don't go breaking my heart

I was ten/eleven when 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' came out in 1976 and of course found it very enjoyable indeed, and I still really like it. It came into my head that I wanted to see that weird film clip one more time so I watched it on youtube this morning. The chemistry between Elton John and Kiki Dee is - not off, at all, but nor is EJ in any way connecting to KD on any level other than a 'come on, luv, we've got a job to do we've blocked out 45 minutes this morning to make this video and then I'm off to Paris' kind of vibe. For her part, KD seems even less into the whole schemozzle. 

I'm not saying they should work on their craft at all and I never needed to believe that they were in love or anything, but even as an 11 year old I could very clearly see that they were not trying to project that in any way, and that was interesting. You can watch it yourself any time. They are just miming in a recording studio (or a mock up of one) with a single microphone. They do a few goofy, surely entirely unrehearsed actings out of bits of the song, very inexpertly for professionals, almost awkwardly really but it's fine. The very weird bit is when EJ grabs hold of a strange little pocket? pouch? on KD's overalls and kisses it. That really is when we get into Mork from Ork/ ALF/ Uncle Martin kind of territory, and I'm not saying that as a gay man EJ doesn't understand how to caress a lady's overalls augmentation, but I am saying that it's so odd that everybody thought this was an adequate visual and fine to include in the clip even though it's just so perversely unlike the acts of humans. The attempts of KD to follow Elton's cheesy dancing at the end is even more crazy, you're like, all their inadequacies are laid bare for the world to see!!!

That said, it's a great few minutes, apart from anything else, what an incredible pop song and so buoyant. EJ wrote it with Bernie Taupin under a pseudonym (for some reason) and everybody involved has a right to be proud. It is a really strange clip though. 

Also I note with interest that EJ mimes the backing vocals some of the time, but KD never does, I wonder whether this means she didn't do the backing and she's just being literal, or whether, once again, the whole thing was so unrehearsed they just didn't even think about/talk about this. 

I think this song popped into my head because I am in a fb group called I grew up in Australia 60s 70s and 80s, and someone posted this: 

Lot of Elton in there. Well, I had to get out my The Book: Top 40 Research and check up on some of this shizzle because I just knew it was a US list. At least four of these songs didn't even chart in Australia, let alone make number one (Staple Singers; Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds; Doobie Brothers; Ohio Players). Additionally, there are at least three Australian releases that did make number one (Skyhooks, Bill and Boyd who by the way had two hits in Australia that year!!!) and Bob Hudson with the very unlikely chart-topper 'Newcastle Song'), obviously not on this list. 

So, another travesty of justice thwarted. The balance is restored to the world and we are safe. God bless me.

33 at 45

I have nothing to say about this Elton John album (it's the one with the 'White Powder, White Lady' song on it LOL and also 'Little Jeannie' or whatever it's called). I just thought I could launch into a post ruminating on the increasing obsolescence of references to gramophone record speeds in the 21st century when music  is no longer seen as a tangible item that goes at a speed. I actually misremembered this album title as '33 at 45' (I remembered the reasoning behind the actual title though: 'I've made this many albums at this age'). 

You know I understand the idea mastering 12" records, even albums, at 45 for sound quality but it also slightly annoys me, selfishly, because sometimes my turntable belt slips off and I think it's more likely to happen if I go back and forth between 33 and 45 too much, or indeed, at all. So various great records like the Waterfall Person album or my Rip Rig and Panic albums don't get much play. 

