UB40 and CHRISSIE HYNDE – "I Got You Babe"

This made Red Red Wine seem reverential. How long did they spend on the backing? 4 minutes? 5?

“Is there a horn sound on this thing? Is that it? Err, well, ok.”

I’ve got to say Chrissie doesn’t REALLY give it her all on this one; witness the distinct lack of ad libs on the fade. Robo-Chrissie. What the hell was she thinking?

I may have mentioned it on an earlier post, but this sound reached a peak with the release of a compilation called Soft Reggae in the early 90s. “Soft Reggae!” screamed the tv ad, “the softest reggae yet!!” As if Ali Campbell and his soulless buddies had been perfecting this cack in a lab since the early 80s.

Re 7: Running Up That Hill felt like a bigger hit even then, it was pretty inescapable.

The original Sonny and Cher disc may have been showbiz hokum masquerading as radical boldness, but the combination of generosity and forcefulness in their performance, in tandem with the crucial and key era in which it was released, made the record work. They may have been acting hippy, but their chemistry was believable, and in a Britain just emerging from a suffocatingly polite decade of the likes of Miki and Griff, or Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson, it struck a colossal chord. Though it is admittedly hard in retrospect to go along with a bold rebuttal of capitalism from someone who ended up a hard-Right Republican senator, the Cher I think untouchable…and where the hapless Sonny ended up fatally skiing into a tree, Cher went on play midwife at the birth of Xenomania.

The UB40/Hynde cover is a peculiarly empty hit, even by 1985’s low standards. Listening to it again, my feeling is not so much that of annoyance, but more of sheer puzzlement; why exactly did these people feel that this record had to be made? Well, fair enough, UB40 were given a sizable leg-up by Chrissie, who saw them and invited them to support the Pretenders on tour back in the day, so this may simply have been returning favours. It is, however, a listless skank which brutally simplifies the original song, systematically removing all of those harmonic thirds and fifths which had made it even more special. “So let them say your hair’s too long,” croons Hynde to stern, unbending short-back-and-sides Ali Campbell, putting into the record all the passion she would normally reserve for her next launderette visit; then again, the Pretenders’ then-current album Learning To Crawl did include a dreary song about that same subject (“Watching The Clothes”).

As a record it is free of blood, and even if it were only made to keep the public aware of the UB40 and Pretenders brands at a quiet time, were the public really so content with its mediocrity to send it to number one, ahead of “Running Up That Hill,” the marking for which latter record would, in my book, go off the scale? Why do I keep asking these rhetorical questions when this wretched year has proved the theory over and over again?

The next number one, however, rather than limply reviving the sixties, seemed to want to bury them altogether.

How does it happen? How do we get weeks where people spend their money on this when they could buy ‘Running Up That Hill’?

I liked the description “as stiff, thin, functional and inspiring as a sheet of building site plastic” – it reminds me of a favourite review of another UB40 cover as “a tinny synthesised beat which displays all the roots reggae warmth of Terminal A at Luton Airport”. People talk about Kraftwerk or Moroder as the ultimate in functionality, but they always had beauty, they couldn’t help themselves – this lot go so much further.

I did spend my money on the 7″ of “Running Up That Hill” when it was on its way up the charts, but remember feeling out of step with the mainstream mood in doing so. A number 6 in Oz, that one, at a time when this and its UK successor were on top (oh, and Huey Lewis).

I wonder if there’s a parallel-universe Popular where all those who bought this and “We Are the World” are bemoaning the ones who bought “You Spin Me Round” and “Into the Groove”.

Thing is UB40, despite having a sound and vocal style that is easy to lampoon, produced two really good albums at the outset of their career. I appreciate even those records are an acquired taste, but there is an urgency and a sense of belief in what they are doing that gives them an edge.

And some decent tunes, which always helps.

The well ran dry pretty quickly mind you.

“Guest vocals by Chrissie Hynde”…

“I got you, babe, a clean towel and washcloth, and there’s extra blankets in the wardrobe if you need them. Oh, and breakfast is from 7 till 9.”
– UB&B40.

I’m afraid I haven’t anything positive to say about this one either. An absolutely pointless cover.

At this stage UB40 hadn’t yet thrown in the creative towel. I loved the follow up, Don’t Break My Heart. And if memory serves me well, most of the Rat In The Kitchen album was pretty good pop reggae.

As a little kid I thought they were singing ” I got toothache ”
and with those vocals it sounds as though they might have.

Peaked at #28 in the States. Nothing special here, unless you’re into odd pairings. But this isn’t memorable.

Re 14: Just below Kate Bush at no.4 was a hit born from Live Aid – Drive by the Cars which was meant to symbolise famine in Africa/wealth in the west in the same binary “think about it!!” way as “thank god it’s them instead of you.” Cue much earnest dj comment every time it was played.

But, hey, it wasn’t all furrowed brows on Radio 1! Tarzan Boy by Baltimora was no.5!

