The Number Fortys: Billy Ocean - "Loverboy"

We meet again, Mr. Ocean. You last song reached #1 (Caribbean Queen, we wrote about it a couple of times already), but this one will only reach #2. Which is a goddamn shame because Loverboy is a fucking incredible piece of art.

Not that it matters whether a song does, or does not, reach #1. Or if it even reaches the charts at all. That stuff is so arbitrary, and dependent on factors that have nothing at all to do with the quality, or lack thereof, in the actual music itself, that any quantitative method of evaluating art is inherently meaningless. And yea, and yet, people who have been given money to write about music will cite streaming numbers to support their claim that a song, or an artist, is somehow more important than another.

But getting back to Billy, like most people around my age who got into underground music in the late 80s, I felt that mainstream 80s sounds were synthetic and fake. I totally bought into the narrative that the closer a recording sounded to people in a room, the more real it was (you can read real in quotes if you want). Paula Abdul was fake. The Smiths were real. One sang about things that were fake (real love), and one sang about things that were real (fake love). I carried this prejudice against 80s mainstream production nearly a decade into the 21st century until someone put this song on at work one day. By now I was listening to avant-garde electronic music, and that opening flurry of electronics--that droning synth into the exploding stabs of sound--came across so glorious that I started laughing. Then the song kicked in with a horsey beat so obvious that someone had Billy riding a horse in the video, and, uh, holy shit.

I have never heard 80s music the same way since.

Loverboy isn't just a sonic delight. The pre-chorus (starts at 1:12 if you don't know what a pre-chorus is) floors me every time, the way it just keep ratcheting up the tension. Billy sings the shit out of it. He sounds genuinely anguished, and the "yeah-yeah"s as he arrives at the chorus are so ecstatic that they manage to evoke the beauty and the euphoria of frustrated lust as well as, say, The Smiths ever did.

Billy plays it cool for the chorus, supported by stop-start distorted guitars.You have to love how he spends the verses/pre-chorus working himself into a frenzy, only to hit the chorus and just croon Want to be your... loverboy. Compare the smooth control when he sings "yeah" in the chorus to the unhinged "yeah"s in the pre-chorus.

We're all set up for your typical guitar solo, but instead we get what is essentially a technology solo made up of scratching, samples that are so randomly placed as to sound avant-garde. It brings the song to a thrilling stop like a train slamming into a wall over and over again. The noise subsides and we get a quiet verse, now with that guitar solo. But the verse is shortened to get us to the pre-chorus faster, this time even more unhinged than before, and then the chorus arrives and--

Billy drops out, the song and these near-falsetto voices sing the chorus and it's all just so dramatic and cool. It's the finest moment of Billy Ocean's musical life. And a couple of years later when I made an "Eightiesbilly" mix that had songs from that decade by Idol, Joel, and Ocean, you'd better believe this song was prominently featured.

Score: 10.

THE NUMBER ONE

 

We get two outstanding time capsules of 80s production for the price of one in this installment of The Number Fortys. Out of Touch features all kinds of cutting edge digital sampling, to the point where this song resembles the Art of Noise (less than a year old at this point) as much as Hall & Oates. They brought in Arthur Baker to help with the sonics. Baker had already worked on visionary early 80s stuff like Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock (it's a 9), and Freeze's I.O.U. (an 8), and credit to H & O for recognizing the coolness of what he was doing.

Of course being songwriting pros, H & O fashion a genuine moving, anguished melody/lyrics about the draining soullessness of decadence. This was a theme that a more respected writer like Elvis Costello had covered extensively a few years prior, and it says a lot about H & O that their song holds its own lyrically while incorporating avant-gardeish sonics makes a serious case for their artistic credentials--especially compared to a musical reactionary like E. Costello.

Score: 9.

The Number Fortys: Ray Parker Jr. - "Jamie"

In The Number Fortys, we review whatever song was sitting at #40 on the Billboard charts. We began in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music, and will continue until we get bored. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either). Also, if you want to read the Number in the title as meaning "more numb," I think that's totally understandable at this point.

