It was the sort of album that your girlfriend or your sister had but you were afraid to buy in case you ran into a gang of U2 or Jam fans on the way home who on inspection of the contents of your 12" brown paper bag proceeded to tell everyone in the school reducing your playground credibility score to -10 by 9:00 on Monday morning.
Remember getting a lump of 12" vinyl back from the shop and putting it in eager anticipation ? I found the pops and crackles at the start only added to the suspense. It was perhaps with this in mind that veteran producer Trevor Horn chose to begin the album with an instrumental summary of one of tracks played by the characteristic string section that was to put this offering head and shoulders above anything Le Bon and Co. and the Spands were doing at the time.
After the short starter designed to whet one's appetite the album's musical main course begins with an abrupt segue into "Show Me" featuring funky bass slapping, sublime, Staxx and Motown vocals influenced from front man Martin Fry - a performance he was never able to better by the way and the top notch production that we have since come to expect from Mr. T. Horn who surely must be expecting a call from the palace any minute now.
It's one of those rare pop album's that you can actually identify with. The songs and the performances seem to come from the heart and speak of real life experiences rather than broken off love affairs with page 3 models or Hollywood starlets.
It seems appropriate at this point to mention the lyrics . At the time I thought they were a bit comical but then at that tender age I thought if you couldn't understand the NME there was something wrong with you. Now in with the benefit of hindsight that can only be obtained through experience I find the words add value to the experience and I have never met anyone who could genuinely understand Britain's No. 1 musical broadsheet (perhaps including those who worked on it.) I'm sure it's not illegal to quote a bit so here goes:
You find yourself beached on a barrier reef ..Now a test of your lyrical labarinanium (the part of the brain used for memory). Rearange these following words into a famous musical bridge:
Book
Cover
Lover
Recover
Another
If your still scratching your perhaps balding head I'll give you the single titles.
Poison ArrowThey said at the time that the album could have spawn several more singles but in those days of post punk there was more respect between industry and punter's than there is now. Perhaps there will be a post MP3 era sometime but after the CD induced excess of the last 15 years I see the conventional record company going the way of British Leyland and the typing pool.
After the more experimental penultimate track the strings are "reprised" to paraphrase Fry. In interviews he said that he wanted to chase the van from the pressing plant up the road as it took the final master for mass production en route to its final resting place in British pop history in order to do just one more tweak.
The album is now available on overpriced CD but then you could always get back in touch with your old girlfriend (I bet you're glad you kept your little black book) or failing that get your sister to make you a tape.
Perhaps the vocalist eventually did find the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow. Don't ask me I already know.
I've had to remove the sound sample due to disk space restrictions. Please ignore the next paragraph
And finally a highly illegal sound sample recorded in mono at transistor radio quality. I've always fancied myself as a record producer and never quite made it though I have achieved most of my other fantasies aged 35, the main one being playing in a football match at The Shrine where I used to stand and watch as a youngster.