The consummate Remedy album – The Head On The Door – is an eclectic brew that secured their transition from post-punk doom-mongers to bona fide pop stars and stadium fillers.
This author will always remember his treasured copy of Now That’s What I Name Music! 18 on double tape cassette, proudly attained on his sixth birthday. That small plastic case contained a humiliation of riches that, wanting again now, would underpin a lifelong obsession with searching down the proper pop tune: There She Goes, It’s My Life, Suicide Blonde… However the final earworm that at all times set the cumbersome Walkman rattling to life was a monitor titled Shut To Me. Nestled in between Sting and Neneh Cherry, it was a sonic bolt from the blue: a ridiculously infectious ditty, full of hooks, immediately accessible, but notably kooky and onerous to put: the naïve, throwaway nursery rhyme-like hook contrasting sharply with the eerie, strained vocals, panted in hushed whispers. It was wholly unique: cute but creepy.
Curiosity piqued, a fumble by way of the internal sleeve revealed its makers, accompanied by a thumbnail photograph of a bizarre wanting man with massive hair and smudged lipstick.
It was solely a few years later that its true significance grew to become obvious. Removed from the scrumptious novelty it first appeared, it was a calling card of probably the most influential bands within the historical past of standard music. Because it occurred, the mum or dad album to which it initially belonged, 1985’s The Head On The Door, provided up much more gems. Any album that opens with the elegant In Between Days is off to a greater begin than most. Whereas that’s a troublesome act to observe, the standard is maintained all through its 10 concise tracks, every as immediate and unusually alluring because the final, showcasing the numerous faces of The Remedy.
Good Entry Level
The Head On The Door is the proper entry level into the Remedy canon, containing a little bit little bit of all their signature strikes in an simply accessible format: jangly pop (In Between Days and Push), exoticism (Kyoto Track and The Blood), post-punk electro (Screw), straight-up pop (Shut To Me), and, after all, unbridled doom (Sinking). No matter your favorite flavour, you’ll discover it on The Head On The Door.
For his or her sixth studio album in six years, such a dive headfirst into the mainstream would have shocked many, given the trajectory The Remedy had been on just some years prior. Following their sprightly 1979 debut, they’d carved out a defiant sound, bringing fringe cult standing with their doom trilogy: Seventeen Seconds (1980), Religion (1981) and Pornography (1982) – every new launch extra uncompromising, bleak and dirge-like than the final.
In the meantime, inter-band relations grew as fractious because the music, culminating in close to implosion. Within the making certain fall out, Smith busied himself because the Banshees’ new guitarist, little doubt having fun with the relative anonymity of sideman. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a reshuffled Remedy served up one thing that had been notably absent of their earlier output: whimsy. 1983 standalone single The Love Cats noticed them vamp it up with a camp, kitsch, Disney-inspired jazz pastiche. Though Smith would quickly dismiss it as “a joke”, it offered the sunshine reduction desperately wanted at that time; and it offered. 1984 single The Caterpillar adopted swimsuit.
The Head On The Door continued the development wholesale throughout the whole thing of an album. Smith later described this sudden change to a poppier sound as liberating; a type of catharsis to counter the heaviness hanging over earlier information. In fact, Smith’s model of pop continues to be splendidly bizarre, idiosyncratic and unnerving.
Splendidly Bizarre
Components that one would possibly dismiss as throwaway are the snags that ensnare the listener, earlier than bludgeoning them with the lyrical assault. Smith’s lyrics are nonetheless routinely indirect, like unusual, visceral snapshots of desires or nightmares. Having taken their outdated sound so far as it might go (for now at the very least), his willingness to take contemporary dangers demonstrates an rising confidence as a songwriter.
The band has at all times been a revolving door of acquainted faces, centred on the one mounted level of Robert Smith. Nonetheless, it’s not coincidental that the largely stabilised line-up he established with The Head On The Door led to their most persistently profitable run. The place earlier album, 1984’s The Prime had been virtually a solo effort, with Smith monitoring many of the devices himself, he had now discovered a band capable of carry his widening imaginative and prescient ahead into a brand new period.
The traditional imperial section line-up was secured with returning cohorts, bass participant Simon Gallup and guitarist Porl Thompson. Porl was additionally key to the visible aesthetic, designing most of the sleeves and swirly script, together with the surreal distorted photograph of his future spouse (and Robert’s youthful sister), Janet, on this album.
Crucially, it was the primary studio outing for brand new drummer Boris Williams, who had joined on the earlier tour, having just lately labored with the Thompson Twins. He beefed up their sound significantly with the pounding rhythms current on all their massive hits all through the late 80s and early 90s. Williams has the honour of introducing the album with that thunderous drum fill that opens out into In Between Days. All through, he produces delicate shifts and thrives that add color to the beat, at all times propelling it forwards. If Smith was the artistic visionary of the songs, Williams was the driving power of the information.
