Face '83: SOS Band

You know what this needs?

More Lindy Layton.

The SOS Band - and this track in particular - are pivotal in music history as, having taken a quick break from touring with Prince, Jam and Lewis finished their production work just in time to get snowed in by a blizzard. Their 'not being able to travel through impenetrable weather conditions' lead to Prince firing them from The Time. Freed from The Time, freed up time for them to concentrate on production, and that had positive effects for everyone.

They'd go on to produce fifteen cracking US number ones, and a Mariah Carey one.

Well chosen, The Face.

The Face 23; History 18.

Glitter is falling from the ceiling. Fireworks are shooting off. The Face now cannot be beaten by history. The Face wins. But how wide will the margin be?

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: New Edition

One last push, and we can forget we ever eased the lid off the box marked 'Face best-of 1983'. If you've remained aloof so far, the general idea was I'd post a load of videos from 1983 and try and slap a veneer of science over judging if the records The Face magazine thought would be historic markers for the year actually were as timeless as they'd hoped.

At the moment, The Face has scored 22 good choices; the harsh judgement of history has won 17 rounds.

Next up is New Edition:

New Edition, famously, launched the careers of Ronnie DeVoe, Bobby Brown, Ralph Tresvant, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Cyrus Vance, Andrew Bridger MP, The Backstreet Boys and that bloke with the head like an egg off this year's Apprentice.

What's really scary about this band is not that they were so young, nor that they were so obviously the first serious attempt to clone and update the Jackson Five model, but that by the time of Candy Girl, they'd been going for five years already.

Five years.

After their first tour, following this massive hit, the boys made $1.87 each.

To be fair, their management did cut them a cheque for this amount - they didn't just get a letter telling them they'd receive a payment once their earnings had reached $25 - but it's all a bit disgusting.

This track, then, isn't young people having fun. It's kids being ripped off.

The Face 22; History 18.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Gordon in the morning: Little Mix, big money

Gordon has got ever so excited at Little Mix's earnings. He starts off with the headline that they've banked over a million, but then the detail makes this a little less exciting:

In the financial year ending December 2012, the girls made £1.2million.

Gordon smacks his lips expecting more:

That’s before all of the income from their UK tour and album royalties would have come in, so they’re looking at another decent whack in the next 12 months.

Perhaps, although who knows how much the cost of all that help for the album was?

So, let's just focus on the money for the year to December, shall we?

£1.2million you say? That's not bad... except...

After their expenses — lots of hairspray — they netted a profit of £464,893

So as people, they actually only earned less than half a million.

Still, that's good, isn't it?

That’s almost £200,000 more than the US President earns a year.

That's true - Obama takes home about £265,000. Depending on exchange rates, of course, and remembering that he lives at the place he works which makes a mockery of the concept of "take home pay".

Except, of course, there's only one president of America, and there are four Little Mixers.

So that works out as £116,000 each, or about half a US President.

That's still not bad - although about forty grand less than MP Andrew Bridger makes when you add his second job and his MP salary, and Andrew Bridger says that's not enough.

And, as Gordon's "source" points out, they've worked bloody hard for that cash:

A source said: “The girls have barely had any time off since they won The X Factor. They got straight into the studio, then their tour, then were thrown into trying to crack America."

The band might want to look into who that source is, though, as they might have been dumped in it with HMRC:

“Given the girls have almost no expenses — they are always working, they get most of their clothes free and things such as bottle service in nightclubs are gratis — a lot of the income into that business will be saved up.”

Really? Because remember what Gordon said earlier:

After their expenses — lots of hairspray — they netted a profit of £464,893

Interesting that a band which has very few expenses managed to claim three quarters of a million difference between net and gross. Little Mix might want to find out who represents Vodafone.

Nick Cave wrote a sequel to Gladiator

If you were going to come up with a sequel to a popular Hollywood hit movie, would you put in a call to Nick Cave?

No, we wouldn't, either. But Russell Crowe is not like us, and thought Cave would be the man for the job. Despite it being Nick Cave, and his character being dead.

Cave came up with a plot. Or possibly lost one. Hard to say:

"So, he goes down to purgatory and is sent down by the gods, who are dying in heaven because there's this one god, there's this Christ character, down on Earth who is gaining popularity and so the many gods are dying so they send Gladiator back to kill Christ and his followers.

