Listened to on an overcast Wednesday this sounded supine and dreary: on a shirtsleeve Friday it’s springy and playful. Such is the way of pop-reggae, a genre which more than any other depends on the weather. Aswad’s version of “Don’t Turn Around” is one of a throng of covers – they weren’t the first reggae act to try it, and their reading leads directly to Ace of Base’s later hit. I admit I don’t hear a lot in the song to suggest why so many wanted a tilt at it: I think I’d like it more without the chorus in fact, if the singer’s despair was simply implied, not stated outright. But Aswad do a serviceable job, mostly thanks to Brinsley Forde’s lead performance – nothing revelatory, but charismatic and he reads the song well, getting the right mix of defiance and nervous bluff on “see if I care”, “I’m gonna be alright” et al. The arrangement gets in his way a little at the climax – “Don’t Go! Don’t Go!” he sings, his urgency drowned out by a plasticky crash of drums.
Score: 4
[Logged in users can award their own score]
I maintain that the Ace of Base version of this is a fantastic record. This, not so much. And the Tina Turner original is just pants.
‘Plasticky’is precisely right. Add ‘trebley’ and ‘underpowered’ to that, and you’re starting to explain why this one irritates me so much. I don’t mind the idea of pop-reggae, and would have no complaints about Aswad compromising their roots credibility in search of chart success if only this just sounded more organic or of emotional significance to the performers. As it is, its not a patch on ‘I Don’t Wanna Dance’, the last time Popular dealt with something in this territory.
I love the Ace Of Base version. It suits a pop reading better in my opinion. Reggae songs with lyrics about getting dumped are strange bedfellows.
“You know what live and direct means? It means…live and direct!”
One of the greatest live performances I have ever seen was Aswad live at the 1983 Notting Hill Carnival; simultaneously welcoming and threatening, at once celebratory and insurrectionary, with a sense of dynamics seldom matched by any other group and, in Drummie Zeb, a drummer worthy of placement beside Elvin Jones and Clyde Stubblefield. The performance was recorded and issued on the mini-album Live And Direct; “African Children” alone is sufficient to put nearly all other music of its month, if not its year, to abject shame.
Aswad had long since been established as Britain’s leading reggae band with classics like the serpentine instrumental “Warrior Charge,” the unofficial signature tune of the 1981 Brixton riots. Unfortunately the mainstream public seemed to believe that UB40 were Britain’s leading reggae band, with the result that by 1988 Aswad badly needed a hit. “Don’t Turn Around” was another product of the Warren/Hammond AoR battery farm; originally a Tina Turner B-side, and also a minor US hit for the late soul singer Luther Ingram in 1986, it was summarily given the UB40/Boris Gardner reggae-lite treatment. While Brinsley Forde provides a typically superb lead vocal, the arrangement suggests that the band were kept out of the studio at bayonet point in favour of the trivial tinsel of synths and drum machines, as though these revolutionaries had been forced to become humble mendicants. It went to number one within a month, and thus much more of the same followed, but “Don’t Turn Around” is the equivalent of former Communists being paraded before the West, compelled to recant their previous “sins” – thoroughly lifeless and indirect.
