SPANDAU BALLET – “True”
The effect of “True” – potent for some, emetic for others – is a function of how it rubs two impulses up against each other. One is a yearning for depth and the authentic, in the form of soul music. The other is a wish to make your records gleam, to emphasise their sleekness and luxury. Understand this combination and you understand pop in the mid-80s. On the one hand, “You are Gold!” On the other, “Always believe in your soul!”
Both these urges are aspirational, but from some perspectives they create an intolerable friction. If – for instance – you believe soul music is something raw and unbiddable then the unctious shine of the Spandau approach is a laughable betrayal. Meanwhile, if you like your pop to be a shiny futurist bauble then their smooth reverence can come over as embarrassing cultural cringe. But the friction is also what gives this music its character, helps it capture its time and place. Today’s soul revivalists – and the slickers who consume them – are too savvy or tasteful to seem as foolish or brazen as Spandau Ballet, and this is one reason “True” is more interesting than anything Duffy (say) has done or will ever do.
“True” is an appropriate hit for this discussion because it’s a song about writing songs, fumbling for inspiration, finding it in “Maaarvin” and the music of the past. Oh, it comes dressed as a love song, but it’s utterly self-centred: its “you” is a cypher. Its best legacy, PM Dawn’s gorgeous “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss”, captures “True”’s selfishness and pushes it even further into dreamy solipsism. And “Set Adrift” also dumps the song’s obvious ballast: Tony Hadley’s oily, overdetermined vocals. Strip them out, seaside arms and all, and what you have left is a lovely meringue of a record, particularly the delicious horn solo. Unfortunately, we had to wait for others to do this and realise “True”’s potential – what we have is flawed and earthbound, but there’s enough here to turn a kind eye to its vanities and faults.
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Tom in FT / Popular • Pop • 1,921 views • Share/Save
Lee at 23 I know exactly what you mean – although myself being a bit young at the time to understand exactly the socio-ecomomic stuff behind what you’re saying I realised that Wham! (and especially Club Tropicana) summed up something that was specific to a particular aspirational working-class culture that existed in the South-East.
Wham! even came from just a few miles up the M25 (not that it was complete back then!) in Bushey in Hertfordshire.
And I know that as it did for you that Acid House killed the scene for a lot of people. It certainly changed things radically very quickly – as said in my previous post at the Bournemouth Weekender in Spring 1988 except for the few people from Shoom it was pretty much the same but in a couple of months 75% of the underground dance/soul clubs in the south-east (at least) had gone Acid House and within a year the soul/funk scene had been reduced to a rump of a few diehards playing obscure modern soul to a dwindling audience in pubs and back rooms. I’d left the old soul/funk scene completely behind by then after an epiphany that Spring (I’d been into the house records since around 1986) for a world of “right on one matey” and “Deep Heat” compilations (the first 4 or 5 were bloody good!)but from what I heard and the fact that at the big (what had once been the Caister but for a couple of years had been at various other holiday camps)weekenders Acid had taken over the main (what had previously been the “funk”) rooms.
One final thing in 1988 at least probably at least half of the punters as were the vast majority of djs at the big Acid House dos (in those around London and the south-east anyway) were directly from the pre-house club scene and had made the change over to it like me and for those we lost you had new peole coming in but unlike before because of its newness and mainly because of shock horror headlines in the media the average man in the street knew about Acid House. But the old soul scene had been equally massive with thousands going to the weekenders, listening to the pirates etc but if someone wasnt young, working-class and from a radius of about 40 miles of London they’d never had heard of it so I suppose it was truly underground.
And on Lee’s point about the Spandau Ballet/Wham! thing how could I miss out the group who probably up to the point they ctossed over to the pop Top 10 drew literally about 99% of their fans from the working class Essex/Home Counties/outer London crowd – Level 42 (even though they themselves didn’t even come from the South East (Level 42 coming from the Isle of Wight).
Their omnipresence among this crowd before they crossed over was such that on pretty much “aspirational geezers in the building or car mechanics” support alone they were already scraping Top 40 hits. Second Image were another similar band who everyone seemed to play on their car stereos back then (as Lee says Xr3i’s but a lot would have still been Cortina Mark II’s preferably 2000Es or Capris with optional “If It Moves Funk It” sunstrips, or “Robbie Spreading Funk Over London Town” car stickers),but unfortunately unlike Level 42 and that band’s eventual commerciality they never crossed over.
