Records

Rip It Up, Issue 149, 1 December 1989, Page 29

Records

THEWONDERSTUFF Hup : ' (Polydor) : It's hard to know whether the Wonderstuff got left behind somewhere or if they're just content to exist outside of time, They dealin tradesperson-like, guileless pop songs of the kind that go “verse - chorus - verse” etc until you remember where you heard that tune before. That format is by no means unviable for bands who have something to add to it, but rather than attempting to stretch the limitations of the genre the Wonderstuff attempt to make a virtue of the limitations themselves, flaunting what everyone’s gotinstead of whatis uniquely their own. Thus the House of Love have their diaphanous shiver of other worldliness, the Wedding Present their furious awkwardness, butthe Wonderstuff are left with a kind of grubby English solidlity, with thick, reassuring guitar chords and vocals that sound like Robyn Hitchcock without the Syd Barret affectations. Occasionally they try something slightly different, be it wah-wah pedal, violin, or mildly funky rhythm, it always seems like an. afterthought, a paranoid aftemptto make one song sound different from the next. ' : The lyrics are affected similarly. Morrissey-esque whimsy is repeatedtly attempted, but always restrained by laddish social realist vulgarity. I been 30years in the bathroom,”sings Miles Hunt, and he and his mates laugh uncontrollably into their halves of cider. Of course, the safety in melodic familiarity approach is bound to yield one ortwo pop classics. Both ‘Radio Ass Kiss’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Down Gently’ may endanger your social credibility by having you singing all the way to the bus stop, but if a nagging chorus line is all you want from music then you may as well stock up on Rick Astley CDs and Kingston Trio bootlegs. The Wonderstuff are living proof that whoever started using terms like “no-nonsense” and “"down to earth” as compliments is going to burn in hell. MATTHEWHYLAND LIZA MINNELLI Results (Epic) There's no business like show business and no-one has a finer grasp of that famous old adage than pop’s

supreme ironists of the moment, the Pet Shop Boys. Betraying their apparent deadpan, diffident stance, Messrs Tennant and Lowe seem besotted by the old-fashioned, intoxicating glamour inherentin songs delivered by a potent female voice. Having gifted Dusty Springfield two of the handful of decent songs she's managed to produce ina tragically barren decade the Pet Shop Boys have now turned their talents fo an admittedly more unlikely figure. That Liza Minnelliis a star really goes without saying. She was born into the show-business ethic and inherited a tragedy; the lonely and dissolute death of her mother Judy Garland. Minnelli has one of those names that resonates aform of stardom that most of us can only gasp at. lt doesn't matter that she hasn’t made a halfway decent film since 1972's superb Cabaret(what about New York, New York, huh 2- CT) or that she spends much of her working life inthe glitzy, eternal twilight zone of Las Vegasand itsilk where well-heeled punters fork out small fortunes in search of afatuous show (You've beensucha wonderful audience). No, Liza Minnelli isa starin the time-honoured, antiquated (if you will) tradition and it's this as much as her ability as asinger which drew the Pet Shop Boys to her. On Results Minnell demonstrates just what a great singer she is. She has one ofthose gloriously resonant voices where abilities like the phrasingand timing of the lyric are just intrinsic. The production throughout s wide-screen and epic in dimension and on Stephen Sondheim's ‘Losing My Mind" her voice responds intuitively to the grandiose, melodramatic flourishes. The . accentuated angst falls this side of camp. The rendition of Tanita Tikaram's Twistln My Sobreity’ draws out all the sinister manipulativeness latent in the original. The PSB’s own ‘Rent’ has its Thatcherite dogma mouldedinto something altogether more reflective and on the two closing tracks Tonight Is Forever and 'l Can’t Say Goodnight, Liza confirms that when it comes to conveying no-holds-barred torch songs, there's not many who come near her. As unlikely as the combination may initially seem, the Pet Shop Boys and Liza Minnelli have produced a wonderfully offthe wall fusion of 80s disco and timeless torch singing.

GARTH SEEAR