Number 2 watch: The start of a whopping four weeks for Bros’ ‘Drop The Boy’, a more distinctive and original-sounding thing than ‘Don’t Turn Around’ at the very least. “I read all the newspapers/ But my mother reads my mail”…
Light Entertainment Watch: Aswad’s 1988 change of direction opened doors for them. As to whether they were doors into rooms into which people would want to go, you can be the judge…
CANNON AND BALL: with Marti Caine, Hilary O’Neil, Aswad (1988)
THE HIPPODROME SHOW: with Uri Geller, Spike Milligan, Sheena Easton, Aswad, Tommy Tune (1989)
THE LAST RESORT WITH JONATHAN ROSS: with Steve Nieve & The Playboys, John Benson (Announcer), Aswad, Kathy Burke (Tina Bishop), Rowland Rivron (Dr. Martin Scrote), Simon Bates (1988)
LATE NIGHT IN CONCERT: with Aswad (1984)
LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: with Crowded House, Aswad, The Cranberries, The Auteurs (1994)
THE MONTREUX ROCK FESTIVAL: with Johnny Hates Jazz, Jermaine Stewart, Ziggy Marley, Aswad, Sting (1988)
THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST: with Aswad, XTC (1982)
ORS 84: with Aswad, Steve Levine (1984)
ROUND THE BEND: with Aswad (1989)
SIGHT AND SOUND IN CONCERT: with Aswad (1984)
SOMETHING ELSE: with Aswad (1982)
THE TUBE: with Jools Holland, Leslie Ash, China Crisis, Aswad, Burt Kwouk, Geoff Weston, Miquel Brown (1984)
WHISTLE TEST–ON THE ROAD: with The Cocteau Twins, Aswad (1984)
WIRED: with Michael Jackson, Aztec Camera, Aswad (1988)
WOGAN: with Aswad, Doctor Melissa Fitzgerald, Peter Howitt, Natalie J. Robb, Amanda Walklett (1988)
WOGAN: with Aswad, Fenton Bresler, Judith Craig, Willow Legge, Imogen Stubbs, Joseph Wamburg (1989)
wot no double deckers mention?
Although this peaked at #45 on the U.S. R&B charts it got no Pop chart action. This is indeed a good song, done better of course by Ace of Base. But I don’t mind this version.
In 1976 they supported Eddie and the Hot Rods on tour, you know.
Nice summery reggae, no doubt brought a warm glow to a cold March, not much more to say. But of course Brinsley Forde was the other UK Number 1 performer (other than you-know-who) to star alongside Melvyn Hayes and a double-decker bus. Anyone want to give us full information about “The Double Deckers” or is it too early in the thread for that sort of digression?!
You see, Admin, everything comes to he who waits!
http://www.thedoubledeckers.com/now.htm
i never rated Spooks
edit: !!! um, that IS a reference to Peter Firth. *blush*
This doesn’t apply to Punctum of course (whose analysis of this is spot on) but I bet 9 out of 10 of those who accused them of selling out didn’t actually own anything from their supposedly seminal earlier material. I think a more appropriate mataphor would be someone like Margaret Hodge an out-there radical who had to come in and take the Blairite shilling to get a decent pension.
This is the second number one in a row with links to a much-loved TV programme since Brinsley Forde was Spring in “Here Come The Double Deckers ” (was he the first black child on TV anyone ?). I absolutely adored that as a kid ; what could be better than having a bus as a den for you and your mates ?
@Billy Smart #6
That Hippodrome green room must have been an odd sight. Do you think Uri Geller, Spike Milligan and Sheena Easton had much to talk about?!!
Mike #12 – I think we agreed on a mid-70s thread (Barbados?) that his character Spring was the first example of a black character in a sitcom whose colour was totally incidental (some time ahead of Denzil in Only Fools and Horses).
Yup the 2 “winners” from The Double Deckers were Brinsley Forde and Peter Firth.
Aswad’s hit was a bit of harmless pop fluff, which is a shame since they were at the cutting edge of the roots/dub movement. I cottoned on to dub about 83/84 so way too late for the innovative Lee Scratch Perry, King Tubby stuff. When this came around, I was hoping for something a bit edgy, but found the edge was somewhat blunted. Ho hum.
I’m not sure if I’d ever heard this before watching the video half an hour ago, and I’ve already forgotten how it goes. Not Diane Warren’s catchiest tune.
One week at number 34 in the Australian charts.
it’s a pleasant enough tune with a better than average vocal – scuppered by mediocre 80s production values
whenever I encountered Aswad in the press, TV or radio I immediately thought of ‘the Double Deckers’ which I loved as a kid – perhaps an even less predictable/believable career trajectory is ‘Doughnut’ becoming a theoretical physicist.
I saw Aswad at a student disco at LCP (where my sister was studying film and TV) in maybe 1985! Not the ideal venue — it was half empty — but still very memorable.
Baffled at idea of Ace Of Base version being better…
TOTPWatch: Aswad performed Don’t Turn Around on Top Of The Pops on four occasions (we’ll deal with the Christmas one when we get to it);
17 March 1988. Also in the studio that week were; Bros and Eighth Wonder. Gary Davies & Mike Read were the hosts.
24 March 1988. Also in the studio that week were; Sinitta, A-Ha and Simon Harris. Peter Powell & Simon Bates were the hosts.