I hate this f#%king song.
Wham! and Level 42 never had their New Wave moment, did they? For me, Let’s Dance & True mark the point where New Wave has really died. Even in Duran’s Something I Should Know you can feel the New Wave roots, but with True we’re onto something completely different that would dominate the British sound for the next few years. Even the Keith Haring-ish sleeve is a definitive move away from the New Wave aesthetic, as typified by the album cover of SB’s Reformation.
I am amazed this has escaped a slagging thus far.
I don’t think True even works as a ‘slowie’. It stops, starts, stops and only really gets going during the obligatory Steve Norman sax solo. Then there are those awful lyrics, which hardly need further comment.
Personally, I only really enjoyed Spandau when they amped up the preposterousness to the max. The Trevor Horn-produced Instinction was probably their last decent single before they slipped on the suits and started taking themselves FAR too seriously.
Re: “pill on my tongue” as a reference to Ecstasy – I don’t think E. was around as early as 1983, it came in a couple of years later.
I’ll second, third, fourth the shouts for the fantastic sax break, but I almost missed it: couldn’t stand ver Ballet at the time, being way more hardcore than that. I was in the, er, Duran camp.
Took me years to realise this was a fine record, all of it. This is pretty ersatz, obv, yet way ahead of the surface-gloss emptiness of the rest of their stuff. The only Spandau single I own is ‘Gold’, but I have an inkling I bought it to complete a Top 3 – ‘Gold’, ‘A Paris’ and, well, the single that was No.1 at the time. To me, SB were pretty rotten.
Oh yeah, I thought it was Hank Marvin.
love the quote at #22, thanks lonepilgrim
The intro is a sweetie, but so much sweeter with PM Dawn’s additional harmonies and melody. True doesn’t ring True; I think its central problem is that it has no style, much as it wants to evoke the spirit of “Marvin”. The lyric is empty and risible (“See how hard I work for you? For my art? Can you almost hear the beads of sweat?” Err, no), and they could write some glorious gibberish so I’m not damning all of Spandau’s repertoire. “The art is pretending it’s art” from The Freeze, f’rinstance, is a very good line; “This is the sound of my soul” makes me feel all phlegmy.
With apologies to Lee and Andy, I never understood the 80s Soul Boy thing, mainly because the music seemed almost devoid of Soul* to me (like Wildheartedoutsider, around the time of True I was catching up on relatively recent but more intense late 60s-to-mid 70s stuff on Charly re-issues, things like George Perkins’ Crying In The Streets). Farahs, maroon v-necks, and waffle cardigans I did like, tho.
I’m only the 9th person to mention this, but I was dj’ing a few years back and this smoothie came over and asked “Got any Marvin?” For once I didn’t have a Shadows record in my box and I’ve kicked myself for the missed opportunity ever since.
*I’d like to be proved wrong.
Yeah I conflate the soulboy tag with retro lovers but also those into stuff from around the time inc. Crown Heights Affair, Fatback Band, Eve King, Change etc. (which I assumed wasn’t seen as particularly retro and a distinct shift from Philly/salsoul/disco/raregroove etc.) Is that wrong? I’m at least adamant that it is not wrong to love that stuff as I do.
Re: 31 – I’m not sure that’s true. Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing must have been out or close to being out at this point and was fairly celebratory about MDMA. I get the feeling it was still quite niche though.
Re: #29. The sleeve is by Glaswegian artist David Band who also did all Altered Images’ early sleeves and Aztec Camera’s first album.
I never considered myself a soul boy at all, for a start I always thought Maze were pretty dull and Roy Ayers a bit too noodly, but I was the bloke you’d find putting on ‘Let the Music Play’ and ‘You’re The One For Me’ at college parties. I was listening to a lot of Charly/Kent compilations around this time too.
