Rock

650. ‘The Joker’, by The Steve Miller Band

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

If the most important chart trend of the late-eighties/early-nineties was the emergence and dominance of dance, then the second was surely the random re-releases…

The Joker, by The Steve Miller Band (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 9th – 23rd September 1990

Such as this! There are usually two reasons for a golden oldie like ‘The Joker’ making number one years after its original release: use in a movie, or use in an advert. Place your bets… Yes, it was an advert this time, for Levi’s, that gave the Steve Miller Band their biggest hit, a mere twenty-five years into their career.

There’s little point in analysing this record from a musical point of view. It’s a strange little country, bluesy, slightly psychedelic number, recorded in 1973; and so in terms of its style and its production values it sounds a world away from ‘The Power’ (I will leave you to decide whether or not that is a good thing). It’s also very silly, with one of rock and roll’s great opening lines: Some people call me the space cowboy, Some call me the gangster of love…

Who is Maurice (wheep whoop)? What is a pompatus? They are references to earlier songs by Steve Miller but also, perhaps, the real answer lies in the Eaglesy chorus: I’m a joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker… Yes, it’s an ode to ganja, and the joys of the doobie. It’s ironic that in 1990, as Britain’s youth raved their nights away, it took a seventeen year old AM radio staple to bring the drug references to the top of the charts…

It’s a fairly random, but very welcome, chilled-out, interlude in our countdown. There’s a great solo, played through some cool vocal effects, as well as the ridiculous cat-call effect in the verse. And a wonderfully filthy line towards the end: I really love your peaches, Wanna shake your tree… It didn’t make the UK charts in 1973, but it did make #1 on Billboard, meaning that Steve Miller Band now holds the record for longest gap between transatlantic chart-toppers. (The ‘band’ is basically Steve Miller, and a revolving door of supporting musicians. He’s still going, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the mid-2010s).

They had already come close a decade earlier, when the equally fun ‘Abracadabra’ had peaked at #2. Except, in finally making #1, ‘The Joker’ caused some controversy. It sold what appeared to be exactly the same number of copies as that week’s number two single, Deee-Lite’s fabulous ‘Groove Is in the Heart’. But, rather than have two songs share the top position – as had happened often enough in the 1950s – Steve Miller won out thanks to having seen the largest sales increase over the previous week. You could bemoan the fact that a crusty old re-release beat a fresh and innovative dance number on a technicality – aren’t the charts supposed to be for what’s current and all that? – but ‘The Joker’ is fun and lively enough to get a pass from me. Plus, the chart compilers eventually confirmed, presumably after several recounts, that it had in fact sold a whopping eight copies more than Deee-Lite, and was there on merit. Just…

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623. ‘Belfast Child’, by Simple Minds

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

From the opening notes, before you’ve even glanced at the title, you know that this next #1 isn’t going to be a barrel of laughs…

Belfast Child, by Simple Minds (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 19th February – 5th March 1989

It’s heavy, portentous, serious. ‘This is an important record’, the stately synths and sparse drums announce. The opening lines from Jim Kerr add another layer of chin-stroking: When my love said to me, Meet me down by the gallow tree, For it’s sad news I bring, About this old town and all that it’s suffering… In comes a penny-whistle, and some violins, for that olde Oirish authenticity.

While I wait for this one to really get going, my mind turns to other number one singles that have featured place names. Off the top of my head, no peeking, I’ve got ‘San Francisco (Flowers in Your Hair)’, ‘Massachusetts’, and ‘The Poor People of Paris’… Answers on a postcard with any others, please! (It would probably arrive before this song ends…)

We reach the three minute mark, and finally things are picking up. A sort of Irish jig is about to break out. This tune’s melody is based on a traditional song ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, with lyrics updated to reflect the Troubles. The war is raging, Through the Emerald Isle… Kerr howls, as things eventually build to a pretty impressive Wall of Sound climax. He was inspired to write the song after watching footage of the Enniskillen tragedy, in which an IRA planted bomb killed twelve people in 1987.