Songs land at #40 for all kinds of reasons, but the one I'm most fascinated by is the type we'll call:

Their last single was a big hit so even though this one's not nearly as good it's still going to scrape the bottom of the chart just because the last one did so well

A lot of songs we've encountered on this journey have fallen into this category. John Waite, Dan Hartman, Night Ranger, Matthew Wilder. These songs are usually the worst because they sound like a cyncial attempt to have a hit. They lack whatever freshness and originality the hit had, and are usually just the blind fumblings of a career artist trying to "crack the marketplace" or some shit.

Ladies and gentleman, I present the follow-up to Ray Parker Jr.s #1 hit Ghostbusters. It's called Jamie.

This one eventually reached #14, presumably because people recognized Ray's voice. Because the song itself is, um, barely a song at all. It could exist. It could not exist. It starts, it ends, and all our lives are emptier for the time we could have spent listening to something else. At times, it feels more like a song about a guy trying to convince someone of two things:

1. Yes, I really did used to go out with (date? fuckity-fuck? cohabitate with?) Jamie.

2. And, despite Jamie's androgynous name, this person was definitely a girl, not a boy.

As usual in break-up songs--or in this case, a broken-up song--the singer seems oblivious to any part they may have played in the de-coupling (we call this the Jonathan Richman effect). So when Ray says, "I trained her just the way I wanted her," most non-sociopaths go, wait a second. When Ray then adds that, because of the amount of time he put into sculpting and molding (controlling) her, it "ain't fair for her to give it to some other guy," we, the non-sociopaths in the audience, go, holy fuck Jamie I hope you don't get murdered.

For a song about heartbreak, and how it's not fair that a person who "has to have it every night, every night" would prefer to get it from, or in the case of the song "give it to" (nice de-personalization there Ray) someone else (HOW DARE YOU MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS JAMIE), Jamie (the song) is pretty breezy and non-dramatic. The lyrics may be about heartbreak and perceived betrayal, but the music is about a little girl skipping rope on a spring day. Go fucking figure.

Score: 1.


THE NUMBER ONE

We continue last week's excerpt from Wham!'s 1983 interview with Paul Morley, as featured in his book Ask. PM is Paul; G is George; A is Andrew Ridgeley. It is a fascinating argument about pop music. The use of "it's only pop music" as a way to justify/excuse the lack of anything interesting in an artist's music is especially prescient. Today, critics play the part of G and A, and isn't that something.

Paul Morley: How can you feel in any way satisfied or inspired being a prime part of he current charity gay abandon, all this flimsy jingly sing-along?
George and Andrew: That's what pop music is all about?
PM: What, a sing-song?
A: That's what makes pop songs popular, because everyone can sing along with them. There's nothing wrong with that.
G: What fucking right have you got to say that we should sing something that is socially important?
PM: I haven't said that, don't insult me!
G: What are you saying then?
PM: I'm just wondering about the extent of your ambition. You must at times get pissed off with music that is popular, not just indifferent, because everyone can sing along with it. You have to draw the line somewhere -- do you have standards?
G: What are you talking about . . . your standards are what you enjoy.
PM: Tell me something about your standards.
A: If you like it, it's all right. What you enjoy it's all right.
PM: Comprehensive stuff. No second thoughts, no doubts, no feelings of restlessness.
G: What are you talking about? There's obviously a great difference between the way you look at music and the way we look at music. We look at music as something to enjoy, not as what the pop song means or what it represents, or whether it's better than pop music made five years ago. All that's not for us.
PM: I'm just an argumentative bitch. I just have this feeling that it's positive for energy to be used in a different way than how it has been in the past; I like movement rather than self-satisfaction.
G: Look . . . we like pop music . . . we make pop music . . why do you expect something from us other than pop music?
PM: I don't expect anything else, certainly not moral action -- I sometimes think -- this is all -- that within the pop song context you might want to appear a little less common. . . .
A: But we're not writing songs for you or for anyone else fro that matter, so we don't give a toss what you say because we like what we do. . . .
G: What the hell you going on about?
PM: I'm finding it hard to be polite. Instead of just having people sing along with your songs, and blink in the glare of your teeth, wouldn't it please you to think that maybe you'd intrigued, provoked and enlivened your audience?
A: Why do we have to intrigue, provoke and . . . whatever else it is you're going on about. . . .
PM: So what do you want to do then? Sorry I'm so curious.
G: Why the fuck should we do anything?
A: Fucking hell, we play music for ourselves.
G: We enjoy it, our audience enjoys it, why the fuck should we provoke them? What the fuck's that about? Ego, that's what this is about. For Christ's sake, most people have an ego, most people who are in pop music are there because they have an ego . . . the whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it's total crap to pretend that it's not.
PM: The "ego" you're talking about seems pretty threadbare to me -- it's hardly as though you have the nerve to pretend you're God, just the courage to revel in your own small-minded big-headedness -and if there's ego, self-satisfaction and vanity, why not initiative, inspiration and irritation as well? Wouldn't it be more fulfilling to your ego if you were bolder, bitter, better - you talk of ego but you just mean self-congratulation; you don't want your ego fuelled because of any candour and brilliance.
G: What the hell are you talking about?

