ADAMSKI – "Killer"

Can I suggest The Space Jungle as the most inexplicable follow-up to a number one ever?

I think it has helped to perpetuate a myth that this is Seal’s record and Seal’s alone, which I’m really pleased Tom has binned. More melancholy Euro nu-mellotron chords (the same ones that mean The Power is still close to my heart), only now with Warp-ed black metallic edges, and a genuinely soulful if ambiguous plea for unity. I didn’t see Kiss From A Rose coming at this point.

Having said that, it’s up there with Mike Oldfield’s Moonlight Shadow as pop’s most unfair label credit.

The sleeve looks like a new aesthetic – possibly early DTP? – which feels like the 90s have arrived.
I have this along with several other number 1s past and future on a CD appropriately entitled ‘UK Dance Number 1s’
I’ve always enjoyed Adamski’s contribution – something of the Numan about this sound but with a funkier edge – the alienation blending into the rave nation

There is something rather heartbreaking about the eagerness of Liveandirect, the mini-album Adamski released at the beginning of 1990. With titles like “The Bassline Changed My Life,” “You Me House,” “A Brand New World,” “Into Orbit,” “Love And Life” and “M25,” you could trace out a pocket proposal of how rave culture should have turned out; a genuine communality, a multicoloured rose of newness and togetherness. The record’s bouncy, optimistic toytown electronica reminds me somewhat of the hopefulness of B.E.F.’s Music For Stowaways.

But there was also the facade which Jarvis Cocker later pinpointed with sore accuracy (“It’s six o’clock! I wanna go home – but it’s ‘No way,’ ‘Not today’…makes you wonder what it meant to them”), the pretence of community by people who’d hug you when high and then spit in your face if you approached them on the street, sober. Before long, the mutually assured forces of big business and the Criminal Justice Bill would render the whole enterprise neutered. And Boring Old Politics which, however old or boring, refused to go away and allow people a future; there were the riots, the unrest, Thatcherism tottering towards its inglorious demise (you might be able to sense how, the day after the poll tax riots, the strident siren song of “I’ve got the power!” sounded like insurrection, or a triumphant rebel refrain), the racism, the no such thing as society…

“Killer” was a disturbing record from its cover inwards – Adamski’s pet dog scowling at the camera, at an angle, while a queasy orange psychedelic backdrop swirls in the background – and perhaps its most disturbing factor was the fact that the title is never uttered at any point in the song. Yet it didn’t need to be; the backwards boomerang of the fade-in intro quickly gives way to a brutal variant on post-Acieed beats, with a rhythm and right-angled bassline which are demonstrative and in your face but also questioning.

Both lyric and vocal delivery – both provided by an unknown singer named Seal – personify anxious urgency. Seal’s vocal here is like a grainier, colder rationalist Richie Havens, but he is pleading for warmth and bonding and, indeed, a true society. “Solitary brother! Is there still a part of you that wants to live?” he cries as the music gradually escalates behind him; the car horns following in the trail of the charity fundraising sideswipe “Will you give (if we cry)?,” the scythes of stuttering cymbals which enter with “Tainted hearts,” the stately string synth lines which essentially halve the speed of the song’s topline in preparation for the chorus; all seem like totems of a crumbling Establishment which Seal is urging that we bring down. The cut-up of the “be” in the line “The way we wanna be” symbolises the attempts by unconcerned government to turn the living human into a docile machine but is instantly defeated by Seal’s half-ecstatic growl of “Yeah!” which in turn leads directly into a minor key Jack-The-House piano line, percussion dots and loops – and a sampled dog bark – raining all around. In the third line of the final chorus Adamski’s synth plays a tortured, high-register melody, like a weeping computer; and finally it settles with Seal’s closing, out-of-tempo warnings: “Racism in amongst future kings can only lead to no good…and besides…all our sons and daughters already know how that feels” before culminating in a sad smile of a 1967 memory: “Yeah, yeah, yeah…Love, love, love.” It is one of the most minimally articulate anti-New Right protests in all of pop – and little wonder that neither Adamski nor Seal ever surpassed this, that Adamski settled for novelty Elvis covers (and, later, anonymous ambient techno) or that Seal (with the aid of Trevor Horn, producing his most commercially successful work and also his worst) became merely a slightly higher-tech Cat Stevens. “Killer” is the necessary conscience of a culture which should have changed everything.