I wanted to call it Christ Killer," Cave continues. "And in the end you find out that the main guy was his son, so he has to kill his son and he was tricked by the gods. He becomes this eternal warrior and it ends with this 20 minute war scene which follows all the wars in history, right up to Vietnam and all that sort of stuff and it was wild."

It's hard to believe this movie was never made, isn't it?

It's a pity they didn't give the new Star Wars trilogy to Nick.

Filmmakerobit: Toshi Seeger

Toshi Seeger, archivist, organiser and film-maker, has died.

For many years, Toshi programmed the Great Hudson River Revival festival, booking folk artists who had yet to break.

There's a wonderful story on Persimmon Tree by Sue Leonard about the time she met Toshi and her husband, Pete Seeger:

Toshi also shot films, folklore research films. At one point she went to Huntsville, Texas, where she produced a film of the prisoners chopping trees and singing their songs. The film, “Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison,”can be found online in the Library of Congress archives. When Pete’s career became all-consuming, her projects were “bookshelved”.

This “bookshelving” prompted Sue to ask, “How did you keep from losing your identity being married to Pete?”

“I didn’t. My girl children taught me not to lose so much.”

Toshi Seeger was 91; she died July 9th.

Face '83: The Packman

So, a quick leap over the Ike & Tina Turner reissue, and a grudging 'yeah, I guess' to Thriller - you couldn't review 1983 without mentioning it and... if you skip the weaker tracks... I suppose that's one in The Face's favour.

Back at the start of this adventure I was puzzled by the presence of The Pacman on this list, and a helpful comment suggested this might be the song I was looking for:



Whether this is the song The Face intended or not, it's hard to see how 'pretending to be PacMan' would ever create a song that stood up to the test of time. And if it was this song...

... well. It's a miracle The Face even had the confidence to publish again.

The Face 22; history 17.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: Fab Five Freddy

We've come across Fab Five Freddy earlier, when he was pinching Phase Two's role in Wild Style.

Now he's up in his own right:



So, how great is this track? Let us count the ways: it's based on a dirty French film. It doesn't have an a-side and b-side, but male and female versions. Freddy went on to present Yo! MTV Raps, but was just about able to carry off the toe-curling name.

The Face 21; history 16.

[Part of The Face's best recordings 1983]

Face '83: Indeep

We've already, for sake of... well, brevity isn't the right word as, boy, this feature is dragging on, but let's say brevity... for the sake of brevity we've decided to skip reissues from the list, so go home Derek Martin, you're safe.

This bring us to Indeep's Last Night A DJ Saved My Life.



As an aside, whoever put this onto YouTube manages to claim that this is the "official video" despite not only being clearly from Top Of The Pops, but being clearly from Top Of The Pops with a sodding UK Gold logo burned into it.

So... has this stood the test of time? Or does the "away goes trouble down the drain" followed by the sound of a toilet flushing reveal that what The Face has done here is to pick a novelty record for its best recordings of the year?

You'll recall that we discussed InDeep earlier this year, and in particular the way that toilet flush was considered good enough to get its own track on the album.

Oh, The Face. History has the benefit of hindsight, but you should have spotted this one coming.

The Face 20; history 16.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: Cabaret Voltaire

The next item on our list of selections from The Face's 1983 best recordings list is Labour Of Love by UB40.

I suppose it could be worse - the magazine might have selected Level 42's Standing In The Light.

But even so... snicker.

The Face 19; history 15.

Come on, The Face. You need to come up with something pretty good now.



Ooh, alright then. That'll do.

Oddly, this was a double-a side with The Crackdown, although The Crackdown didn't make it onto the seven inch version of the single. Experimental times.

The Face 20; history 15.

[Part of The Face's best recordings 1983]

Steve Grand comes out; NME promotes idea that "that shit is wrong"

You know, if you're going to come out, and you're a country musician, you might as well really come out.

Steve Grand's done it by releasing this:

... and then saying 'oh, and that's autobiographical'.