Of course, pop music can deal with weighty issues. It shouldn’t all be love and sex and having a great time. But, can’t it at least be catchy? Not this seven-minute sermon of a song? At the same time, how could you make a catchy pop hit about a terrorist attack? It would hardly be appropriate. It’s a conundrum, though not one Simple Minds apparently struggled with. They threw everything into this epic, and got their biggest British hit. And for one of the eighties’ biggest bands, it feels right that they did eventually manage a chart-topper.

As impressive as this record is – and it does reach a pretty daunting peak, in which voices, synths and guitars swirl around one another – I can’t say I’ve enjoyed it. For the most part, I found it quite dull. I can’t say I’ve ever heard it before, either. In fact, this might be the final #1 that I’d never heard before writing about it…

Nothing here screams ‘#1 hit’, apart from the fact it’s by a popular band. Was it purely a fan purchase? Technically, it was one track from an E.P. that also included ‘Mandela Day’, which the band had performed at Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Concert the year before. Was that perhaps the more on-demand song?

In any case, ‘Belfast Child’ is the song that went down in the record books. It went down in the record books in different sense too, as at 6 minutes 40 seconds it is one of the longest number one singles of all time. I’ve struggled to find a definitive list, but I think at the time it was the 2nd longest (behind ‘Hey Jude’), and it currently sits at 5th in the all-time rankings (the video below is shorter, but the single was released unedited).

616. ‘Desire’, by U2

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

Go on, who had this down as the song that finally gave U2 their first #1…?

Desire, by U2 (their 1st of seven #1s)

1 week, from 2nd – 9th October 1988

For as good as this record is, and it’s a great little rocker, it’s not the first U2 song that springs to mind for most people. There haven’t been many bluesy chart-toppers, and the ones that have appeared came in the mid-sixties for the likes of the Stones and the Animals. But this one bangs straight in with a Bo Diddley beat, and a tale of an irresistible woman – She’s the candle, In my room… Or is it about drugs – I’m the needle, Needle and spoon…? Either way, it’s about something you just can’t say no to.

For a band not afraid of grandiosity this is a simple song; and all the better for it. They were influenced in recording it by The Stooges, and released what had been the demo version after deciding that the finished take was too polished. It’s short, sharp, and possibly one of Bono’s best vocal performances. Say what you want about Bono (and I just might, over the course of U2’s seven #1s) he’s a great rock star, when he remembers that he is a rock star, and not Jesus. Here he stutters, he growls and he soars, and sounds genuinely like a man crazed with desire.

Then there’s the harmonica which, after ‘He Ain’t Heavy…’ makes it two #1s in a row that have been heavy on the tin sandwich. And whisper it, but is 1988 turning out to be a good year for rock music…? I wasn’t expecting it in the era of SAW and house music, but chart-toppers for Fairground Attraction and Billy Bragg, Beatles covers, glam rock samples, a re-release for the Hollies, now this… It feels like it’s come out of nowhere, but it’s certainly welcome!

‘Desire’ was the lead single from ‘Rattle & Hum’, the follow-up to U2’s worldwide breakthrough album ‘The Joshua Tree’. They were probably the biggest rock band on the planet in 1988, and so whatever they released first from their new album may well have rocketed to the top. I’m glad it was this, though. A lot of U2’s music suffers, in my eyes, from the same problem ‘He Ain’t Heavy…’ suffered: grandiosity, and not a little pomposity. Not this one (and to be fair, not too many of their UK #1s – they usually like to announce a new album with a rocking single).

And so, U2 are up and running as a chart-topping force. Off the top of my head, they’re the 4th most successful rock act in terms of #1s, behind only the Beatles, the Stones and Oasis. But sadly, after me making such a big deal of it, this is where 1988 stops rocking… A block-busting ballad looms over the horizon.

547. ‘Easy Lover’, Philip Bailey with Phil Collins

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

I do like an intro with a sense of purpose, with a bit of drama to it. This next number one has such an intro…

Easy Lover, by Philip Bailey (his 1st and only #1) with Phil Collins (his 2nd of three #1s)

4 weeks, from 17th March – 14th April 1985

To be honest, the rest of the song doesn’t quite live up to the theatre provided by the drums and power chords of the opening ten seconds. It sounds as if we could be shaping up for a proper classic… As it is, we have to settle for fun yacht rock.

