Audio Journal: 27/09/2013 - Eighties Film Soundtracks

The Secret Of My Success poster

This week saw me celebrating my birthday, and on the evening of said day I decided to watch the 1987 movie The Secret Of My Success.

There were essentially three reasons for choosing that film. The first was that it starred Michael J. Fox. The second was that it was set in New York, and I probably spent as much time as I did on the film's flimsy premise as I did trying to identify the skyscrapers in the vicinity of the Pemrose Corporation's Midtown offices. The third reason for choosing this above any other DVD from the box was simply because it's an Eighties film, and for some reason, probably because I grew up in the Eighties, I'll naturally gravitate to films from that era if I'm feeling aware of the passage of time; it could easily have been Back To The Future, The Breakfast Club or Ghostbusters. They're all in the box, but for that evening it was The Secret Of My Success that won the day.

Everything about The Secret Of My Success screams Eighties, and by that I don't just mean the suits and haircuts. There's a plot line involving a huge dose of corporate greed and unbridled ambition (think Wall Street without the insider trading and with madcap antics), an obligatory and arguably unnecessary romantic interest, the bad guy and the improbable triumph of Fox over said bad guy in the hastily concluded, feel-good final moments. The other Eighties quality was the soundtrack, lead by Night Ranger's gutsy, upbeat and overblown title track (I actually really like it for precisely those reasons; sadly it's not available from iTunes). Here's the video.

It occurred to me that Eighties soundtracks do generally have a distinctive quality that time-stamps them every bit as well as the fashions and story lines - the other options all have big, memorable songs on their soundtracks, for example. By coincidence, earlier this week I completed an interview with Rupert Lally who, in addition to his solo releases or work in collaboration with Espen J. Jörgensen and others, enjoys a parallel career as a composer for film, TV and a Swiss dance company. So, as an unplanned extension of that interview I decided to ask him about what made Eighties soundtracks so distinctive.

'Eighties film soundtracks were revolutionary for two main reasons,' Lally advises. 'The first was their use of songs, and the second was their use of synthesizers.'

'There were examples of movies using songs before the Eighties of course. That started with the Elvis and Beatles movies, but these were closer to the tradition of film musicals. The idea of constructing a soundtrack for a non-musical movie using primarily songs began in the Seventies with soundtracks such as The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy. Both of these are templates for the sort of soundtrack that would rise to prominence in the Eighties because they are a mixture of score and songs with, in the case of Midnight Cowboy, the composer John Barry co-writing some of the songs. This is a very important ingredient to the success of those Eighties song scores, in that most of the time people like Giorgio Moroder, Harold Faltermeyer or Keith Forsey (who scored The Breakfast Club) would not only write the score but also write or co-write the songs.' Indeed, Forsey was one of the two songwriters for 'Don't You Forget About Me' by Simple Minds, the unforgettable title track for The Breakfast Club, while David Foster, who provided the soundtrack to The Secret Of My Success, co-wrote the Night Ranger track above.

'In retrospect this was the beginning of a very slippery slope with studios using soundtracks to help sell a movie,' rues Lally. 'Eventually, the harmonious relationship between songs and score began to disappear as the time frames to produce a score became shorter, and at the same time the score composers' participation with the songs became nonexistent.' That breakdown would lead to the type of soundtracks offered today which are more like pastiches of Now! compilation albums with a few exclusives thrown in if the studio can be bothered.

Turning to the use of new technology, Lally is more enthusiastic. 'Synths had been used to score films well before the Eighties too, with scores to films like The Forbidden Planet being one of the earliest examples. But the idea of a totally electronic score being accepted as standard practice for a mainstream film didn't develop until the Eighties for two main reasons. First, synthesizers became cheaper and therefore available to the average musician. Second, the invention of home video resulted in such a massive demand for product that low-budget or independent companies, who didn't have the budget for an orchestral score, would happily hire a guy or gal with a few synths to create the soundtrack. This studios were able to thrive in a way that they hadn't since the drive-in movie theatres started to go out of business.'

So if you ever wondered what makes Eighties soundtracks so memorable, that's why.

Rupert Lally on Eighties film soundtracks

At the end of my interview with Lally he described his favourite electronic music records. Here he does the same for Eighties movie soundtracks.

Vangelis Blade Runner

This is such a beautiful score on so many levels. The choice of sounds is very orchestral - Vangelis uses very few timbres here. Then there are those wonderful brass and pad sounds from the Yamaha CS80, a Fender Rhodes electric piano, a heavily processed grand piano, sampled timpani and percussion from an Emulator and a live gong; occasionally he'll add a saxophone or Mary Hopkin's very pure sounding voice, but otherwise that's it. It creates a feeling of an ensemble. Supposedly he performed the score live to tape watching the film on screen whilst he played, creating much of it on the spur of the moment; which to me only enhances it's greatness.

Maurice Jarre Witness

This is another benchmark synthetic score for me. Jarre apparently used four session synthesizer players in a little quartet and recorded them playing all together for the this score, which is probably why, despite being wholly synthetic, it has the feeling of chamber music at times.

