Sometimes Britain hounds and ogles its flawed celebrities, sometimes it wills their redemption, often a little of both. Boy George’s turn of fortune from Britain’s top pop export to Britain’s most famous junkie was sudden enough and sad enough to put him into the group of ‘troubled’ stars who still enjoyed some level of public warmth, enough at least to send a bad solo record to the top of the charts. “Everything I Own” is the number one as sympathy vote, spun at the time as a happy ending for George.
But even if you’d left Britain in 1983, spent a few years as a hermit in the desert and returned without the faintest notion that George O’Dowd had ever been near Class A drugs, one play of this would tell you that something had gone badly wrong. George’s voice was never exactly powerful but it had a lithe presence that often carried Culture Club’s music and when it needed to stretch – on the opening of “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me”, for instance – it could. On “Everything I Own” it’s strained and hollow, trailing away particularly at the end of lines, ragged on the high notes, hiding in the (utterly uninspired) arrangement.
To George’s credit he didn’t walk this mawkish path to recovery for long: he found new direction in the club scene, made records where he sounded genuinely enthused again, rediscovered himself as a DJ and even managed to give his pop incarnation a proper send-off with “The Crying Game”. But this is the last we see of him, a spectral presence on his own comeback record.
Score: 3
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Down there in the bottom right-hand corner of the sleeve…”glasnost”.
Halfway through side two of the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu’s album 1987 What The Fuck’s Going On?, in between “The Queen And I” and “All You Need Is Love,” is a lengthy sequence featuring “highlights” from one evening’s edition of Top Of The Pops, cut up as impatience allowed, with occasional channel-switching segments from Channel 4 News, the golf on BBC2 and adverts on ITV (“More of this could mean less of THIS!”). Hosted by Steve Wright and Mike “Snowy Smithy” Smith – the latter the cousin of the NME‘s Gavin “Half An Hour Of Aretha Every Morning To Teach Ourselves Dignity” Martin – the sequence demonstrates just how lamentable the Top 40 of the period looked, and also the degree of seriousness with which artists treated TOTP at the time insofar as nearly every featured record is on video.
“Nearly 25% of the chart is comprised of old songs for the first time ever,” muses Snowy Smithy mournfully, as he runs through, among other sub-delights, Nick Kamen murdering “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever,” “the very subtle Freddie Mercury” having a go at “The Great Pretender” (not a patch on either the Stan Freberg or Lester Bowie versions) and the life-extinguishing pettiness of the phraseology employed throughout – “Look! A new song! “Don’t Need A Gun” by Billy Idol is a Chart Entry at 38!” “Let’s have some Top 40 Breakers (i.e. snatches of videos they don’t have time to play in full)!” The only vague sign of life is “Fight For Your Right To Party,” the video for which is prefaced by such side-splitting remarks as “This is not a BBC Board of Governors Meeting…Nor is it one of Peter Powell’s better-known gigs.” The BBC has never really understood pop; not in 1967, not in 1987 and certainly not now.
As the top ten is counted down, Smith announces “Here come the old songs” (bypassing Mental As Anything’s four-year-old Australian hit “Live It Up” at number five, now an international smash on account of Crocodile Dundee). There’s Freddie and his Platters platter at number four, Jackie Wilson’s “I Get The Sweetest Feeling” at three, “Stand By Me” down to number two…
“…and at number one, back on Top Of The Pops for the first time since 1985 (cue huge cheers from the studio audience, presumably relieved that one of the artists has actually turned up to perform their hit – but didn’t Culture Club turn up in 1986 to do “Move Away”? Billy Smart to thread), it’s BOY GEORGE!” Cue a quick cut to Bill Drummond roaring “Fuck that! Let’s have the JAMMs!”
