Overload (Ronco, 1982)

Review
Friday 11 June 1982.
Larry Holmes v Gerry Cooney.
One of the most eagerly anticipated boxing matches ever. As it wasn’t starting until 3.00 or 4.00am (can’t remember which), RTE 1 decided to screen The Deer Hunter once the Late News had aired. In those days, closedown normally took place around midnight so this was a rare treat to watch ‘tv through the night’. Quite a few schoolboys stayed up and most of us in two channel land watched The Deer Hunter. Unfortunately the movie broke down half way through and RTE re-screened it the following night. The fight wasn’t bad either.

By the end of the month school was out for the summer and Ronco released Overload. It contains 22 tracks squeezed onto 67 minutes of vinyl and is essentially a snapshot of the UK charts from May 1982. A time capsule with a Mike Score lookalike on the sleeve. An apt start: taken from the Hunter LP, Blondie’s underrated Island Of Lost Souls. The promo video was filmed in the Scilly Isles, amid rumours of a coke-fuelled set. Enter Yazoo. Only You was written while Vince Clarke worked out his last days in Depeche Mode. A gentle, melodic tour-de-force with Alison Moyet giving an all time great debut performances.

Get into the groove: Toyah’s stirring Brave New World. This now reminds me of a Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, Ian Livingstone’s The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, even though that wasn’t published until 1983. Then Haircut 100’s evocative Fantastic Day, later to pop up in the midst of 60s and 70s tunes on Now That’s What I Call Music – The Summer Album. Elsewhere you get Roxy Music’s smooth silk harmonies of More Than This coupled with Depeche Mode’s The Meaning Of Love, spiky synth pop that was omitted from the vinyl version of The Singles 81-85. We slide into a slick jazz groove on The Band AKA’s Grace sadly shorn of a minute from its 7″ mix which pales in comparison to the full length 12″.

81-82-83-84: Simple Minds’ Promised You A Miracle. It contains a brash, pop edge with a swagger that perfect bridges the point between atmospheric new wave and full-0n stadium rock. The accompanying album, New Gold Dream, remains their artistic pinnacle. After eight killer tunes in a row, we’re derailed by the knock-off rockabilly of Rocky Sharpe And The Replays. But redemption comes from The Beat, the perfectly-pitched Sooner Or Later. Side 1 ends on a sombre note; A Little Peace by Nicole, winner of the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest. West Germnay. Watched it by the fire while drying my hair after the weekly bath.

Still talking douze points, The Netherlands was represented by Bill van Dijk, with Jij En Ik. It flopped. Meanwhile Fantasie Eiland, which had finished second in the Dutch national final, was picked up by British record producer Tim Friese-Greene, recorded in English (as Fantasy Island) by the group Tight Fit, and became a top 5 hit. Lost souls, ABBA on speed. To the epic I Won’t Let You Down, sung magnificently by PhD and Jim Diamond complete with awesome organ finale. Stray back into the disco zone with Hot Chocolate’s uptempo Girl Crazy before one of UB40’s meanest grooves, the hypnotic Love Is All Is Alright. And full of eastern promise are Japan on the enigmatic Cantonese Boy. “Bang your tin drum.”

Kim Wilde’s View From A Bridge was the second single lifted from Select, a tale of suicide from a flyover. Its sombre subject matter contrasts with Bardo’s One Step Further, the UK Eurovision entry that sounds like Elvis Costello fronting a female Attractions. Judgment is permanently reserved on The Goombay Dance Band’s Seven Tears, a poor man’s Boney M. Meanwhile the mysterious Rokotto see For The Broken Hearted reduced to 1:26. And just when you thought Overload was fading, out fizzes Clare Grogan and Altered Images, the gorgeous See Those Eyes. And for their final trick, a understated 45 from Fun Boy Three, The Telephone Always Rings. The sound of Madness meeting the cast of Grange Hill. A1.

Favourite tracks
Depeche Mode – The Meaning Of Love

The Beat – Save It For Later

PhD – I Won’t Let You Down

Lest we forget
Japan – Cantonese Boy