Giorgio Moroder Cat People

A great, pulsing score from Moroder, which, according to Paul Schrader (the director), was achieved by Moroder recording layer after layer of synths onto multi-track tape and then fading the different layers in and out during the mixing process. There's a great use of the (co-written) song 'Putting Out Fire' by David Bowie too.

Harold Faltermeyer Beverly Hills Cop

This choice will probably get a few groans, but forget the familiarity of the main theme [the ubiquitous 'Axel F']and watch the movie again paying special attention to the score. The mood that Faltermeyer (who also wrote some of the songs) manages to create from such minimal ingredients is very impressive. The theme is used again and again in the film in many different ways, and in that sense the score takes a very traditional approach to film scoring using untraditional means.

Brad Fiedel Terminator

People always forget that the first Terminator film was an extremely low-budget movie. Using little more than an Emulator sampling keyboard, a Prophet 10 synthesizer and a DMX drum machine, Fiedel created this (still) iconic score that suggests the relentlessness of the Terminator using repetitive rhythms and sampled clanging metal.

Wendy Carlos Tron

Carlos is a classically trained composer, and her scores reflect this - her score for Tron almost borders on opera at times, which for me is a love / hate thing. There is no doubting this scores' incredible power however.

Arthur B. Rubinstein Wargames

At first listen, it's difficult to believe this score is really the work of one person, but it is. From the militaristic Brass music of the opening credits, to the synth pop songs underscoring the youthful Matthew Broderick playing in the video arcade, to the beautiful solo piano theme for Professor Falken, Rubinstein wrote them all.

Ennio Morricone The Thing

I had to have at least one John Carpenter score in here and even though Carpenter didn't write this one himself, his influence is clearly apparent. The feeling of impending doom is apparent from the first bar of the opening theme.

James Horner Gorky Park

Horner has become a little bit of an in-joke in the scoring industry for his ability to keep using the same melodies and motifs in many of his scores. However, at the beginning of his career he was the king of creating scores for independent movies that belied their low budget roots. His use of a cymbalom alongside synths and a brass ensemble is both startling and incredibly dramatic.

Hans Zimmer Black Rain

Like Horner, Zimmer's familiarity has led to people dismissing his work at times, which is wrong because his early scores like this which blends pulsing synths, orchestra and traditional Japanese instruments, were revolutionary. He still has the ability to surprise even today - take his score for The Dark Knight for instance - plus he began his road to Hollywood mega score-dom as a synth programmer working in a little studio in my home town of Brighton, and for that, if nothing else, he has my undying respect.

Audio Journal : 24/02/2011

Depeche Mode are a band that I first heard around the time of Violator; a girl in my class at school, Sarah, had plastered pictures of the band all over her English folder and I assumed they were some sort of New Kids On The Block boyband, though their music didn't exactly sound like 'The Right Stuff'. At the time, 1990, the songs off Violator that graced the charts were annoying to me, 'Personal Jesus' in particular.

Fast-forward a years: by 1991 I'd settled upon Erasure as my favourite band. Finding a brochure from the record label called Documentary Evidence in the 12" single of that band's hit 'Chorus', I discovered that Vince Clarke from Erasure had started his musical career in Depeche Mode, before moving on to found Yazoo, The Assembly and finally Erasure. All of a sudden I didn't know what to think – I almost felt obligated to revise my opinion of Depeche Mode and so began tentatively running through their back catalogue. Knowing that Vince had only been with the band for their first album, 1981's Speak & Spell, I figured I'd only want to listen to that. Instead I borrowed their first singles collection from my local library in Stratford-upon-Avon and promptly fell in love not just with the Vince-era singles ('Dreaming Of Me', 'New Life' and 'Just Can't Get Enough'), but the whole lot.

This blog is supposed to be a personal record of what I have been listening to and, accordingly, I don't make any apology for the occasional emotional content or degree of recollection of the text below. It doesn't have the word journal in the title for nothing. However, I surprised myself at just how important these songs – which were compiled for Mrs S as an introduction to the band many years ago – are in my personal history. Those looking for less of an autobiographical post should tune in next week for a return to business as usual.

Nodisco (Speak & Spell, 1981)



I bought a CD copy of Speak & Spell in 1992 and found its distinctive, pure analogue electronic sound highly captivating. Many years before I'd been exposed to 1981's contemporaneous Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret by Soft Cell and Human League's Dare. Speak & Spell sounded utterly different to those other records. Aside from the singles mentioned above, the track that I liked best was 'Nodisco', an arch and vaguely sleazy track whose percussion noises sounded just like Erasure's version of ABBA's 'Lay All Your Love On Me'.

I spent that summer in love with a girl who roundly spurned me.

My Secret Garden (A Broken Frame, 1982)
Pipeline (Construction Time Again, 1983)



I got both of these albums on cassette for my sixteenth birthday. It was something of a Depeche Mode-dominated birthday that year; I got a black Violator t-shirt (long since lost and finally replaced when I went to see them at the O2 Arena in 2009) as well, and possibly a poster. Oh, and I also got a Phillishave electric razor.

