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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #79 Love and Rockets “So alive” (1989)

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At track #79, we’ve got “So alive” by Daniel Ash’s third and longest lasting band, Love and Rockets.

After the ground-breaking goth act, Bauhaus, disbanded in 1983, guitarist Daniel Ash focused more on his side project, Tones on Tail, with friend Glenn Campling and Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins. They would release an album and a litany of EPs (including popular club single “Go!”) before dissolving in 1984. Shortly afterwards, the members of Bauhaus, minus vocalist Peter Murphy, reconvened under the moniker Love and Rockets.

This trio started off in much the same dark place musically as Ash’s two previous bands but as time wore on, Love and Rockets would play with more elements, like psychedelic rock, folk, glam rock, and much later, electronic music, as their sound continued to evolve. “So alive” comes from their self-titled, fourth album and is an obvious example of the band’s love affair with glam rock. It’s sleek, it’s smooth and for the first time, Ash sounds like a sexy beast as he leads a slew of backup singers through a chorus of “doot-doots”. “So alive” became a surprise hit for the band in North America, peaking at number 3 on the billboard charts, their highest ever charting.

This song was so popular back when I was in high school, I couldn’t help but know who Love and Rockets were. I have very specific memories of scouring the cassette tape racks lining the walls of HOV (Hooked on video) music store, the only such purveyor of music in my small hometown, looking for the Love and Rockets album that had this particular song on it. For some reason, I never found it there amongst the other Love and Rockets albums, perhaps because it was always sold out.

I now have a copy of the band’s very fine greatest hits compilation, “Sorted!”, and have developed an appreciation for a great many of their other tracks. But I will always have a soft spot for the “doot-doots” of “So alive”.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 81

Favourite lyric: “I don’t know what colour your eyes are, baby / But your hair is long and brown” Interesting that he doesn’t know her eye colour? What does that mean, I wonder?

Where are they now?: Love and Rockets was a going concern throughout the 90s, finally calling it quits in 1999. They reunited for some live shows for a few years in the latter half of the 2000s and despite the fact that Ash was quoted as being finished with the band in 2009, they returned in 2023 after a failed Bauhaus reunion and are active again… for now.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #7 Stellastarr* “My coco”

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Here’s a band that may be largely forgotten to the quickly moving trends of musical history.

Stellastarr* was formed in 2000 out of the ashes of a couple other short-lived bands, arising from the burgeoning indie rock scene in Brooklyn and Manhattan that would also give us The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend, and TV on the Radio. Three of its four members, singer/guitarist Shawn Christensen, bassist Amanda Tannen, and drummer Arthur Kremmer, were art school student and friends who were interested in starting a band but their plans were still loose, a chance meeting with guitarist Michael Jurin and a successful jam session put them on a more focused path. They would release three full-length albums and an EP and tour domestically and internationally with the likes of Jane’s Addiction, The Raveonettes, Editors, and The Killers. They never officially broke up, going on a hiatus in 2009, and as far as I can tell, there’s never been any talk of a reunion. None of its members have really looked back. Jurin remains in the music industry, performing solo and in several bands, and scoring a few films. Tannen and Kremmer are both graphic designers. And Christensen paints and makes films, winning an Oscar in the short film category back in 2012.

Listening to their music now, especially their first two albums, makes me both nostalgic for that time and place and has me wondering what could have been for the quartet. I absolutely loved their self-titled debut, not bothering me in the least as it did many of their critics that they wore their influences on their sleeve (The Cure, Pulp). Their second album, “Harmonies for the haunted”, showed maturity and saw the group forging their own path, even if their sound did lose some of its punchiness and immediacy in the process. “Civilized”, the final album, was the real disappointment, which was perhaps why it was their final album. Perhaps they had already punched out their clocks.

Those who enjoyed playing baseball video games in the mid-2000s might recognize “My coco”. It was easily my favourite song off Stellastarr’s 2003 self-titled debut. It’s a rocking number that is instantly likeable, a thumping beat, ticky tacky high hats and a dancing bass line start it all off. Duetting male (equal parts Robert Smith and Jarvis Cocker) and female (a breathless Louise Wener) vocals run through the chorus line once, before it kicks into higher gear with soaring and chugging guitars and serious bass backbone. The effect it creates feels like fighter jets, and indeed, the whole song sounds like a dog fight out of top gun. But what really kills me is the instrumental break, the duelling guitars throwing it down, so that you can almost smell the sweat off the musicians shredding each others faces and it all explodes when the vocals kick in, call and response like, an energy that would light up any dance floor.

Even now, whenever this song comes up on my Apple Music shuffle, I have to listen to it a second time. It’s one of those infectious songs that just doesn’t seem long enough.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #9 Andy Bell “Love comes in waves”

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Ever since pioneering shoegaze rock band, Ride, called it quits rather spectacularly back in 1995, I’d been firmly planted in camp Mark Gardener in terms of following the post-breakup careers of the two warring principal songwriters and driving forces behind the band. I’d always preferred his voice and with the exception of “Vapour trail“, enjoyed far more the songs he led with Ride. I always thought he’d do greater things. Who knew the opposite would turn out to be true?

Sure, Gardener was the first of the two to record and release a solo album by a long shot. However, Bell seemed to get back on the horse quicker, forming Hurricane #1 in 1996, a band of whom I’ve still only heard a few tracks but who released a couple of reasonably successful albums before breaking up a few years later*. Shortly after that, he was recruited by the Gallagher brothers to replace founding Oasis member Guigsy, a job for which he had to quickly learn the bass. He stuck with them until their rude implosion a decade later** and stayed on with Liam for a couple of albums under the Beady Eye moniker. Fans (and readers of this blog) will know that Ride successfully reunited just over ten years ago and not only toured but have released three amazing new albums that build beautifully on their legacy. There’s also been a host of other collaborations and projects that I know little about or only heard tell of so I won’t list them, but know Mr Bell has been quite active indeed.

And in the midst of all this productivity, Andy Bell has been writing, recording and tinkering with songs, a step away from all of these projects, refining and honing sounds, lyrics and melodies. Apparently, “The view from halfway down” became something more than just a ragtag collection of song snippets shortly after David Bowie’s death, this event lighting a fire under Bell’s comfy chair. As a debut solo album, it works perfectly, recognizable enough as Andy Bell but different enough to set it apart from his other projects. And, yeah, some excellent tracks here.

“If you’re searching for meaning
Or a secret worth revealing
And you’re missing the feeling
Of connection, a reflection back from above
You’re ready to ride the first wave of love”

“Love comes in waves” is the opening number and the lead single from the album, a clarion call, a demand for attention. It’s frenetic jangling guitars repeating and not giving up, pounding it in to you, dancing up and down your spine. Meanwhile, the drums just chug along, breathless and immovable, like the unbreakable ocean that he’s comparing with love. A thing of beauty that creates a space that I would definitely want to revisit again and again, sometimes dancing, sometime just being.

*Hurricane #1 was re-formed by cofounder Alex Lowe without Bell and really, the rest of the original lineup in 2014.

**Of course, he was asked to join them on their wildly successful reunion tour this past summer/fall as well.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.