Jesus of Cool: The Rock Yearbooks, 1981-89

A few weeks ago in this space, I located the origin of my personal anglophilia in the syndicated radio show Rock Over London, which introduced Americans to ‘80s-era British acts both major (Tears for Fears) and minor (that Boy George imitator, Marilyn). For me, the visual equivalent of Rock Over London was the Rock Yearbook series, which was published (in the U.S. at least) by St. Martin’s Press each autumn between 1980 and 1988. Many were the early-December days during college when I would blow off studying for finals to stalk the local bookstores for the latest edition, then immerse myself in the intimate details of Prefab Sprout or the Blow Monkeys’ chart positions instead of re-reading Dostoevsky or sifting through histories of the Boer War.

My grades tended to reflect these priorities, but no matter: The education found in the Yearbooks’ glossy pages eventually proved at least as valuable as the one for which my parents staved off retirement and depleted their bank accounts. For the Rock Yearbooks were a trove of both information and attitude, generously ladled by critics from the British rock rags Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Record Mirror and Smash Hits. These Brits were uniformly snarky, self-indulgent and pleased with themselves, in contrast with an American crit-corps who (for the most part) took themselves and the music way too seriously to revel in the trinket-like gaudiness of ’80s pop.

The thrills of the Rock Yearbooks were manyfold: the Acts of the Year and Quotes of the Year reviews, the Best and Worst Album Covers, the “Thanks…but No Thanks” section (from 1985: “thanks” to the Who “for finally calling it a day,” and “no thanks” to Everything But the Girl – “Why did they always have to look so miserable?”).

But for me, the mother’s milk were the year’s worth of top-20 singles and albums charts – from Billboard in the U.S. and Music Week in the U.K. – and the collected snippets of album reviews culled from the aforementioned British music mags. With the charts, the fun was in the cross-cultural comparisons – how much time passed between a song’s appearance in one country and its debut in the other, for example, or how the U.S. and U.K. charts could be at times quite similar (“I Want to Know What Love Is” dominated both countries simultaneously), at others wildly divergent. Take, for example, these Top 5’s from June 1984:

U.S.
1. “The Reflex,” Duran Duran
2. “Time After Time,” Cyndi Lauper
3. “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” Deniece Williams
4. “Dancing in the Dark,” Bruce Springsteen
5. “Self Control,” Laura Branigan

U.K.
1. “Two Tribes,” Frankie Goes to Hollywood
2. “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” Wham!
3. “Smalltown Boy,” Bronski Beat
4. “I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” Nik Kershaw
5. “Relax,” Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Nirvana (not the band) was also to be found in the album reviews, which were – and remain, 20 years later – hours worth of side-splitting fun, either as semi-serious research or as toilet reading. But don’t take my word for it. Here is a small sample of review snippets from some of the decade’s major British albums – the good, the bad and the ugly, as judged by the British music press (with one American knee-slapper thrown in) – offered in vague chronological/alphabetical order.

ABC’s The Lexicon of Love: “One of the greatest albums ever made…will be played to the point of nausea by everyone who buys it.” – New Musical Express

The Cure’s Pornography: “It’s downhill all the way, into ever-darkening shadows…passing through chilly marbled archways to the final rendezvous with the cold comfort of the slab.” – Melody Maker

The Human League’s Dare: “Nobody could buy this because they found the music thrilling or exciting: it’s absolutely anemic. But, finally, that’s its strength.” – Sounds

New Order’s Movement: “Fitting for an afternoon when you’re bed-ridden, depressed, philosophical and everyone’s gone out. All the emotion, direction and strength here has to be provided – not interpreted – by the listener.” – NME

Roxy Music’s Avalon: “What does it all mean? I haven’t the faintest fucking idea.” – NME

Spandau Ballet’s Diamond: “Floydswill…awful, sub-Haircut by about eighteen good fathoms…the worst tune I have ever clapped oversized ears on…like a Hoover doing an impersonation of Shirley Bassey…a puke in every groove. Not so much pretentious as unlistenable. At least we can all stop pretending to hate Spandaus and start really hating them.” – Sounds

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Scritti Politti’s Songs to Remember: “Music for intelligent, sensitive and confused middle-class youth living in very small rooms.” — NME

Simple Minds’ New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84): “Cluttered, constipated, formulated fear straining for an arty fart.” – NME

Tears for Fears’ The Hurting: “The perfect group for all those fucked up, ‘what are we going to do with our lives’ student types who spend every moment wrapped up in their tiny problems and pathetic existence.” – NME

The Alarm’s Declaration: “An album of slogans, power and promises – but promises that mean nothing. Behind the group’s revolutionary stance, the thoughts are about as radical as the conversation at a Tupperware party.” – Record Mirror

Howard Jones’ Humans Lib: “I can think only of a kid who’s been given a Rolf Harris Stylophone for Christmas and thinks he’s Gandhi.” – Melody Maker

The Thompson Twins’ Into the Gap: “All they need now is the dog and I do believe they’d turn into the Archies.” – Melody Maker

Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Welcome to the Pleasuredome: “It’s a put-on and a con, a flim-flam scam of a sham, a hip hype calculated solely to separate as much money as possible from as many people as possible as fast as possible before all the young rubes wake up and realize they’ve been fleeced.” – Creem

The Power Station’s The Power Station: “The album which proves that John ‘Duran’ Taylor is every micrometer the nouveau riche, styleless, vain young shitball he always hinted at.” — NME

The Smiths’ Meat is Murder: “He’ll never convince me that one man’s nut loaf isn’t another man’s baked nosepickings.” – Sounds

Falco’s Falco3: “If this is album number three, it’s already given me nightmares that the postman will turn up on my doorstep tomorrow morning and present me with the first two.” – Melody Maker

The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psycho Candy: “Sounded exactly like they were coming through the wall with a Black & Decker. Bloody frightening.” – Melody Maker

Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s Flaunt It: “They aren’t really in it for the music, so they won’t mind me pointing out that it’s the biggest heap of garbage since the last heap of garbage.” – NME

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A-ha’s Scoundrel Days: “The hotbed of talent that is A-ha continues to go unrecognized. The critics, the unbelievers, the philistines who see only the glossy posters and the fancy haircuts, will persist in sneering at these Scandinavian saucepots with all the insight and perception of a tree.” – Sounds

Curiosity Killed the Cat’s Keep Your Distance…: “We’re dealing with the shallow meaningfulness and subdued bounciness of semi-clever pop. No doubt these are experiences drawn from real life, delivered straight from the soul – the problem is that these are lives and souls that are fundamentally mediocre.” – Melody Maker

The Human League’s Crash: “I’ve tried it all ways, morning, noon and night, drunk and sober, alone and in company, searching for that wink of wit, that cheeky chortle, that look that says they know what they’re doing and everything’s OK and on line, but still Crash sounds crap.” – Melody Maker

Alison Moyet’s Raindancing: “This great white anserine blob called Alison – surname designed to suggest champagne, a nuance of upward mobility (if you’ve got a crane handy) but never forgetting the common touch (she talks like an oik and her lyrics admit that men and women sometimes get into the same bed) – doesn’t she just remind you of a belch?” – Melody Maker

New Order’s Brotherhood: “I can’t decide.” – Melody Maker

I don’t mean to be rude, but…You may now stop wondering where Simon Cowell’s snappy takedowns came from.