About This Time 40 Years Ago… It’s The Hits Of June-ish 1984!

The Hottest Song On The Planet:

So, as mentioned in our last 80s installment, ZTT’s – (that is, pop-theorist Paul Morley, and pop’s greatest computer nerd, Trevor Horn)- marketing strategy for the entire Frankie Goes To Hollywood project was to release singles, discussing the big issues, in the following order:

• Sex!
• War!
• Religion!

They’d already done SEX with “Relax.” Which means that now: it was time for “War.”

One might argue that in “Two Tribes”, Holly Johnson manages to cover all three of those Big Topics in one single proclamation and/or rhetorical question:

But mostly, “Two Tribes” is about war. A topic that was never far from the thoughts of most children of the 80s:

There were a lot of similar songs around at the time.

Ultravox were in the charts with “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”, a pounding synth-rock throb based on a Neville Shute novel – “On The Beach” – in which a bunch of characters on the outskirts of Melbourne wait to die as a nuclear cloud drifts towards them, the result of a war in the Northern Hemisphere.

“Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” is the sound of a world hurtling towards certain-destruction, which also makes it, I have been informed on good authority, perfect for Molly Ringwald style dancing (it’s a 7.)

Frankie Goes To Hollywood took a different approach. “Two Tribes” is an anti-war song cleverly disguised as a “rah, rah” pro-war song. Holly Johnson sounds truly exhilarated by the prospect of war, cackling through his role as a circus-ringmaster of chaos, over-the-top of a track whose name was taken from Mad Max 2, whilst sounding more like it belonged to still-a-year-away Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome.

“For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war

And touched off a blaze which engulfed them all”

HOLLY JOHNSON, ET AL

“Two Tribes” makes war sound exciting. And I say that despite the fact that war is something I despise, ’cause it means destruction of innocent lives, tears to thousands of mother’s eyes… good for absolutely nothing, and nobody, with the notable exception of the undertaker.

Frankie would also cover “War.”

A lot of thought went into “Two Tribes,” and not just Trevor Horn’s typical spending-weeks-in-the-studio-trying-to-get-the-sound-just-right. The whole arrangement, for example, is supposed to be highly symbolic. The dramatic strings are supposed to be Russian – some say Tchaikovsky – and thus to represent the Soviet Union. The synthesizer slap bass is supposed to be funk, and thus to represent the United States.

But it’s also the little details and references scattered throughout it all.

On the 12-inch remix – one of them anyway, there were six of them: Featuring names such as “Annihilation”, “Carnage”, “Cowboys & Indians” and “We Don’t Want To Die” – the guy who voiced the Reagan puppet in the UK political satire program impersonates Ronnie introducing the band:

The Ronnie-impersonator also quotes Hitler in there somewhere. It’s in English, so it’s hard to tell.

Holly was clearly obsessed with Ronnie. Many of the lyrics to “Two Tribes” – “Cowboy number one, a born-again poor man’s son, on the air America, I modelled shirts by Van Heusen” – read like a Reagan Wikipedia page rewritten as a haiku.

Thus we find ourselves in the situation where the biggest party song of the year was also the most overtly political. They put a picture of Lenin on the record cover. Ronnie and Maggie on the back. Plus a list of the number of ballistic missiles possessed by both “tribes”. This is a lot of content to digest for one hit single.

But most of the geo-political references were saved for the video. A video in which world leaders have it out in a wrestling ring.

Specifically, we have President Of The United States, Ronald Reagan – portrayed by possibly the Least Convincing Reagan Impersonator Of All time – and Konstantin Chernenko, at the time the General Secretary of the Soviet Union. You may not be familiar with him.

Konstantin was only General Secretary for just over a year, most of which time he spent in hospital. Then he died; of everything from emphysema to cirrhosis of the liver. An unsuspicious death then, at least by Soviet standards. Given everything that was wrong with his health it would have been more suspicious if Konstantin had continued to live.

And given everything that was wrong with his health it shouldn’t’ve been too difficult to defeat him in a wrestling match. Ronnie really shouldn’t have needed to resort to biting his ear off.

If only they’d waited until 1985, they could have had a Gorbachev impersonator instead. They could have done the Naked Gun holding Gorby in a headlock whilst rubbing-his-birthmark-off joke!