Is this yacht rock, though? I have to admit that’s a genre I struggle to place. It always makes me think of Duran Duran’s ‘Rio’… But is that yacht rock, or is that just rock with a yacht in the video…? I think ‘Easy Lover’ is glossy and catchy enough to be yacht rock. She’s an easy lover, She’ll take your heart but you won’t feel it… It’s light and breezy – the woman sounds fun, rather than dangerous – perfect for a cruise along the southern Californian coastline.

Unlike some recent chart-toppers, though, the gloss doesn’t render this song too dull. Philip Bailey’s verses are almost funky, and his falsetto has an edge to it. Phil Collins provides a counterbalance, growling out his lines on the bridge… Now don’t try to change it just leave it… and his presence is presumably why the drums are front and centre here. You get the feeling that the pair had fun recording this, maybe even trying to outdo each other, and that adds to the enjoyment. Meanwhile, the guitar solo verges on proper hard rock.

This is a song I didn’t much know beyond the chorus. It’s a good one, though. Fun and lighthearted, clearly born of the mid-eighties but not drenched in the sound and recording techniques of the time. It still sounds pretty fresh thirty-five years on. On paper, a former member of Earth, Wind & Fire collaborating with a former member of Genesis doesn’t sound all that promising, given there wasn’t a huge amount the two bands had in common, but there you go…

Philip Bailey didn’t quite manage the same level of solo success as Phil Collins: ‘Easy Lover’ was his only significant hit away from the day job. And I wonder, is this the only occasion on which two people with the same first name have shared a #1 record…? It feels like something that must have happened more than once, but nothing springs to mind… Oh, and while we’re at it, let me know if you think this is yacht rock, or not, as well…

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536. ‘Two Tribes’, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

/ UK #1s blog / 21 Comments

Slap bang in the middle of 1984 comes the year’s biggest hit, from the year’s biggest band.

Two Tribes, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (their 2nd of three #1s)

9 weeks, from 10th June – 12th August 1984

Make that the decade’s biggest hit. No record will spend longer at #1 during the 1980s than this. Nine weeks, in which the best-selling song across the land was an ode to nuclear war. There are very few chart-toppers that have lines like: We’ve got the bomb, Yeah… Sock it to me biscuits now… But this is one. When two tribes go to war, A point is all that you can score…

On this, just their second release, Frankie (and producer Trevor Horn) were clearly sticking to the same formula as their first smash, ‘Relax’. Pounding, aggressive, disco-rock… check. A subject matter (and video) designed to raise eyebrows… check. Just the right mix of catchy and clever…?

Almost. The bass riff is thrilling, the splicing of Russian classical music with high-NRG dance is fun… But to my ears it’s all a bit of a mess, especially in the verses. It’s been a theme this year: hard-edged pop that’s bursting at the seams, constantly threatening to implode but just about keeping it together. ‘Relax’, ’99 Red Balloons’, ‘The Reflex’, now this… Maybe it was the impending threat of nuclear destruction (this is also already the 3rd chart-topper of the year to reference war and/or peace…), or maybe it was cocaine. But something was definitely in the air in 1984.

The video is another event in itself, with Ronald Reagan and Russian leader Konstantin Chernenko throwing one another around a sawdust ring. Chernenko only led the Soviet Union for a year or so – despite being nowhere near as famous as Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev and co., he’s the one immortalised in this video… He grabs Reagan by the balls. Reagan bites his ear off. Holly Johnson drinks it all in as the ringside announcer. As the song reaches its final note, the planet explodes. If I had to choose, though, I think I’d spend my last moments on earth in the ‘Relax’ video, rather than this one.

I want to love this as much as I do ‘Relax’, but it falls short for me… I think it’s because ‘Relax’ is so simple, so gloriously filthy, and so universal. Songs about sex generally work. Songs about geopolitical tension can be hit or miss. Frankie try so hard to make it work – and it is still a banging, clanging, throbbing, pulsing wonder – but I think they overreach and, slightly, overcook it.