The sequence’s deliberate blankness speaks for itself; this represented everything Drummond and Cauty were (up) against, and just over a year later the JAMMs would indeed be top of the pops with their carefully crafted and cunning plan. Possibly it’s not fair on poor, benighted Boy George, for his glossy Xerox of Ken Boothe’s 1974 chart-topper clearly reached number one on the public sympathy vote. Following the relative failure of the (then) last Culture Club album, 1986’s From Luxury To Heartache, George had deteriorated badly, nearly losing his life to heroin, shrunken to a virtual skeleton, at one stage supposedly given a fortnight to live. In addition, keyboardist Michael Rudetski, who played on that album as well as several other dance hits of the period – including “Male Stripper” by Man II Man and Man Parrish, number nine in the chart the week “Everything I Own” went to the top (described by Snowy Smithy as “Man II Man and Man Parrish and all the rest of them”) – was found dead of a heroin overdose in George’s house.
So the meaning behind his interpreting “Everything I Own” – “I would give everything I own/Just to have you back again” – was transparent. The record is otherwise utterly unremarkable apart from the fact that George’s voice sounds shot to pieces; hoarse, slightly desperate. The public were willing to forgive and embrace him again, at least temporarily; the Sold album followed later that year, a scabrous, bitchy and frequently very funny record, and its title track, released as a single, remains underrated, but neither did much more than scrape the Top 30. Still, George has survived – as club DJ, still intermittently looking in on pop via the occasional film theme or Culture Club reunion or bizarre out-there pop nugget (“Generations Of Love,” “Everything Starts With An E,” the latter put together with fellow DJ and one-time Haysi Fantayzee rival Jeremy Healy), with the increasingly frequent spells of community service, inside or out; I used to wonder whether he or Morrissey would succeed more elegantly in becoming pop’s Quentin Crisp but the way things are going he may still end up as pop’s Julian MacLaren-Ross.
Yes, this is lame. I don’t think much of the Bread original either, so I was mystified by this choice of a cover (Bread’s ‘Make it with you’ would have much more fun and it’s a song that’s musically suppple in some of the same ways that early Culture Club was). I remember hearing at the time that George was planning to do some country stuff, maybe work with Dolly Parton or Tammy Wynette, but nothing like that ever emerged, and instead there was this. Too bad. 3 seems about right.
with bleached blond crop George looks like a ghost of his former self in the video (although not as bad as he appeared when I’d seen him performing at Clapham Common the previous year).
Shoved into a designer suit and surrounded by hip young things by the end (although conspicuously absent is the band whose instruments stand on stage) it seems a forlorn attempt to repackage George for a yuppie market: ‘Hey – I’m no longer the dreadlocked gender bender of yesteryear but your cheeky gay pal’
Thank goodness it didn’t last. The acid house ‘After the love has gone’ from a few years later was way better
He actually looks more disturbing than at any other time in his career, since only parts of his face seem to be moving.
I think it’s success is more down to the British public’s fondness for the Ken Boothe version and pop-reggae in general (as UB40 proved with the coin they made doing piss-poor cover versions of the same stuff.)
God, he does sound bad.
Seems a shame what happened to Reggae in the 80s, purely in terms of how the later equivalents of an ‘Uptown Top Ranking’, ‘Double Barrel’ or ‘Israelites’ weren’t topping the charts. That said, I’m not quite sure what the equivalents would be. Perhaps not Wayne Smith’s ‘Under Mi Sleng Teng’, wonderful as it would’ve been to see this crack the top 40 (I suppose its status as a riddim feeder may have hampered this if not other things).
Yes an obvious sympathy vote but in some ways more edifying than the next charity horror (co-incidentally George’s last appearance on Popular). The record itself is awful – a cover of a cover (did George even know the Bread original?)and George sounds finished on it.
Happily that wasn’t the case and he’s survived to this day though this is his first and last Top 10 hit as a solo artist and they petered out altogether after 1995 when “Same Thing In Reverse” an excellent song got buried in the Britpop era and peaked at 56. We’ll come to it in due course but arguably Britpop ended more careers than punk.
Incidentally Punctum I’d nominate Mike Smith as the worst DJ of the lot for his all too obvious lack of interest in pop music except as a vehicle for his thankfully now stalled TV career so the KLF boys made the right choice there.
@2: “Live It Up” was actually a hit in Australia in mid-1985. </pedantrycorner>
I like it. Why? Simple. You can tell George really likes this song.
I can detect an endearing note of fandom in his voice. The tone might be a bit ragged, but well what is Everything I Own if not a song about feeling vulnerable and regretful?