Let the record show that George Michael died at age 53. According to Michael's partner, not only was the death a suicide, this was his fifth attempt. At the time of his death. he had sold over 100 million records around the world.

The Number Fortys: Toto - "Stranger In Town"

In The Number Fortys, we review whatever song was sitting at #40 on the Billboard charts. We began in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music, and will continue until we get bored. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either). Also, if you want to read the Number in the title as meaning "more numb," I think that's totally understandable at this point.

This week's song is bullshit and horrible, so we're not going to spend too much time on it. It's forgettable the way that shitty job you worked at for a month to save up money so you could move was shitty. It's just a thing you did. I've listened to this song five times now, and there is absolutely nothing there.

As long as I'm here though, I might as well say that Toto sucks. Rosanna sucks. Africa (the song) sucks. I'm not going to argue these things. It's a stupid song about a stupid thing. Toto were soulless session musicians--Steely Dan without the wit or melody, and I am not a fan of Steely Dan. They provided some decent backing on some of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Congratulations, Toto.

Score: 1.

THE NUMBER ONE

From my copy of Ask: The Chatter of Pop by Paul Morley, An interview he conducted with Wham--excuse me, Wham!--that appeared in the October 23, 1983 edition of Blitz Magazine, roughly a year before this song reached #1 in the UK and US. Q's are Paul. A's are G. Mike.

Q:You're banal, George.
A: Yeah, I'm banal, as far as what goes on the record. . . but I enjoy the music and a lot of other people enjoy the music, so I don't care."
Q: What do you care about?
A: I care about me, I care about my family. I care about making sure that I'm still here in five or ten years' time. Y'see, I'm about as human as most people are. I don't think you have a grasp of how human most people are. I don't think that you have a grasp of basic human requirements. You seem to use the word "banal" as derogatory. But life if banal . . . if you understand, you know that it is banal and that there's nothing wrong with that. . . . It's just life. It's just the way people are, people are banal, their lives are boring, and they just try to get through life as enjoyable and as simply as possible.
Q: I . . the content of an aimless consciousness is weak and colourlesss . . . the work is futile, the joys ephemeral, the howls helpless and the agony incompetent, the hopes are purchased, the voice prerecorded, the play is mechanical, the rules typed, their lines trite, all strengths are sapped, exertion anyhow is useless, to vote or not is futile, futile . . . it is the principal function of popular culture - though hardly its avowed purpose - to keep people from understanding what is happening to them . . . in every way they are separated from the centres of power and feeling. . . .
A: I do enjoy this kind of conversation . . . I like coming up against questions like these. But I don't think it means anything to people. No one wants to know about the things you're going on about. Enjoyment is what matters.
Q: But doesn't such single-minded attention on the juices of enjoyment become repetitive and desperate? Doesn't such small determination to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy actually nullify the possibilities of pleasure? Don't curiosity, complication, adventure play their parts. . .
A: Yeah, those things, but why should we be the ones to put it about? Why should we? I want us to be happy.

In 1984, a year after this interview, George Michael appeared on a kids TV show and announced that Joy Division's Closer was his favorite album. We'll excerpt some more from this interview as the song continues its reign atop the charts.

