The Associates
Billy MacKenzie (most lyrics, all vocals, eventually everything)
and Alan Rankine (most music and all instruments except drums) -
once attempted brilliance, but later settled for playing at being
clever.
The Affectionate Punch boldly tried to stake a claim
for some of the no-man's land between Bowie's theatrical, tuneful
rock and Talking Heads' semi-abstract, intellectual dance
approach, with a slight flavouring of the pair's native Scottish
traditional music. Not fully mature, and sometimes almost burying
its own best points, the band seemed a promise of riches to come.
Unfortunately, the Edinburgh-based duo veered off in a more
art-conscious (at times wilfully obscure) direction, with harsh
musical textures often dominating the melodies. Fourth Drawer
Down, a compilation of singles, gave the somewhat redeeming
impression of determined experimentation that was lessened by the
exclusion of certain B-sides in favour of later tracks which
revealed Mackenzie's growing preference for pose over
accomplishment.
By Sulk, the talent seemed strained under the weight
of MacKenzie's self-consciousness. Rankine's emphasis on keyboards
over guitar was symptomatic of the defection away from rock and
towards a sort of neo-pop, but the melodies were hindered by tinny
sound, arrangements that muddled rather than clarified and vocal
excesses that made Bowie's worst sound tame.
The US edition subtracted three cuts, inserting instead a pair
from Fourth Drawer Down and two subsequent singles. On
the eve of its first major British tour, the band splintered.
Mackenzie then completed an album with Martin Rushent that WEA
rejected in 1983; some of it emerged two years later on Perhaps,
which sounded like Heaven 17 or The Human League making
undanceable dance music.
A surprisingly strong new single, Take
Me to the Girl, emerged later in the year, and (shortly after
it flopped) was re-released on a five-track 10-inch, combined with
a remix of Perhaps and three live cuts recorded in London
that found Mackenzie crooning heartfelt if histrionic versions of
songs like God Bless the Child and The Little Boy
That Santa Claus Forgot.
Four years and another rejected LP (The Glamour Chase)
later, Mackenzie re-emerged with a non-LP EP and, the following
year, a garish Eurodisco album, Wild and Lonely. The
five-track Peel Sessions EP (from April 1981) contained
rougher, rock-oriented versions of 1981-1982 material and would be
highly recommended if it actually included Me, Myself and the
Tragic Story (which was listed) instead of the far inferior Arrogance
Gave Him Up (which wasn't).
Popera compiled nearly all of the essential material
(including a track from The Glamour Chase and a song
recorded with Yello) from The Associates' seemingly deliberate
anti-career, resulting in the group's most satisfying and wildly
schizoid release ever.
Upon leaving the band in 1982, Alan Rankine moved to Brussels,
working extensively with Paul Haig and releasing solo albums. She
Loves Me Not, the only one of his efforts to be issued
outside of Belgium, offered clever dance-pop and impressively sung
balladry, a smooth and appealing concoction akin to mid-period
Thompson Twins but dolled up with a bit of continental suaveness.
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