The Spinners -- "It's A Shame" (1970)

The Spinners were one of the Philly Sound super groups of the 70's, recording for Atlantic Records and working with songwriter/producer genius (yes, I know it's that word) Thom Bell. However, before they were on Atlantic, they recorded for Motown and this was not only their first hit, but by far their biggest and maybe only hit for that label.

What is so distinct about "It's A Shame" is that it's early Stevie Wonder written-and-produced. Lately, I've been reading former Rolling Stone magazine editor Ben Fong-Torres' compilation Not Fade Away, where he interviewed Wonder in early 1973. His album Talking Book had come out the year before, Innervisions was on its way, and for the first time, he carried a lot of clout at Motown. Wonder explains that even though his first production credit was on the Signed, Sealed and Delivered album, the first actual production gig he did was this Spinners single.

The "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" single was the musical reference point for "It's A Shame," both featuring ringing sitar-like clean guitar leads, in-the-pocket grooves from in-house bassist James Jamerson, and a kind of pumping drum playing, which I am not sure was Wonder himself or one of the "Funk Brothers."

I didn't even realize that "It's A Shame" was the one and only Spinners single to feature lead vocalist G.C. Cameron because I always knew the group's lead singer was the great Philip Wynne. But Cameron remained at Motown and married Berry Gordy's daughter when the Spinners split for Atlantic Records. You hear it's the Spinners, you assume it's the same guys, but it turns out not to be so.

In Fong-Torres' interview, Wonder explains why groups like The Spinners left Motown: "Writers are so important. I think a lot of our artists could have been more successful if they had other writers, besides Holland-Dozier-Holland, because then they would have found their identity -- and that's what everybody needs." He elaborates later on: "It's difficult to be a sustaining power for a long period of time. It's like a person comes out with a beat, and you keep on doing it and doing it and riving it into the ground."

Of course, the irony is that the Spinners spent years under Thom Bell's wing, producing a long series of soul classics.

While the Spinners will be mostly remembered for those Atlantic hits, "It's A Shame" is as much a big party song as its "Signed Sealed and Delivered" template, with those chiming Fender rhythm guitars, popping horn arrangement, and the group echoing "sha-ame" during those verses.

I've got a few videos in honor of "It's A Shame." The first is a straightforward video tribute soundtracked with the single, and another from 1989 featuring G.C. Cameron doing his remake of the song on a Detroit TV show (and you can easily tell that he's got the lead voice of the single). The third is really an appreciation of what Motown bassist James Jamerson did in songs like "It's A Shame," so here is a one-minute shot of a talented guy playing Jamerson's part, and you can see there was a lot going on across that fretboard, you may not have realized it. That dude put some swing underneath this great song.

The Pet Shop Boys -- "So Hard" (1990)

The Penn and Teller of the English synthpop world had released a number of great singles but hit the jackpot with the Behaviour album in 1990. Where the duo could have picked all kinds of big name collaborators, they chose German musician/producer Harold Faltermeyer, whose biggest claim to fame before that was composing and writing the "Axel F Theme" from Beverly Hills Cop.

The Pet Shop Boys represented a striking confluence of disco and DJ culture, gay subtext, and artsy pretensions. Former Smash Hits magazine editor Neil Tennant sings in a slightly nasal tones, pretty much devoid of emotion, but carrying a melody quite well and full of irony. Their lyrics had sort of a journalistic bite, alluding to gay relationships, dependencies ("Rent") and trysts, but never quite giving it all away. They had an unquestionable devotion to the art and artifice of pop music, and often celebrated it in their songs and shows.

The Pet Shop Boys present an interesting contrast with the just-discussed New Order. Both created dance music and relished their 12" extended remixes, but that's where the comparisons ended: whereas New Order incorporated a lot of live instruments into their music, the Pet Shop Boys were all about the synthesizers, and a lot of them.

Whatever the music skills of the Boys, they always made a point of teaming with the best synthesizer and drum programmers as well as remixers in Europe, notably Julian Mendelsohn and Shep Pettibone early on. However, Behaviour was a real tour de force of analog synth programming, layered, EQ'd and arranged brilliantly.

"So Hard" opens with a short flying percussion pattern, some introductory kicks and spacey pads. The kick then goes straight 4/4, the hi hats move in, a woosh of a keyboard, giving way to the throbbing synth bass line and a minor key Fairlight riff. The instrumentation is definitely house music-based, lots of little hits and bleeps quantized in time with the groove. The narrator is again in a frustrating relationship, and as if often the case with The Pet Shop Boys, playing head games:

I double-cross you and you get mysterious mail
I've tried hard not to shock you
It's hard not to with the things I could say.