Fuck Fleetwood Mac

It's not that there's anything wrong with them. It's not that their music sucks. Is it a little bland? A little boring? Yeah. I mean, if that's what heartbreak sounds like to you, then I envy you your porcelain life. But my big beef with Fleetwood Mac is their status (along with the Eagles, Billy Joel, Phil Collins, et. al.) in the underground. A friend and I were eating breakfast in the local vegetarian joint yesterday morning, when our server--a kind cool young person covered in tattoos--yelped with joy when Fleetwood Mac came on. "Oh, I'm so glad I get to listen to Rhiannon this morning." And yeah, I get that most contemporary songwriters, mainstream or underground, aren't capable of utilizing the minor verse to major chorus shift that the Mac does so effectively in that song (even though it's really easy). But if you're a young person who gets excited about hearing Fleetwood Mac, that just tells me you didn't start listening to music, or the radio, until your senior year in high school. I assume you were raised by christians, or possibly a cult, because Fleetwood Mac has been inescapable on the radio--as have all the other 70's schlock--for the past 40 years.

Again, this isn't anything against F. Mac. Here. I'll post a song I like, one that never gets played on the radio.

It's something you listen to. Me, I listened to it a lot when I was 10 (I went through my Eagles phase when I was 8). That wasn't because I was super cool. It was because I heard it on the radio and liked it. But after hearing it again (and again, and again), it got kind of boring. I wanted to hear more stuff, stuff that made me feel as captivated and stunned as when I first heard Hotel California, a song that, as an eight year old contained vast quantities of mystery and drama. When I last heard it, also yesterday during my vegetarian breakfast, let's just say that it contained significantly less mystery or drama. I told my friend just to concentrate on the kinda sorta cool bassline and we'd get through it together.

I blame Best Coast. I blame Poptimism Inc. The only thing more obnoxious than people singing the praises of the same exact thing that everyone else is singing the praises of is the way they pat themselves on the back, as if somehow their championing of F. Mac, or Beyonce, makes them interesting. It takes serious ideological pretzel contortions to think you're a badass for liking the most popular music ever recorded, but that's your 21st century music critic for you. What's the point in championing the counterculture, the more challenging, the marginalized when all distinctions between types of music are arbitrary. You like the thing that's popular then more people are going to read what you wrote. Eyeballs are power, and, much like music, all eyeballs are exactly the same.

I can accept this desperate scrambling by critics for relevance, and the attendant (small, dwindling, insubstantial) paycheck that comes with that relevance. But imagine being a cool guy in your early 20s with aspirations to being an artist, in a public space where you could play anything you want, you have pretty much the entire recorded history of music at your fingertips, you can signify your aesthetic stance for all the artistic influencers in town, and you put on Fleetwood fucking Mac. That's a hell of a statement. It's a statement that you're boring.

Today, I walked into the local outpost of a regional convenience store chain to grab some soda water and some Takis (product placement alert!). You know what their piped-in corporate-approved speakers were playing? Fucking It's My Life by Talk Talk. And this is something that has happened to me again and again over the last few years. If you want to hear The Cure you go to McDonald's. If you want to hear Pearl Jam Pandora, you go to the local independent coffee shop. And you can fucking forget about hearing anything more obscure than any of those artists I just mentioned. If I heard the Go-Betweens (who were also pretty good at that minor/major thing F. Mac did) in public, or fuck it, if I heard The Bastards of Fate, my legs would probably fall off from shock (I am a cultural critic; I am not a doctor).

I've been listening to F. Mac for three decades now, but I've been listening to the Go-Betweens for nearly two. I've never gotten tired of them the way I got tired of the Mac. I'm going to post a song that could have been, in its musical style, a Mac song. It was never a hit. I have never heard it on the radio. I have never heard it in public unless I was the one playing it (at the same coffee shop that rocks Pearl Jam Pandora, back in the day). It still stops my breath. I wonder what the guy in the restaurant would think of it.

Both this song and Rhiannon are about ghosts, or people who are both inhabiting the "spectral" realm. F. Mac's song is about a Celtic (or Welsh, I forget) witch. The G. Betweens song is about G. McLennan's dead father. It has never failed to move me. There's a performance I want you to watch. I find it stunning. I want to share it with you. It has 22,000 views. The Youtube video for Rhiannon--just the song with a picture of the album, mind you--has 38,000,000. There is more in this musical heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your Fleetwood Mac people.