‘Clean and very young'

Press, 12 January 1981, Page 14

‘Clean and very young'

From the “Economist,” London.

The Beatles are paleozoic. ;..:Punk is jaded. The new /sound, reverberating around seedy but seminal ’•Soho clubs, is that of Spandau Ballet. "I am beautiful and clean, and very, very young” says the band’s hit single. To cut a long story short” currently number five 'in the charts.. The. song is the battle hymn of Britain’s ,latest social cult, known variously as the Blitz Kids, the New Romantics, the Now Crowd, dr — confusingly — ••the cult with no name.” Mr Robert Elms," a former student of the London School of Economics, and the selfstyled “official historian” of the “feeling” (it’s not yet a movement),. ■ says young people are “rejecting the depression ;df their redundant fathers.” Spandau Ballet has certainly doiie that by signing a six-figure contract, with the Chrysalis record company. , Punk’s nasally-sited safetypins are ' is m: 'snappy ..short,, hair cropped at the sides but lavishly coiffed; off;top'.' ! The ■

“feeling” started a few years ago in London with about 200 or so art students, hairdressers and a smattering of students (to theorise) swarming around such London night . spots . as “Blitz,” “St Moritz” and “Hell.” Off 7 shoots sprang up in unlikely parts: in Cardiff (die Tanschau) and in Birmingham (the Rum Runer). But this year, powered'- by the success of Spandau Ballet, interest has flowered: the circulation of “The Face,” the glossy narcissistic monthly organ of the “feeling,” is now about 60,000. Spandau Ballet’s music consciously rejects the black American roots of rock and roll, trying to develop its own European traditions. As the name suggests. German ", ideas, particularly from the Weimar period, are very important to the cult. Parallels have been made< with’, the “Neue Sachlichkeit” movement. The cult’s intellectual ideas are very Nietzschean, though. Mr Elms admits that most fans would think “Man

and Superman” was the comic strip-hero. The cult has nothing to do with the style-less skinheads of the neo-Nazi National Front and British Movement. But its pre-Nazi inspiration sometimes slips over into the Hitler period since its not-too-historically-literate followers fancy Wehrmacht gear. One Manchester band took its name, Joy Division, from the Jewish girls who serviced the Nazis in the concentration camps, and dressed 19405-style; they did not like the fascist reputation they then, unfairly, acquired. The band broke up after the lead singer, Mr lan Curtis, committed suicide in May. The cult hallows ambiguous sexuality: Mr David Bowie, the-rock star “gender bender,” is a key hero.. Surprisingly, Mr , Christopher Isherwood is also revered: Mr Richard Jobson, lead singer of The Skids, dons Oxford bags after the' style of the author of “Goodbye to Berlin.” ■