80s Cup R1M13 - Hightea 11-17 Ranking Ted

[Penk!]

A

Fad Gadget - Saturday Nite Special



B

The Passions - I'm in Love with a German Film Star

[Jumper K]

Gotta go with B. Even the ultra-creepy intro didn’t put me off.

[Deebank]

That guitarist just got a new delay pedal... Did The Passions ever do anything else of note?
I was expecting more from Fad Gadget...


B

[toomanyhatz]

Kept waiting for A to go somewhere. It never did. Well, the a capella outro was nice, but it was too little, too late. I feel like I've heard some Fad Gadget I've liked. This obviously wasn't it.

Not that B is much better - once again 30 seconds of ideas somehow stretched out to 5 minutes - but it's at least slightly beguiling in parts.

[Polishgirl]

A has one advantage; it isn't B.

A

[GoogaMooga]

Fad Gadget is the Punch and Judy Show where the kids can't sit still, it is devilishly boring in a tinkly sort of way, very smug and cheeky, and we need a bit of that by now. A

[Belle Lettre]

B

[The North Yorks Moors]

Simon Bates! B

[Penk!]

Like others, I have heard the odd thing I like from Fad Gadget, but can't really get with this. It sounded more like an amusing album cut stretched out far too long.

B did the BCB rounds some years back and I've always liked its dreamy FX overload.

[Nick Danger]

B

[Rayge]

Well, here's something that hasn't happened in a cup for a while, two singles I own(ed) and played a lot up against one another.
a - this is longer than the single version, and I don't know if the extra two minutes adds much. But I still find it charming, especially with the piano up front. And while it is walking pace, it sounds more like a stroll through a wildlife garden than a funeral procession. No sense of portent, or striving for meaning, just a few minutes in a nice place. And the voices on the outro are a total delight.
b - I was all over the female-fronted British post-punk bands, and I was very fond of the Passions, bought several of their early singles - Hunted, Skin Deep and the Swimmer were all pretty good, arguably as good as this – and the Michael and Miranda album, but then I dropped them. I can't remember the exact details, but I seem to remember Barbara Gogan had a bit of an ego fit, and him with the echoplex guitar, Clive someone - Timperley, I looked it up – left. It's not as good as I remember it, and points lost for making me watch Simon Bates.

A (nice one Mercer)

[Darkness_Fish]

A (nice one Mercer)

Not guilty yer 'onner. Genuinely!

(I'd have gone for "Ad Nauseum" from Gag anyway. I think I might have been given a kicking in a past cup.)

[The Modernist]

I remember Fad Gadget being Stevo's pet project, but he always seemed like a chancer posing as an 'artiste' and this track confirms that. It has SELF IMPORTANCE written all over it in huge gothic script, from the pointlessly elongated intro to the laughably affected vocal. A bit of pretty piano really isn't enough to compensate.
B has been around the BCB cup block a good few times, but it's still a thing of wonder for me. As beguiling and mesmerising as the day I heard it.

Easily B

[Rayge]

A (nice one Mercer)

Not guilty yer 'onner. Genuinely!

Fair enough - still a cracking tune, mind

[Dayodead]

A

[Purgatory Brite]

B the Passions transformed from white reggae to a new romantic style. I remember them well.

The best choice for Fad Gadget, who made much better records than this.

[Diamond Dog]

The Passions track is of those that appears on every single 80's compilation album. Whatever it has though is spread very thin.

Whereas the Fad Gadget is terminally dull shite.

A

[Darkness_Fish]

I bloody love Fad Gadget, I might as well put that right out up front. I even had that face emerging from the darkness on the cover there as my avatar on a music forum for a bit. I don't actually dig this album out that much, I much prefer the bigger, fuller sound of Gag, where Tovey basically showed Depeche Mode how to dominate the world, and hung up his synth to become a folkie. Not sure why this is getting abuse, it's reminiscent of the better stuff Bowie was doing around The Man Who Sold the World, just without the clunky guitars. It's delicate, playful, and quite dark, properly light on its feet.

Christ, I thought Simon Bates was going to give her life story and break into our tune there. "The Passions, with a lady singer called Barbara ,who writes great songs. Unfortunately, Barbara can't be with us today. Barbara has a condition known as microsentesis, which means that she's allergic to anything larger than a malteser...". I'd forgotten the existence of this song. Again, a touch of the 4ADs about it with the whispy vocal and echoing guitar delay. But that's about it, isn't it?

A

[Ranking Ted]

Fad Gadget is a name I knew but I've never knowingly heard them. This is ok as a bit 'second side filler', really. Against it is a copper-bottomed doom-pop belter, pretty hard to top. I just realised that they are very much indebted to Seventeen Seconds era Cure but no matter - its very much B.

B

Oh, and hoping for more TOTP clips in this Cup too.

[Samoan]

abstain