What does it sound like?:
It’s not fair to blame Pino Palladino for all the excesses of the 1980s. He probably wasn’t the first to roll up his jacket sleeves, or wear a matador hat on stage, or think that drums should go ‘ptchoo’ instead of ‘thwack’. But he’s the reason why this bargain-bin classic remains firmly rooted in that cursed decade, along with trimphones, the C5, effective labour representation and colonial expansionism.
Pino’s fretless and flanged bass scribbles through Love of The Common People like a crayon across the face of the Mona Lisa. It wobbles like a weeble on a see-saw. It staggers like a drunk in a bouncy kebab shop. It writhes like an inflatable wraith outside a secondhand car dealer. On the originals of the soul classics that anchor No Parlez, the rhythm sections are nailed down to the groove. They play, they don’t spray. Pino is not so much in the pocket as all over the front of your trousers, like splashback piss from a tin urinal.
Young Paul does his best to find space between the gurgles. He’s also up against the Fabulous Wealthy Tarts, whose constant chatter frustrates his attempts to express himself. Imagine your auntie and her mate catching you reading Penthouse. It puts you off your stroke, but doesn’t completely ruin the experience. Young’s voice is surprisingly weedy, and pinched to inaudibility at the top of his range. I guess we just didn’t know any better back then.
What does it all *mean*?
Sometimes the first version you hear of a classic song become your definitive version. No matter how many more you hear, including the original, they will never surpass the thrill of that initial exposure. And sometimes you realise this is bollocks and some albums need to be buried at the back of the shop, and never spoken of again.
Goes well with…
Blue Stratos and Taboo. A Sierra Ghia 1.6L with ‘Paul and Elaine’ on the sunstrip. White socks and espadrilles. A glace cherry in a Basildon gutter.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
not taking themselves too seriously
oh that is just fantastic @Chiz. Excellent piss take on the current debate, some belter turns of phrase…and a pretty fair assessment of this record.
*ptchoo*
Splendid. I used to like that album BITD but is true it hasn’t aged well.
Who knew there was a Welsh fretless bassist called Giuseppe “Pino” Palladino!
When’s the Stephen Wilson remix coming out?
Blue Stratos – bit more Seventies wasn’t it, along with Brut and Old Spice?
Kouros, now that was the one…
Trimphones definitely belong to the 70s.
Whereas colonial expansionism is definitely from the 80s…. the 1580s.
Guys… there’s no such thing as a ‘bouncy kebab shop’ either. Not all of the above is 100% verifiable. It’s just something I tossed off in bed this morning
54321…
EDIT: This is exciting. The phrase ‘bouncy kebab shop’ has been used on the internet only once before, in a Land Rover forum in 2005. http://forum.landrovernet.com/showthread.php/41231-after-a-long-dry-spell?p=334171&viewfull=1
Also I suspect his bass was phased not flanged but I liked the aliteration. Oh hang on that would have worked too, wouldn’t it? Damn
Oh heck.
…it’s probably chorus…since it’s the ’80s…
yes, thank you, that’s probably it. I’d forgotten about chorus even though I used to use one. It might even still be out in the shed somewhere.
Brilliant.
Please post reviews more often
Only for albums you own though, like this one. No puff pieces. Don’t bow to the Man. 😜
If you are short for something, PM @Bargepole. I’m sure he can rustle up something for you 😉
Fabulous. A balanced and objective review. I will not be buying the album. Paul Young is what he is and poor old Pino should hang his head in shame.
Which is unfortunate because Pino is a super player. His contribution on Joan Armatrading’s Shouting Stage is sublime, understated but unmistakable. He also lends some fantastic live performances to John Mayer’s funkier, more up tempo stuff.
I never understood all the fawning fuss about PY’s voice BITd – it always sounded like a lot of wheezing and stretching for notes: uncomfortable to listen to let aong sing, I’d imagine. And Pino’s boinging bass – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you have listened to No Parlez JUST ONCE, you are almost certainly entitled to make a PPI claim.
If PY and Pino walked into your local, AttackDog, and you were there – with your fists, and a chilling memory of the 1980s – what would happen? 🙂
Funnily enough I have met Paul Young and his wife at a Hendon Health Club back in the ’80’s – they lived nearby.
The place was trying to position itself as an upmarket club with a fantastic restaurant attached – it was.
The preening idiot who invited Mrs Attackdog and I was very impressesed to be in their company – it was part of his gambit that ‘the Youngs’ were members – and so we were introduced.
Had I had my wits about me I really should have gifted him a copy of Rod’s Atlantic Crossing by way of celebrating the future.