31 March 1988. Also in the studio that week were; Eighth Wonder, Climie Fisher and Wet Wet Wet. Mike Smith & Nicky Campbell were the hosts.
I’ll really need to try and get on these threads earlier. As usual, most of what I wanted to say has already been said.
In the 70s in UK we had Steel Pulse, Black Slate, Matumbi and Aswad, yet it was UB-bloody-40 that got the hits (albeit a few years later). I suppose the timing of the ska/2-Tone stuff had a lot to do with that.
Erithian at #9 – I was that Eddie and the Hot Rods tour in Glasgow, and we got Ultravox (w John Foxx obv.), instead of Aswad – I din’t know if they took it turn about, or if it was felt that Glasgow would prefer Ultravox (Young Savage was the single at the time) – both acts got half a page in the programme.
Memoirs of Hot Rods bassist Paul Gray including the Aswad/Ultravox tour:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.gray/archives%20&%20stories1.htm
Check out the width of the trews!
In his post on Red Red Wine Tom mentioned that UB40 mislead him about reggae. When Don’t Turn Around was at #1 I asked my Mum what she thought of it and she said ” It’s ok but I’m not that keen on reggae songs. ” and that was the first time I ever heard the word “reggae”.
I wasn’t so much mislead by Aswad but for a few years I just assumed reggae meant music made by black men with dreads. It wasn’t until a music Teacher at school put me right that I realised the genre had more to do with bass patterns than haircuts.
As for Don’t Turn Around it would be pleasent rather than especially great whichever style it was played in.
Strange how a band that can be as passionate and earnest as this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb2uN_spvEU&feature=related
can end up being so toothless and anodyne with DTA.
Aswad’s DTA spent 2 weeks at #1 in New Zealand.
DTA isn’t quite my sort of thing done by anyone (I find it slightly soporific), but I much prefer this version to Ace of Base’s, which feels compressed and unmelodic by comparison. For example, the middle eight, er,four – ‘I wish I could scream’ etc. – is lame-o spoken in AoB’s version, whereas Aswad’s guy shows some nice pipes there. And I think Tom is just wrong about the arrangement ‘getting in the way’ at that point.
Anyhow, I evidently like this a bit more than most everyone else here:
5 (and could be talked up to a 6 by the right crowd)
People of Earth!
DTA was of course sung by Drummie Zeb, not Brinsley Forde. Brinsley always sung the roots reggae tracks and Drummie Zeb the lovers rock tracks. Tony Gad sings lead on a few occasions too.
Drummie Zeb used to be the drummer and also sing lead vocals at the same time. With this song everything changed and he left the drums and took center stage. In the end Brinsley Forde left the group.
Drummie at the drums singing lead vocals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb2uN_spvEU
Brinsley Forde lead vocals (Shine)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIw3BtSPHtI
Tony Gad lead vocals (Feelings)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqsqem5fCrM
Yet another one that did nothing in America, and speaking as an American currently scrolling the Wikipedia page for this, I am boggled that there are so many versions of what I only know as everyone’s fourth-favorite Ace of Base song. Was it just the pedigree of Warren/Hammond that brought people on board with this, or what? Why this song? Does Diane Warren have a crew of Suge-Knight-style strong-armers dangling people out of windows if they don’t record her music?
ROSIE UPDATE:
Thanks for the paging, MC.
I’ve only now had this opportunity to access Popular having been in Italy for a few days and then suffering loss of Internet at work.
The news about Rosie is most encouraging after what were truly alaming events. She was moved back from the Royal Preston to her local hospital in resplendant Barrow over the weekend and the last text I received mentioned something about a romance with a chocolate orange. She particularly forbade me from exchanging jokey obituaries with Erithian (whenever someone of note edges one to the keeper, he and I are on a race to get the gag in first) as she assures everyone that she doesn’t intend to check out (of life) just yet.
I would like to thank everyone for your messages of support, which I have passed on to Rosie. Her contributions to the Popular project have been considerable and the bunfights with Marcello, in particular, entertaining for a variety of reasons. I’ll let you all know when there is an update and copy this to whatever number one we are discussing at the time.