The Space Jungle was rubbish, of course, but N-R-G, Adamski’s only other hit, was berserk! It’s funny how all of the silly embellishments the “Woo!”s and “Whee!”s once struck me as a tiresome imposition of enforced jollity, but now seem integral to the actual fun that I derive from the piece.

Yeah I felt like this song sounded really nicely “alien” and somewhat edgier than what Vince Clarke had been doing (people may recall the remix of Yazoo’s ‘Situation’ that came out in 1990) tho he seemed like a clear influence on Adam Tinley (the other strongest one perhaps being Captain Sensible).

‘NRG’ was like a ravier ‘Pacific State’ and almost equalled the latter’s chart position. Its cheeky Lucozade bottle sleeve gave it a little publicity boost and prior to ‘The Space Jungle’ at least, Adamski seemed happy to stay in the background. It’s a cracking one-two for any debut bedroom producer to have wanted to play at being an unconventional pop star and I think people were initially v surprised by ‘Killer’ as ‘NRG’s follow up – markedly different in tone, a proper song etc. The bigger buzz revolved around Seal tho whose subsequent signing to ZTT was interesting (why not MCA? or Island?) and probably down to Trevor Horn’s apparent belief that the guy was the future of British pop (and/or soul). And Seal so nearly made it to the top himself with ‘Crazy’ which I still love a lot.

#5 yes for me what makes this extended run of #1s so great is the modernity plus quality.

Now to attempt some coherent thoughts on Vogue (and probably fail again)…

I like that Adamski’s dog is also nicely alien — viz two noses, one at front one on top

Should’ve been ‘Devil’ at #1 instead of ‘Tears On My Pillow’. But everyone else so far in 90 had the “right” number one if you get me (er, New Kids don’t count as all the singles were pap).

Love this of course, solid 8 like pretty much everything else on Best Dance Album In The World…Ever! Part 1. If you much prefer this to Seal’s soppy Lighthouse Family style ballads then I recommend you check out the Tiesto remix of The Right Life from 2008. Seal’s original is fine but Tiesto nixes all the duff mid-range 1997-style filler and replaces it with GRINDING BUZZ MENTALISM ripe for putting one’s hands in the air. That Youtube link is a bit iffy but stick it out until the excellent PICK POCK PUCK PACK DIMF DOOMF DUMF DAMF drum bit at 3.46.

imo Seal’s finest moment in recent years was the Thin White Duke Dub of his ‘Amazing’ single from the System LP but annoyingly this exact mix isn’t available on YouTube (apart from a dodgy clip of – that man again – Tiesto playing it out but WAY TOO FAST bah).

I knew this song only though the trevor horn/album version until about a year ago, and still much prefer that version, which I guess I’d give a 7 (whereas I’d give Crazy an easy 9). This original version to my ears really does sound like a demo, hence this strikes me as a pretty radical (bona fide, 4 weeks) #1 – a little like if Being Boiled (esp. the original sparse version without horns) had become a massive #1 (but even on its best days Killer doesn’t have half the menace and mystery of Being Boiled). At any rate, I reckon this is a 6 as a record, but I can understand why people ‘who were there’ would +1 it, as it were, for exactly the things I’m -1-ing it. There’s no doubt as Tom,5 says above that Killer as a massive hit caps an incredible run of #1s that really does amount to a kind of manifesto for space (as well as a kind of electronic hand-made quality) in pop and dance records.

Re: #25 – I bought the Adamski version when it came out and have loved it since then, while the Seal re-make just sounds like a slightly inferior copy. In particular

* The synth sounds seem more generic and dated
* The interaction between backing track and vocal is slightly off
* It really is a backing track, the variety in it is gone
* There are a couple of pointless “woah-a-oh-a-oh” bits which don’t work, and the vocal breakdown at the end doesn’t fir the mood at all
* There’s a layering of guitar sounds on top of the chorus which just dilutes the overall effect
* All of the most interesting little bits (like “we wanna be-be-b-b-b-b-bbbb-yeah”) have been cut

I think what it all may come down to is a preference for a particular set of sounds – I’d rather listen to anything made on a 303 or an 808 in the late 80s than the more polished studio-based stuff of the early 90s.

Yep, it’s on Earcom 3 – Fast Product.

