producer over a fashion-hopper, I suppose.
The rippling muscle of ‘Just Be Good To Me’ had Junior running from the speakers to begin with, until she decided it was safe if she danced in her dad’s arms. We didn’t make it through the full 8.55 length- mornings overflow with the rush to get dressed, pack bags, catch buses- but we heard enough to wallow in the towering synth washes and flickering drums. What a sound.
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[13] The Human League, '(Keep Feeling) Fascination'
Wasn’t it great the way that The Human League always stood in a row to perform? They were still doing it 10 years later during their briefly lucrative comeback. It gave them a democratic image, but also meant there were no hiding places. If Jo Callis was looking stupid- and he usually was- we were all going to know about it.
Even better, on ‘(Keep Feeling) Fascination’, Jo, Phil and “the girls” all took it in turns to sing lines. It makes the song spectacularly disjointed and really shows Oakey’s flat vocals in stark relief. In short, genius pop. The off-key, wonky keyboard riffs take it to a better place altogether.
Seems a shame, then, that Junior wasn’t fascinated at all- she busied herself with the laundry. I train them up, you see. I’m guessing that she probably needed to see the tawdry chorus line for the full effect, needed to see the half-baked dance moves and lurid make-up, needed to see the bassist and lead guitarist gamely trying to make us believe there was any sort of guitar on the record. The Human League were truly an immersive, multimedia experience.
As for “Red”: the single was coded Red, the word actually on the cover below their name. It meant that it was a “dance” record. I can’t remember the League’s other colour codes, but let’s guess at Blue for “ballad”, Green for “ridiculous” and Yellow for “biggest selling single of 1981/2”.
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[14] Howard Jones, 'New Song'
The problem with the internet, and specifically Wikipedia if you can rely on it, is that you’re supposed to have your facts straight about your average 80s pop star. I mean, I have some half-remembered, possibly false facts about Howard Jones to relate, but if they’re utter baloney I’ll be pilloried for not doing my research.
Ah, who cares?
Jones was a civil servant from Bracknell or something and – faintly unusually for a “pop star” – he was already married when he appeared on the scene. Sorry, girls. The lovely Jan (probably) ran his fanclub, probably, and – equally probably – knitted his jumpers. What is indisputable is he was a useless pop star, yet somehow still synonymous with the very notion of the 80s pop star. His keyboard features prominently on the cover of this single; it made me want to play keyboards. I had a homemade synthesiser, a remarkable thing in a plywood shell, but it never worked.
Howard burned brightly for a year or two, racking up the top 10 hits while the sun shone on his flowerpot hair, but never shook the joke tag. His painted, dancing mate Jez didn’t help. ‘New Song’, though, is feverishly catchy and a joyous example of synth pop in its golden age. Junior sang “ooo-ooo-ooo”, with no trace of sarcasm, and warmed up for the next lot of synth pioneers waiting next to the turntable.
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