It's just a bit grim that it's 2013, and an out country (as opposed to alt country) artist is a rarity. uproxx.com provided some context:

Before country musician Steve Grand uploaded “All-American Boy” to YouTube, the most prominent Google search result for “gay country song” was a link to Yahoo! Answers. Three years ago, “Gex” asked, “Is their any gay country song?” to which “ihatebho” replied, “Another song dealing with homosexuality: Ain’t Going Down On Brokeback Mountain by Willie Nelson,” which, yes, is a real song, with the refrain “That sh*t ain’t right.”

I'm sorry, Willie Nelson did what? (He even works in a gag about bumming, like he's seven years old.)

Even more surprisingly, the NME is hosting the video. Yes, that's the NME with a page dedicated to a song which says that homosexuality is wrong.

Obviously, it's been somehow auto-generated and the paper tartly disclaims any responsibility:

DISCLAIMER: The video content provided on this page is generated by YouTube and consequently features user-generated content. While we do our best to stop offensive material appearing, NME.COM cannot be held responsible for all of the material that may be displayed on this page. If you object to any video, please visit the YouTube Abuse and Policy Centre

- but, frankly, that's not good enough. What actions have the NME taken that it feels is "doing our best"? And why on earth should someone complain to YouTube because the NME has embedded something homophobic on it's site?

Randy Travis is unwell

Randy Travis isn't doing too well:

"Mr. Randy Travis is out of surgery and in critical condition," the hospital website announced Wednesday night.

The stroke is "a complication of his congestive heart failure" for which he is being treated at The Heart Hospital at Baylor Plano in Texas, Kirt Webster said.

"We will have updates as they become available," Webster said. "His family and friends here with him at the hospital request your prayers and support.
"
Word of his setback came just hours after his doctors said Travis had "stabilized and he has shown signs of improvement."

Jay-Z and Robert DeNiro are still in high school, apparently

Jay-Z and Robert DeNiro have had a falling-out. Apparently, it's a respect thing.

Apparently:

The actor allegedly confronted Jay Z about the incident during Leonardo DiCaprio's birthday party in the Big Apple last November (12), with a source telling the New York Post at the time, "Bob wasn't in any mood to make polite conversation. He told Jay that if somebody calls you six times, you call them back. It doesn't matter who you are, that is just rude."

Now, I know this makes them sound like they're fifteen year-old girls, but there's also more than an element of 'aftermath of a terrible date' to this whole affair.

I wonder if DeNiro would have been more forgiving after just five blankings. Perhaps it's when you need to start a second hand to keep track of these terrible, terrible snubs that it has gone too far.

You know what could only serve to make this more pathetic? If Jay-Z reacted by suggesting that maybe Bobby did something he shouldn't, only he doesn't want to talk about it:

He explained, "It doesn't matter who you are, everybody has to be respectful and everybody has to be a human being, you know? No one's above (manners)... We're all human beings and we all have to be respectful to one another and that's just standard. That's how I carry on with anybody."

Perhaps DeNiro was terribly rude for calling back six times when it was obvious that Jay-Z was busy with something else. Or perhaps DeNiro scoffed at Jay-Z's plan for prom theme. We may never know.

Gordon in the morning: in which our work is done for us

Sara Cox has already read Gordon's column this morning, and chosen a bit:

Obsessed with this pic from @gordonsmart column in sun. Kings of Leon fans with a mans undercarriage in their faces. pic.twitter.com/nT8xu8EAXx

— sara cox (@sarajcox) July 11, 2013

Having to choose between looking at a stranger's flaccid cock or the Kings Of Leon.

The stranger's flaccid cock will be headlining the second stage at Glastonbury this year.

Face '83: Booker Newberry III

Hip-hop seems to be getting a bit of a cold shoulder when viewed with some perspective, but to be fair to The Face, they were sat in London trying to weigh what was happening in New York. They knew enough to know that this stuff was changing music - and their judgement there should be applauded - but didn't quite know enough to get what was worth saving for history.

A quick leap over the you-don't-need-these-embedded here for Power, Corruption and Lies from New Order and The The's Soul Mining, both albums, and both wise and sage choices - The Face 18; history 14.

This brings us to Booker Newberry III. The question we need to ask here: is this great, or is this Radio One Roadshow style soul?



Even Gary Davies couldn't destroy that. Even if he danced to it. Even if he danced to it wearing shorts.