'My Secret Garden' remains my favourite track on the mostly fey A Broken Frame, recorded hastily after Vince's swift exit from the band. The track is ethereal and mysterious, developing out of an extended, laconic instrumental section before breaking out into a serene, wry take on synth-pop.

By 1983's Construction Time Again, things had begun to darken in the Mode camp. Martin Gore had developed a new, more complex writing style and new boy Alan Wilder added a new inventiveness to the band's sonic palette. The key track was 'Pipeline', a six-minute track sung by Gore which roundly dumped the confines of electropop in favour of sampled industrial sounds culled from a visit to an East London railway yard; the lyrical theme was the anguish of hard labour, an effective counterpoint to the album's huge single 'Everything Counts' with its cynical Eighties Yuppie greed Gecko-isms. Engineer Gareth Jones, who began working with the band on this album, told me it was an absolute pleasure recording this. You can read more comments from Jones in my Documentary Evidence review of Construction Time Again.

Lie To Me
Somebody (Some Great Reward, 1984)



Sticking with my sixteenth birthday, I bought this the Saturday after, from a record shop in Stratford-upon-Avon called Music Junction, a place sadly no longer in existence where I bought a lot of music during my teenage years. I was on a date with a girlfriend; she didn't like Depeche Mode. No-one I knew did. She dumped me within a fortnight.

'Lie To Me', Some Great Reward's opener was a stand-out song for me from the moment I listened to it. It is one of Gore's most darkly humorous songs in my opinion, Dave Gahan singing about putting someone's leather dress on. That wasn't the reason I liked it, mind. Don't get any ideas. It just felt weirdly nihilistic and savagely dark and I loved it.

'Somebody' is the most perfect ballad Martin Gore has ever recorded; a plaintive love song sung by himself with Alan Wilder on piano, whose lyrics detailed a wish list of all the emotional qualities that he wanted in a partner. I first heard this song on The Singles 1981 - 1985 and loved it immensely. I would wait another eight years to find someone for whom the opening lines applied to: 'I want somebody to share / Share the rest of my life'.

A Question Of Lust (Black Celebration, 1986)

Each successive Depeche Mode became that little bit darker, and by Black Celebration it was hard to see anything at all. Yet in amongst this was another stand-out Martin Gore-sung track, the tender 'A Question Of Lust', a counterpoint to the urgent, harrowing 'A Question Of Time'. Gore really has a handle on writing emotional ballads, and 'A Question Of Lust' is another perfect example. The drums and percussion sound like something Phil Spector may have fashioned from his wall of sound; big, reveberating sounds, dramatic tension and all those sorts of words and phrases.

One day at work many years later I was talking to a guy called John in the lift lobby of our office building. To date, he's only the second similarly ardent Depeche Mode fan I've ever met. I thought I was a pretty solid fan at that point, and in a second John roundly shattered that illusion. 'Life in the so-called space age,' he said. 'What's that from?' I racked my brain trying to find that lyric somewhere in a Depeche song, and seeing my blank expression he decided to put me out of my misery.

'Black Celebration, back cover, right at the very bottom.' He's right of course, and I realised in that moment where he described the placement of the nondescript white text on the rear of that sleeve that obsessive fans can be a bit, well, nerdy, can't they?

The Things You Said (Music For The Masses, 1987)

The year was 1994. It was summer. A girl had just dumped me earlier that day. (There's possibly a theme emerging here.) I listened to this on repeat all afternoon until it got dark. It seemed to suit my mood of disappointment, detailed perfectly a sense of betrayal at learning you'd been led a merry old dance and been made a complete fool of by someone you thought you were in love with. Sixteen years on and it's still what I think of whenever I hear this song, though I have naturally stopped caring about that day and that girl.

Enjoy The Silence (Violator, 1990)

Buying Violator, knowing that I'd detested 'Personal Jesus', almost felt fraudulent somehow. I bought this album on a trip to Coventry with the girl who I was seeing at the time of my sixteenth birthday. Admitting to myself that the sleek, polished sounds of the album were appealing was an uncomfortable move, but I'm glad I did. Violator has now become probably my favourite Depeche Mode album and it's the one I listen to the most overall. I played it to my then-girlfriend who just found it boring.

Violator was a progression again from Music For The Masses. Where Music For The Masses used occasional guitars, Violator sprayed them over the songs liberally. 'Personal Jesus' remains the biggest surprise, what with its overtly religious leanings and ominous blues riffs. Johnny Cash would later record the song with assistance from Depeche fan John Frusciante (ex-RHCP and future Dave Gahan collaborator) on guitar. For me my favourite track here remains 'Enjoy The Silence', a shimmering, upbeat track with a strange and captivating chorus. It is a towering moment in the band's catalogue.