Another reason I warm to it is because of the self-consciously
” unothordox ” eclecticism of cover versions in recent years as epitomised by the Radio 1 Live Lounge approach nondescript-indie-band-cover-Britneys-latest-cos-hey-it’s-all-music-right?
Having heard Peter, Bjorn and John re-styled as bluegrass and that Francophile version of Just Can’t Enough by Depeche Mode and Joss Stone warbling a White Stripes track my ears are no longer sympathetic to covers that expect unadulterated praise just for switching genres.
Give me something like this. A singer picks a song they really like and if it suits their voice just sings the darn thing.
This might seem unimaginative but rather that then the possibility of Bloc Party covering the Vengaboys.
Dull cover of what was a mildly dreary song in the first place.
It’s a pity that ‘Move Away’ was slightly too early to benefit from the sympathy vote. That really is a neglected gem, rather overlooked even at the time. “I never wanted to be a hero. I never wanted to be a man” – as a slightly defiant confession of having done wrong, its up there with ‘Stinkin’ Thinkin’ by the Happy Mondays (another underrated song, come to think of it)
However, there was one brilliant incisive song about the madness of being Boy George released by Virgin Records at the time – ‘Singer’s Hampstead Home’ by Microdisney;
Big house and a running joke,
Big joke everybody can come and see.
Singer’s Hampstead home.
Waiting for the blows to fall.
They don’t hurt at all.
Singer’s Hampstead home.
Snoopers underneath the bed,
Born in Singer’s head.
He only had blank lines to say,
Although he said them in a witty and stylish way.
Singer’s Hampstead home,
Going down the gospel road,
With all the old frauds and bores,
Singer’s Hampstead home,
They will never have their fill,
Of sliding down their sacred hill.
Cathal Coughlan does a rather brilliant thing here of sounding simultaneously scathing and sympathetic. I often wonder if Boy George ever heard this song, and what he made of it.
TOTPWatch: Boy George performed ‘Everything I Own’ on the edition of 12 March 1987. Also in the studio that week were; Aison Moyet and Nick Kamen. Mike Smith & Steve Wright were the hosts.
TOTPWatch EXTRA! Punctum’s right! Culture Club performed ‘Move Away’ on the edition of March 13 1986. Also in the studio that week were; The Blow Monkeys, The Bangles, Hipsway and Freddie Jackson. Mike Smith & Steve Wright were the hosts.
Perhaps everybody just wanted to draw a veil over the state that Boy George was in in 1986 by pretending that it never happened.
Am I the only person in the world who likes ‘The Honeythief’ by Hipsway?
Light Entertainment Watch: No shortage of UK TV appearances for attention-seeking George;
THE (NOEL EDMONDS) LATE LATE BREAKFAST SHOW: with Boy George, Bob Williamson (1986)
8 OUT OF 10 CATS: with Dave Spikey (Team Captain), John Pohlhammer (Voice-Over), Boy George, Nikki Grahame, Rich Hall, Lee Mack (2006)
ASPEL & COMPANY: with Yoko Ono, Boy George, John Cleese (1986)
ASPEL & COMPANY: with Sharon Gless, Boy George, Clive James (1991)
THE BRIAN CONLEY SHOW: with Paul Jones, Sheila Ferguson, Boy George (1995)
THE CLIVE JAMES SHOW: with Boy George, Jonathan Ross (1995)
THE FRANK SKINNER SHOW: with Boy George, Katie Price (2001)
FRIDAY NIGHT PROJECT: with Debra Stephenson, Alan Carr, Justin Lee Collins, Kinky Rowland, Boy George (Guest Host), Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, Bella Emberg (2005)
FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS: with Patrick Swayze, Jeremy Clarkson, Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, Antony And The Johnsons, Boy George (2005)
FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS: with Penelope Cruz, Boy George, Lennox Lewis, Beck (2005)
FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS: with Jimmy Carr, Tenacious D, Cat Deeley, Don Johnson, Boy George (2006)
FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS: with Boy George, Joanna Page, Tim Minchin, Jamie Cullum (2009)
FRIDAY NIGHT’S ALL WRIGHT: with Pete Tong, Mark Baron, Lennox Lewis, Mariah Carey, Boy George, Fun Lovin Criminals, Linda Brava, Lesley Vickerage, Jimi Mistry (1999)
GAYLE’S WORLD: with Boy George, Samantha Fox, Michael Winner (1997)
HARTY: with Boy George, Vincent Price, Coral Browne (1983)
IT’S ONLY TV BUT I LIKE IT: with Phill Jupitus (Team captain), Julian Clary (Team Captain), Phil Daniels, Charlotte Coleman, Esther McVey, Boy George (2000)
THE KUMARS AT NO.42: with Boy George, June Whitfield (2003)
THE LAST RESORT WITH JONATHAN ROSS: with Boy George, Cynthia Payne (1987)
LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: with Elvis Costello, James Burton, Boy George (1995)
LATER… WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: with Kaiser Chiefs, The Streets, Little Jackie, TV On The Radio, Seasick Steve, Boy George (2008)
LIVE FROM THE LILY DROME: with Boy George, Bucks Fizz, Urban Cookie Collective, Johnnie Casson, Melanie Williams (1995)
THE MONTREUX ROCK FESTIVAL: with Talk Talk, Boy George, Philip Bailey, Culture Club, Dead Or Alive, Elton John, Millie Jackson, Howard Jones, Kenn Loggins, Shakatak (1985)
THE MONTREUX ROCK FESTIVAL: with Whitney Houston, Smokey Robinson, Alison Moyet, Boy George, The Cure, The Communards, Mel & Kim, Terence Trent D’Arby, Samantha Fox, Robbie Neville (1987)
THE MRS MERTON SHOW: with Caroline Aherne (Mrs Merton), Vinnie Jones, Boy George (1997)
NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS: with Mark Lamarr, Phill Jupitus (Team Captain), Sean Hughes (Team Captain), Jo Brand, Boy George, Lisa Scott-Lee, Suggs, Eric Bell, Tony Crane (1999)
NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS: with Mark Lamarr, Phill Jupitus (Team Captain), Sean Hughes (Team Captain), Mari Wilson, Boy George, Blade, Tommy Vance (2002)
THE O ZONE: with Boy George (1992)
THE O ZONE: with Boy George, EMF, Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer, Ultimate Kaos, Sean Maguire (1995)
PARAMOUNT CITY: with Curtis & Ishmael, Boy George, Sinéad O’Connor, Frank Skinner (1991)
PARKINSON ONE TO ONE: with Boy George (1988)
RIVERSIDE: with The Higsons, Boy George, Cabaret Voltaire (1982)
RUBY: with Joanna Lumley, Jeanna Moreau, Boy George (1998)
SPRINGER: with Melanie Chisholm, Lisa Riley, Atomic Kitten, Boy George, Nick Moran (2000)
STARS IN THEIR EYES CELEBRITY SPECIAL: with Caprice, Matthew Kelly, Frank Skinner, Kim Wilde, Boy George, Tracy Shaw (2002)
SUNDAY, SUNDAY: with Boy George, Brian Glover, Margot Fonteyn (1984)
THE TUBE: with Jools Holland, Leslie Ash, The Pretenders, Mark Hurst, The Icicle Works, Divine, Boy George, Muriel Gray (1983)
WOGAN: with Cher, Sheila Graham, Boy George, Culture Club (1984)
WOGAN: with Alan Freeman, Boy George, Jeremy Hardy, Paparazzi, Swing Out Sister (1987)
WOGAN: with Boy George, Eric Idle, Jan Leeming, Spike Milligan, Derek Jameson (1987)
WOGAN: with Geoffrey Boycott, Frances Edmonds, George Martin, Midge Ure (1987)
WOGAN: with Roger Cook, Boy George, Charlton Heston, Roy Kinnear (1987)
WOGAN: with Kirk Douglas, Boy George (1988)
WOGAN: with Boy George, Lisa Maxwell, Yasmin Le Bon, Kenneth Branagh, Patrick James, Ziggy Marley (1991)
THE WORD: with Flavor Flav, Boy George, Whitney Houston, Jesus Loves You (1990)
THE WORD: with Boy George, Sinéad O’Connor, Ride, Jagdeed, Jah Wobble (1992)
THE WORD: with Boy George, Alex Winter, EYC, Afghan Wigs, Blur (1994)
10, self-consciously unorthodox eclectism goes right to the heart of why I hate wanky nouvelle vague and the coldplay cover billie jean syndrome in pretty much equal measure.
