They Could Have Been A Bit Like The Beatles: Tears For Fears 'Sowing The Seeds Of Love'

8. Tears For Fears 'Sowing The Seeds Of Love'

Sing This All Together (See What Happens): Possibly the only act to pull off the much-desired transition from pseudo-New Romantic synth duo to mid-eighties globe-straddling stadium rock megastars, Tears For Fears had been suspiciously quiet since their infamous Live Aid no-show, last sighted in public with an hilariously lazy rejigging of Everybody Wants To Rule The World - as Everybody Wants To Run The World - for hastily carpet-swept-under Live Aid spinoff Sport Aid. Whenever anyone took such a breather in the mid-late eighties, ill-founded rumours invariably suggested that they were hard at work in the studio, intricately labouring over their Own Personal Sergeant Pepper. Except in this case, the rumours were actually very well founded indeed. NINE POINTS.

Brought His Mellotrode And Freaked 'Em All Out: Jangly guitars, rippling backing vocals, that descending chord sequence, dreamy woodwind break, weird synth noises, gospel-inflected extemporising (courtesy of Oleta Adams), spoken word bits hidden deep in the mix, demented Hammond-hammering, phasing - and varispeeded phasing at that - and, of course, Penny Lane trumpet. This has got the lot, including the kitchen sink, which Curt Smith once only half-jokingly claimed was sampled for one of the percussion sounds. Plus, and gaining it that all-important extra point, the only appearance of a genuine 'mellotrode' in this entire contest. TEN POINTS.

On The Bus Or Off The Bus?: Wow, now we're talking. Any song that starts off by claiming that it's "high time we made a stand, shook up the views of the common man" has to be on to something, and indeed the lyrics go on to tie in all that overhyped peace and love stuff with modern-day Acid House shenanigans, urges vigorous reading of books, and promises "an end to need, and the politics of greed, with love". Meanwhile, hidden in the middle of all this is a vitriolic second verse that lays into a certain 'Politician Granny' with high ideals who has no idea how the majority feels, and throws in an entirely gratuitous swipe at Paul Weller for good measure, shaming him into mounting his own attempts at sounding A Bit Like The Beatles two years too late. And, as if it needs to be pointed out, "every minute of every hour, I love a sunflower". Taxi for New Kids On The Block! TEN POINTS.

The Green And Purple Lights Affect Your Sight: Roland and Curt lip-synch their way through a maze of whirling planets, clouds, guitars, fish, hands, paisley wallpaper, newspapers, cardboard boxes, brass map things, drinking birds, sunflowers, animated thingymajigs off a late eighties 'Tonight... On BBC2!' trailer, and blonde women with Yahoo Serious hair. It only loses a couple of points for being quite obviously rendered in that same video effects package that was commonly used around then everywhere from Enya videos via Sylvester McCoy-era Doctor Who to, yes, 'Tonight... On BBC2!' trailers. EIGHT POINTS.

I'm Picking Up Bad Vibrations: Quite aside from inflating the indignance of all those characters in school who red-facedly scowled that it "sounds exactly like a Beatles song that I don't know the name of but it sounds exactly like it!!", Sowing The Seeds Of Love and its associated lengthy studio sessions were instrumental in causing a rift within the band itself, with Curt departing in somewhat less than 'Musical Differences' circumstances immediately after they finished touring the album. Priceless. TEN POINTS.

Ha Ha Ha... We Blew Your Mind!: Said parent album, The Seeds Of Love, was indeed an ambitious neo-psychedelic offering from start to finish, especially the fab Swords And Knives (which includes weird backward-but-forward snatches of Sowing The Seeds Of Love in the background), and while Curt's curt departure prevented the band from exploring this sonic avenue much further, it must be pointed out that the single's original b-side, Tears Roll Down (Laid So Low), later became a bona fide hit single in its own right. SEVEN POINTS, bringing them to a not exactly acrimonious total of FIFTY FIVE POINTS.


And so, the results... in last place come Bros, staring into their bank balance with a sorry-if-identical-looking NINETEEN POINTS. Just above them are Danny Wilson and New Kids On The Block, whose game but not quite convincing efforts net them TWENTY FOUR POINTS and TWENTY SEVEN POINTS respectively. Madonna's mixed bag nets her THIRTY FOUR POINTS, and Hue & Cry's similar shortcomings find them just slightly ahead with FORTY ONE POINTS. Taking off into the stratosphere, Jason Donovan makes FORTY SIX POINTS, Swing Out Sister FORTY NINE POINTS, but the clear winners are Tears For Fears with an unassailable FIFTY FIVE POINTS. Looks like we'd better split the trophy in two, then.