(Newberry seems to have vanished off the face of the earth shortly after this. Anyone know what happened to him?)

The Face 19; history 14.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: Phase Two

Not the barely-noticed attempt by ITV to create a challenger to Top Of The Pops - that was still a couple of years off - this The Roxy was the nightclub in New York where hip-hop was first formulated.

Phase II was actually a graffiti artist, Lonny Wood, who would paint on stage while nascent hip-hoppers did their nascent hip-hopping.



Although Mr Two nearly got a role in Wild Style - eventually Fab 5 Freddie took the part - his greatest claim to fame was a namecheck in a KRS-One song. (Fab 5 Freddie, of course, managed to get a namecheck in Rapture, which means he bested Two again.)

I think "of historical interest only" sums up this track, and that means history isn't interested.

The Face 16; history 14.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: Tom Browne

Better known for Funkin' For Jamaica, by the time Tom Browne came to make Rockin' Radio, he'd already peaked. The good folk at Arista Records were still happy to splash some money around on his work, though, so Browne had been able to call on the assistance of Maurice Starr for this.

It was, perhaps, unfortunate that Starr was busily inventing New Edition at the same time.



The Face 16; history 13

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: C-Bank

Welcome back to the slow trudge through The Face's 1983 best recordings, in an attempt to weigh the judgement of The Face and its team of style-attuned writers against the harsher, 20/20 judgement of history.

1983. The year Carrie Underwood was born, and the year C-Bank teamed up with Eleanore Mills to make this, Get Wet:



There's not much to this, is there? There were shedloads of this sort thing about at the time. Sure, C-Bank might have been Arthur Baker's workmate John Robie, and around the same time C-Bank produced One More Shot, which would eventually get reworked to provide New Order with the mighty Shellshock.

That detail lifts this above 'dancey also-ran' as an act. But it can't lift the track from not being very interesting. The Face 16; History 12.


[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Morrissey pulls another batch of dates

Oh, Morrissey. Every time he sets a date and books a tour, he falls unwell. Now, severe food poisoning has put a ding in his South American tour:

“Due to severe food poisoning suffered by the artist and of the accompanying equipment in Lima, Latin concerts scheduled for July and August will be postponed for the next months. The new dates will be communicated shortly. Morrissey and his team have been in Lima, Peru, from July 1. The artist was very excited about the upcoming shows and are very disappointed to have to postpone the dates.”

The whole team was hit with the food poisoning.

Try not to think of the little toilets in those tour buses. It won't make your breakfast taste better.

Gordon in the morning: In which Gordon has trouble understanding a competition aimed at teenage girls

You - yes, YOU - could have "a date" with Harry Styles and Liam Payne. If you win it.

Gordon has all the details, although apparently hasn't read through them:

ONE DIRECTION are taking part in a charity auction that is bound to inspire a bidding frenzy.

As one of the prizes, HARRY STYLES and LIAM PAYNE will be giving away a joint date to help raise money for cancer charity Trekstock.

Err... except the charity sale isn't an auction, so it won't be "inspiring a bidding frenzy". In fact, Gordon seems to realise this later on:

Even small donations will be entered in the draw but you’ve got to be over 13 to get involved.

We've seen the Mail and the Mail On Sunday subtly rubbishing each other's stories; this, surely, is the first time ever an article's second half gently rubbishes the first half.

Face '83: 23 Skidoo

They called it a coup. The track sampled from Apocalypse Now; it would go on to be sampled by The Chemical Brothers in its turn. Oh, and they pulled in Aswad's horn section. In fact, if 23 Skidoo had bothered to stick out a seven-inch version, they might even have had a hit with this.

So were the Face right to applaud this?



Yes. Indeed, they chose it as a recording of the year despite the official release not even coming until February 1984.

The Face 16; History 11.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: Mann Parrish

Hip Hop Be Bop (Don't Stop) got more releases than a member of The Timpson family; eventually it settled for a place in history by appearing on the Shaun Of The Dead soundtrack.

Mann was still a way off from doing Male Stripper, and since without that track, this track would probably have sunk into half-forgotten disregard.



I think history is starting to overhaul the Face's judgement.