I Feel You (Songs Of Faith And Devotion, 1993)

By 1993's Songs Of Faith And Devotion, I was a Depeche Mode fan proper. I had all their albums and had started collecting their singles back catalogue. When Radio 1 announced a 'Depeche Mode Day' and the premiering of their new single 'I Feel You', I woke up early to make sure I could hear the song before I went to school. I was dumbfounded when I heard the song. There was not a trace of anything the band had done previously at all; no electronics and no reference points to their back catalogue. It was almost like Dave Gahan fronting another band, a band who played heavy rock. It was a million miles (yet only twelve years) from Speak & Spell. I learned to love the song, loved the album and saw them live for the first time during that tour, a tour which saw the culmination of Gahan's drug taking, Andy Fletcher leaving the band temporarily with stress, Alan Wilder almost losing his life when an RAF jet crashed near his car and Gore drinking way too much.

'I Feel You' is a song I always equate with tragedy; the single was released a few days after we learned of the death of a school friend, initially thought to be a suicide bid after getting dumped by a girl but later found to be because of an unknown heart defect; consequently it's hard to separate the song from that event. In complete contrast, the orchestral 'One Caress', a beautiful if black ballad, reminds me of Stephen King's It, which I was reading at the time. That book terrified me and this song still raises the hairs on my arms.

Useless (Ultra, 1997)

Post-heroin, post-near-death, post-Alan Wilder, Depeche Mode returned in 1997 with a much more Violator-esque album – much more electronic and less out-of-character than Songs Of Faith And Devotion.

By 1997 I was at university and it wasn't a great year overall. This song soundtracked my personal disenchantment at not being able to save a certain person from themselves and their troubled thoughts, and the line containing 'All my useless advice' has a definite poignancy. Elsewhere that year Nick Cave And The Bads Seeds' 'Into My Arms' soundtracked the rare moments of optimism. On the positive, the girl that I'm referring to didn't dump me, but two years later we would mutually call it quits. 'Useless' could well be an apt description for three pointless, uniformly wasted years, come to think of it.

Dream On (Exciter, 2001)



'Dream On' was the first single from 2001's Exciter. Arriving on waves of almost Latin guitars and a conspiratorially-delivered vocal from Gahan, it was an unusual song which would later be overshadowed by the much more upbeat, dance-floor friendly 'I Feel Loved' which received a sterling remix from Armand van Helden.

I promised there would be no more heavily autobiographical episodes after this post, so here are my final words: I chiefly remember listening to this singer whilst preparing for my wedding to Mrs S. It's not my favourite track from Exciter, but I find it hard to separate the song from those positive days.

She hasn't dumped me. Yet.

Audio Journal : 05/04/2010

Go to: My Other Blog :: Documentary Evidence :: twitter.com/mjasmith

Two albums have dominated my listening this past fortnight. The first is Goldfrapp's Head First, which was released a couple of Mondays ago. A neat antidote to the already bland synth-pop-with-girls of La Roux, Little Boots et al, Head First finds the duo of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory kicking the younger upstarts into touch with a shimmering collection of mostly upbeat pop tracks eschewing the early Eighties leanings of most retro popsters in favour of the late decade digital-analogue blend as perfected by the likes of Erasure. A full review can be found here.

The other album is Complete Greatest Hits by The Cars. Until about a month ago my knowledge of this Boston, MA band was limited to the track 'Drive', used heavily by Bob Geldoff during Live Aid clips; it's not a bad song, but it suffers from over-exposure, plus it provides few clues to the much better material elsewhere in their back catalogue.

The Cars were described as being a blend of punk's minimalism, art rock and Fifties rockabilly riffery; for me, it's the big Eighties keyboard sound and the clipped, funk-esque guitar riffs both of which bring to mind the work of their fellow alternative / college radio luminaries Talking Heads. Tracks such as 'Best Friend's Girl', 'Let's Go' and 'Good Times Roll' are stand-out songs on this twenty-track compilation, and I'll definitely be delving into their albums proper soon.

Let it be known that I am not a fan of The Beatles. I bought The Beatles (aka The White Album) for its avant-gardist leanings and wasn't disappointed, but apart from the odd poppy song here and there, I'm just not a fan. Mrs S, introduced to their music by her father, is a fan and has – time after time – scolded me for my repeated question 'So, is this John singing or Paul?'. I do, however, enjoy their music on a Sunday. Don't ask me why.



Imagine this: listening to every Beatles album, sequentially, in one sitting. Nothing would send me insane quicker, but there is a solution. Avant garde soundsmith Steve McLaughlin, for his piece Run For Your Life, sped up every song by 800% and combined them together into one hour-long track. What's surprising is how, even at this speed, you're able to identify recognisable sections of tracks. 'A Day In The Life', for example, retains much of its drama despite losing any sense of subtlety. The early tracks, all speed and rock 'n roll energy, zip by in a messy amphetamine blur, while the more interesting stuff (from Revolver onwards) – where speed was sacrificed in favour of a more considered sonic template – make for interesting listening at this high velocity. Strangely enough, it's still the McCartney tracks that grate. As with the plunderphonic work of John Oswald, it's not exactly easy listening (but to me, listening to The Beatles at the regular speed isn't either). Judge for yourself by downloading the track from the Ubuweb archive here.

Vinyl Corner

More Eighties pop this week, this time from Howard Jones; Jones was famous for using 'keytars' and for having enormous hair, even by Eighties standards – as evidenced on the sleeve to 'What Is Love?'.