Given Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s favoured aesthetic I’m surprised they weren’t jelly wrestling. There is a lot grabbing Ronnie by the nuts, though.

““We just want people to realise how stupid the whole thing looks when war is stripped down to its basic form!” said Paul Rutherford, the one with the porn moustache. Mission Accomplished!

“Two Tribes” basically did for geo-politics what “Relax” had previously done for sex. All of which made “Two Tribes” – according to a review in “Cash Box” – a better, or at least “more scintillating anti-war song than “The War Song.”” Then again, that wouldn’t be hard. “The War Song” is probably the least convincing anti-war song of all time. “The War Song” discredits the entire-peace movement.

“The War Song” is stupid. (“The War Song” is a 4.)

So, the next time you look at the direction our world is headed, and start to feel defeatist about it all, just remember:

The Planet Earth managed to get through the 80s without blowing itself up, despite the fact that everyone seemed to take it for granted that we were most definitely about to do just that. If we could not blow ourselves up then, we can not blow ourselves up now.

Two Tribes” is an 8.

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Meanwhile, in ‘When Two Squeaky Voiced Disco Divas Go To War’ Land:

One of the great pop battles was heating up. A battle between two fashion misfits with squeaky voices, teased hair, and a love of fingerless fishnet gloves. One would become – arguably already was – one of the biggest pop stars of her era. The other would become One Of The Biggest Pop Stars Of Every Era!

Madonna’s debut album – titled Madonna – had been out for about a year at this point. And for such a collection of irresistible pop-sugar-rushes, it was surprisingly slow to catch on. “Everybody” didn’t even make the Hot 100. Neither did “Burning Up” despite very clearly being on fire.

Things finally started to move about six months in, with “Holiday,” before finally, “Borderline” – the 4th single – broke into the Top 10.

Maybe Madonna just needed to wait for Cyndi to pave the way for her. Once “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” had introduced thrift-shop fashion to the masses, Madonna could sweep in with her own trashy take; dialing back on the bright colours, whilst ramping up the sex. Cyndi and Madonna may have come up at the same time, with a similar look, and a similar new-wave-but-disco sound and attitude, but in many ways, they were very, very different.

Compare the coverage:

That was in November 1984. “Like A Virgin” hadn’t even reached Number One yet, and already Madonna was already getting Rolling Stone covers. It may have taken a while for Madonna to arrive, but once she arrived, SHE ARRIVED!!!

By that time i-D magazine had already put Madonna on the cover of the “Sex Sense” issue, although, if not for the beauty spot, you might not recognize her.

Now, for Cyndi: People Magazine went with:

The strange world that People Magazine describes is really not that strange. The strangest part is learning that Cyndi decided that she liked Dave Wolff – her manager/boyfriend – after they had a conversation about “rock pygmies that went underground and come up for wampanini juice.”

So there we have it. By the end of 1984, the public personas of the two biggest female pop stars of the era had been clearly established.

Or, as one critic – Frank Spotnitz, who would later be a screenwriter for The X Files – put it: “Lauper as a tiny-but-tough, squeaky voiced New Yorker and Madonna as a come-take-me, uh, lady of the evening with a heart of gold.”

Which makes it interesting that it was Cyndi – and not Madonna – who was singing about sex, albeit with herself, so early on. Madonna fans would have to wait until “Hanky Panky” (“nothing like a good spanky”) or “Justify My Love” for Madge to give them a similarly suggestive hit single. (“She Bop” is a 9.)

Cyndi would soon get sick of being compared to Madonna all the time. She also got sick of being compared to Boy George, simply because they both liked bright colors. Cyndi obviously thought her colors were more… true?

Decades later the comparisons continue.

Cyndi insists that it’s a gender thing; that they don’t do that sort of pit-against-each-other thing for the boys, which would certainly be news to Prince and Michael.

… tl;dr Madonna was into controversy and marketing her sexuality and reinventing who she was all the time, and Cyndi just wanted to be herself, wear bright colors and scream a lot.

