Astral America by Apollo 440 popped up on my playlist this weekend, a tune I've not heard in a while. I think I'd only seen the video once only release in 1994, so it was over to YouTube to find it.
It's very much a mid-90s beast, full of jump cuts, rotating camera, archive news footage and on-screen soundbite slogans. And so much PVC that the sound of squeaking must have nearly drowned out the music itself.
I was an early adopter of Apollo 440 because it featured Noko (aka Norman Fisher-Jones) who had been Howard Devoto's foil in Luxuria a few years previously, a hugely underrated (and sadly commercially unsuccessful) band in my opinion.
Apollo 440 had built up interest with their remixes of Scritti Politti, U2, Banderas, Holly Johnson and EMF and an early run of singles, but without denting the UK charts. Fifth single Astral America was a very clear and direct attempt to do this, with synth parts riffing on West Side Story's America and lyrics ("A God-shaped hole in a God-shaped land", "Blow me away like J.F.K.") that could have been ripped from The Jesus & Mary Chain's songbook.
It worked: Astral America was Apollo 440's first single to crack the UK Top 40 singles chart (for one week, at least) in January 1994, beginning a run of hits throughout the 1990s.
No comments:
Post a Comment