Cheers, everyone.
#21, yeah, if you get here later than post 10, and/or Punctum’s post, it has usually all been said.
Especially the “I thought Drummie sang this..” which I’m too late to be smartarse of the week with.
Well! I’m a little taken aback by the general sniffiness, as I’ve always had a lot of affection for this single: spry and refreshing, like a cool breeze on a muggy spring afternoon, and with a spacious, distinctive sonic palette that, while far removed from Aswad’s roots-reggae origins, absolutely works for me as pop-reggae. I particularly like the ooh-ing that underpins the second verse, and the three repeating organ chords in the chorus. Sell-out? Well, I’d enjoyed “Bubbling” from 1985, which pointed towards a lighter direction for the band, so “Don’t Turn Around” didn’t come as a huge surprise. But by the time I saw them at Rock City a few months later, they had indeed tipped almost fully over into jerk-chicken-in-a-basket cabaret cheese; a cloying cover of “My Baby Just Cares For Me” sticks in the memory. But for now: a lovely pop moment, and a 7 from me.
Oh, and thanks for the reassuring update, Waldo – welcome news!
Didn’t the “No Charge” thread from 1976 get 250+ posts because it coincided with some major point in punk?
Well this was Number One in the first week in April 1988 when after a couple of struggling and pretty empty months the hordes started flocking into Paul Oakenfold’s “Spectrum” in London’s Charing Cross.
So Acid House becoming something significant can be traced to a couple of weeks around here.
Only about 240 posts to go then…
“The Double Deckers” another reason why it was good to have tour childhood in the late 60s/early 70s –
I’d agree that Brinsley Forde’s character would take some beating as far as British telly goes on the black character front (in America they obviously had a few such characters already eg Uhura in Star Trek from 1966).
But the Double Deckers made in 1969 and broadcast from 1970 may be first in this country.
Pfft, those Johnny-come-latelys at Spectrum… WE started decking out OUR club night (now called “Get Happy”) with home-made smiley-face banners in bloody January! AND we gave away smiley badges on the door! Take THAT, Nicky so-called Holloway!
(Yeah, yeah, I know: Autumn 87, gym in Southwark, rest is history, etc. Worth a try though…)
As history has it, Phuture released “Acid Tracks” in 1987, played first by DJ Ron Hardy at The Music Box in Chicago. It’s accepted that “Acid Tracks” was the record that begat the Acid House movement. Such is “accepted” history.
Provenance in the UK is mired in misinformation and mythology. If we’re going for a No Charge monster thread, then I’ll be looking forward to see how the facts can be cleaved from the fiction
No argument that “Acid Tracks” started the ball rolling, but the first acid track I heard out was Adonis & the Endless Poker’s “The Poke”, probably mid-to-late 87, followed by Tyree’s “Acid Over”. It seemed like an amusing sub-genre. Little did we know.
I remember the Double Deckers too – cosy Saturday morning TV IIRC. I was vaguely aware of Aswad throughout the 80’s but this threw considerable light on them. The mix always seemed all wrong with the soulful vocal not sitting correctly with the thin mechanised backing track. A pleasant tune all the same but fatally flawed. 4 maybe 5 on a good day.
#28 Glad to hear Rosie is ok.
And along comes a number one for which I can feel a certain amount of proprietorial pride. I don’t think I ever met any of the members of Aswad around Notting Hill but I did know their music teacher quite well because I was now a governor of Holland Park School keeping a benevolent eye on the music department. It was a music department ahead of its time, one that didn’t confine itself to hothousing more orthodox talents but went out of its way to foster the music lying within as many of its pupils as possible. One that invested in large numbers of electronic keyboards, commonplace now but innovative then. Thus was Aswad born – I can’t comment on whether being sprung from the establishment rather than from rebellion adversely affected the music.
A few years after, when I was no longer a governor but was a member of Kensington & Chelsea’s Education Committee, I was able to cut through a lot of Tory nonsense about Holland Park’s superficially ‘poor’ GCSE results. In music especially the GCSE performance trailed way behind any other school in London. But only because, uniquely, it was putting huge numbers of its students through a notoriously elitist GCSE.
