For those that regularly read my blog (or if you are unfortunate enough to know me) , it will come as a no surprise to know that I have vast numbers of CDs. The other day I was staring at a section of them and thought "You know I haven't played many of these for ages! That seems wrong! And with that I made an impromptu decision, I would play, in its entirety, every CD that I own from the 80s. Why the 80s, you may ask? Well for a start you have to start somewhere. For another, I think the 80s were on my mind as I have just finished a rather excellent book by Andy Beckett "Promised You A Miracle- UK 80-82" (About early 80s British History NOT Simple Minds). And then there's the fact that whilst I started listening to Music in the 70s, the 80s were my formative years, musically speaking. I was seriously into it all the way through the decade and many of the bands and albums from that decade were my first love and you never lose your first love, do you?
Prompted by a good friend, I thought I would use my blog page to report back on my findings so here we go! Now, I fully appreciate that the Icicle Works may seem an odd place to start. Well, for one thing I am shortly going to see them live (For the first time, better late than never) in Southampton so I thought I'd better reacquaint myself with their back catalogue. Moreover, one of the key features of my CD collection is that I have always had a fondness for under rated artists who I thought never got their rightful reward commercially and in that regard, The Icicle Works seem very typical of the kind of artist I liked back in the day (and still do!)
Formed in 1980, they were part of the so called neo-psychedelia wave that emanated out of Liverpool in the early 80s and that included bands such as Echo and the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes. They first came to prominence in 1983 when they had a Top 20 hit "Love is a Wonderful Colour". Although they soldiered on until 1991, they never had another hit!! I'm not actually going to comment on said single or its parent album, "The Icicle Works" because I don't own it!!
Now, and this probably says more about me than the band, but I first became interested in the Icicle Works when they released the single "All the daughter's (of her Father's house)" in 1985. The single absolutely stiffed but I loved it. It was a different beast to their earlier album, being an upbeat track, actually quite Motown influenced and boasted a fine horn section (A huge Dexys fan at the time, I was a sucker for anything with a horn section!). I therefore tracked down the parent album "The Small Price of a Bicycle" (Rubbish title, lads) which had shot to No 55 in the super soaraway album chart!
Chiding the masses for their (usual) ignorance, I thought that "The Small Price of a Bicycle" was one of the best albums of 1985. Listening to it now I would still place it in my Top 50 albums of all time. To use a cheesy phrase, it's small but perfectly formed. 10 tracks and not a duffer amongst them.
If one is honest though, one can see why "The Small Price of a Bicycle" sold the square root of bugger all, it just didn't fit in. I have mentioned before that 1985 was an ODD time for music. The big pop acts that had dominated the early part of the years were very definitely on the decline; they were either in the dumper (Adam Ant, Culture Club), dumper bound (Spandau Ballet), albeit slowly (Duran Duran). The pop which replaced it was largely of the pale imitation variety (Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Go West) or from the ersatz soul school (Simply Red, Paul Young). As a result British Pop's dominance was largely replaced by either Big American Acts (Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Prince) or Resurrected Dinosaur Acts, propelled forward by the newly emerging CD format and/or Live Aid (Queen, Sir Philip of Collins and above all Dire Straits). Meanwhile young (ish) guitar acts that sold fell more or less in two camps: Bands that were stadium bound (U2, Simple Minds) or bedsit bound (The Smiths).
Frankly the Icicle Works fell into none of those camps, they were just three Liverpool lads who played straightforward, slightly psychedelic rock, with BIG choruses, underpinned by Ian McNabb's powerful, passionate voice (which one critic once described as "plummy"- he was trying to be helpful). They released two further singles "Hollow Horse" and "Seven Horses" (possibly should have used a different animal?). Both divebombed. Personally I would have given "Rapids" a shot, as I think it is a tremendous song (although I acknowledge that the masses had clearly had made up their minds up about the Icicle Works by this point and a cover version of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" featuring a 5 minute Ukulele solo would have been greeted by public indifference too)
Undeterred The Icicle Works ploughed ahead and in 1987 released the somewhat verbosely entitled "If You want To Defeat Your Enemy Sing His Song" (There is a separate blog to be written about why Artists insist on calling their albums by titles that are guaranteed to leave the masses as cold as 10 day old Rice Pud). It was largely produced by Ian Broudie, who was later to achieve fame as part of the Lightening Seeds and writer of "Three Lions".