Taught & Crisp
Whereas it’s the primary time Robert Smith is credited as the only composer, it’s very a lot a collective effort, with every of the members including tangible character to the preparations. He’s since acknowledged the importance of this band’s chops, and clearly the injection of oomph spurred him to up his personal sport.
The opposite constant determine in The Remedy’s business transition was producer David M. Allen. A protégé of Martin Rushent, they’d labored collectively on The Human League’s Dare – a precision-tooled manufacturing triumph that fascinated Smith. Whereas the band had lengthy invested in constructing ambiance and depth on document, Allen offered the means to craft extra subtle and razor-sharp preparations, typically with a definite electro twist. On this document extra so than another, Smith mastered the artwork of utilizing the studio as an instrument, with dazzling outcomes.
Nice lengths have gone into sculpting the person components, so that each sound uttered on that document is deliberate although delivered with a lightness of contact. A lot of The Remedy’s catalogue is characterised by ambient, washy, reverb-laden doomscapes. However, by and enormous, the manufacturing on The Head On The Door is taut and crisp, giving a way of closeness.
In stark distinction to these lengthier information, wherein one monitor blends into the subsequent in a single lengthy continuum, every tune is imbued with its personal signature sound. Very similar to The Creatures’ 1983 document Feast, the album takes cues from world music, flirting with unique sounds from Japan to flamenco. Whereas different makes an attempt at such eclecticism of their profession (The Prime and Wild Temper Swings) ended up sounding considerably unfocused, The Head On The Door maintains a robust sense of cohesion. All of it meshes collectively as a physique of labor, albeit extra akin to a singles assortment.
Unmistakably The Remedy
Regardless of spawning two of the band’s largest hits, The Head On The Door is usually missed in The Remedy’s canon, pushed apart for these massive, weighty inventive statements like Disintegration, wholly worthy of the adulation heaped upon them.Whereas hardly a ‘misplaced’ document, The Head On The Door is seldom afforded the identical diploma of reverence. It’s neither epic nor singular.
However The Head On The Door just isn’t slowed down by such qualms. It’s contemporary and snappy. That’s exactly what makes it each immediately gratifying and enduring some 40 years later. There’s no much less integrity; the darkness is solely punctured by occasional rays of dazzling, multi-spectral gentle.
In fact, to pit one model of The Remedy towards one other is to overlook the purpose. Their lasting attraction owes the whole lot to that double life, pivoting forwards and backwards between crushing doom and uplifting whimsy; counteracting an excessive amount of of 1 with a wholesome dose of the opposite.
Time has come for The Head On The Door to be celebrated because the pop masterpiece it’s. The Remedy would go on to have extra commercially profitable albums, however The Head On The Door laid the foundations to transition from cult post-punk curios to bona fide – albeit awkward – pop stars.
It’s their tackle a jukebox assortment, displaying them at their most creative and eclectic, whereas remaining unmistakably The Remedy. Not the “promote out” that some would possibly profess it to be. It’s merely success on their very own phrases. Solely The Remedy might get away with an album with tracks so cute and cuddly with lyrics coping with paralysis, loss of life and turbulent nightmares; a scrumptious mix of childlike surprise and nihilism in a single neat package deal.
The Songs
In Between Days
Considered one of their most recognisable tracks, that is The Remedy at their most breezy, uplifting and life-affirming. Although lyrically, it’s laced with a way of craving and remorse of dropping a love, it carries an amazing sense of optimism, as if, nonetheless dangerous it would really feel proper now, the whole lot goes to be simply wonderful. It’s partly this bittersweet, upbeat melancholy which has led to many New Order comparisons. It’s been coated a gazillion instances, by everybody from Kim Wilde to Korn, however none can compete with the pure majesty of the unique.
Kyoto Track
As alluded to in its title, Kyoto Track is a distinctly Jap-inspired monitor, taking affect from the music of Japan, with the chiming riff and crashing drums. You may hear the Banshees affect, however it’s slower and extra brooding, skulking alongside on a Gallup bassline, whereas sustaining a really clear finger on the heartbeat. Whereas the manufacturing is slick, the lyrical imagery is harrowing: “A nightmare of you/ Of loss of life within the pool/ Wakes me up at 1 / 4 to a few.” That is then juxtaposed with the refrain, proclaiming that “It appears to be like good, it tastes like nothing on earth.” It mines that traditional Smith ambiguity; you’re not fairly positive of the morality of the narrator, however it’s thrilling nonetheless.
The Blood
The world music exoticism continues with an brisk flamenco work-out, full with lightning quick, percussive, rhythmic acoustic guitars, snappy castanets, and shrill shrieks from Smith. The sounds conjure up the picture of Smith strolling down a dusty monitor within the noon solar, earlier than stumbling right into a tumbledown bar, straight out of a Spaghetti Western. Lyrically, it attracts on Catholic imagery, as Smith is drawn to the iconography of the blood of Christ.