I don’t like this particular record, but your analysis on its sincerity as a cover is spot on.
Not long after this record came out Boy George was interviewed by the late Kris Kirk who found George although still a touch pale and gaunt returning to something like his old self.
For most of the interview George was chatty and effusive gossiping about his two passions pop and fashion. If I recall he mentioned a re-invigorated interest in clubbing hinting at his future career move.
There was a touching moment when he admitted to Kirk that he felt the need to be around people as when on his own he felt like a bad person – the horrors of his addiction still painfully recent.
Anyway their encounter showed something of Boy George as a pop star, a fan, a recovering heroin user, a chatterbox and George O’Dowd underneath it all.
I know Kris Kirk was one of the few Journalists Boy George still felt he could trust and he contributed the foreword to the engrossing A Boy Called Mary – a compilation of writing/interviews by Kirk who was not just a fine writer but also a good listener.
OK, so – seriously – does anyone have any insight into what happend to the talent that produced Time (Clock of the heart), Victims, and Church of the Poison Mind? At *that* point I think most of us were blown away by Culture Club (much in the same way that George Michael exceeded all expectations around about the time of Careless Whisper). Given the subsequent drop-off in output (has any of the band done anything close to first rate since?), one’s tempted to say that it must all have been the producer (or something). Or were these early triumphs just flukes? Or is the case something like what Alan McGee alleges about Noel Gallagher (that Noel had his whole repertoire of 30 quality songs written before getting a contract – which were promptly mined out for their first two records + singles/b-sides – and hasn’t had a new idea since)? Any ideas?
#3 Boy George did do a kind of duet with Dolly Parton on the Culture Club single ‘Your Kisses Are Charity’ during the late 90s.
“Everything I Own” is a great song. When done by Bread. Seek out Ken Boothe’s version. I don’t hate George’s reggae take, but it is rather drab. This was a non-charter in the States. Bread’s version peaked at #5 in in 1972.
@George T.,18. Thanks for that! I don’t think the song is in the right key for Dolly, she’s really straining in that youtube clip… but I have to admit that the (new to me) song’s not too bad!
“…his whole repertoire of 30 quality songs written before getting a contract – which were promptly mined out for their first two records…”
This reminds me of the obituary for literary agent Peggy Ramsay – it was said that she believed real talent lasted about ten years, after which the artist would simply start repeating themselves, or fizzle out. I’ve often wondered whether she mightn’t have been on to something.
#21 I think she was probably right too. I can only really think of The Bee Gees as exceptions to that. Kraftwerk and Stevie Wonder fulfil it exactly.
the secret history of new pop, and culture club in particular, is (pace dave rimmer) how it worked to move pop to the news pages of the tabloids and by doing so laid the seeds of today’s heat culture. so it’s probably fitting that boy george ended up the having the ur celeb narrative of public disgrace, public contrition and public redemption (followed by the usual messy, but less remarked, path of small victories and small defeats). as everyone agrees, george sounds *terrible* on ‘everything i own’, ill and humbled. possibly that was part of the appeal then (he sounds like he *needs* a bit of love and forgiveness), but it’s a gruelling listen now.
At the top of the thread, I mentioned “glasnost” on the sleeve. Gorbachev’s twin reforms of Openness and Restructuring (perestroika) signalled the beginning of the end of Soviet Russia, and became watchwords in the west for lasting change. Even Thatcher stated that Gorbachev was “someone she could do business with”.
“Openness” is what Boy George has been all about since his fall from grace. Now it appears the BBC are filming a TV drama about about his life. If George has anything to do with it, then I assume it will be honest enough.