(A few months later In a photographic studio in London I met an absolutely charming young kiss’n’tell ‘model’ who also knew a thing about our man. But the details are beneath Afterword standards, being a family oriented place and all that …..).
Saw him and his hobby band a couple of years ago. Comes across very well, chatted to my wife and signed a CD but his voice isn’t what it was. Not awful like that YouTube clip that often gets posted but he can’t get the high notes any more. I don’t think he really needs to work in the way other artists do. A mate has played bass for him sometimes and they go out pretty much for fun or when someone offers them a decent amount to play and puts them up somewhere nice.
You’re saying he’s not as paulyoung as he was?
I saw PY with the Q Tips and they were great. When he’s not doing that really high thing he’s got a nice soul voice. He’s also VERY tall. He stood next to me at the bar and towered over me.
I first saw Pino with Jools Holland’s Millionaires and just playing swing/funky blues he was fab. It’s the 80s again. There was something in the water which caused a taste bypass.
The funny thing is, when he plays with the Who all you notice is the pigeon-walking head movement; his bass is all but inaudible.
Nice one chiz. I remain unmoved by NP, but you’ve got me scouring the small ads looking at Sierra Ghias. Fond memories…
“What a mean-spirited post!”
Gorgeous. So much more enjoyable than Paul Young’s entire career.
Thank you for visiting the site, Mr Young!
Moose – look – see what I’ve got in my hand?
You nicked my Woodbines!
And was it mere coincidence that, following this album’s release, Hi-Fi manufacturers added graphic equalisers to their ‘stacks’ in order to allow bass trimming at home?
Well worth investigating is the 8 CD pack of unreleased demos and outtakes “Mo Parlez!”. There’s a whole hour of Ku Ku Kurama as we hear eleven attempts to run through the song – interspersed with fascinating near-audible studio talk between Paul, Pino and the rest of the gang.
The “Arthur’s Got Plenty” remix of Love of the Common People is another highlight as we hear the doof doof doof of the original 150 bpm monster Ibiza club hit slowed down and transformed into a cosy, chunky-jumpered Christmas hit.
Interesting too is the “Wherever I Lay My Hat” demo which featured school friend Paul Coia on the spoons. Coia’s contribution was cruelly shelved by a ruthless Paul Young who decided at the 11th hour that it wasn’t needed on the record, costing his friend millions in lost royalties.
Mo Parlez indeed. For shame. Ooh, you bad, bad boy.
“…fascinating near-audible studio talk between Paul, Pino and the rest of the gang.”
“That is a fuckin’ No 1! If that baaa-stard don’t go, then oi’ll fuckin’ retoire. Oi fuckin’ do!”
“You’ve got to spread some fookin’ fairy dust on it.”
“Pino, listen – it’s dubba-dubba-dubba-cha…”
I’m still waiting for this, haven’t seen it on Superdeluxeripoff or The Steve Hoff-men pages yet. Where is Ku Ku Kurama band?
This really really should be in Night’s In!! Whatever you say in your defence, duly noted, I was tricked, nay hijacked into reading this in Blogreading time, not Nightsinreading time, 2 areas I keep apart on strict sectarian guidelines.
Shame on you, sir, shame!!!
booooooDOWWW!
Me, I like the album quite a lot. Not least because I was mighty proud of myself at the time for finding out that “Love Will Tear Us Apart” was not another cover version of a Stax or Tamla B-side, but was actually a song by a goth band from Manchester! Not bad for a fourteen year old teenager in those pre-interweb times…
Joy Division? Goth?! Never, Madam – they were post-industrial, post-punk, post-paid and possibly post-coital but never Goth.
Well, to a a school girl in Morocco they WERE goth, especially if the fat bearded guy in the record store down by the harbour (right next to the “Betting, Exchange & Vegetables” shop) told her so. We didn’t know about “post-industrial” back then.
A Goth Band!
I think not.
When did random geometric shapes on album covers become de rigueur?
“Undercover,” released 4 months later had squiggly bits a-plenty, and I chanced upon an 1984 F.A. Cup Final programme the other day and, sure enough, it has pastel-coloured circles, triangles and squares plastered all over it.
Such puerile additions looked awful at the time, they look even worse now.
Not having done any research here, but I’d bet it was either Barney Bubbles or possibly Hipgnosis who got all the graphic designers excited by simple geometric shapes n’ squiggles (the Damned’s Music For Pleasure – 1977?)
