Slow Burners of the 1980s

John Peel (1939 -2004)

    My latest musings relate to the opposite of the overnight success stories particularly focused on the English alternative scene of the 1980s.  Back then, the bands on independent labels were rarely expected to achieve any commercial success and this analysis was well justified.  For every successful indie act of the 80s there must have been 500 artistically pure and very obscure merchants of jangley twee/ industrial noise. Their proudest moment remains that night when John Peel (legendary indie champion and DJ) accidentally played their debut single for ten seconds, at the wrong speed before interrupting it with a gruff apology and reverting to a session track by The Fall.    

    It was in this climate of low expectations that indie bands found they had the time to experiment, develop, change band names, have musical differences with each other and jam outside of the spotlight.  During the 80s many bands survived on unemployment benefit (dole money) and were able to focus on their musical passion free from the daily grind.  Manchester’s Happy Mondays even took their name from weekly parties that would begin shortly after collecting and blowing their dole on a stash of drugs that fueled their unhinged recordings.  The story of the rise and fall of the Happy Mondays is featured prominently in the Second Act of the classic 2002 movie 24 Hour Party People. Featuring Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson ("I'm the man in charge of Factory Records... I think").   If you’ve not seen this movie then watch it as a matter of urgency.  If you have then watch it again.  If you take one thing from these ramblings then let it be this. Watch 24 Hour Party People.  

24 Hour Party People Movie Trailer (2002)

    The Stone Roses released, in my opinion, the greatest debut album of all time in 1989.  The Roses seemed fully formed when they burst into the national limelight but of course they had been developing for over five years before anyone beyond the North West of England had heard of them.  They wisely decided not to release their first album because they were disappointed with the results.  It is interesting to hear their early versions of songs that would later appear on their eponymous album and a testament to their own belief and quality control that they would abandon the album and continue developing in the shadows. 

The Stone Roses and the Embarrassing Mid-80s Photo Shoot

The Stone Roses I Wanna Be Adored 1985 Version

 I guess that striving for perfection partially explains why The Stone Roses have only released two albums in over thirty years.  Other reasons include Geffen Records giving them a Five Million Pound advance for the second album, the implosion of the band on the 1995 Tour, the coke habits and John Squire’s delusions of being the lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin.  

Further reading:  Stone Roses Early Years

    Pulp and James are two more examples of bands having time to develop.  Jarvis Cocker was a Sheffield schoolboy when he formed Aribicus Pulp in 1978 and spent over a decade in obscurity releasing records that no-one wanted to hear and presumably playing gigs to two students and dog.   

    Back in Manchester, James were formed in 1982 and spent eight years jamming, gigging and selling more T-shirts than records.  James released an alternative version of their breakthrough single Sit Down in 1989 as a long protest song.  Well worth a listen to compare it with the popular hit single.  It wasn’t until the Nineties when they troubled the charts and came to a wider audience. James later re-recorded Sit Down into the infectiously catchy pop version that took it to #2 in the UK charts, and a permanent place on the set-list of every student disco for the rest of the decade.  Only Shiny Happy People by R.E.M. could rival it in that dubious category.

James Sit Down (1989 Rough Trade Version)

      Pulp had crafted a seedy atmospheric niche with lyrics to match.  The collection of three E.P.s compiled on the Intro album (1993) is the best place to find them just coming into bloom.  

Pulp performing live in 1993  Sheffield:Sex City

    The Sisters EP containing the classic Babies became a minor chart hit in 1992.  Both Pulp and James had developed their own distinctive sounds and then introduced the catchy chorus that would propel them into the spotlight.  These bands must have had contemporaries who saw such moves as commercial sell-outs.  Those contemporaries remain largely unknown and are probably bitter that they never headlined Glastonbury. 

    Both bands retained their unique sound and produced enough interesting and quirky music to enjoy long careers once they had made the initial breakthrough into mainstream consciousness.   

    All of these bands had time to develop under the radar during the Eighties and announced their arrival in spectacular fashion in the early Nineties.  The bar was set high for the following generation of bands, which were eagerly signed up by subsidiaries of the major record companies.  The next generation had to deal with the expectations to instantly match the same levels of commercial success or be dropped from the label.  Many of the younger bands, cut adrift following the burst of the Britpop bubble in 1998, were never given that opportunity to develop.