Listening to it now, it's not a bad record by any means, there are plenty of good songs, strong choruses are the order of the day, there are signs of more musical variety that "Small Price of a Bicycle"(But you ain't seen nothing yet, baby). However to my mind, it is let down by a series of plodders. All the critics and their mums seemed to love "Understanding Jane", I just thought its punky guitar rush (Something which was very much de nos jours in the shape of Jesus and Mary Chain, Husker Du, Replacements et al) lacked a melodic punch "Up Here in the North of England" boasted some fine sentiments in search of a tune whilst "Truck Drivers Lament" and "When You Were Mine" were, to be blunt, a tad turgid. Any of these should have been replaced by a song that popped up as a bonus on a CD re-release a few years later "Don't Let It Rain on my Parade"
However, the shining lights of "If you want to defeat your enemy" were the other two singles, both of which in any other world where the masses had an iota of taste would have been huge hits. "Who Do You Want for Your Love?" is just a GREAT pop song. It reached number 54!
Even better though was the final single off the album and to my mind one of the great lost singles of the 80s "Evangeline". An unashamed, anthemic, "punch the air when you get to the chorus" song, I still grin like a loon every time I hear it and want to play it again as soon as it's finished. It reached number 53 in the charts as the British Public preferred "I want to dance with somebody " by Whitless Houston and "Star Trekkin" by the Firm...............GAH!
Frankly if I had been McNabb and the lads I would have chucked it in there and then. But once again, they picked themselves up, dusted themselves down, headed off into the studio and re-emerged in 1988 clutching their 4th album "Blind". And it was apparent that they were responding to the comparative commercial failure of the previous two records by chucking the kitchen sink into proceedings.
To describe "Blind" as a "varied album" would be doing the word a disservice. Frankly it's batshit crazy (and I actually mean that as a compliment!), veering from Led Zeppelin-esque RAWK (the opener "Shit Creek") to calypso pop of "What Do You Want Me To Do?" to "Starry Blue Eyed Wonder" which starts out as a organ driven ballad and then mutates to a guitar wig out, to the Acapella (Yes, you read that right) "One True Love" to the Prince-a-like "The Kiss Off" to the Scott Walker tribute that is "Here Comes Trouble". And that's just for starters!! Frankly no two tracks were the same, it sounded more like a compilation album than one by the same artist!
It was only really McNabb's recognisable voice and the fact that guitars were still very much in evidence, although not entirely dominant, that linked "Blind" with the proceeding two albums. The only track that would have fitted comfortably on either was the 60s influenced pop rush of "High Time", a close cousin of "Who do you want for your love?" I seem to recall that it was either ignored by critics at the time or damned with faint praise but I genuinely think it is an incredibly ambitious record and deserves both some of your time and a reappraisal. Not all of it works, granted, I wasn't overly fond of "Kiss" by Prince so its tribute, "The Kiss Off" I can do without. "Shit Creek" writes its own review whilst "One Two Three" is what CD skip buttons were made for! However, the rest is very fine indeed and clearly the work of a band pushing the boundaries and showing what they were capable of.
Of course, this being the UK in the late 80s, the commercial results were sadly predictable. The album reached an underwhelming 40 whilst the highest of the singles released was the lovely "Little Girl Lost" at 59. Arse knows why. Maybe in a year still dominated by the conveyor belt pop of Stock Aitken and Waterman (which largely sounded the same just with interchangeable lead singers)- "Kylie" by the pop pixie was the best selling album of the year- the variety on show was just too much. Whilst there was a burgeoning "Indie " scene, the Icicle Works were probably considered too mainstream to fit in with the likes of the Wonder Stuff and not hip enough to fit in with the emerging Baggy Groups like the Stone Roses.
It falls outside of the remit of my 80s journey to talk about the last Icicle Works album "Permanent Damage" (which I actually don't own). The album in any case received a critical shoo-ing and the band split up shortly after. McNabb then embarked on a solo career which resulted (bizarrely) in a Mercury Prize Nomination with the HEAVILY Neal Young influenced album "Head Like A Rock". McNabb reformed a version of the Icicle Works in 2011 and they sporadically tour the UK , such as their appearance in Southampton for which i am very grateful.
Meanwhile, I would suggest that the three Icicle Works albums referred to above remain ripe for rediscovery and would grace any record collection.
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