I would like to add that my favourite Spandau single is probably the fairly late “I’ll Fly For You”
Steve at 36: At the average suburban soulboy club in 1983 you’d have a lot of what (post 80s) became known as 80s Groove ie Maze, Change, SOS Band, Grover Washington, (80s) Roy Ayers, Al Jarreau, Donald Byrd, some modern soul, the classier end of disco/mainstream funk (Sharon Redd, Evelyn King (for the “ladies”)) interspersed with a lot of more obscure jazz-funk (both 70s and 80s)plus a bit of real jazz and with the occasional soul/funk oldie from possibly as early as the early 70s thrown in too*.
From about mid-1983 the slightly more progressive djs might have also started adding a bit of early hiphop (Jazzy Dee etc) and less full on electro ie the Shannon and D-Train (who in the latter’s case had been played since the 1981 import/release of ‘Youre The One For Me’)that Lee mentioned.
* the oldies played would be similar to the kind of “tackle” (to use an 80s soulboy expression) that 3 or 4 years later when the West End clubbin trendies got hold of if became known as Rare Groove but were then just the occasional oldies that were expected to be dropped as the set progressed.
H at 29: I don’t think anyone in the UK in the 80s had used the term New Wave seriously since about 1978/79 and I should imagine Duran, Spandau or any synth poppers would have recoiled in disbelief if you’d have called them New Wave.It conjured up images of conventional pop/rock bands with skinny ties,slightly shorter hair than pre-punk rockers and who werent quite brave enough to go all the way and be properly punk. And by the end of the 70s was pretty redundant in the UK except when it was used in a pisstaking way when describing certain American Noo Wave bands.
I’ve noticed to my horror however that probably because of the American domination of the net and the obvious fact that in America they did talk about New Wave post-1970s that it seems to be used to describe acts who were never in a million years called New Wave at the time. Actually I feel quite ill just typing the words New Wave in connection with the New Romantic idols of the earlier part of my teens!Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran were coming from a David Bowie, Roxy Music, Marc Bolan, Kraftwerk and Brass Construction maybe even Frank Sinatra direction New Wave was coming from a very boring place where loads of Radio One djs hung out and talked about Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and maybe even the Boomtown Rats!
andy how central were the morgan khan streetsounds comps? were they setting the scene or following it? they began in 82 i think — did people only buy them (or use them) that weren’t on the scene?
(i bought them, though i found the “mix” element unhelpful for my “never bin to a club”/listen-to-everything purposes: i used to have a near complete set, tho ircc one k0dw0 eshun borrowed some for some project of his in the late 90s and now i haven’t
Re: #39 Well, up until “Chant No.1″ (which was quite surprising at the time – a funk record! With rapping!) – and even including that if you think it sounds a little like A Certain Ratio/Talking Heads – they were, to use another American label – “alternative” at least.
Re: #40 I think they were mostly bought by people on “the scene” – it was a cheap way of getting a bunch of the latest 12″ mixes without spending a fortune at Groove Records.
Seeing as I’m at home today this seems like a good time to dig out the sleevenotes of ‘Streetsounds Anthems Vol.2′ (from 1987) which take a swipe at the NME/The Face trendies.
“Over the past couple of years it seems like every semi-literate pillock with a typewriter and a pair of DM brogues has had something to say about the funk. Safely dug in behind a typewriter, tapping one foot out of time with the other, they’ve spewed out all manner of so-called ‘insights’, while attempting to instruct us on what particular funk forms should be putting the steam into out trainers and the steps into our haircuts.
Do we take any notice? No chance John. The true British soul fraternity carries on regardless, ignoring the bull, picking up on what’s really kicking and having one hell of a good time in the process.”
Lord at 40: among us younger types the Streetsounds compilations were pretty essential at about this time probably peaking in quality and ubiquitousness with (I think) Volume 4 (bang in the middle of 1983!) which was remarkably free of filler and on the case and everyone seemed to have. But I knows there were a few of the more “purist” element who tended to congregate in the jazz rooms at weekenders who would have looked down upon them though. They were often the same people who would frown on electro and later house which made it even more nonsensical when the Boys Own trendy crowd who had moaned at these types for their refusal to get into house were by 1989 trying to dictate what kind of house it was “all right to listen to” (mostly deep house etc) and slagging off a large part of the then acid party-goers including inventing the term “Acid Teds” a catch all insult for them.