#28: Maximum respect to Leisure Process, featuring Glasgow’s own Ross Middleton and non-Glaswegian Gary Barnacle and produced by Martin Rushent. Really should have been huge (and they were in the Scottish charts but that’s another story) – four faultless singles and then that was it, which presumably explains why their work has not resurfaced on CD. “Love Cascade,” “A Way You’ll Never Be” (featuring Level 42!), “Cashflow” and “Anxiety” – all great.

I bought the Chromium Dioxide tape of Fabrique by Fashion with its Bonus Side of 12-Inch Mixes and still have it. I liked “Streetplayer.”

Yep, Stupid Babies and Earcom 3, still in the house.

The other dud Pidda Powell picks I remember included Space Monkey, Robert Marlowe and Matt Fretton, as well as the ones who actually managed to scrape together a hit or two, i.e. JoBoxers, Jimmy the Hoover and The TRUTH.

Gary Barancle was in Leisure Process? Thanks for that info, Punctum. I had no idea. I just recall his name, a few years later on, as the quintessential session musician saxophonist, backing up a lot of SAW acts in their period of transition from more artistry to mere hackery (I think he even got a credit on Big Fun and Sonia’s colloborative single: which, to damn with faint praise, was far from being the worst thing that Big Fun were associated with), as well as featuring on a fair bit of “sophsti-pop” from the last few years of the decade.

Going back to this – which I don’t remember from the time but picked up, possibly via osmosis, at some point in the early ’90s – it seems a lot more muscular and a lot less dated than its contemporaries. Possibly because it takes itself very seriously – not just Seal’s vocals but the doomy, unsmiling music. I like that about it: it’s not the kind of record that’ll get wheeled out as an example of “wacky early ’90s rave”. I’d give it a 9.

I’ve never heard Adamski’s other stuff, but Seal’s solo follow-up to this, “Crazy”, seems like a natural next step – less clubby, but its electronic decoration and kind of amazing breakdown provide the same excellent space-blues feeling that Billy identifies at #6. I also really love “Kiss From A Rose”!

This is where what must surely be an almost unparalleled run of quality at No 1 comes to an end 🙁

#31 Robert Marlowe’s “Claudette” was a good single ,a synth-pop romance placed in the French resistance movement but perhaps a bit dated for 1984.

when I was studying at the University of London in the mid 80s Peter Powell showed up to the Students Union to to add his seal of approval to a band called Rouen. His presence only served to confirm them as worthy and anonymous.

“Killer” is such a desolate record, and for very personal reasons, I cannot comment further. Next…

@3: to be fair to Mike Oldfield (and I am nothing if not fair to Mike Oldfield), “Moonlight Shadow” was like any other Oldfield vocals-based track, treating the singer as an interchangeable instrument (an early version had Hazel O’Connor singing), and given his singles’ previous chart performance, there was no inkling that this one would do so well. Once it became a hit, though, the incongruity and injustice of the credit became obvious; he gave Maggie Reilly her due by crediting her vocals on the sleeve of 1984’s “To France“. By the late 1980s he was using the “featuring” credit that emerged (or reemerged) around this time (for example, “Islands” featuring Bonnie Tyler). Who knows, perhaps its wider use was partly inspired by the example of “Moonlight Shadow”?

As for “Killer”, I missed it at the time; as far as I can tell it didn’t do anything on the Australian charts. My introduction to Seal was my brother’s later infatuation with “Crazy”. “Killer” sounds interesting enough, but to be honest my initial “sorry, I wasn’t there” response is around a 5.

You can definitely dance to this – just because it’s kind of bleak doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work in a club (cf 00s Kompakt material…)

I remember a good cover of X-Ray Spex’s ‘Identity’ by Adamski, possibly with someone else, as Diskord Datkord.

Also, for fans of Tom, can I recommend his first contribution to my site about comics? http://comiczine-fa.com/reviews/1500-2000ad-covers/

This one truly is a cracker – great vocal, and Adamski’s never running out of sonic ideas that make it a classic of the genre (precisely because there isn’t a massive 4/4 beat over it). In Which Decade last May I gave it the nod over Blondie’s “Call Me” because of “the way it creates its own world and demands your attention”, and I’ll stand by that. I’d forgotten about the house piano break – your views are diametrically opposed to mine re house piano, and those few seconds do take the track down a peg or two.