On Thursday 28th January 1982, Associates released Party Fears Two.
Wait...what? Forty four years ago?!
Party Fears Two was the tenth Associates single and none of the previous nine had troubled the mainstream UK charts in any way, although they'd enjoyed some success in the indie singles chart.
Party Fears Two was the game changer for the band, a four minute poperetta showcasing Billy MacKennzie and Alan Rankine at the peak of their powers.
I wasn't alone in being completely captivated by Associates' debut performance on Top Of The Pops and Party Fears Two eventually peaked at #9 in the UK Top 40 the week of 21st to 27th March 1982.
Party Fears Two proved to be Associates' sole Top 10 hit; likewise parent album Sulk, which followed in May 1982, and it remains as powerful now as it did then, despite my having heard it thousands of times by now.
Party Fears Two is a song that only the brave or foolhardy have attempted to cover since. Fewer still - The Divine Comedy and Heaven 17 to name two - have had the balls to commit to taking their version into the studio.
I've included live performances by both, and a few more that I've discovered. None can surpass the original, but I think they've all managed to give a personal and affecting spin.
1) Party Fears Two: The Divine Comedy (Live @ The Barbican, London, 3rd September 2022) *
2) Party Fears Two: Heaven 17 (Live @ O2 Academy, Bristol, 1st December 2010)
3) Party Fears Two: Jess Brett (Live @ The Flapper, Birmingham, 12th March 2022) (buy on Bandcamp)
5) Party Fears Two: Øivind Hånes (Live @ Portåsen, Mjøndalen, Norway, 12th November 2020)
6) Party Fears Two: King Creosote & Session A9 (Live @ Celtic Connections, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 16th January 2010)
* There's another clip on YouTube which better captures the majestic 11-piece band accompanying Neil on stage, though be warned, it ends abruptly mid-song!
I love this song but 'Makes nonsense and turns to shark' is a lyric that should be quoted more often as one of the worst of the 80's...
ReplyDeleteThe irony being that I (and probably plenty of others) misheard it as 'Makes no sense and turns to shock', which makes more sense! I prefer the actual lyrics...!
DeleteAll worthy efforts but you can't improve on perfection
ReplyDeleteGilding the lily, CC
DeleteTune, utterly otherworldly
ReplyDeleteOtherworldly - exactly that!
DeleteI'll echo CC and Adam, and add that 'Sulk' is a work of genius, or to be more precise, is actually, it’s the work of two geniuses.
ReplyDeleteIndulge me to repeat my words over at TVV from June 2023:-
Sulk has songs that will have you leaping to the dance floor, and songs that will have you cowering behind the couch in fear. The production is outlandish and at times stretched to breaking point, but never ever snaps into overwrought pomp and pomposity. It’s a record which hasn’t dated….indeed, if anything it has got better with age. It’s an album that could only have been made in the 80s, as only at that point in time could the music industry have really indulged the artistes to the extent they did. And there’s no way that Billy and Alan would have become pop stars in the 21st Century, as their essential rough edges would have smoothed down to make them mundane and mediocre.