There were a million and one remixes of ‘Two Tribes’ – the ‘Annihilation Mix’, anyone? – but I like the classic single mix, with the air raid siren, and the public information announcer opening the song with: The air attack siren sounds like… By contrast, the album version is a little short, and missing the very Russian-sounding middle eight.

No doubt all those mixes helped this record to its giant stay at the top – the longest since 1977 – as well as similar promotion tactics to those that worked so well for ‘Relax’. But that’s not to suggest Frankie Goes to Hollywood weren’t genuinely massive in 1984. As ‘Two Tribes’ set up camp at #1 for the summer, their previous five-week chart-topper climbed back up to #2, making them only the fourth act to occupy both Top 2 positions after The Beatles, John Lennon and, um, John Travolta… They have one final number one coming up this year. And after two synth-rock thumpers, they’ll be changing tack, just in time for Christmas…

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532. ’99 Red Balloons’, by Nena

/ UK #1s blog / 21 Comments

A couple of posts ago, I was a bit down on 1984. Before it had even started, I was pooh-poohing the idea that it was all that great of a year. But… with this next chart-topper following on from the assault to all five senses that is ‘Relax’, maybe 1984 wasn’t such a bad year after all.

99 Red Balloons, by Nena (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 26th February – 18th March 1984

Not that I’m going to start claiming it as the best year ever – not yet anyway – but this is another great slice of synth-pop. The slow-building intro is quite similar to ‘Relax’, and it forms the background to a story of two people in a toy shop, buying a bag of red balloons… Set them free at the break of dawn, ‘Til one by one, They were gone…

And then the beat drops – one of the great beat ‘drops’, from before beat ‘drops’ were a thing – and we have an incredibly catchy, cheese-funk synth riff. And guitars! Punk rock guitars. Forget synth-pop; it’s synth-rock. It feels like an age since we’ve had actual guitars at #1, and they drive the song along through its story of nuclear armageddon. Ninety-nine red balloons, Floating in the summer sky…

The authorities see these innocent balloons and panic. This is what we’ve waited for, This is it boys, This is war… You don’t need a degree in 20th Century history to work out what concerns this record is tapping into. The Cold War was at its height: it’s still February, and this isn’t even the first chart-topper of the year to reference war. It won’t be the last either… Incidentally, the inspiration for the song was said to have come when the band went to a Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin, and watched balloons released on stage floating towards the Wall.

Nena were themselves from West Germany – ‘Nena’ being both the name of the band and of the lead singer, in a shades of Blondie. In fact, Britain was one of the few countries where the hit version of ’99 Red Balloons’ was in English. Across Europe and Australia, even in the US, the German original soared to the upper reaches of the charts. I do like Nena’s German-accented English, especially in the worry, worry, super scurry line, though there’s a forcefulness to the German version that probably comes from her being more confident singing in her native tongue (the drums are also heavier in the original, which is another pro).

In the end we’re left with something stark, both musically and lyrically. The driving beat and catchy riff vanish, leaving the echoey synths. It’s all over and I’m standing pretty, In this dust that was a city… The singer finds one last balloon. I think of you and let it go… It’s a powerful ending from a song that sometimes gets written off as a novelty (I was thinking the same before listening to it properly a few days ago…)

Nena (the band) had a few more years of success in Germany, but struggled to score many more hits in English-speaking countries. They split up in 1987, though Nena (the singer) has continued to record, and sometimes collaborates with her former bandmates. And so. I am left to reassess my opinions on 1984, and on synth pop in general. Except, oh dear…. Our next number one will go some way to proving why this year wasn’t so great after all…

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522. ‘Every Breath You Take’, by The Police

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

We’re back among the classics, after a dubious (though admittedly catchy) detour with New Edition. The Police then, with their final, and their biggest, chart-topper.