'What Is Love?' was arguably Jones's biggest hit in a career which spanned both sides of the Atlantic. Wikipedia states that his sound was an appealing mix of New Wave and Sixties hippiness – I don't hear that on this track; instead you get some ruminative psychological musings on the meaning of love (a popular theme among New Romantics, naturally) and a big Eighties sound dominated by Fairlight horns and springy bass synths. In one of my earlier websites, during one of my 'charity shop round-ups' of records I'd bought from local Colchester thrift stores that week, I remember being quite disparaging of this song and Jones generally. Looking back I don't honestly know why, as I think this is a really good track.

The B-side on the other hand ('It Just Doesn't Matter'), is rubbish.

Audio Journal : 22/03/2010

Go to: My Other Blog :: Documentary Evidence :: twitter.com/mjasmith

Julian Plenti's Julian Plenti Is ... Skyscraper has sat in my iTunes Wish-List since it was released last year, and I finally got around to buying it over the weekend. This was mostly prompted by listening to Interpol's Antics in the car all last week; from the paucity of Interpol music I thought it was high time to get Plenti's album; Plenti is a pseudonym for Interpol's vocalist Paul Banks. Given that one of the things that has always appealed about Interpol is Banks' Ian Curtis-esque delivery, expectations were pretty high for his first solo album under the Julian Plenti alias.

As is so often the case, approaching something with heightened expectations often leads to disappointment, and that's exactly how ... Skyscraper is. I truly hope that it will grow with repeated listening, but so far – three listens in – my conclusion is that it's a good album, but it's just nowhere close to Interpol at all. For one, it's far too optimistic; I've become used to the negativity and world-weary disenchantment across their three albums, and, well, this just isn't grumpy enough for my tastes. Secondly, like the good, but un-Strokes-y output of Albert Hammond Jr and Julian Casablancas, Banks's album has a totally different sound to anything his parent band have produced; I've never understood this. Does this imply a dissatisfaction on the part of a group member about the personal direction he or she wants to go in? Pondering aside, like I said, not a bad album, just not an Interpol album.

An album that I haven't listened for a good few years is Set Yourself On Fire (2004), the third album by Canadian band Stars. We bought this after Mrs S had heard the tracks 'Your Ex-Lover Is Dead' (how Morrissey is that?) and 'Reunion' on BBC 6 Music, but the album was a disappointment. The orchestral grandeur of 'Your Ex-Lover Is Dead' seemed to be a one-off, the rest of the album struggling to know what it wanted to be; there are tinkly keyboards, fey indie rock songs and the occasional burst of wistful violin. So I tend to avoid it when I'm scrolling through my playlists. But this week I was in one of those restless moods where I couldn't settle on anything in my iPod and decided to give it a listen. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it had grown on me, and whereas previously I'd got annoyed at the chopping and changing of styles, now it simply has a pleasing variety.

Talented family patriarch Loudon Wainwright III released a new album this month. Songs For The New Depression is a collection of songs for guitar and ukele, the common theme of which is the poor state of the post-Lehman, post-Madoff, post-Bush US economy. So you get songs about the difficulties in the real estate market ('House'), cynical pieces about their car scrappage scheme ('Cash For Clunkers') and the track which neatly summarises the whole sorry affair, 'Times Is Hard'. It's a good, cynical album with Wainwright III's trademark wry humour, but it would have been nice to hear some of the songs delivered as full band pieces (as on Strange Weirdos or Recovery), but if you're a fan of solo folksy performances this won't disappoint.

Vinyl corner



Okay, let's start with the sleeve of Bill Sharpe & Gary Numan's 'No More Lies' (1988) – it's awful, even by Eighties standards. Attempts at futuristic bleakness come across more like two leather-clad Village People in a gay bar than the look I suspect they were trying to cultivate. If it wasn't for the 'computer'-y font around the edge, you'd be mistaken for thinking this was some sort of hair-Metal record.

It's not. It's actually one of the better tracks in the entire, patchy Gary Numan back catalogue. Numan is someone who for me went off the boil after 'Cars' and the earlier work as Tubeway Army and I rid myself of my greatest hits CD many moons ago. The record box was spared, leaving the blue vinyl limited edition 7" and another track 'Your Fascination' (1985); in keeping with the 'weeding' I'm doing at present with my music collection, 'Your Fascination' (actually another good song come to think of it) was slung at a charity shop (the sleeve still bearing the price tag of the charity shop I bought it from years ago) and 'No More Lies' is on eBay.

'No More Lies' is a defiant, soulful Eighties pop track that could've been recorded just as well by Human League or even any of the Stock, Aitken & Waterman crop of singers. It's certainly not like any of the robotic synth pop Numan produced in his earlier years, nor does it provide any clues to his later, doom-laden electro-rock output. It's just a piece of breezy, polite pop music. The B-side, 'Voices' has a more muscular synth bass-line but mines a similar vein. As seems to be happening a lot lately, I found myself preferring the B-side to the lead track.

