The
Associates –
The
Glamour Chase &
Perhaps
2 x CD, Compilation, Remastered,
2012
Warner Strategic Marketing
Alan
Rankine left because he couldn't deal with the world of Billy
Mackenzie, and therefore Billy had to do it alone, of sorts. Rankine
couldn't be replaced, nor should be replaced, because his talent was
too great and what he offered was a solid right-hand figure for the
Billy voice. But his leaving didn't make it a disaster, in fact
perhaps (no pun intended) it opened up Billy for more adventure.
After Sulk
he went as far as he could in that direction, and like a tense rubber
band being pulled back, it had to snap back. So what we hear after
Rankine, is the rubber band's going smack against the forehead.
The
Glamour Chase never
officially came out till this collection was released in 2012.
Recorded in the early '80s Mackenzie for whatever reason never
finished the album, yet he used the songs in future collections or
albums. It's a solid work for him with quite a few masterpieces in
my opinon. “Take Me To The Girl” is a haunted melody and lyric
that is both clever, lovelorn, and sexual at the same time. “The
Rhythm Divine is a powerful slow-down rhythm (done with the Swiss
band Yello) that's torchy as well as merky in its undergroundish
feeling of dread coming up in a nightmare of some sort. But the
strangest song is “Country Boy” which sounds like it was written
in Munich before the war. A love of the country life? Billy was
known to be drawn to the hills of Scotland, but this has a tad of a
touch of Fascism in it. Perhaps its a very controlled
nature.
Perhaps
has
the classic Billy ballads. “Those First Impressions,”
“Breakfast,” “Don't Give Me That 'I Told You So' Look” and
the title song are seemingly beautiful. Similar to a great Bowie
ballad, these songs are more straight forward. Still smart, but very
heart felt – and even a tad tender. But there is a bit of a cad
approach to love, and it can be directed to a man or a woman. At the
time very romantic for the New Romantic, but a tad real if one is
bitten by the bittersweet of fainted kisses.
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