Every Breath You Take, by The Police (their 5th and final #1)

4 weeks, 29th May – 26th June 1983

I press play, and before the song is halfway through questions begin to arise. Has this record been dulled by repetition? (At any given moment of the day, a radio station somewhere is playing ‘Every Breath You Take’.) Is it just that little bit too glossy, too polished? Has Sting’s voice tipped over the edge into soft-rock crooning…?

Don’t get me wrong, the opening riff, and the simple but effective chord progression thereafter, is a great hook. It can take its place among pop’s great moments. It’s a record that begins with complete confidence in itself… but I’m not sure it builds upon this strong start. It comes close with the How my poor heart aches, With every step you take… line, which is great. But the rest of the song is a bit cold, a bit clinical and, by the end, a bit boring…

Perhaps the problem’s not musical, but lyrical. It’s become a cliché to point out that this is a stalker’s anthem, but it’s true. It’s not a nice song. Every single day, Every word you say… It’s clearly about a possessive, jealous, and potentially dangerous, lover watching his ex. Yet take the title by itself, with the lines about hearts aching and people belonging to one another, and you can convince yourself that it’s a love song. Apparently it some people play it at their weddings…

I was ready for this to finally redeem The Police in my eyes, to show me why they were the biggest band of the late-seventies and early-eighties, as I’d struggled to love their previous #1s. But it hasn’t… In fact, turns out my favourite is their first: ‘Message in a Bottle’. I just didn’t realise it at the time. I’m in the minority on this, though, it seems – ‘Every Breath You Take’ is a Rolling Stone / Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Greatest of All Time kind of tune. In 2015 it was voted the UK’s favourite ‘80s #1, and in 2019 it was named the ‘most played song in radio history’, taking over from ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’.

You could compare The Police with another band we’ve recently bid farewell to on this countdown: The Jam. Both rose out of the punk scene in the late seventies to become two of the biggest British new wave bands. Both left their punk roots far behind, but The Jam did so with a sense of exploration – look at the funky ‘Precious’ and the Motown influenced ‘Town Called Malice’. Whereas The Police went down a more soft-rock route, culminating in this monster hit.

And it is a good song, I’m not writing it off completely. But it’s a little too cold, too negative, and too overplayed, to be a favourite. To finish, here’s a very tenuous link between this record, and the previous #1 I mentioned in the intro. ‘Candy Girl’ was the first rap chart-topper… while ‘Every Breath You Take’ will be heavily sampled in what I believe is the best-selling rap single ever released…

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517. ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, by Bonnie Tyler

/ UK #1s blog / 30 Comments

It’s easy to laugh at some of the worst excesses of the 1980s. The size of the hair! The size of the shoulder-pads! Huge mobile phones! Mountains of cocaine! Well, at least two of those things are in play for our next #1: hair and shoulder pads. (I wouldn’t rule out the cocaine, either…)

Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler (her 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, 6th – 20th March 1983

Like I said, looking back, it’s common to sneer at certain aspects of the 1980s – in a way that doesn’t seem to happen with any of the other decades currently within human memory – but when they combine to produce something as outrageous as ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, then you’ve got to be glad they happened.

First things first: this is a duet. Kind of. There’s a significant, if uncredited, male voice throughout – one Rory Dodd. Make no mistake, though. This is Bonnie Tyler’s song. She sings it like she’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown, like she’s just downed that third glass of wine, like her very life depends on belting these lines out. And there are so many great lines. For a start: I’m living in a powder keg and giving off sparks! (For many, many years I had no idea what she was singing here. It wasn’t a misheard mondegreen; I simply had no idea what a ‘baldergag’ was…) Or the howled: And I need you now tonight…

Then there’s the classic chorus line: Once upon a time I was falling in love, Now I’m only falling apart… It’s the musical equivalent of a telenovela actor’s slow-motion swoon, but it works. What is a total eclipse of the heart..? It’s madness brought on by love. It’s poetry, that’s what it is. This was a bit of a comeback for Bonnie Tyler – her first real hit for six or seven years – and you feel that she could sense this as she recorded it. She leaves nothing behind out there, as they say on ‘Match of the Day’.