Good to have you back Rosie.
And another story of London pop stars’ schooldays: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/22/shazia-mirza-dizzee-rascal
I wouldn’t go as far as Mike, but I rather enjoy it, on the same level as “I Want To Know What Love Is” or other similar pleasures. The little descending synth just before the end of the chorus is a lovely touch.
Admittedly the lyric is pretty pathetic, but still worth a 5, I reckon. Possibly just the heat
It suddenly struck me that Brinsley Forde starred in the film Babylon granted a (very) rare showing on BBC2 just a few months ago.
Babylon and the notorious Clash movie Rude Boy are both fascinating for how vividly they capture the disgruntlement of black youth – white youth at the turn of the eighties. In both films inner-city Britain seemed a barren and divided place. These two oddly similar films showcase some terrific music.
Re 37: Lovely to have you back.
Slightly early film in the same vein (which I just reviewed for S&S, and very much recommend): Horace Ové’s 1975 Pressure
I met Aswad a few years after this. They were looking for songwriters to help them shake off the pop stigma of Don’t Turn Around and take them back to their roots. It struck me as pretty strange to approach a couple of white middle class kids from the other side of the North Downs with little more a couple of Keith Hudson albums to recommend them as ‘roots’, but we gave it a go. They rejected our attempts and released the rather limp Shine instead.
Babylon is on dvd now for anyone interested. And Rosie, good to have you back.
There is one bit in ‘Shine’ I like where after the “stretching my sinews to the bone” line you get the “Ooh!” from the opening hook which re-appears a few times throughout. It’s a nice, gently amusing touch.
Hello,
I own a copy of this even though it’s middling at best, coming in a lucky dip pack of 7″ singles purchased from Our Price in Rochdale a few months later. Reggae, but not as we know it, perhaps Island were trying to exploit the reggae novelty market field plowed by the likes of Boris Gardner and Judy Boucher, or perhaps it was their last chance before being dropped after failing to reflect their critical acclaim with sales. Perhaps both. Who knows, or indeed, cares. Aswad always, ALWAYS seemed to be on the Radio 1 Roadshow after this pushing their latest single which invariably peaked at number 34 or therabouts.
The last Aswad based straw for me was when they reviewed Boy George’s ‘No Clause 28’ single for Smash Hits, were obviously uncomfortable and said it ‘Wasn’t something they agreed with’. Sadly it was obvious that they weren’t talking about Clause 28.
I heard the Ace of Base version on the radio yesterday and the vocal is just so miserable. Depressed and depressing. I know it’s supposed to be a sad song, but still…at least Aswad’s version (of which I’m no fan) has a bittersweet quality, but with Ace of Base’s version you’re left thinking, “No wonder the subject of the song is leaving – run away from this miseryguts as fast as you can, and here’s hoping you find someone you can have a bit of fun with”.
re 40 & 42 Babylon is currently available to watch on iPlayer here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00mqc2s/Babylon/
I read all the comments, don’t understand why everyone thinks that Brinsley sang “Don’t turn around”
it was Drummie Zeb singing and why shouldn’t groups try different things? We all have to eat and it’s nice music, reggae singers lose out in love too and they sang about all the time.
For some reason I knew who Aswad were when I was 5, I can only guess because of the popularity of Shine. While watching ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ circa 1994, in the section where the rangers called out their animals (“Sabre Toothed Tiger!”/”Pterodactyl!” etc), I thought the Black Ranger was saying “Aswad!” every week and wondered what they had to do with the show. In fact he was saying “Mastodon!” which somehow I misheard.
…not sure why I consider that important to post here, but hey, you won’t find it anywhere else on the ‘net.
This song? Pretty unfamilar to me in either this or the Ace of Base version. Slightly *too* heavy production, needs a simpler, more chilled ‘Red Red Wine’ backing rather than distracting hi-hats everywhere, but there’s a good tune buried under it all somewhere. The AoB version suffers from similar problems.
there totally should have been a power ranger that could into aswad
This is okay, slightly faxed-in pop-reggae. Ace of Base nailed the melancholy so much better. Tina Turner’s original is a horrendous brutalist mess. I’m guessing there aren’t many songs in history where the second [high-profile] cover is the best?