Blancmange are one of those bands who are often lobbed into the bracket of ‘80s one-hit wonders’, and while its true that they’ve only had one really big hit, and that it was in the 80s, it hardly a fair assessment of their career. For a start, they’ve been going since the late 70s, and are still not only going, but continue to release new music. Any act that can sustain a career over the duration of more than forty years clearly has more going for it than one song. Besides, many acts achieve lengthy careers without any hits at all, and the point is that having a hit is a rare feat, when you consider how much music is released, how many singles there are and have been and will be. Logistically, what are the chances of having a hit? But there’s another thing: acts who have multiple hits often have their careers reduced to a single song when it comes to compilations and radio play, which is to massively misrepresent their output. You’d think Duran Duran only ever scored a hit with ‘Rio’, A-Ha’s sole hit was ‘Take on Me’ and The Cult’s only tune was ‘She Sells Sanctuary’. Historical warping does many acts a huge disservice.
Blancmange have been pretty savvy in maintaining their profile in recent years – happy to accept slots at various 80s lineup nostalgia-fests and retro bills like Shiiine On (or ‘Shiiite’ as I refer to it to a mate who attends every year, while grudgingly acknowledging that there’s enough on each day of the event each year to keep me occupied if I went) and play on the ‘80s hit’ status while filling the rest of their set with new material.
‘Everything Is Connected 1979-2024’ is a truly career-spanning retrospective which marks a remarkable 45-year career. That they’ve managed that landmark is absolutely incredible, and this epic collection provides evidence of why.
The early stuff is quintessential quirky 80s electro, sitting somewhere between Depeche Mode and Talking Heads. It smart, savvy, and supremely arty, and it’s easy to forget just how revolutionary this style of synth pop was in 79-81, since it didn’t really break through to the mainstream until a couple of years later. ‘Feel Me’, their second single, released in 1982, offers up a dark groove, the likes of which Depeche Mode wouldn’t hit until circa ’85. ‘Living on the Ceiling,’ also from their debut album in ’82 sits comfortably within their early oeuvre, and hearing it in this context makes it success seem even more incongruous – but it’s got a good beat, right? And that nagging Eastern-inspired synth line.
‘Waves’, the first single off ‘Mange Tout’ – their most successful album and only one to hit the UK top 10 (‘Believe You Me’ would only make number 54 the following year, and that was pretty much the end of their charting career)– is a sweeping string-soaked slice of sad pop that marks parallels with Pulp’s music from around the same time – although no-one was really interested in Pulp in 84. If including the 12” mix of this single’s B-side seems like an odd choice, it’s worth pointing out that it’s a cracker, and on a par with The Pet Shop Boys at around the same time in terms of deft and nonchalant synth pop. Only Neil Arthur’s vocal delivery has so much more emotion than Neil Tennant, it really grips. ‘Blind Vision’ hit the top 10 in 83 but has seemingly been eliminated from history, as has the frantic ‘That’s Love, That Is’; it may have only hit #33, but is sharp and innovative, landing in the space between The Associates and early Foetus.
It’s clear from this collection that Blancmange never set out to chase chart success, but to simply make music of an exploratory nature. ‘Vishnu’, the flipside of ‘That’s Love, That Is’ was way ahead of its time, hinting at the kind of pan-cultural chillout music that Enigma and The Beloved would take mainstream some years later, while at the same time coming from the same well of synth innovation as Kraftwerk and Chris and Cosey post-Throbbing Gristle. It serves as a reminder of just how much of a melting pot the early 80s was, and it was a truly unique period in musical history, never to be repeated.
‘Don’t Tell Me’ brings instant recognition with its Erasure-esque buoyancy, before the theatrical ‘The Day Before You Came’ brings a combination of dark Eurovision theatricality and the most mundane kitchen sink lyrics. It’s truly a work of genius, and the fact is marked the start of their rapid decline in chart single success is more a comment on the mainstream record-buying public than the quality of their output.
This becomes ever more clear over the rest of the release, and it’s worth bearing in mind we’re only a little over halfway through the first disc. ‘Lose Your Love’ (1985) has hints of The Psychedelic Furs and would likely have been a bigger hit if the video hadn’t been banned in the UK and only gaining light exposure in the US. But this is how the dice rolls.
‘I’m Having a Coffee’, ostensibly about domestic normality – and housework avoidance – is daft and simple and ultra-mundane and so Sparks-y and Pulp-y in many ways, and once again shows just how deft their songwriting is.
They’re still sharp on disc 2, too, which represents their post-reunion output after a 25-year break, reconvening in 2011.. ‘The Fall’ is built on a glitching synth loop, and ‘Last Night (I Dreamt I Had a Job)’ comes on like Joy Division – in particular ‘Dead Souls’, although the title connotes The Smiths’ ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’.
The later works are interesting in that they don’t mark a radical departure but an evolution on the earlier work. They may not be not as intense or frenzied, but are no less solid in quality, and if anything the lyrics get progressively sharper, more pointed. ‘What’s the Time’ points the way toward the advent of The Sleaford Mods with a relentless motoric beat. They swing between dreamy (‘We Are The Chemicals’) and pulsating (‘Distant Storm’ goes properly Donna Summer) and never cease to do different.
As ‘Clean Your House’ and ‘Commercial Beak’ indicate, they remained rooted, and have kept it real throughout their career, and ‘I Smashed Your Phone’ is a dark standout among their later works.
‘Everything Is Connected 1979-2024’ is a document of a criminally underrated act. If you’ve not been keeping up, you’ve been missing out.