But actually, Tyler is only 50% responsible for this record’s brilliance. The rest lies with Jim Steinman’s writing and production. The moment when those enormous eighties drums come thumping in – like Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound on steroids –is actually hair-raising. Later on there are explosions, thunder and lightning… and sleigh bells. Was this originally meant to be a festive release? Or did Steinman simply see nothing wrong with sleigh bells in a February release? I hope it’s the latter…

This is a power ballad. It’s probably the ultimate power ballad. It’s certainly the first ‘modern’ power ballad to top the charts. (Honourable mentions to Nilsson’s ‘Without You’, and Babs’ ‘A Woman in Love’.) And though it’s a genre synonymous with ‘80s excess, there aren’t too many of them that will top the UK charts in the coming years. In fact, the next #1 to rival ‘Total Eclipse…’ for first-clenching pomposity might well be the next one written and produced by Steinman, which won’t be for another decade…

We can’t finish this post without mentioning the video. Bonnie Tyler is a teacher in a boys boarding school, who spends her nights prowling the corridors in a white negligée, imagining boys at their desks having their shirts ripped open by wind-machines, fencing in the halls and, by the end, prancing around her in loin cloths a la ‘Lord of the Flies’. Well, a song like this couldn’t have any old, common-or-garden music video, could it…?

‘Total Eclipse…’ offers a different side of the eighties to our previous #1, ‘Billie Jean’. One is slick and modern; the other completely OTT. If I had to choose which side of the decade I’d like to remember, and which song I’d like to come on towards the end of a night out, then it would be this one. And the British public agrees. Sort of. ‘Total Eclipse…’ was voted as the 3rd best #1 of the ‘80s (with ‘Billie Jean’ in 2nd) but, much more importantly, it won a 2013 poll of ‘Best Songs to Sing in the Shower’.

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507. ‘Eye of the Tiger’, by Survivor

/ UK #1s blog / 16 Comments

We’re meeting some of the decade’s big hitters now (pun fully intended). ‘Fame’, to ‘Eileen’, to this. And it’s another iconic intro. Synths growing, and growing, while a guitar goes chuckachuckachucka… It’s almost disco… Then Bam! Bam bam bam! The chords smash as hard as Rocky Balboa’s punches.

Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor (their 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, 29th August – 26th September 1982

I love it when the beat drops, and we settle into a groove. The bass riff is great (it’s heavily-influenced by ‘Another One Bites the Dust’). Right here, twenty-seven seconds in, this could be one of the best chart-toppers ever. Except, from this point on it’s all a bit of an anti-climax. It’s a record that shows its hand too early; and the remaining three and a half minutes are a bit of a plod.

Having not listened to this song properly in years, I was fully expecting to be won over by its poodle-rocking silliness. Big hair, power chords, even the title is ridiculous. But the vocals are too earnest. The lyrics are cheesy, and not good cheese. Cheap triangles of Dairylea cheese. It’s missing something, or maybe it’s just been ruined by its prominence in pop culture. It’s been used too many times with tongues in cheek. Hell, it’s been used too many times without tongues in cheek. (Plus, the band didn’t even that big hair…)

It’s polished. It’s glossy. But that’s not really the problem. Most pop music released in the 1980s was glossy and polished. It’s also got a great hook: away from the intro, the best bit is clearly the He’s watching us all with the eye….. Of the tiger line. But. But but but. ‘Eye of the Tiger’ is, I’m sorry, rock music for people who don’t like rock music. All the ingredients are there, but it never builds to anything. It plays it too safe. It’s just verse, chorus, verse, chorus… fade. There’s no solo! Where’s the solo? You’ve got that iconic riff, and no solo? So wrong.

It’s too earnest. That’s the problem. Earnestness in rock music never appeals to me. File it alongside other motivational classics, such as ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ and ‘You’re the Voice’, that I’d happily never hear again. Maybe it’s an American thing… We’ve just had ‘Fame’ (I’m gonna live forever…) and now this (Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past, You must fight just to keep them alive…) While in between a bloke in ill-fitting dungarees from Wolverhampton sang an Irish jig about getting into a girl’s pants.

