Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
The Human League
Dare
(Virgin, 1981)
Steel City sybarites' synthpop supreme.
After the release of Dare and its club-mixed companion Love And Dancing, producer Martin Rushent retired from studio work for years. Maybe that's what happens when you help create a masterpiece like The Human League's immaculate synth-conception. A UK Number 1 album in October 1981, it contained the brain-burrowing big hits Sound Of The Crowd, Open Your Heart, Love Action and the US/UK Number 1 Don't You Want Me. But there was more to it than simply irresistible tunes - Seconds concerned the assassination of John F.Kennedy, I Am The Law was sung from the perspective of 2000 A.D comic's shoot-first lawman Judge Dredd and a sparse cover of Roy Budd's Get Carter theme (played on the cheap and cheerful Casio VL-Tone) lent a pleasingly discordant whiff of violent Geordie hoodlums to the smooth pop sounds. There had already been warning signs of their abnormality; until October 1980 the group was an all-male affair with a more sinister, sci-fi leaning agenda, and when deep-voiced frontman Philip Oakey had gone on Top Of The Pops in make-up and asymmetric wedge hair-do he beat the rest of the '80s gender benders by a year. This chemistry wasn't going to last, though; fluctuating fortunes and line-ups followed Dare's triumph, as did the perplexing spectacle of the group playing nostalgia tours in the '00s. Oakey and vocalists Susanne Sulley and Joanne Catherall haven't released a new long-player since 2001, but prompted by the future-retro moves of La Roux, Little Boots and the rest, they've just signed a new deal with the Wall Of Sound label. They could do worse than give Martin Rushent a call, we're saying.
Clive Prior
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 08/02/2010
Further Listening
The League Unlimited Orchestra – Love And Dancing (Virgin, 1982)
ABC – The Lexicon Of Love (Neutron, 1982)
Pet Shop Boys – Please (Parlophone, 1986)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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A truly classic album, and I still have my Casio VL-Tone keyboard as well!
Posted by Alexander Meerkat at 8:59 PM GMT 08/02/2010 Report Abuse
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