Tell me why don't we try
not to break our hearts and make it so hard for ourselves?
Why don't we try not to break our hearts
and make it so hard for ourselves?

You lock your letters in a box
and you've hidden the key
I go one better - I'm indebted to a contact magazine.

Tell me why don't we try
not to break our hearts and make it so hard for ourselves?
Why don't we try not to break our hearts
and make it so hard for us?


The Pet Shop Boys put angst to a disco beat. The song's break delivers it in spades:


Everybody's got to live together
just to find a little peace of mind there
If you give up your affairs forever
I will give up mine
But it's hard
so hard.


The group's best album coincided with their first major tour of America, one which I caught with my then-girlfriend (later wife) at Radio City Music Hall. I use the term "concert" loosely here because there was nothing traditional about it -- it was closer to theater and performance art, with numerous costumed dancers and players, a lot of pre-programmed synths and drum machines, and Tennant and Lowe casually moving in and out of the scenery, very much keeping with their low-key composure.

And Harold Faltermeyer? Despite the success of Behaviour, that was his last major commercial harrah.

Below is the official video, a strange black and white number shot around Newcastle in the UK. With various scenes of two couples having found outdoors, playing pool and pinball, the Boys appear like mysterious ghostly figures, Tennant singing with total ennui and Lowe not saying anything and sometimes just staring into space. They are accompanied by what look like bulky black bodyguards everywhere they go. If I put my English majors cap on, I'd say the PSB are the guilty consciences of the foursome, motioning blankly like the cats that ate the rat. By the video's end, it seems that one guy is checking out the other girl, and gets slapped for his trouble.

By the way, if you enjoy the Pet Shop Boys, you owe it to yourself to investigate the Pet Shop Boys Song-By-Song Commentary site, "Interpretations and Analyses of Every Song Written or Performed by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant" by Wayne Studer, Ph.D.

New Order -- "True Faith" (1987)

It took me a considerable amount of time to get into New Order. Yes, I know they rose from the ashes of much loved Manchester cult rock group Joy Division (whom I never got into) and their "Blue Monday" single was supposed to be a ground breaker. Still, nothing really clicked until my brother got this double album of remixes, greatest hits, re-recordings and the new single "True Faith."

That song broke crossed over into the mainstream and was featured on the soundtrack of the Michael J. Fox "Bright Lights Big City" movie, so by this time, I was surrounded, really. I was smitten with three songs from this album -- "True Faith," "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "Perfect Kiss."

As a latecomer, the only New Order albums I ever bought were the last two -- "Get Ready" and "Waiting For The Sirens' Call" -- and then about two years ago, I dug back and bought "Technique."

In the age of CD singles and downloads, compiling New Order's singles works just fine for me. I've listened to them enough to appreciate and admire the dance music they pioneered, and why they sound so different than other bands. New Order struck me as a rock band who preferred to work with popular 4/4 kick drum on the beat and hi hat playing 16ths dance rhythms of disco, rave and electronica. Even war horse Quincy Jones signed them to his label in the US, so he was hip to their sound and popularity.

"True Faith" has all the trademarks I've gotten to know about this band...

* The song title is never in the lyrics. As catchy as the whole "True Faith" melody is, the lyrics are rather introspective and depressing. On one hand, they appear to be about escaping a dark childhood (My morning sun is the drug that brings me near/To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear/I used to think that they day would never come/That my life would depend on the morning sun), while I've heard another interpretation of it being about breaking free of heroin addiction. Either way, a great example of heavy sad lyrics with a bouncy tune and you can dance to it!

* Peter Hook's bass. Like John Entwhistle, you can not mistake Hook's live electric bass in the songs. First of all, hats off to these guys putting a live bass in a musical genre that always featured synths doing the job. Hook's bass has this hollow, scratchy tone in a dark reverb, very much played as a strong melodic instrument rather than just "holding the bottom."

* Bernard Sumner's acoustic guitar playing. Another instrument usually not associated with the dance music genre, yet he strums it hard and feverishly and it works. A-ha employed it in their "The Living Daylights" single discussed earlier. Done the right way, the chords ring out over the synths beautifully.


Below are three "True Faith" videos: first is the original one from the single, done by French director Philippe Decoufle and winning all kinds of praise when it came out -- it certainly has a subtle surreal flair with its opening face slaps done to the beat. The second is the band performing the song live at 1998's Reading Festival. As you can see, there was a lot of simplicity in what New Order did -- basic synth pad chords, straightforward acoustic rhythm guitar, live drums -- no show-off virtuosos really needed to make audiences dance. And the final is a very fine well-edited video of the outstanding Shep Pettibone 12" remix.