Song 18: Bluetonic

Bluetonic - The Bluetones

There's a 90s British film called 'Shooting Fish' which was one of many shameless attempts to cash in on the '4 Weddings' dollar around that time. I don't, objectively, know if it was any good, I very much doubt it, I only watched it once, in the TV room in my hall of residence.

What I do remember is being rather bored with it at the start and then enjoying it very much by the end, to the extent of pretty much being persuaded it was a little classic. And I remember when and why that thought occurred to me - it had a dirrect correlation with the appearance on the Britpoppy soundtrack, while the protagonists were driving along in an open-top car, of the song 'Bluetonic'.

Frankly it's taken me a very long time to realise how thoroughly I can be manipulated into enjoying an average film by judicious use of jangly/folky/moderately-hip-but-not-too-hip music. Ryan Reynolds? Check! Badly Drawn Boy on soundtrack? Check! I'm in. I'm signed up. People must be paid a lot of money to find the right pleasant little indie song, and it undoubtedly can paper over any number of cracks in otherwise shoddy films.

'Bluetonic' is a damn fine pleasant little indie song. To me, in some ways, it defines "Britpop" in terms of what Britpop ought to sound like. It's jangly, tuneful, warm and wise. It served as a kind of manifesto for its progenitors, one of the very best of all middling bands.

I wrote about the Bluetones in a previous post, where I said I kind of used them as a benchmark for new hyped bands. If my reaction was "They're ok, but they're not as good as the Bluetones" (an unhyped, passe band) then they would not pass my test.

Well, the Bluetones are no longer just passe, they are now past tense, having played a farewell tour in 2011. I went along to Shepherds Bush and thoroughly enjoyed it - lead singer Mark Morriss' final word "It's up to you now to go out and tell the world that they missed a really quite good band" which is entirely genius.

Morriss, who has the wit and sharp banter of a moderately successful stand-up comedian, made various cracks about how all the old fans were coming out of the woodwork now it was too late, but they wouldn't have had to split up if we'd stuck with them. All good-humoured, but I felt bad, because that applied to me - I got the first three albums and the Greatest Hits and the odd single, but no more albums, for no other reason than that they weren't getting much press and the world had generally gone cold on them. Was my money really better spent on some of the other shite I bought between 2001 and 2010 - the Vines? Cosmic Rough Riders? Delays? Sorry, Bluetones.

But I shouldn't feel too bad for them. They had success, they had good times ...
They had hits. Really quite big ones, four Top 10 hit singles.
'Bluetonic' was not one of those Top Ten hits, but it was the one that set them up for it - the next single was the immense 'Slight Return' which made it to Number 2 in the surreal charts of early 1996.

Both songs are little beauties, but if I had to pick I'd go with 'Bluetonic'. It borrows (and gives writing credit to) a poem by Adrien Mitchell called 'Celia Celia' which goes

When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope is gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on.

The Bluetones made it

When I am sad and weary
When all my hope is gone
I walk around my house and
think of you with nothing on.

Which is beautiful. I should say they'd set that punchline up in the second verse with the first verse, which goes "When I am sad and weary, when all my hope is gone and I can't put my finger on the time things first on, I have a little secret I like to tell myself and until now I haven't told anybody else", which is in itself very nice lyricism.

And the chorus is just as good "There's no heart you can't melt with a certain little style, no challenge should be faced without a little charm and a lot of style". It's such a sweet, sly manifesto, says everything about the merits of just bobbling on, producing the goods but not overstriving.

I sometimes consider the difference betweem the UK and US music scene, how it seems to be that in the UK all the weight gets put on the first album or two and in almost all cases there is a sharp downward trajectory after that, whereas in the US, in cases like The National, say, Wilco, Iron and Wine, the Decemberists, bands don't really make it big till their 3rd or 4th album, so they've really had the chance to develop as a band and sustain success in that time.

With the Bluetones, their first album was a Number 1 hit, their second one less so, their third was really good but again, a little less successful, and then they were done for as a commercial enterprise.

It's funny, it was around 2001 that it came out, an I remember their look then was sharp thrift-shop suits, skinny ties etc i.e. the exact look that The Strokes would adopt a few months later and be hailed as style icons and the rebirth of rock'n'roll.

As Les McKeown says when the reunion of Creme Brulee doesn't work out for him in 'The League of Gentlemen', it's a shit business ....