“Everything I own” in its ’87 context was as hard a listen then, as it is now, but of course for different reasons. To listen to it now, it’s detatched from the media storm surrounding him and his addictions.
Now, it sounds like a broken man’s homage to his own shinier, happier youth.
I’d never heard this before, and couldn’t get beyond the 3-minute mark. What a sad comedown for a performer who had never been less than interesting – as if George had joined UB40 at their worst.
anto@10 – ‘the self-consciously
” unothordox ” eclecticism of cover versions in recent years’ – not just recent years…. 2 from the current period of popular made ripples in the indie pond – sonic youth’s ‘into the groove(y)’ in 86, and age of chance’s abysmal version of ‘kiss’ (almost charting at the start of 87, wikipedia tells me). can we blame them for the sub-genre, or were there earlier candidates?
mind you, if its true that the ramones started out (un-ironically) intending to sound like the bay city rollers*, then indie-band-does-glossy-pop-but-with-noisy-guitars never was unorthodox; just a nod to one of the cornerstones of their genre
* and you have to hope it is
as for Busted covering teenage kicks, I don’t know where that fits into this debate (which, actually, I appear to be having entirely with myself. I’ll stop now)
except to say to billy@13 – yes, possibly, and worst band name ever, surely?
“Am I the only person in the world who likes ‘The Honeythief’ by Hipsway?”
No!
I quite like it in the same way I quite like “Imagination” by Belouis Some, which I bracket it with for no good reason.
Swanstep, 17 – I think the early success of Culture Club was down to Jon Moss’s professionalism and absolute determination to ‘make it’ working as muse to George’s inspiration. Their love affair I think fuelled those early songs. The well ran dry pretty quickly thereafter though.
I like the Honeythief by Hipsway as well! (Still got it on 7 inch, actually).
As for Boy George, yes, pretty dreary song at a pretty dreary time for chart pop. My abiding memory of his ’87 ‘comeback’ was how ill he looked during the whole Sold campaign.
Re 26-28: Fair points. Certainly the covers thing was in the air in ’87 in the indie charts as much as the top 40. I think I’m maybe a bit too touchy about it (the whole indie covers thing) and it was probably premature of me to even mention it, but as you point out the Age of Chance were attempting the sound of Mineapolis at this juncture. I’ve only heard their version once.
Re14: He really has done a lot of telly hasn’t he?
I remember George also appearing on Jo Whiley’s C4 TV show alongside Neil Tennant and Tricky. Tricky did the ‘pretending to be surprised that they were both gay’ joke thing.
Another vote for Hipsway, although I was under the mistaken impression that at least one of them went on to be in Scarlet Fantastic who released the marvelous No Memory, but that apparently was a group called Swansway.
Re the vocal, Tom, I suspect we’d have had a lot more time for it if it hadn’t been for what we’d already heard from George. It’s a passable, vulnerable vocal which, you’re right, strains now and again, but generally it’s OK – just a long way from the beauties of earlier Culture Club material. Nothing special as a cover version or a record, though – and that top 10 on the Ben E King thread is pretty sobering.
Back in the days before being able to have a sneaky peek on the internet during a slow day at work, that Evening Standard newspaper vendor on Piccadilly was my main source of breaking news at this period. I vividly recall seeing his newspaper hoarding bearing the words “WHERE IS BOY GEORGE?” as the singer’s implosion looked all too likely to end tragically. He’s had his good times as well as his bad times since, but overall it’s not an especially happy story.
@Conrad, 30. Thanks. Assuming you’re correct, it does make one wonder whether George might not wake up one morning finally recharged, at last in a genuinely good mood, etc., and, hey presto we’ll get another string of dazzling singles? Not that likely, I’m sure. But his best music never seemed especially to be young person’s music – if he picked up now roughly where he left off making top-notch stuff in 1983, it wouldn’t sound ridiculous coming from a ~50 year old guy. Domestic drama works for all ages!
Swansway!
Funnily enough, I had dug out “Soul Train” on 12″ yesterday.
The extended bit was banded into three parts, part two being the somewhat fine 7″ version, the rest being an extended intro and a 1 minute coda, both surplus to requirements.