#11 Punctum, I suggest you revisit some of Cher’s 70s output post-Dark Lady if you think she’s untouchable. Her covers of Fire And Rain and The Long And Winding Road are particularly hideous.

#27 In fairness to The Cars that was never their intention.Someone at BBC2 picked the song to accompany some harrowing footage from Ethiopia during Live Aid and Ric Ocasek himself expressed some bemusement at its inappropriateness.

Back to the record which is just dreadful. A totally vacuous cover from artists who should have known better. I think both Ali and Chrissie were recent parents which is the only possible excuse but I suspect it was more of a marketing ploy to boost their flagging profiles. Both UB40 and The Pretenders had recently seen excellent singles (“I’m Not Fooled” and “Thin Line Between Love And Hate” respectively) fall short of the Top 40.

Interestingly all the main players from the Two Tone era (apart from Fine Young Cannibals) were struggling at this time – Colourfield, General Public, Madness,Dexys, Special AKA – so the team up here made some commercial sense at least.

Re 29: Yes, sorry, I meant that it was appropriated, nothing to do with the Cars. You have to feel a bit sorry for an act in that situation – even if they felt their song had been used inappropriately they could hardly ask for it to stop being played in connection with Ethiopia footage.

Similar ‘hey, the lyric really fits’ stupidity with Oleta Adams’ Get Here, where “cross the desert like an arab man” (presumably escaping UK/US bombing) was deemed a suitable Gulf War anthem.

Re 2 Tone – Colour Field and Dexys aside, most of the acts were in an artistic dip which probably explains their commercial downturn – you can add the Style Council to this list. I’m thinking of Mad Not Mad (their weakest album) and In The Studio (hard work).

If only Dexys had released This Is What She’s Like BEFORE Don’t Stand Me Down…

Or escaping Iraqi invasion, maybe?

Surprised to see Fine Young Cannibals and Dexy’s described as 2Tone-era – it’s not a link that’s ever occured to me before.

Doing 1985 on this has made me realise that my enormous residual fondness for the era is not because of the music (mostly), but because it was a really excellent period for Smash Hits – due partly to the vast number of dug-up fossils and newly sanctimonious and out-of-their-depth pop stars suddenly back on the scene…

It was also a pretty good period for the renamed and rescheduled Whistle Test, having its last hurrah in a mid-evening slot before it was taken off the air, with Andy Kershaw prominent among the reporters. I associate Kate Bush’s music of the time with Whistle Test, as they featured her quite a lot.

Earlier that summer, too, came the moment when they featured a new band and I was looking at the singer thinking his face looked familiar. When they came to interview him my jaw dropped at the sight of my old schoolmate (though “mate” is putting it a bit strongly), Mick Hucknall.

#36 They did, and The Beat’s first single was on 2-Tone so it’s more than a connection of sorts. Did General Public ever have any hits?

and to #27 in America, where they also had a very late hit in 1994, when their cover version of ‘I’ll Take You There’ got to #34.

In Britain they could do no better than the #60 achieved by ‘General Public’ in 1984. (Which I remember as being pretty good, though I haven’t played it for about 10 years)

I had a very brief spell at Smash Hits in ’87 but was told quite sternly that they no longer wanted reviews written in “ver Hits” vernacular. The clots!

re the Mary Chain – I once got the entire run of 1985 NMEs out of a respected university library, and what leapt out at me is how big a deal the JAMC were: I had been only very dimly aware of them. To be honest though they sum up the ’85 doldrums for me too – back to the 60s with one-size-fits-all production: the mainstream gets the enemies it deserves I guess.

Re 45: I’d still stand by the first 4 singles, and You Trip Me Up’s disorientating industrial noise with a strong (60s, if you like) melody underneath effectively opened the door for MBV and shoegazing. The J&MC also gave Creation a profile it hadn’t had with its first 10 or so releases (Primal Scream’s It Happens came out in summer ’85). They were unquestionably EXCITING at a time when pop’s counterculture was at a low ebb: reduced circumstances, I know, but Upside Down was a New Rose for generation of guitar bands. The latter part of ’85 brought a promising debut single (Wedding Present, Meat Whiplash, 1000 Violins, Primal Scream, Razorcuts) on a weekly basis.

Production-wise, I agree. Joe Foster vs the Phil Collins gated snare. Trebles all round!

I first saw JAMC at Night Moves in Glasgow in spring ’84. They were supporting a bunch of no-marks called Rhythm System and got canned off after about ten minutes. Great stuff, and there was a long ‘phone-in debate about it on the Billy Sloan Show on Radio Clyde that night, the callers’ gist being JAMC being talentless poseurs who couldn’t play their instruments unlike Real Musicians e.g. Rhythm System oh the irony. I rang up and quoted AMM at them and B Sloan went ???????

A couple of years later I bump into Eddie Prevost at Bethnal Green Library and he’s fuming about grrr Mary Chain ripped us off something rotten heheh.