Audio Journal : 15/03/2010

Go to: My Other Blog :: Documentary Evidence :: twitter.com/mjasmith

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, or OMD as they are more easily abbreviated to, are one of those bands that I remember distinctly from my childhood. Two of their tracks, 'Joan Of Arc' and the companion 'Maid Of Orleans' were on a cassette my dad had that we used to listen to in the car on Saturdays. Between those two tracks, seeing Gary Numan on the Old Grey Whistle Test driving a Sinclair C5, and watching a Soft Cell video (Non-Stop Exotic Video Show) you have probably the three biggest influences on my early musical tastes; no surprise that it would coalesce into a love for electronic music that endures to this very day.

Those two tracks were taken from Architecture And Morality, OMD's 1981 album. I finally bought that album from RS McColl in Colchester while I was at University there in the mid Nineties along with some of the pre-Dare Human League albums. I love Architecture And Morality, especially the dystopian post-punk opener 'New Stone Age', but – sacrilegious though this must sound to 1981 purists – it doesn't do as much for me as their 1991 'comeback' album Sugar Tax. Again, my principal love for this album was from my dad playing the cassettes while we drove around Stratford-upon-Avon's boroughs and neighbouring villages on Saturday mornings. It's a glossy album that manages to deliver the stellar pop of 'Sailing On The Seven Seas', 'Pandora's Box' and 'Speed Of Light' but it also sees Andy McCluskey pay homage to his musical heroes Kraftwerk on the cover of 'Neon Lights' (Kraftwerk alleged quite happily that McCluskey nicked the melody for 'Electricity' from their 'Radio-Activity' but I don't hear it myself). Like the Pet Shop Boys with the orchestral stabs that dominated their early work, so too does the sampled choral harmonies that became an OMD staple dominate the sound of Sugar Tax.

I'm not too proud to admit that one of my favourite slushy films is Serendipity (2001), a 'rom com' about fate set in Manhattan starring Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack. In it, Beckinsale's fiance, the always annoying John Corbett (Lars) makes music effectively comprising his clarinet, drum 'n bass beats and sitars to create what jazzists would describe as 'fusion' but that I just call 'naff'; it goes without saying that his irritating character and the risible faux ethnology of the music is of course a convenient directorial vehicle for making the musician appear inferior to Cusack's own figure.

The reason for mentioning this is because this week I stuck on Loop Guru's Amrita...All These And The Japanese Soup Warriors and was struck by the similarity to the music made by Corbett's character in Serendipity, and it was a comparison that I couldn't get out of my head whilst listening to Amrita... and which ultimately prompted me to turn it off. I loved the album at the time, Loop Guru being part of one of the infinite substrata of 1990s 'dance' music genres, and I saw them live in Colchester at a very memorable concert at the Arts Centre in 1995; but something now seems so horribly dated and inauthentic about the sound. 'Yayli' – the track which least tries to orient itself into this ethnic-techno genre – still sounds good, but the rest may find themselves in the deleted items folder fairly soon. I hate it when you go back through your music collection and feel dissatisfied with albums you haven't heard for ages.

Vinyl corner



In the world of music, Pavement are regarded (along with, say, Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr.) as principal architects of an alternative sound which has influenced countless bands over the years. Even the musical magpie that is Damon Albarn cited the band as an influence for the patchy Blur album Blur (though I fail to hear anything but Blur therein). With a new compilation of their material just released, it's fair to assume that more people and bands will begin to be influenced by the band.

I own only one Pavement record, 1999's UK-only 'Carrot Rope' 7", which I've listened to more since recording it this week than I ever have since I bought it upon its release. It's a brilliant track, but – and I know this sounds superficial – I never want to put on the record because of the sleeve. Something about the peeling orange rope makes me feel nauseous, thus causing me to avoid it when I scour the box. Having overcome that reaction this week, I've been reminded of how much I love the jaunty, upbeat 'Carrot Rope', but also how much better the grandiose B-side ('And Then') is. I recall that at the time this came out I'd intended it to be the start of a proper immersion into the music of Pavement, which clearly never happened. Though I don't normally buy artist compilations, preferring instead to work my way through the albums sequentially, perhaps I should get that new 'best of'.

Audio Journal by MJA Smith : 12/10/2009

Go to: My Other Blog / twitter.com/mjasmith

Last week was spent listening – mostly – to music that prompts recollections of events, people and situations.

The first was Possessed by the Balanescu Quartet. Possessed is effectively a collection of classical arrangements of Kraftwerk songs – ‘The Robots’, ‘The Model’, ‘Autobahn’ – and a handful of other arrangements, including ‘Hanging Upside-Down’ by David Byrne.



I saw the Balanescu Quartet perform live at the Patti Smith-curated Jimi Hendrix tribute, the last event to take place at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank before it closed for a swanky refit. They performed four classical adaptations of Hendrix tracks, their version of ‘Foxy Lady’ being the best of the bunch; they certainly providing an accessible counterpoint to other acts on the bill, chiefly Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist Flea who provided ten minutes of looping bass and trumpet that bore little relation to any of the Hendrix back catalogue.