And the Streetsounds electro compilations were pretty unsurpassable when they started (first one about Aug/Sept 1983 I think) but also spelled the beginning of the end for the whole Streetsounds concept because from that moment they started leaving the electro tracks of the main compilations (I remember Newcleus was on Number 5 for instance, COD on No 4 just before the electro ones started).
Lee at 41: I know what you mean but in my memory the term New Wave if it was used at all by the early 80s had connotations (in the UK at least) far removed from New Romantics/Synth or New Pop.
“Alternative” could obviously cover all kinds of things and surely the less mainstream side of things in the UK was already more likely to be called post-punk if it was called anything at all.
Andypandy@39 I guess you’re right about New Wave as a term, I meant more the post-punk aesthetic which you can also feel in the New Romantics (whom you might say developed from a synthesis of New Wave and Bowie/Roxy). In any case I think there was a sound and an aesthetic which stretches from around 1978 to 1982 or so that you could loosely call post-punk – Cut A Long Story Short belongs to that aesthetic, and True doesn’t. Just as Ashes To Ashes belongs to it and Let’s Dance doesn’t.
What seems to be a common thread linking many of the post-punk/new wave/new romantic acts was a sense of ‘anything but rock’.
Punk had been portrayed as a kind of end for the rock ‘project’ and so acts had turned to soul/dance/jazz/electro styles as more fruitful and/or credible models.
I find myself blinking in disbelief at musical styles and acts that have been rehabilitated as credible in subsequent years when at one stage they were portrayed as dead and buried. Metal has returned as has folk-rock – but I couldn’t credit seeing a Jon Anderson solo track being given consideration in this months Invisible Jukebox in The Wire.
I think Spandau’s club roots and love of funk and soul were always a big part of their musical heritage. If anything I’d argue the synth-based electronic sound was almost an afterthought. They realised it was a way in through their exposure to Billy’s and Blitz and Gary Kemp started playing a synth.
No sooner had they released the first couple of identifiably New Romantic singles, then they were favouring their truer love – testing the water by slipping “Glow” on to the flip of the third single as a double-A.
“Chant No 1″ followed and then stuff like “Coffee Club” which lifts wholesale from “One Nation Under A Groove.”
I didn’t really care much for them by the point of “True”. I was more interested in the artier, experimental, cult-approach to being in a band that Spandau espoused; all manifestos and iconic imagery, being at the right clubs, not playing conventional gigs.
When they started becoming a conventional pop act they lost their edge.
As New Pop lost its edge at around this time.
But I don’t think it’s right to chastise or mock Spandau for not being ’soulful’. In fact it misses the point. Spandau were kids going to clubs dancing to soul, motown, northern soul, then later bowie and kraftwerk.
they were the kids Andy is talking about in the mid 80s a decade earlier.
they went onto make records that reflected their passions and musical heritage. what could be any more authentic then their own experiences?
I just remembered that the producers on this were Steve Jolley and Tony Swain who also did Imagination’s records, so Spandau were going right to the source of what was “hot” in Brit Soul at the time.
Lee, Swain and Jolley were also known for their work with Bananarama! Although I know what you mean.
I think they initially wanted to use Trevor Horn after his work on Instinction but couldn’t get it together for whatever reason. I guess either way the third album was a conscious attempt to stop being a cult band and start shifting units. The success of “Rio” (released at the same time as their flop second album – their career went in parallel with Duran’s) wouldn’t exactly have gone unnoticed.
Andy + H – yes, on my American side of the ocean, this would definitely be considered New Wave, as would the Durans. this was a major source of confusion for me while growing up, reading all the British mags and wondering what this New Romantic, New Pop, Post-Punk etc was all about. We called it New Wave exclusively, admittedly a wide classification which started with power pop (costello, the knack) in the late ’70s and continued right through the dawn of the MTV era. i think we were still using that term maybe all the way up to A-Ha. As a matter of fact, I recall my sister buying an MTV compilation in the late ’90s called “MTV New Wave: 1983″ or something similar. SB was featured, as well as “Our House”, “Mexican Radio”, “Too Shy”….all New Wave to us yanks. These terms were so taken for granted by British readers that it never was explained in NME and MM where the classifications came from. It was only with Reynolds’ post-punk book a few years ago that I understood completely.