They Could Have Been A Bit Like The Beatles: Jason Donovan 'I'm Doing Fine'

7. Jason Donovan 'I'm Doing Fine'

 

Sing This All Together (See What Happens): The very definition of 'whirlwind', and accompanied by a hairstyle that looked like it was caught in one, Jason Donovan's unplanned yet massively successful singing career was barely twelve months old when he started expressing frustration with his output and mentioning his love of The Beatles and The Stone Roses in interviews. True, a lot of it had been anthemic radio pop with too much treble, but there was also a higher smattering than usual of vaguely strange sixties pop covers (including the shimmering Rhythm Of The Rain and a spooky, semi-menacing take on Sealed With A Kiss), lending weight to his apparent desire to be seen as a modern day Russell Morris rather than just That Bloke In The Coat That Cost The Wrong Side Of Three Hundred Pounds. I'm Doing Fine marked the moment when he finally convinced Stock, Aitken and Waterman. EIGHT POINTS.

Brought His Mellotrode And Freaked 'Em All Out: On first glance you'd be forgiven for thinking this was just another standard issue exercise in Beatle-emulation, albeit a much catchier than usual one, but listen more closely and you'll notice a couple of subtle touches that elevate it a fair few notches above Noel Gallagher. There's a Byrds-y jangly guitar intro, 'submarine' vocal reverb, toy piano, a flourish of Penny Lane trumpet that through the miracles of eighties recording studio 'EQ Level' botherishness ends up sounding like an escaped bit of the Joe 90 theme, and absolutely tons of near-Todd Rundgren-worrying lengthy blasts of phasing. Yes it's all still very trebly and compressed and clinical-sounding, but let it never be forgotten that Stock, Aitken and Waterman did make some genuinely corking records that sounded great on local commercial radio, and this was one of them. EIGHT POINTS.

On The Bus Or Off The Bus? Well, there's nothing really profound to remark on here, just a lament-tinged rejoinder to a 'difficult' lady friend that comes across as something akin to Pet Sounds retooled for Big Fun, but there's a nice undercurrent of introspective angst, and, given Mr Donovan's enthusiastic preference for 'certain substances' around the time, the 'Doing Fine' could well have been achieved with the assistance of psychotropic means... SIX POINTS.

The Green And Purple Lights Affect Your Sight: Wigged-out dancing girls, flying semi-acoustic guitars, and Jase appearing as all four Beatle Boys (including a 'Ringo' doing comedy spinning around antics on his drumstool) in the style of a black and white TV pop show are the order of the day here, looking uncannily like those surviving stray fragments of the small-screen appearances of the likes of The Remains and The Vogues. Unfortunately - presumably out of fear that unsuspecting pop fans might get confused and explode - someone's seen fit to superimpose a modern-day Mr Donovan doing his best bare-chested Jim Morrison poses over the top. The nicest thing you can say about it is that he was trying to copy Tim Booth. The least nicest thing you can say is that it ruins an otherwise fun video. SEVEN POINTS.

I'm Picking Up Bad Vibrations: I'm Doin' Fine was nothing if not optimistically titled, as a recent nosedive in fortunes (not helped by, let's be blunt about this, rotten songs like Hang On To Your Love) propelled it to the lofty heights of number 22. More or less abandoned by the pop fans, unlikely to be welcome with open arms by the indie kids doing that head-shaking shuffle and shouting "Fishes Eyes will watch your lies", and without a ratings-grabbing TV show to fall back on any more, this was a commercial bad trip like few before or since. Keep away from the brown acid, Jase! EIGHT POINTS.

Ha Ha Ha... We Blew Your Mind! Amazingly, this Woolworths' Bargain Bin-bound calamity didn't result in a 'carpeting' from the 'suits', unless the carpet in question was a flourescent yellow and green one. I'm Doing Fine was followed into the lower reaches of the Top Twenty by the similarly-inclined, if more funk-riffing, RSVP, and by a decent cover of Happy Together which did at least get him back into the top ten. Then, of course, musical theatre came calling and that was that, but for this brief if startling diversion into Nuggets-For-The-Gameboy-Generation territory he nets a more than creditable NINE POINTS. Which brings him to a rather fine-doin' total of FORTY SIX POINTS.