Alexander Balanescu is not simply known for these arrangements of music from other genres; he is an accomplished composer whose scores have adorned film and television soundtracks, but Possessed is what it is – an accessible classical album, but one that fans of Kraftwerk can listen to comfortably, hearing the tracks almost as remixes rather than re-arrangements.

This album has a tragic poignancy for me. The first time I listened to this album was on the Underground. I was stuck on a train a few feet below the streets around Kings Cross, having just left the bright platforms of the Tube station. The train stopped and just sat there, sporadic announcements from the driver that we’d be sat there for a few minutes more and that we’d be on the move very soon.

Me, I couldn’t have cared less. I was enjoying the album and the delay simply meant that I’d be late for work, which at the time was no bad thing. In the end, the train pulled forward to a disused platform beneath Pentonville Road, whereupon we were evacuated up into the bright lights of the early morning. It was only at this point that the chaos, panic and devastation of that day, 7 July 2005, became evident. The album played on in my ears but I just wasn’t listening to it anymore.

Listening to Possessed this week was the first time I’ve attempted to listen to it since that day.

Another album prompting memories to resurface is Warp Record’s Artificial Intelligence II collection of ‘ambient’ electronica from the likes of Autechre, Cabaret Voltaire’s Richard H. Kirk, Speedy J and Link. It was the summer 1994 and I’d just been unceremoniously and unexpectedly dumped by a girl. I spent the afternoon laid up on my parents’ sofa listening, initially, to the Depeche Mode song ‘The Things You Said’ on repeat, the accusatory disappointment of that song perfectly matching my despondency. After ten or twelve listens I decided to put something else on; it was a close call between the embittered rage of Nine Inch Nail’s The Downward Spiral or the much more chilled Artificial Intelligence II compilation. The latter won the afternoon, leading me to a more logical and calm state of mind.



While we’re heading down musical memory lane, I downloaded Radio Musicola by Nik Kershaw this week, the Eighties doyen’s third album. I bought this on cassette from Cash Converters in Colchester in 1997, the day after my first Valentine’s Day ‘with’ my ex-girlfriend. For some reason, we’d decided to spend the evening apart. So I went out into Colchester with my housemates, drank too many Moscow Mules and, well, it didn’t end terribly advantageously. The next day, bleary-eyed, my friend Neil and I went into town late in the afternoon and bought a load of second hand tapes from Cash Converters, one of which was Radio Musicola. While not as good as Kershaw’s first two albums, it nevertheless remains a pop gem. But it definitely sounds better when you’re not hungover.



Some other things on my iPod this week – ‘Horchata’, the new song by Vampire Weekend which they have punted for free this week (verdict : more of the same, only with bigger production and strings); In Rainbows by Radiohead (not a fan of the band per se, and I’m glad I only paid a couple of quid for this when it was made available as a ‘pay what you like’ download, but it is good); and Howyoudoin? by dub-influenced Sarf Londoners Renegade Soundwave. I don’t know why, but I stuck that last album on my dad’s car stereo one Saturday afternoon on the way to pick up my mother and sister. He balked at the messy, sample-heavy songs, but I insisted on listening to it. He turned to me when we were sat waiting at a red light and said ‘I don’t think your mum would like this,’ as the apocalyptic bad-drug-experience (but never exactly precautionary) account detailed on ‘Blast ‘Em Out’ started its slow and edgy journey out of the speakers.

Audio Journal by MJA Smith : 03/08/2009

With all the controversy surrounding Phil Spector’s recent imprisonment, it is all too easy to overlook the music that the wacky-wigged producer made, however Leonard Cohen’s Death Of A Ladies’ Man – his fifth album – is one that is deservedly ignored, being neither a highlight of Cohen’s back catalogue nor Spector’s finest moment behind the mixing desk. The sound is murky and overall the album suffers a major identity crisis – the theme of the songs seem, predictably for Cohen, to focus almost exclusively on carnal matters, but the gauche musical backdrop veers from New Orleans-style processionals to louche disco on the best song on the album ‘Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On’ (with backing vocals supplied by Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg). Apparently, the typically capricious Spector locked the singer out of the studio to focus on the music, even though Cohen hadn’t done much more than lay down guide vocals, hence why Leonard sounds as if he’s singing from inside a box. I can honestly say that the highlight of this album is the sleeve which sees Cohen on a banquette with two women draped over him, a trace of a sly grin spread across his ordinarily sombre face.

Incidentally, Cohen fan Nick Cave wrote a truly brilliant song called ‘Hard-On For Love’. Cave and his band The Bad Seeds’ Live Seeds collection captures the band on tour in Europe in 1992/93, and seeks to evidence their status as a premier live band. Many of the band’s best-loved early songs are here, only rendered still more powerful live: take a listen to the incendiary version of ‘The Mercy Seat’ – later covered by Johnny Cash – which knocks spots off the studio version on Tender Prey or my personal favourites ‘Papa Won‘t Leave You Henry‘ and ‘Jack The Ripper‘. The band also deliver a cover of ‘Plain Gold Ring’, a plaintive song recorded by both Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, with the Bad Seeds‘ version winding up with some beautiful ear-bothering feedback. A more comprehensive review can be found at Documentary Evidence.