The Face 15; History 11.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: Newcleus

I suppose there's some kudos in having a song called "The Wikki-Wikki song" at a time when Jimmy Wales had yet to unfurl his first 'donate now' banner, but...



Oh, lord, make it stop.

The very definition of acceptable in the 80s. For about five minutes.

The Face 15; History 10.

[Part of The Face's best 1983 recordings]

Face '83: Nile Rodgers

Another full-album, this time from Nile Rodgers. This was the first outing he made under his own name, and you can see why the Face wanted to be impressed by Adventures In The Land Of The Good Groove.

Here's the title track:



Hmmm. Smash Hits gave it ten out of ten, and David Bowie was enthusiastic. But it was called Adventures In The Land Of The Good Groove.

In order to weigh up this one, let's call an expert witness. Niles himself talks about the record in his autobiography, and... well, he doesn't endorse the Smash Hits ten stars:

"I knew it was a flop right away. I'd been so afraid of being labelled a disco musician that I was too tentative about the album's direction. And the songs weren't hooky enough. Over all, I wasn't clear philosophically or sure what I was trying to say."

If it's not good enough for Niles, it's not good enough for us.

The Face 15; History 10

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: Tom Waits

And we're back, as we may be for every day of the rest of our lives, as we slowly work through The Face's favourite records of 1983, to decide if their choices were wise, or if history has had the last laugh.

Look, you could at least pretend to be interested.

The next choice from the list is Swordfishtrombones. The whole album. Which is a win for the face, if only because this track inspired one of the great online pseudonyms of our times:



Face 15; history 9.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Yasiin Bey experiences force-feeding as Gitmo protest

The US government are currently force-feeding prisoners, during Ramadan, at a sort-of prison they're supposedly trying to close down.

In an attempt to try and show what that force-feeding means, Yasiin Bey - who used to work as Mos Def - has had a go at being on the wrong end of the process. It's not pretty.

Lauryn Hill goes away

So, with the million in unpaid taxes finally catching up with her, Lauryn Hill has started her prison sentence:

Hill reported to federal prison in Danbury, said Ed Ross, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmates at the minimum security prison live in open dormitory-style living quarters and are expected to work jobs such as maintenance, food service or landscaping.

Landscaping? If they've got all their inmates landscaping, the prison grounds must look like Schloss Linderhof.

Nitro scooped up onto Bicycle

I'm not sure it's entirely "punk" to be doing company take-overs, but Bicycle Music Company has acquired Nitro, adding The Offspring and The Damned catalogue to an already hefty collection of everything from Phil Ochs to Tone Loc.

Face '83: Shannon

So, we're considering reissues outwith the scope of this project (thank god for that, eh, otherwise it'd drag on for what feels like forever); and I think we're all familiar enough with Little Red Corvette to let that through on the nod (Face 14; History 9).



Not only is this absolutely perfect, but The Face picked it as one of the best songs in 1983 almost as soon as it was minted, and for that, they deserve our respect.

Face 15; history 9.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983, to which we shall return, again, until we get through the list. It's just your time you're wasting.]

Face '83: The Style Council

When this video first appeared, Number One screengrabbed the arse out of it, running a 'Warning: Ear fondling' splash on the contents page.

It was about as close as you could get to homoeroticism without feigning an interest in novels where people drink tea back then.



Of course, fans of his previous band never warmed to the whole Style Council project - but then Merton Parkas fans knew what they liked, and were slow to change. That Weller guy is in it, too.

I'm minded to award the point for this round to The Face, but history is objecting. History's fans are on their feet, chanting "cappuccino kid" over and over again.

A slim victory for The Face, I think. Face 13; history 9.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Face '83: Malcolm McLaren again

Oh, god. Having already thrown its elegantly-typographed weight behind the whole Duck Rock album, The Face then decides to single out, erm, the single Soweto:



Even at the time, this seemed like a bad idea. To be generous, it was three years before Paul Simon made a higher-profile attempt to convince South African musicians they really needed a pasty-faced bloke bellowing over the top to make their work listenable.

Jon Savage loves the track - he was writing in 2010, as well, which you thought would have at least afforded him a spot of perspective.

It's hard to see this as anything other than a miserable holiday in somebody else's cheap labour. Face 12; History 8.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]