Hipgnosis did those geometric shapes in the early seventies – but the style used on early 80s covers was mainly due to the influence of the Italian “Memphis” design team (even Barney Bubbles admitted to being “inspired” by their furniture design). They had everything in bright, mostly primary colors, simple geometric shapes and wide-spaced Futura typography. Their award-winning designs for everything from candle holders to coffee machines was quickly adapted by fashion labels like Fiorucci and Esprit, illustrators like Pat Nagel, and magazines like The Face and Tempo in Germany (even Rolling Stone fell for it eventually).
There’s actually a very nice, generous if unsentimental review of NP on the Then Play Long blog. The conclusion is that it’s ended up in so many charidees because it’s not the album people thought it was going to be outside of the three big singles.
I do actually own a copy and this almost made me want to listen to it.
A twitter chum buys copies all the time, and sneaks them into people’s homes (including a holiday home with a vinyl collection lacking this iconic platter) or sends them in the post once he’s tricked their address out of them*. Luckily the one I received had some skips, so I had a good excuse to bin it after one play (I ain’t told him, so keep quiet).
*I do a similar thing with Tijuana Christmas, so look out.
We should all sign those copies we see in Oxys.
It might clear those unwanted issues and energize eBay for a few months.
I heard Vic Reeves on Radio 4 saying that he used to do that with new albums when he worked in Our Price.
A mate of mine was given a large, garish Garden Gnome as a wedding present by a “friend”. The gnome spent the next couple of years being moved back and forth between the two houses. First of all, one party would find it on the front step in the morning but this quickly escalated to the gnome being hidden as fiendishly as possible, being discovered after several weeks when one party thought they were in the clear.
If only Paul Young lived next door – wherever he lays his hat, that’s his gnome.
You’re on fire today Colin!
Wherever he slays his cat, that’s his home.
Pretty sure “Somewhere in Norfolk” won’t work, @minibreakfast.
Phew!
I’m listening to it now and finding it rather agreeable. I do have a very high tolerance threshold for Cl*nky E*ght*es Pr*d*ction though but. Also I’m from Hull so Pino Palladino is great to say.
Wherever I lay my cat, that’s my home.
Dottie vainly trying to obscure her mum’s “note to self” there.
What a lot of revisionist hindsighted waspishness. It’s of its time, is the worst you can say about it, when lots of people who should have known better were buying toys from the local pedal emporium and making records that sounded like they’d been recorded on Jupiter by a cloth-eared Venusian with a bad Colombian habit.
I’ve actually got a copy of Between Two Fires, the later PY album with fewer covers and more original songs, and though it’s not likely to bother the turntable very often between now and, oh, the end of time, in all honesty it’s not really that bad, in a kind of Mike-and-the-Mechanics sort of way, and has more tunes than your average indie-angsty-speccy-drainpipes-chordy-thrashy band that gets on Jools six times a year.
You’re all a lot of naughty boys and girls who should know better.
Well said.
Mr Foxy, You may be right.
Enjoying a rare day off I dug through my DVD’s and found The Song Remains The Same.
Do you know what? There’s a bloke trying to play his guitar with a violin bow – a violin bow I tell ‘ya. It sounds shite. Even Pino never payed his bass with a violin bow.
Maybe Paul Young wasn’t that bad after all.
No. He was a twat.
I so enjoyed the singles that myself and an early Mrs Path, the prototype if you will, went to see him at the Odeon, New Street, then the pinnacle of Brum concertgoing. We were disconcerted by being, in our late 20s, the eldest people there, the majority being damp-knickered schoolgirls. It was good, but I recall having a crush on the, um, sturdier Fabulous Wealthy Tart, now apparently turned to Jesus.
I like the record but wouldn’t play it these days for fear of not.
Sturdier?
Ah, The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts. Their appearance on The Tube with Mr. Young was, ahem, seminal for lads of a certain age….
I saw them with Joolz on a highish stage. Being near the front was, um, advantageous. Angles etc.
“near the front” – hurrrr
Let us not forget the amusing pictures of Paul and the band at play on the inner sleeve
(“Shitterton – Have you ever?”)
Anyone know where I can get a copy – so rarely seen these days
Am I the only one who idly hums
🎵Come back and stay for good this time🎵
to himself, while daydreaming about assorted AW flouncers, evacuees, those performing some sort of hokey kokey with the blog and the kind of guys who are always on the roam?
Parlez avec nous encore!
And I am the one who then immediately joins in with,
“Brrrrrrrupp-bap-bup-bap-bup-bap-bup-bap-bup!!”