For me, this song exists solely on a ‘Best Rock Album in the World’ CD that got heavy rotation in our family car way back when. I’ve never seen a Rocky film, and it definitely doesn’t feature in any of my regular playlists these days. It’s a childhood memory, and not even that fond a memory… I didn’t particularly like it even as a kid. (I do have a huge soft-spot for 80s hair-metal, though.) Sadly, ‘Eye of the Tiger’s success won’t herald many other hard-rock chart-toppers, and Survivor themselves wouldn’t have another hit until ‘Burning Heart’, from ‘Rocky IV’. Sadly for them, they weren’t invited back for ‘Rocky V’, and that was that as far as their UK chart career went.

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495. ‘Town Called Malice’ / ‘Precious’, by The Jam

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

Straight in at number one with the lead-single from their final album… The Jam do Motown.

Town Called Malice / Precious, by The Jam (their 3rd of four #1s)

3 weeks, 7th – 28th February 1982

We’ve been treated to some iconic intros in recent weeks: ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Don’t You Want Me’, ‘The Model’… ‘Town Called Malice’ is right up there too. It’s not really a riff, more an explosion of exuberance, a technicoloured smile with a jaunty bassline and a cheesy organ. I know it’s The Jam, because it’s a well-played classic, but it sounds a world away from their earlier #1s.

This being Paul Weller and The Jam, however, things aren’t as rosy as they sound. The title perhaps gives it away, and a quick google of the lyrics (sorry Paul, but they are quite hard to make out) reveals a deeply downtrodden song. Malice is a town where people dream of rosy days and the quiet life, where decisions have to be made: buy beer or clothes for the kids. Some of it is darn near poetic: Rows and rows of disused milk floats stand dying in the dairy yard, And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk bottles to their hearts…

When he starts to sing about Sunday’s roast beef, I get a huge sense that this is an early-eighties take on Ray Davies’ suburban odes from a generation earlier. Weller wrote it based on his childhood in Woking, a commuter town outside London. Funnily enough, this middle-eight is the most modern-sounding bit of the song, as we go from The Supremes to The Specials’ ska tones. And at its core – which wasn’t always the case with The Kinks – I think ‘Town Called Malice’ is optimistic. It’s up to us to change, A town called Malice… Life may be shit, but you still have to live it as best you can.

Despite being as biting as ever, The Jam do sound happier than they did in 1980. Success puts distance between you and any hardships you’ve endured, and maybe that left them feeling free to experiment with different sounds. It’s certainly a sneak-preview of the soulful sounds that Weller would push to the forefront with The Style Council. And in my mind this song will forever be associated with the scene in ‘Billy Elliot’, where he dances across the rooftops of County Durham (though, much like the contrast between ‘Malice’s melody and lyrics, Billy was dancing in frustration, rather than joy…)

For the second post in a row, we have a double-‘A’ to write about. I’m not sure how much airplay ‘Precious’ got, but the history books have it at #1 and so we must give it a spin. If ‘Town Called Malice’ was a departure for The Jam, then ‘Precious’ is a giant leap. I’d describe it as ‘disco-funk’. There are chucka-chucka guitars, there are horns… I’m half-waiting for Weller to shout ‘Shaft!’ It’s another moment where you can see that The Jam were nearing the end of their shelf-life.

Not that it’s bad. Or that bands shouldn’t try new things. But when you’ve gone from punk to funk in barely five years, it’s clear that the confines of a three-piece, guitar, bass ‘n’ drums band are not enough to satisfy the members’ creativity. Like ‘Malice’, the lyrics are very hard to make out, but unlike ‘Malice’, I feel no compulsion to look them up. This record is a groove, a mood. There’s a short single edit and a longer album version, towards the end of which things go very acid, with a free-styling saxophone.

It all adds to the fact that this has been a brilliantly eclectic start to 1982, with all four number ones (six songs, if you count the two double-‘A’s) bringing something very different to the top of the charts. And for all this talk of the end nearing for The Jam, they have one more #1 to come: their very last release. They’ll be going out on top, then, one of the decade’s most distinct and successful bands. Until then…