The first two Rip Rig and Panic albums were released as 2 x 12" 45s (the third was a standard 12" 33). I am not entirely sure what the rationale was, but I'd bet there was an element of Virgin records saying to the band, 'this is how much we love you, we're not going to invest in videos or anything (I wonder if they did? The only video I have seen of them is not really video, it's their appearance in The Young Ones) but we will double the manufacturing/shipping cost of your albums'. I assume the cost was not substantially passed on to the consumer - you can't really call these double albums. I do remember a time, incidentally, when quality was generally assumed and quantity was most important (hence all those budget-priced 'Golden Hour of...' albums, I guess) and I know The Numbers, oddly enough, bore the brunt of this when it was revealed that their first self-titled album was under 30 minutes long (which is why the second album's title sardonically references the playing time). I also recall people saying in 1979 when Lipps Inc's album Mouth to Mouth came out that it was only 28 minutes long (though Wikipedia says it's just over half an hour) and this was more scandalous than the fact that it only had four songs on it. Half an hour seemed to be the magic number for album length, despite the fact that you could feasibly fit 30 minutes a side on an album - well, just - but it would be quiet and of course the grooves would not be as deep. Nevertheless, the music industry profited for a long time from the weird scenario whereby too much music on a record was regarded negatively by 'serious' consumers (if the Lipps Inc album had gone over 45 minutes, it would have been seen as a different kind of scam, although that's a bad example of something 'serious' consumers would be interested in). Todd Rundgren, as always, is an interesting case though an outlier, once again as always. The first Utopia album, if I remember correctly, has a song that goes just over 30 minutes and takes up one side of the album. (yes I do remember correctly and here it is to look at not listen to:)

You can well imagine Todd working backwards from the knowledge of how much time he has to play with. Healing, which came out a few years later, came with a 33 rpm 7" single which was a case of 'uh oh, there was too much stuff to fit on one 12" record, had to give you this as well'. I bet the 7" went at 33 because there were enough snobs in the world who never used the 45 speed on their turntable - for all I know, there were turntables made that just went at 33, because people were such adherents to the snobbery of 33-dom. It's still messing with the form/expectations though because of the way Todd is toying with audiophile expectations (over 30 minutes a side?! does it sound tinny?) or that snob aspect ('ugh, a single'). Since you can't set and forget a single, and it has to be pretty fuckin' special for you to play it that often, there are certain expectations around it aren't there. That makes me want to play that single now - 'Time Heals' - sounds like Hall and Oates, a lot. Well, H&O and TR have shared geographical/generational heritage so that's not surprising. I played the other side and have already forgotten it, I'm sure that says more about me.

The other group who regularly turned to 45 as a speed of choice is Pere Ubu.

Song of the Bailing Man (above - I just noticed, some clever clogs trimmed off the first numerals in '10' and '11') was the first of their records to be mastered at 45, then David Thomas' Sound of the Sand and Winter Comes Home, the famous 'disappeared' album. 

After that it was back to 33s for Thomas/Pere Ubu material (or more commonly since then, CDs) but I do have a copy of Lady from Shanghai which is two 45 12"s. 

There are some other anomalies. I wonder what the reasoning was behind the way this Albert Ayler album was put together? I mean it's possible that someone figured the two variations on 'Ghost' should sit together so if you put an LP on, you don't have to listen to the 'same' track twice, although to be fair, if you're that into Ayler you're probably not going to grizzle too much about that. Looking at those timings - three tracks over 10 minutes, and only one track under 4 minutes - it possibly made sense to have one long disc and one shorter one (I'm not even sure you could have three sides at 33 - I could be wrong). I'd have to imagine that the 'EP' is not an 'EP' for audiophile reasons and the decision to master it at 45 was probably arbitrary. 

I'm going to assume that it was Public Image Ltd and Metal Box which started this schemozzle, and while I don't really know I am also going to guess that the idea of releasing an hour-long album as a three 12" 45s with one or two songs on each side was a statement in itself. The packaging was of course in part about getting away from convention in all kinds of ways, including the way in which you were expected/ the way you expected to play a record and how it would be 'sequenced' (though there were sides A-F, and 'Careering' was always going to come after 'Poptones'), unless you yanked your needle off or plopped it on in particular places). Of course once CDs came along with a random/programming function, that was all swept away

What is probably more/most interesting is the seriousness/ephemerality associations with formats. 45s were for kids/girls, and albums were for men/proper people. It's just incredible that people were unable or unwilling to view these prescriptive restrictions for what they were. But Nancy's trying to tell me something... what is it Nancy?

'Shut the fuck up'