Pop music
Best of British
Marcus Berkmann
The British do very well out of pop music: besides academics and Fortnums hampers, it's one of the few things we export in any quantity. Historically though, pop music is perceived as an essentially American activity. After all, they invented it. Everybody sings it in their language (Chas and Dave notwithstand- ing). And it's success in the American chart that really counts, not least because of the wheelbarrows full of greenbacks that a US number one automatically confers on its lucky beneficiaries.
All of which tends to impart a curiously transatlantic nature to most successful Brit- ish pop. Simply Red, for instance, may sing about Mrs T, but their album was recorded in Montserrat with an American producer and is clearly inspired by a host of Amer- ican soul and pop acts. It's the rare band that manages to succeed on Englishness alone, and then rarely in the country of their birth. Indeed, over here such acts are generally considered a little eccentric, if not downright bonkers.
XTC, for instance, are always reviewed in Britain with a mildly patronising sneer — mainly as a result of their mid-career obsession with rural England (as typified by their album Mummer and the single `Love On A Farm Boy's Wages') and their unwavering belief that Swindon is the centre of the universe. As so many excel- lent bands know to their cost, falling outside one of rock's all-encompassing stereotypes usually means oblivion, but XTC have found a new outlet for their wares — the United States. Their last album Skylarking shifted in satisfying quantities over there, and an album of psychedelic parodies they recorded for fun under the pseudonym The Dukes Of Stra- tosphear was more successful than anyone could have hoped. Like the Kinks ten years ago and more recently Squeeze, XTC have discovered that in America, Englishness sells.
It's just as well, then, that their newest release is the best thing they have done in yonks. A 15-track CD-length album (two shortish records on vinyl), Oranges And Lemons (Virgin) contains some of Andy Partridge's most likeable and adhesive tunes yet, all whipped up in a mix of Sixties pastiche that will go down a storm on American radio. (Needless to say, they remain ignored over here, with the single `Mayor Of Simpleton' — my personal favourite of the year so far — noticeably absent from prominent playlists.) Despite the Beatley guitars, Sgt Pepper-style trum- pets (courtesy of Mark Isham) and melo- dies you're amazed that Paul McCartney didn't write, there's an immense freshness to the whole enterprise which brings it right up to date.
XTC's success should act as a spur to two more esoteric acts who also flaunt their Englishness, to little or no commercial effect. Both released albums towards the end of last year. The Lilac Time (Fontana) is Stephen Duffy's reaction to the universal commercial and critical indifference that greeted his later stabs at flashy chart pop: a primarily acoustic album full of simple songs much in the mould of Colour Field's brilliant Virgins And Philistines of a few years back. It's not as subtle or satisfying as that, but once again the no-frills approach has worked well, allowing the songs more space to breathe than Duffy's earlier, more `I'm still a bit sluggish.'
cluttered recordings. And though there's the odd gesture towards country music, as in the splendid 'Return To Yesterday', much of the record is gloriously lugubrious in tone, in a very English, self-mocking way. Duffy always sounds as though he's got a really bad cold, and isn't the weather awful — like Morrissey with his tongue in his cheek.
Next to Would-Be Goods' The Camera Loves Me (el), though, Duffy sounds almost hi-tech. Recording on a budget of around 10p with a bunch of old Monochrome Set musicians, these two sisters have put together a brief (31 min- utes) but hugely enjoyable set of songs inspired by terrible old Sixties films and their even worse sound-tracks. Their un- mistakably upper-class voices are hardly the world's most pliable instruments, but the tunes are fab (I'm getting into the mood here) and the lyrics hilarious. Where else would you find songs called 'Cecil Beaton's Scrapbook', 'Pinstriped Rebel' and 'Death A La Carte'? Totally bizarre, but if you're feeling adventurous, it's very much worth the investment.
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