Nina Simone, in her twilight years, performed at Nick Cave’s Meltdown Festival on London’s South Bank. Simone’s only representation in my music collection comes in the form of a cheap compilation CD and I have never intended to develop a greater interest in her music beyond this cursory introduction. When I do stick this on I tend to eschew the pop of songs like ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ or the politicised ‘Mississippi Goddamn‘, in favour of her more out-and-out jazz recordings.

Still surveying the contents of one of my boxes of 7” singles, I alighted upon ‘The Riddle’ by Nik Kershaw this week. This was the first single I was ever bought, back when I was a mere seven year old. Even to this day I regard Kershaw’s brand of music and lyric writing as superior to anything else of its time, and don’t regard songs like this as guilty pleasures. ’The Riddle’ is, as its name suggests, thoroughly cryptic with a leaning toward Celtic mythology, unlike the B-side (’Progress’ recorded live at Hammersmith) which is out-and-out New Wave, ironically taking pot-shots at modern culture whilst casually deploying modern sounds. Although finally selling out and hitting the arenas as part of the Eighties flashback carnival, he’s still turning out excellent music – his 2001 album, To Be Frank contains some of the best song writing from him or anyone, forgiving him both his pay-the-rent touring commitments and his collaborations with Chesney Hawkes.

Audio Journal by MJA Smith : 29/06/09

I've always resisted buying a USB turntable as a matter of principal. Sure, I fully accepted that having one would make recording vinyl easier, but I have a really high-spec turntable already and I was always concerned that a USB deck wouldn't compare, quality-wise. So it was a surprise even to myself that when a colleague offered me her ION system for £45 I barely hesitated before agreeing to purchase it from her.

I have lots of vinyl, but never listen to records anymore. I hardly even listen to CDs either since MP3 players came along. But would I sell my physical collection if I made a back-up on my iPod? Never. I've wiped my iPod by accident once and am still loading stuff back on over a year later. Nevertheless, in adherence to a decluttering initiative my wife commenced a few years ago I stuck some old records in a spare record bag and agreed to flog them, as painful as it may have felt, on eBay. A couple of years have passed and I've yet to part with a single one. My excuse was that I still liked the songs but wasn't especially bothered about keeping the actual records, so I needed to back them up somehow. It's not especially difficult to do this, but when your turntable lives under your bed and you don't have a lot of time, well, it doesn't take much to make you not bother.

Within fifteen minutes of setting up the ION turntable however I was already onto my first recording – the Third Version EP by sometime Beastie Boy keyboard player Money Mark. The EP includes the emotional soul vocals of 'Sometimes You Gotta Make It Alone' (listen here) and the kazoo-led funk of 'The Grade' (kind of like a Sesame Street tune from the seventies – listen here), both of which I think I heard him perform at All Tomorrow's Parties in 2004. If you like hip-hop beats and organ grooves, Money Mark is your man. This was the first record from the bag of vinyl that I'd intended to sell, but have I tried to sell it on eBay now that it's backed up? Nope. Instead I've contacted a record shop on Berwick Street in Soho in an attempt to get rid of the lot in one go.

I've been on a bit of an Eighties tip over the past couple of weeks. Some would say I've been stuck in the Eighties musically since the Eighties. There are a few reasons for my latest renaissance for the Day-Glo decade. One was buying The Virgins album (see last week – I won't attempt to rehash my praise for that excellent band / album yet again) which has almost legitimised my affections for the music of twenty-five years ago. Another was the song 'Annie I'm Not Your Daddy' by Kid Creole & The Coconuts (such a good song – I will not apologise), played toward the end of the Island Records documentary I wrote about the previous week.

The final reason was the album Fore! by Huey Lewis & The News. I bought this – on LP! How retro? – in the closing-down sale at my local Zavvi and thanks to the USB turntable finally got to listen to it. This band take me right back to school discos, 'dancing' to the song 'Power Of Love' from the Back To The Future soundtrack. It is what it is – a brash, stadium-friendly pop-rock album which now sounds woefully dated. Nevertheless, the tracks 'Jacob's Ladder', 'Stuck With You' (such a soppy tune, but I love it) and the conformity anthem 'Hip To Be Square' are all excellent. Check out just how Eighties this album is with this photo from the sleeve below.

As this is a music blog, I guess I should say something about Michael Jackson. I've never liked his music and considered him hugely overrated, but that wasn't what I was going to say. I will say this: just before Christmas, 1987, when I was just eleven years old and in my final year at primary school, we had a Christmas party in our classroom. Our teacher encouraged us to bring in tapes to provide the music, and the only one I had then was Human Racing by Nik Kershaw; everyone but me thought it was rubbish (it's not and I still love it).

The first girl I ever had a crush on brought in Bad and I remember dancing with her to the songs on that album. Consequently, whenever I hear anything from that album it reminds me of what it's like to think you're in love as a kid. Whilst I will never consider myself a Michael Jackson fan, I'm grateful to him and his music for that one, very specific and beautiful innocent memory from my youth.