Does that make you my fabulous wealthy tart? I always had you pegged as two of those, so ✋️ on the hat trick
No, but I do change the words of his later hit platter to:
“Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you”
Me too.
Laurie Latham, the producer of this masterpiece, must be behind the fretless being slathered all over this. Pino just did what he was told. Listen to other Latham productions from around the same time, Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti by Squeeze and the first Christians album. Different bassists, same wibbly wobbly noise. Also keyboards with a wobbly pitch. Made me feel seasick.
An atmospheric thriller in which people are done in by a shadowy figure wielding a fretless bass.
A Pino Noir.
Are you here all week?
I’ll get me oddly shiny jacket.
That’s fantastic!
A sturdy wine with hints of blackberry, and heather on the finish. Goes well wiith red meat, Chicken Grease and One Mo’ Gin*: A Pinot Noir.
*D’Angelo references. I know, but there’s no songs referring to food on NP.
The aforementioned Ku Ku Kurama might be one of the reasons this album hit the charity shops and second hand places. I don’t think Young even sings lead on it, does he? Plus surely Dagmar’s turn will have scared the living crap out of most listeners. Plus the track Sex is just terrible.
The one thing all you reviewers fail to do is to include a clip to reference the supposed music you are reviewing.
Is “Tear your playhouse down” on this one or the follow up? That had a brilliant Pino baseline…..one of my many go to air bass songs.
That was on the follow-up album. By the way, I still have both albums on cassette which include bonus tracks and all those fabulous 12-inch mixes (which were even wobblier than the album versions). (It took the guys at Sony three reissues – and two separate compilations! – too issue everything on those new-fangled compact discs…)
The Secret of Association- actually a very decent album, much better than No Parlez.
Both albums on cassette. Commercial releases or copies ?
The CBS originals of course. And they still sound great.
Ive been playing cassettes of late, commercial release and copies and been surprised how good they sound . Decent tapes recorded on decent machines and not sitting in the sun on a dashboard mind you, but tapes nonetheless.
This is a bit of a non-anecdote, but the thread brought it to mind. When I worked at a music college its premises played host to a visiting ‘Rockschool’ syllabus examiner. Chatting to him, he mentioned that he was a bass player. Looking at him, my instinct inspired me to say, ‘Ah, and you play it up here, don’t you? (forming a swan’s neck shape with my right arm/hand, at chest height, over an ‘air bass’.’
‘Er, yes, I do.’
‘Pino Paladino fan?’
‘Er, sort of, yes…’
‘Is he not hopelessly overrated?’
‘Well, actually, I went to see him in a club last week and I was thinking, ‘Hmmm, he’s not doing anything I couldn’t do…”
Ah yes, the very definition of a fan: watching your hero in action and thinking “I could do that..”
Whatever happened to Rock School musicians/ presenters, Deirdre Cartwright. Henry Thomas and Geoff Nicholls?
The very epitome of purveyors of music utterly bereft of any emotional worth, but with ‘gear’ aplenty. A programme surely dreamt up by a man who owned a guitar shop and spent all his time with people who hung around in it, talking about their gear.
Funnily enough I went to a local jazz gig and Henry was the bass player.
I saw Deirdre Cartwright Group a few years ago (in the years BC), one track was great – so good, I bought a CD.
Dierdre Cartwright.
Guitar… punk hair… dimples.
mmmmm
and an original member of Girlschool
Henry Thomas is a much in-demand session player, and a top bloke too. Same for Alastair Gavin, the keyboard player who came in after the first series.
Great review. What surprises me most about the album is how the title track was written by Slapp Happy wordsmith Anthony Moore, who I wouldn’t have associated with chart topper Paul Young.
I’m playing it again. He’s got a good voice annee? And Mrs M will get the joy of me going round the house saying “Brrrrrrap bap bap bap bap bap bap bap!” for the next few weeks. Vocally, too.
I will certainly never tire of it.
I’ve just put it on again. The temptation to spring into the centre of the room, thumb flying at an invisible bass, was difficult to resist – so I didn’t.
(Yes I do know he probably didn’t use his thumb on the record)
Careful out there, kids – this could happen to you.
Seeing this Tweet returned me to this post. So I’m rebooting it, because it’s brilliant…. I’ve also shared it with the lovely Pete Paphides
40 years old this week – where’s the Super Deluxe Edition with extra discs of demos, out-takes and live performances, plus a cornucopia of pointless ephemera.
Is is disappoint …
Ooh, can it include an inflatable fretless bass for playing along..?
99 comments.
I think the review merits a hamper at least.
It makes me not want to listen to the album, not that I ever have done.
Over the line.