Much better than you’d expect a white ‘soul’ threesome with pretensions of glamour and a title of the best US music show, to be.
#36 He’d need to team up again with Roy Hay and/or Phil Pickett who were the musical brains behind Culture Club’s success.
Being a Scottish fellow I quite enjoyed Hipsway, although “The Honey Thief” was nowhere near the best track on the album. (“Tinder” being the stand-out)
Swans Way – as Mark said in 37, much better than you would have expected – still love hearing it now.
Re indie covers – surely Mark E Smith (even by now) had quite a history of this sort of thing?
Oh, and Boy George – as a cover of a cover it was OK, possibly not remembered too harshly as the Bread original had been even more insipid. Of the three “hit” versions, Ken Boothe’s is the only one I can listen to, and that is at least partly down to some of his rather curious vocal mannerisms and inflections. It was refreshing to hear some pop reggae retaining the Caribbean sound in the vocal.
The Fall were doing covers because they loved the songs and half of them – Rollin’ Dany, Victoria – clearly influenced MES’s musical and lyrical direction. The Age of Chance wanted to sound American and electro-modern, so their version of Kiss is just cack-handed. Into The Groove(y) on the other hand was acceptable for the indie crowd to like without fear of disapproval from peers. Saying you thought Madonna’s version was ‘pure pop’ (a term I was as guilty as anyone of bandying about) would have been quite daring. But first out of the blocks was surely Aztec Camera’s slow acoustic take of Van Helen’s Jump?
Something George brought to the table on this – lyrics altered even more than they were on Ken Booth’s version. I’m sure there’s a whole new verse on this one, taking it even further away from David Gates’ tribute to his departed dad
Re 40: We talk about Jump on this thread;
https://popular-number1s.com/ft/2009/05/bonnie-tyler-total-eclipse-of-the-heart/
Absolutely astonishing cover, it says so much about masculinity, both priapic and ultra-vulnerable… Its no so acoustic by the time that you get to the end of the full-length version!
In all this time I never realised Swans Way were a soul trio and always thought they were tail-end New Pop/New Romantics – have even got the 12 inch version on one of my downloaded Synth-Pop/New Pop/New Romantic compilation cds.
Bit pretentious naming yourself after a Proust novel though…
Think I prefer the original EIO by Bread (which I finally heard after reading the Ken Boothe thread on here)if only because a tribute to your father was different – so why just turn it into yet another romantic love song…
Ah, Swansway. I remember buying “When The Wild Calls”, and “Soul Train”. I kind of felt they were sophisticated, with their jazz-pop arrangements. Vocals reminiscent of The Associates, but eschewing big synths for horns and strings. Never really pegged them as “soul” as I understood soul to be at the time, but there was emotion there. “The Fugitive Kind” was something of a disappointment beyond the 2 singles iirc.
the Three Johns, round about 85/86, were doing a live version of Like a Virgin (before seguing into the brighton-bomb-commemorating, and possibly slightly tasteless, ‘sad about tebbit (but I don’t care)’)
I seem to remember the (supposedly) improbable cover version being an occasional feature of Peel Sessions – the Shop Assistants doing Motorhead’s Ace Of Spades, for instance. This sort of thing used to tickle Peel.
Re 7: The Smiley Culture reached no 12 with Police Officer, but the supremely brilliant Cockney Translation only got to 71, which is an utter crime. Smiley’s mate Tippa Irie charted with Hello Darling, which I remember as being quite annoying. Sophie George cracked the top ten with Girlie Girlie in Dec 1985, which I guess makes as near as this era got to Uptown Top Ranking. No chart action for Sleng Teng or other familiar tracks from that time, like Tenor Saw’s Ring The Alarm.
Going the other way, you’d’ve thought The Orb doing ‘No Fun’ on their peel session would’ve been pleasingly amusing, but he just sneered “it probably seemed like a good idea at the time”. I don’t really buy into the reverence for him to be honest.
Loved ‘Hello Darling’, especially the “ah-ha”s.
I’d file Swansway under Scott Walker/Jacques Brel over-emoting cabaret, not soul. Though I had completely forgotten they existed until they were mentioned here, and I used to own ‘Soul Train’.