 

Next Time - Roland Orzabal, a kangaroo, and the final reckoning...

They Could Have Been A Bit Like The Beatles: Madonna 'Dear Jessie'

3. Madonna 'Dear Jessie'

 

Sing This All Together (See What Happens): Even in her earliest days, there'd always been an adventurous streak in both Madonna's music and lyrics that had marked her out from the average non-Madonna in the eighties pop firmament, and after splitting with Sean Penn she suddenly went diversification-crazy, flirting (in both senses) with all kinds of genres in an adventurous yet highly commercial manner. As a lot of these sponsorship-friendly experiments involved something of a 'sixties' tinge (notably Cherish), and she'd taken to showing off to all and sundry about how the first record she bought was Strawberry Alarm Clock's Incense And Peppermints, a full-on voyage to Freak Out City was only a matter of time away. NINE POINTS.

Brought His Mellotrode And Freaked 'Em All Out: Hmmm, well, it's hardly Incense And Peppermints (or even Tomorrow or Sit With The Guru for that matter), being about as far away from the sound of the ice-cream-splattered overdressed lot who produced her first pop purchase as it's possible to be and sounding more like the sort of bandwagon-jumping records that were made by tinkly High School Hop-era types like Lesley Gore and The Cascades when they realised their number was well and truly up with a paisley-patterned vengeance, with a bit of proto-Phoebe Buffay drippy-hippy singer-songwriteryness thrown in for good measure. Which probably isn't THAT far in literal musical terms, but you get the point. Still, there's loads of chimes, fairground organ, one of those things that goes 'swwwwwwwwwiiish', some guitar work that sounds like The Paul Butterfield Blues Band writing music for Camberwick Green, a waltz-time acoustic diversion, extemporising baroque string outro, and - but of course - Penny Lane trumpet. And it all fades into a 'transistor radio' sound at the end too. Gear! SEVEN POINTS.

On The Bus Or Off The Bus?: Oh dear. After years and years of grabbing international headlines by breaking lyrical taboos in a calculatedly progressive way, she gets the chance to go psychedelic and blows 'it' instead of 'our minds'. It's nursery rhyme-level references to dancing moons, mermaids, fountains of gold, candy kisses, and indeed - in the first worrying note of Disneyism to trouble us here - pink elephants and lemonade all the way here. The laughable thing is it's not even as lyrically arresting as Pink Elephants On Parade. Nice and evocative and all that but... oh Madonna, how you failed us all. TWO POINTS.

The Green And Purple Lights Affect Your Sight: And it gets worse. From 'free love' to slovenly dress to twelve hour country-rock blues soloing to murdering actresses after 'hearing' hidden messages in pop songs, there's certainly a case for claiming that on the whole America didn't quite 'get' psychedelia, and nowhere is this better exemplified than in their adoption of Fantasia, rather than The Magic Roundabout, as an unintentional yet apposite visual encapsulation of all that is far-out and mind-blowing (though whether this extends to the live action orchestra bit with hallucinatoriness' own Deems Taylor has never been established). And yes, it's said overlong animated pomp that Madonna draws her visual cues from, with cutesy 'storybook' imagery, forties-faced dancing teapots, and herself as a kind of cheaply made ripoff variant of Tinkerbell a confused relative might have bought from the local 'discount store'. As if to labour the point, she wore a pair of Minnie Mouse ears in the promo photos too. Hanna-Barbera was under your nose the whole time, you fools! TWO POINTS, granted reluctantly due to a presumably accidental echo of the opening of The Adventures Of Rupert Bear in one of the live action bits.

I'm Picking Up Bad Vibrations: Dear Jessie was, inevitably, a massive hit, and even in the midst of the Christmas market (with a load of eighties-retrospecting to overshadow it to boot) it managed to reach a more than respectable number five in the UK. It's been strangely conspicuous by its absence from Madonna's Greatest Hits-type collections, but even that in a way kind of echoes the way her sixties forebears used to conveniently 'forget' their psychedelic excursions once the pension plan compilation came along. And let's not forget Chris Morris' hilarious attempt to whip up a moral panic based on the hidden 'drug' message when the song is played backwards in On The Hour. FIVE POINTS.

