Pop music
Second time around
Marcus Berkmann
After all my various moans about the state of the singles chart, two splendid songs have suddenly materialised in the top three. Neither Fairground Attraction's 'Perfect' nor Danny Wilson's 'Mary's Prayer' is standard Radio 1 fodder, yet both have vaulted up the charts without resistance. 'Perfect', in case you've missed it, is a bouncy little tune with a fearsomely catchy chorus, played entirely on acoustic instruments (bar the rockabilly guitar solo) by a far from photogenic four-piece group. Such a combination is rare in a hit single wall-to-wall synthesisers, 120 beats per minute and streaked totties with millions of teeth being the dismal norm. So rare, in fact, that it's hard not to see it as something of a fluke. It would be nice to think that Fairground Attraction can follow it up, but will Radio 1 let them? Still, that's the price you pay for being different — the label 'novelty record' is always behind you, lying in wait.
'Mary's Prayer' is probably more main- stream, but an unlikely hit nonetheless. Danny Wilson are a trio of Scotsmen there's a curious logic in there somewhere — with a mid-period Steely Dan fixation, and this is the best and most distinctive track from an otherwise patchy debut album. If all this sounds familiar, it's because I reviewed that album in these columns a year ago. Usually it's only the most successful of groups who dares to release a single from a year-old album: look at Fleetwood Mac, whose current `Everywhere' is the fifth 45 from their lucrative Tango in the Night (a sixth is scheduled). But recently albums seem to have a longer commercial life than before — perhaps because they are so much more expensive to record. And ten years ago most acts recorded an album a year; these days you're lucky to prod them into the studio more than once every two years. If the stock market's doing well and the weather's nice in Trinidad, it can be even longer.
Danny Wilson's case, though, is rather different, as this is the third time 'Mary's Prayer' has been issued as a single. It first emerged early last year, just before the album, but as one of the 700-odd singles released that (and every) week, it failed to trouble the scorers. The album then appeared, to good reviews everywhere particularly of 'Mary's Prayer'. Cue a second release for the single, which this time attracted lots of muted approbation from disc jockeys but not much radio play. Other singles were tried, but did even less well, so Virgin had the track 'remixed' (i.e. mucked about with to make it more suitable for radio play) and pushed it out for a third time. In the meantime the song had been a minor hit in the US, and as radio programmers ascribe to the Amer- ican charts mystic powers of almost reli- gious significance, they instantly playlisted it. And now 'Mary's Prayer' is a hit.
In the past, of course, the standard stratagem after the failure of a single was to bung out another one. Some labels still do that — WEA has so far released six singles from Simply Red's feeble (but expensive) Men and Women LP, and most have stiffed. But the endless regurgitation tactic is becoming more popular — 'Hot- house Flowers', 'Don't Go' and Deacon Blue's 'When Will you Make my Tele- phone Ring' are two more current candi- dates. I think it all started with Prefab Sprout, whose 'Where Love Breaks Down' seemed to come out about once every three months, until after a year or so somebody bought it. Still, it does make a change from all those remixed Jackson Five songs and cover versions of Seventies disco hits — I think.
A man whose career has been notably free of hit singles in recent years has been Joe Jackson (no relation), who has re- sponded to mass indifference in the tradi- tional manner — by releasing a double live album full of his old hits. Fortunately Live 1980-86 (A&M) is not typical of the species. Jackson has always striven to keep himself (and everyone else) interested by constantly changing his approach, swap- ping genre for genre with almost too great a felicity. If this has made him rather hard to pin down, in the meantime he has given us some of the more intelligent pop, rock and even jazz of the past decade. Not surprisingly, then, he uses his live album as an opportunity to re-evaluate his songs rather than just reproduce them. Some of them are barely recognisable: `Steppin" Out' is slowed right down, the melody only hinted at, with Jackson singing progres- sively longer snatches and waiting for the audience to twig. lumpin' Jive' is trans- lated from big-band swing to small-band rockabilly, and works beautifully. And of `Is She Really Going out With Him', one of his best songs, he includes three versions — one relatively straight, one acoustic and one a capella. It's a fascinating album in all, eminently listenable and exceptionally well packaged, with that rarity, an interest- ing and informative sleeve note. Even if (like me) you had always suspected that Jackson was a bit of a pillock (Jackson pillock — geddit?), this is the record that will win you over.
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