Hell, I’ve seen Martika and Roxette called New Wave here in the States; for many, it simply meant “80s (White) Pop.”
Or “Not Heavy Metal or R&B and sung by someone under 30″
I remember Jolley and Swain doing a pretty good job with Bananarama, but Imagination were very much the epitome of aspirational penthouse soul which is obviously what SB were going for. I know they might have seemed a bit of a joke but ‘Body Talk’ was very popular.
Yes it was a pity with Imagination that there slightly tacky image often got in the way of some very worthwhile slinky Britsoul grooves.
They werent completely ignored however and at the time I remember the “Nightdubbin” remix album was already looked on as quite cutting edge.
And now many garage/house producers/djs look on it as boundary breaking in the extreme.Larry Levans remix of “Changes” and someone else’s (cant remember who)mix of “Burnin Up” being more or less dry runs for a 90s (not late80s they sound more modern than that!)house/garage sound. When I heard these for the first time in over 20 years quite recently I was stunned how modern they sounded.
I have a Joey Negro mix of Burning Up – not sure when it was done, but might be the one you are referring to.
Imagination were an excellent act. Loved all their singles up to and including “Changes”.
Number 2 Watch:
A lot of records kept from Number One by “True” during its 4 week reign at the top:
FR David “Words” – 2 weeks
Human League “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” – 1 week
Heaven 17 “Temptation” – 1 week
Conrad at 53 the remix of ‘Burnin Up” on ‘Nightdubbing’ is by Richard Lengyel and the tracks original producers Swain and Jolley. I think the Joey Negro version came out around the time the album got sort of ‘rediscovered’. I’m listening to the Nightdubbing version as I type this and it is unbelievably ahead of its time – it has elements that could come out of a house track from 1988/89 (the piano is straight from such a track) and then as it breaks down it verges on dubby garage from the 1990s.
I suppose the fact that piano was so important to both Imagination and house music’s sound makes the convergence slightly more likely.
Meant to add this above:
On the subject of unlikely connections to the coming but still 3 or 4 year away house invasion of the charts just outside the Top Ten during ‘Trues’ run at the top were Galaxy and ‘What Do I Do’ featuring
Phil Fearon and 2 females one who returned to the charts at the end of 1994 as the voice of the only true hardcore/rave track to ever hit Number One on the pop chart. Phil Fearon himself being the man behind one of the most successful ever hardcore/rave labels responsible for Acen, the House Crew as well as the act I can’t mention and many other early 90s hardcore delights…
Phil Fearon auditioned as the pianist for the Sex Pistols…
Nightdubbin’ etc has inspired a new comp from Dimitri from Paris btw
http://open.spotify.com/album/3qNnr5sl1OR45NWNM5j16n
oh, and house piano’s first appearance was probs here … discuss!
http://open.spotify.com/track/6PFsub5iIJwrBb8qBRqmiV
I really didn’t care for this at all when I was ten. It seemed rather smarmy and plodding to me, and the work of a different band to the kilted and saronged Cut A Long Story Short people of a few years earlier, who seemed much more like my idea of what a pop group should be like.
Twenty-six years on, I haven’t revised my opinion much, but the sax break is rather lovely, and I wish that it could have appeared in a better song.
Whenever I see or hear a documentary about eighties pop, Gary Kemp seems to be on it, saying “Of course, the NME hated it, so we knew it was going to be a hit!” This never fails to really irritate me – if critical acclaim was so unimportant to you, then you wouldn’t go on about it at every single opportunity.
Best Spandau moment: ‘Instiction’, the lone collaboration with Trevor Horn. It is, as I believe that the young people say. “bonkers”.
TOTPWatch: Spandau Ballet performed ‘True’ on Top Of The Pops on three occasions;
21 April 1983. Also in the studio that week were; Culture Club, FR David, Twisted Sister and Heaven 17. Richard Skinner and Janice Long were the hosts.
5 May 1983. Also in the studio that week (the 1000th edition) were; Thompson Twins, Human League, The Beat, Heaven 17, Blancmange and Fun Boy Three, plus two appearances from Zoo, interpreting ‘Friday Night’ and ‘Candy Girl’. The hosts were “The Radio 1 DJs” (it says here).