So, maybe Cyndi needed to happen before yuppie photographers started venturing into urban wastelands looking for trashy girls with crucifix earrings and fingerless gloves – no “Boy Toy” belt just yet, that was still to come – breakdancing with street kids, for them to hand their business cards to and whisk away in their sports cars.

And no wonder yuppie photographers were interested in Madonna. She’d already shown how she could make love to the camera when given virtually no budget and nothing more than a white screen to dance in front of; whilst singing a perky nursery rhyme filled with astronomical puns (“Lucky Star” is a 9)

And maybe, in order to truly breakthrough, Madonna simply needed to sing a ballad.

Now, “Borderline” isn’t a ballad per se. The beat on “Borderline” pops just as much as it does on every other Madonna jam. But compared to “Holiday”, “Burning Up” and “Lucky Star”, “Borderline” shows Madonna’s sensitive, romantic side. It’s the first hit in which she sounds as though she’s interested in more than just a one-night stand.

But the general gist seems to be that Madonna is crazy for this guy, but he won’t open his heart to her, or justify his love, or express himself, and this has sent Madonna into the wilderness…

We learn a lot about Madonna from the “Borderline” video. We learn that she is hungry for fame. So hungry for fame that she’ll flounce off with any rich dude with a camera and a sports car. We also find that she’s worked out a fool proof plan for ensuring that she is both unforgettable and unignorable, which is to burn every bridge you cross…

So “Borderline” isn’t a ballad, despite the pretty and oh-so-80s keyboards on the intro. But it’s still Madonna expressing her vulnerable, sensitive side. A vulnerable, sensitive side that, still, isn’t as vulnerable, nor as sensitive, as that which Cyndi displays in “Time After Time.” Although to be fair, Cyndi was a far bigger personality on virtually every emotional dimension, other than ego.

When Cyndi sings a sad song, she sings it with a sob.

Naturally, like Madonna, Cyndi was obsessed with classic old movies. They were both of the first generation to be brought up by television. The difference being that whilst Madonna would soon recreate “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend,” Cyndi watches old Marlene Dietrich movies – 1936’s “The Garden Of Allah” in this case – and mouths along to every word. In her caravan. In the middle of the forest. In the middle of the night. With two plastic flamingos standing guard outside.

Cyndi may have been one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, but she still presented herself as someone who might have no choice but to buy her clothes in an East Village thrift store.

For now at least, Cyndi was still the bigger star. But how long could that possibly last for?

“Time After Time” is a 9. “Borderline” is a 10.

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Meanwhile, in Rock’N’Roller Resistance Land: ‘

We’ve been covering a whole lot of New Romantic frippery lately. A whole lot of British pop stars with incredible hair. Now it was time for the rockists to strike back! To fight the good fight! To take a stand for authenticity! For “real music”! For America!

…Lead singer of Journey, chronicler of the woes of small-town girls, living in a lonely world, and of city boys, born and raised in South Detroit, a man with utterly terrible hair, a man far shorter than his mighty voice might make you expect – was leading the charge, walking out of a pretentious video shoot, leaving its pretentious cast and crew banging on about the Flaming Forest Of Doom, to sit on a staircase and bellow “WELL YOU SHOULDA BEEN GOOONEEE!!!!!!”

And thus Steve proved that you don’t need tights and a jester’s hat to sing a love-song, all you need is a pair of tight denim jeans and a great big hall with amazing acoustics. And a girl to sing to. A girl called Sherrie. Who Steve was dating at the time. Good work, Steve. She’s way hotter than you.

Ironically of course, both the intro and the outro to “Oh Sherrie” are dripping with so many overprocessed synthesizers that it may as well be “Together In Electric Dreams” from the movie Electric Dreams, the story of a love triangle between a man, a woman, and a computer, the latter of whom ends up committing suicide so that the man and the woman can be together… or something.

It’s quite possibly the cheesiest 80s movie ever made.

“Oh Sherrie” is a 9. “Together In Electric Dreams” is a 10.

Even more than Steve Perry, Bruce Springsteen was the embodiment of the rockist revival. That’s probably not the role he would have chosen for himself.

Also that he has a lot of time for pop. He told Jimmy Fallon that he was a Miley Cyrus fan – they were comparing “Wrecking Ball” with “Wrecking Ball” at the time – and that he really liked “We Can’t Stop.”