Six Totally different Methods
Considered one of many showcases for The Remedy’s secret weapon and new boy, Boris Williams. A deliciously jaunty monitor that journeys and stumbles over itself with bouncy piano and a squiffy, unconventional time signature on the drums. The signature piano riff was really lifted from the Banshees monitor, Swimming Horses, which Smith had co-written the earlier 12 months. Like Shut To Me, it has a type of flute-like keyboard riffs straight out of a youngsters’s TV theme. Then in comes that traditional synth string line, a attribute of The Remedy. The manufacturing is beautiful, abounding with luscious ear sweet, from the fairground piano swirls to the satisfying tom-tom fills. Once more, it’s The Remedy at their most whimsical and uplifting. An utter pleasure from begin to end.
Push
A complete change in vibe and top-of-the-line intros in The Remedy’s canon. In anybody’s canon. Shimmering, jangly chorus-laden guitars dance up and down the fretboard, Gallup’s signature punchy bass sound pulses, then these thundering drums from Boris Williams kick in. Push is like the very best bits of In Between Days, Simply Like Heaven and Friday, I’m In Love melded collectively into an prolonged instrumental Remedy megamix. In different phrases, it’s completely ace.
It’s virtually a full two and a half minutes earlier than Robert Smith lastly shrieks “Go! Go! Go!” in sync with the instrumental hits, in exalted launch. It’s the monitor with the best sense of momentum, and essentially the most bombastic ‘rock’ tune on the document. It’s tempting to suppose it takes a little bit inspiration from Bruce Springsteen’s widescreen guitar anthems on Born In The united statesA. the 12 months prior, although that’s maybe not a comparability Smith would instantly welcome.
The Child Screams
Opening with an electronically processed arpeggiated sound, the expectation is an proto-rave membership banger. Then it launches right into a nagging piano riff coated in delay, round a easy revolving four-chord development, pushed alongside by Gallup’s bassline and driving skittish drums. Smith wails (in the best way that solely Smith can wail) over a repetitive association. Cue extra summary allusions to desires within the lyrics, although with an ominous repeated line, commanding the listener to “strike me lifeless”.
Shut To Me
That infectious beat. These handclaps. That bassline, like the beginning of an outdated, long-lost Motown traditional. These claustrophobic, breathy vocals, stuttered out like an unique percussion instrument. The plinky-plonky riff. The little flute riff. It’s so sparse, but appetising; so taught and exact. The only model boasts that great rasping horn part, although this isn’t current on the album model. Smith’s hushed vocalisations are pure ASMR. It’s a masterclass in minimalism and restraint.
A Night time Like This
Subsequent, a extra typical band sound; moodier, extra akin to the ambiance they’d discover additional later, on the majestic Disintegration. It has that weighty sense of foreboding and doom, however the drums preserve it pushing forwards. A screaming sax solo courtesy of Ron Howe provides one other dimension to the sound. Although it’s essentially the most ‘meat and potatoes’ monitor on the album, in comparison with the razor-sharp sounds elsewhere, it’s an amazing tune, and stays a dwell favorite. Its simplicity is its energy.
Screw
Once more a complete sonic shift from one tune to the subsequent. This penultimate monitor is constructed round a completely stonking fuzz-bass riff from Simon Gallup. One other cracking earworm, and essentially the most aggressive monitor with an extreme-Nineteen Eighties city avenue sound. Structurally, it’s essentially the most underdeveloped monitor, and the shortest on the document too. All of the taut, built-up pressure of the verse by no means will get the discharge into an enormous poppy refrain that will push it over the sting. However that’s simply nitpicking. So far as grooves go, it’s top-notch, and certainly crying out to be sampled by Public Enemy for some hard-hitting hip-hop.
Sinking
A crashing piano sound echoes out right into a gradual, funky groove on the drums, constructed round a skulking chorus-laden bass riff from Gallup, a spacey, reverb-y piano motif, after which the massive luscious, all-encompassing synth strings. As Smith utters the road “I’m sinking”, devoid of all hope, oodles of delay repeat the phrase round and round over itself, like a swirling whirlpool. Then as he wails “I’ll by no means really feel once more”, it reaches a nerve-tingling climax. With its lengthy, drawn-out intro, completely loaded with pressure, this monitor basically units the template for Disintegration. Robert Smith clearly listened again to it and determined, “Yeah, that was nice. Let’s do an entire album of that.” 5 minutes of drawn-out doom. It’s successfully the soundtrack to the apocalypse; however by some means – it being The Remedy – these artful bastards handle to make the prospect sound so darn interesting.
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