29 December 1983. Also in the studio that week were; JoBoxers, Thompson Twins, The Cure, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Howard Jones and The Style Council. Richard Skinner and Tommy Vance were the hosts.
Light Entertainment Watch: Spandau Ballet’s many UK television appearances include;
THE BRITISH RECORD INDUSTRY AWARDS: with Curiosity Killed The Cat, Whitney Houston, Spandau Ballet, Five Star, Level 42, Simply Red (1987)
FRIDAY PEOPLE: with Spandau Ballet (1985)
HARTY: with Barbara Cartland, Ken Livingstone, Spandau Ballet (1984)
IBIZA 92: with Steve Earle, Belinda Carlisle, Breathe, Robert Palmer, Spandau Ballet, Prefab Sprout, Natalie Cole, Brian Wilson (1988)
THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST: with Spandau Ballet (1982)
THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST: with Spandau Ballet, Little Steven and the Disciples Of Soul (1983)
THE OXFORD ROAD SHOW: with Spyder, Spandau Ballet (1983)
POP QUIZ: with Duran Duran v, Spandau Ballet (1984)
SWITCH: with Spandau Ballet, UB40 (1983)
THAT WAS THEN… THIS IS NOW: with Spandau Ballet (1988)
THE TUBE: with Jools Holland, Paula Yates, Virna Lindt, Gary Kemp, Tony Hadley, Jason Bratby, Chaka Khan, Spandau Ballet (1985)
THE TUBE: with Jools Holland, Paula Yates, Spandau Ballet, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Wendy May, Nick Kamen, Felix Howard, Jermaine Stewart, Gwen Guthrie, Gregg Parker (1986)
TWENTIETH CENTURY BOX: Spandau Ballet (1980)
WHISTLE TEST: with Spandau Ballet, Dwight Yoakam, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians (1986)
WOGAN: with Alan Cox, Brian Cox, Bob Geldof, Nik Kershaw, La Bouche, Janice Long, Francis Rossi, Spandau Ballet, Ben Vereen (1985)
WOGAN: with Alessandra Ferri, Trevor McDonald, Kate O’Mara, Prince Roy & Princess, Joan Sealand, Spandau Ballet (1986)
WOGAN: with Leon Brittan, William Davis, Bill Treacher, Spandau Ballet (1987)
WOGAN: with Butterfly McQueen, Spandau Ballet, John Ward (1989)
Wogan in 1989: “Spandau Ballet with ‘Be Free With Your Love’ – and don’t send your medical bills to me.”
Regarding “A pill on my tongue” I saw an interview with the Spands recently which seemed to imply that it was about lying on a beach and taking drugs of some kind. Probably not ecstasy, as has been noted it was a bit of a niche thing only on the NY club scene in the early 80s (hence Cindy Ecstasy on Soft Cell’s “Torch”, she was their dealer in NY), but probably something else. Not very useful information, sorry. Maybe someone should ask them to clarify?
my driving instructor used to point out (what he said was) tony hadley’s house every single time we spluttered past it, so i suppose i could pop in and ask. i saw paul young in a bakery last week too. maybe he’d know.
Spandau Ballet or PM Dawn? Either way, great song.
Tom, this is such an awesome review that I had to finally stop lurking, register and add my two cents worth. Some of your picks are downright weird (but then I was brutally scarred on an emotional level by ABBA’s domination of the charts when I was 14-17)…
True wasn’t a song I appreciated much at the time — chants, long stories, fade to grey had had so much impact that True seemed trite and prissy, Spandau were aging all too gracefully. But then I was more into rhythmn than melody back then. Even later, as I grew to enjoy True without being enraptured by it, the song still felt like a series of magic candy moments buried in a cardboard sponge. And then PMD came along and releeased it to soar into the ether. I am trying to vote and give it an eight, which realistically includes 2 bonus points for the Dawnster.
#30 I agree! How can nobody see how dreadfully dull and dreary this song was? Spandau Ballet were probably the epitome of the type of band I disliked most in the early eighties – but perhaps I was just getting too old. I was 19 at the time…. !