Ha Ha Ha... We Blew Your Mind!: The 'sixties' thing may have only been a momentary excursion for Madonna, but it certainly gave her a commendable taste for the avant-garde. The next twelve months alone brought the avant-garde-sounding Vogue (which she originally considered too angular to release as a single), the fucking terrifying Justify My Love (let's not even get started on what happens when you play THAT backwards), and the just plain inexplicable Hanky Panky. Having sung about her arse at such length in the latter, she then went on to spend the next couple of years shoving it into every camera lens available, but still managed to rediscover her psychedelic muse, with such top-notch offerings as Ray Of Light and the not-at-all-copied-from-She-Comes-In-Colours-By-Love-Honest Beautiful Stranger. To be honest she's never really been given enough credit in this regard. NINE POINTS. Which nets her an arse-baring THIRTY FOUR POINTS.


Next Time - the Kane brothers wig out with a little help from TV 'Lister' (Red Dwarf)

They Could Have Been A Bit Like The Beatles: New Kids On The Block 'Tonight'

2. New Kids On The Block 'Tonight'

Sing This All Together (See What Happens): Armed only with backward baseball caps and a tendency to break into medical order-defying 'frenzied dance routines', Jordan, Joey, Jon, Donnie and 'Dave' were a chart phenomenon like few before or since, going from being nowhere to utterly unavoidable within the space of literally a couple of weeks. This they achieved with a shrewd mixture of pop-rap r'n'b posturing and seventies-style soul ballads, and by releasing about eight million singles before 1989 was even out. And then came, to the bemusement of all concerned, the Beatles pastiche. The least predictable one on this list by some considerable distance. TWO POINTS.

Brought His Mellotrode And Freaked 'Em All Out: You'd expect - and, let's be honest, want - this one to be nothing more than a nauseatingly insincere eighties A&R man's idea of 'those psychedelic sixties' decked out in the aural equivalent of rainbow colours and doves holding CND signs. But, amazingly, it's actually very well done - abrupt changes in tempo, harpsichord, heavy reverb, sitars, Penny Lane trumpet, badly-recorded audience sounds, and even a slight tinge of raga-inflection to the chorus melody. If we have to have inauthentic psych, then it should at least sound this good. Nice one, Mr Umberto Carr! EIGHT POINTS.

On The Bus Or Off The Bus?: It probably won't surprise anyone to learn that there's a distinct lack of political posturing in the lyrics, which seem to be more concerned with reiterating just how famous New Kids On The Block are and how many people come to see their live shows. Though as if to make up for it there's a nicely clumsily-done block of back-references to the titles of their past hits, not to mention a near-legendary distinction between "a lot of people" and "girls". Plus a bit where it seems to threaten to turn into the theme from Jim'll Fix It. SIX POINTS.

The Green And Purple Lights Affect Your Sight: Starts very promisingly, with a spoken word bit featuring the assembled New Kids following mysterious directions and apparently arriving at the Manson House, but it soon degenerates into a pretty unexciting run-through of the song on a small wooden stage, in which the closest thing to a far-out crazy visual is the pixelisation of an Adidas logo on Donnie's t-shirt to ensure maximum television exposure. Not even a smattering of colour-refractive glitter whirling around their heads can cut the appropriate amount of mustard. FOUR POINTS.

I'm Picking Up Bad Vibrations: Although Tonight got to number three and was seemingly inescapable on both TV and radio for a good few months, it was really here that everything started to very very slowly go wrong for NKOTB, with successive singles dipping ever lower in the top forty and by the end of 1991 it was all over bar the shouting. Which they did tend to do a lot of. On top of that, it was reviewed in Smash Hits by an audibly bewildered Phil Collins, who likened it to "one of those bands like Pilot" and declared himself unconvinced. SEVEN POINTS.

Ha Ha Ha... We Blew Your Mind!: This really was a fish out of water in the New Kids canon, and nothing else they did, aside from a misguided attempt at Spectorisms on their Christmas album, even came anywhere near it, either in sound or lack of annoying-ness. NO POINTS, as they head towards that one where Donnie did the rap about bad reviews with a grand total of TWENTY SEVEN POINTS.


Next Time - the ex-Mrs Sean Penn momentarily trades her pointy basque thing for a pair of Minnie Mouse ears...