So Bruce seemed to take a far more conciliatory approach in the war against pop. For one thing “Dancing In The Dark” was played in discos. Or clubs, as they were beginning to be called, what with disco being a dirty word and all.

“Dancing In The Dark” was being played in places where people danced in the dark.

We’re talking truckloads of echo on the snare-drums, “Holding Out For A Hero” drum rolls all over the place, gospel-choir backing-vocals, sprinkles of cascading synths… – which was apparently the biggest selling 12-inch of 1984! It was also the 50th most played record in the clubs that year. That’s a lot of clubbers dancing in the dark.

The official line on “Dancing In The Dark” is that Bruce’s producer was trying to convince him that the album – Born In The U.S.A., of course – needed another song to be the big hit single. Apparently “Born In The U.S.A.” itself wasn’t hit single enough sounding. Neither apparently was “Glory Days.” Or “I’m On Fire.” So Bruce tried to write another song, but he had writer’s block, and so “Dancing In The Dark” is a song about writer’s block. And sure, probably.

I prefer to think of it as a song about a guy, a tragic character, addicted to clubbing. Bruce gets up in the evening. He comes home in the morning. Bruce Springsteen is, as Laura Branigan put it so well at about the same time, a “creature of the night.” (“Self Control” is a 9.)

I picture our narrator, Bruce, living in a small, cramped apartment, just off a dark alley; trying to write his book by the light of a flickering fluorescent tube. Going out to dive bars, in search of inspiration, but all he finds is empty, meaningless sex. The “gun for hire” in this reading is, well you can see where I’m going with this… Bruce may have a sideline as a gigolo. This book he’s writing is not going to pay for itself.

This reading makes a lot more sense when it’s not Bruce singing it, but, let’s say Lucy Dacus, or even better, Hot Chip. Their version sounds very much like the clubs that the narrator may have visited in 1984… imagine if Dead Or Alive had covered it! I mean, Frankie Goes To Hollywood did cover “Born To Run.”

“Dancing In The Dark” was responsible for transforming Bruce from a critically acclaimed radio-friendly rock star, to a fully-fledged MTV pop star, dominating the charts to such an extent that he’d soon practically get top-billing on “We Are The World.” And a lot of that was because of the video, in which Bruce is all sweaty biceps, like he’s the musical version of Sylvester Stallone, dancing like a “Footloose” before-photo, and of course, because of Courtney Cox.

“Dancing In The Dark” is an 8.

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Meanwhile, in Soppy Love Song Land:

I am shocked.
I am astonished.
I am stunned.

It turns out that “Hello” is not regarded as the definitive Lionel Ritchie ballad! Both “Endless Love” and “Say You, Say Me” have more streams on Spotify!

I mean, sure, there’s not a lot in it, and “Hello”s 268 million streams certainly doesn’t embarrass itself. But “Endless Love” has 350 million streams. “Say You Say Me” has 275 million streams. They are apparently both more popular than “Hello.”

Neither can you buy “Endless Love” welcome mats on the Spotify merchandise page, the way you can for “Hello.”

All of which appears to be official Lionel Ritchie merchandise.

And when the beer brewers of Australia needed a song for someone to sing whilst playing a piano inside of a fridge in an advertisement for their sounded-like-a-good-idea-but-turned-out-to-be-the-biggest-marketing-flop-of-all-time product TapKing, what else could the slogan be but… “Hello, is it beer you’re looking for?”

And nobody’s writing thought pieces about the video for “Endless Love.” Did “Endless Love” even have a video? Or did they just show footage of Lionel and Diana singing on Solid Gold or something?

But, four decades on, people are still writing thought pieces about the video for “Hello,” mostly debating whether or not Lionel is a dangerous stalker/sex-pest/prank-caller, pondering whether a teacher spending his entire day following a blind girl around campus is a fire-able offense, or simply wondering what the hell is going on?

Then, of course, there’s the question everyone asks: how does she know what Lionel looks like?

“Hello” is a 9.

But it gets TEN MICROPHONES simply for giving you the opportunity to sing the world’s greatest ever dramatic pause.

“Hello” * dramatic pause * is the karaoke song you are looking for.

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