45 REVELATIONS

45 REVELATIONS

KEN BARNES

BY

It’s not as if I haven’t seen it coming. But the 7” 45 revoiution-per-minute single is welt and truly up against the wall now, and, as the Beach Boys once prognosticated about Wendy’s new boyfriend, its future looks awful dim.

Part of me, the part that squirrels away thousands of 45s and attempts to write a column about them, against the tide of all American music journalism in the last two decades, is upset. Abandon the single—the pure symbolic essence of rock ’n’ roll, the standard-bearer of its history, from "Rock Around The Clock” and “Heartbreak Hotel” to “Be My Baby” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand’’ and “Grapevine” and “Anarchy” and “Good Times” and—you get the picture? The 45 soared to popularity the same time rock ’n’ roll did—can they survive without each other?

Sure they can (rock ’n’ roll, anyway). Through all the emotion, I can understand why the 45 is obsolescing. Technology is passing it by. 12” singles sound better. CDs sound better still. Cassettes are more convenient (and portable) than vinyl.

And nobody’s buying 45s. For several years single sales have been an unreliable indicator of a record’s real impact. Smart radio stations track 12” sales, cassette/album/CD sales, music tests with listener samples—all providing a clearer picture of what’s happening. Sales on pop and rock (and country, especially) singles are dismal. Dance and R&B customers buy mostly 12” discs.

Singles fell victim to the same mentality that made AM radio terminally unhip, that influenced otherwise sensible people to believe “progressive” art-rock was rock’s mature state and pop was trivial bubblegum. The album became the standard by which an artist should be measured; singles were just spinoff baggage, a concession to the hoppers who didn’t know any better.

And even the hoppers, the last bastion of single-buyers, are abandoning the configuration. Portable tape players make cassettes a better bet. A lot of kids don’t even own turntables.

Without kids, the last bastion becomes record collectors, but no matter how many picture sleeves and non-album B-sides are plastered on singles, there aren’t near enough collectors to keep the 45 on sound economic footing.

Let’s not forget economics here. Would you rather earn a profit off a $12 CD or an $8 cassette or a $1.98 single? The nation’s big record chains are clear on their preference, and they’re forcing the record companies’ hands by closing out 45s at a rapid pace. Even if labels want to keep pressing singles (which they don’t; the profit margins—and the returns—are not cost-effective), there won’t be many places left to stock them (mom & pops and specialty stores almost exclusively).

There is a paradox here, though. Stores and labels want to sell people albums, cassettes, CDs—collections of material. But people have always responded to single songs, and that seems to be even more the case today. You’ve read some of these points here before, but they bear repeating.

Radio plays single songs, not albums. Even AOR stations, with their heritage as album-oriented rockers, rarely play more than one current cut a time by any given artist. MTV and other video outlets air videos constructed around single songs, not albums. The impulse to buy a record comes from hearing/seeing/being attracted by a single song.

The trick is to translate that consumer impulse to own an artist’s song into the act of buying a collection of that artist’s material. Without a con^ figuration for the single song to entice the cautious buyei? that may not be so easy. People are so frequently disappointed by albums that don’t measure up to the single they’ve heard. With most big artists’ contracts forbidding “coupling” (anthologizing their hits along with labelmates’ hits), album-length compilations of current hits only don’t seem to be a feasible alternative.

And if people get burned too many times on substandard albums, they may resort to home taping instead—or give up on buying music altogether.

Maybe the cassette single will play a role. I don’t know if they’ll prove practical to play, but I wish any single-song configuration well. CD singles would be even better; they could even be fun to collect. But the 45 single as a commercial proposition is doomed, with consequences unknown.

So what am I going to write about? I’m not worried. Independents, small labels, imports—all will keep the 45 alive for a while. And even with U.S. major labels, there will continue to be “emphasis cuts”— radio, video, the entire industry is geared to them. Promotional singles will continue for a time, which will keep me reasonably happy. As long as music is marketed via (and people respond to) the single song, the pop tradition will live on, and I’ll have something to write about.

I don’t have much room to write about anything this month after that outpouring. First, a few passing remarks on current (April ’87) hits. I underestimated Jody Watloy’s “Looking For A New Love” recently. Yes, it is a rather cold merger of Janet Jackson and Madonna, but it’s also an inescapable smash, with monster riffs, tons of hooks and catch-phrases (yeah yeah yeahs and hasta la vista babies galore), and even the frills (chain gang grunts, piano breaks) are arresting. Star time.

I’m still not sure how to explain Bon Jovi’s success, but Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me” seems clear—it’s basic glitter/bubblegum formulas overlaid with heavy metal trappings. The ghosts of the Sweet howl through its bones, and it’s kinda fun. Same for the Cult’s “Love Removal Machine,” the perfect synthesis of "Start Me Up” and Zep’s “Communication Breakdown.”

Better get to the Single of the Month before I collide with the end of the page. It’s “Just A City” by the wonderfully-named Voice Off The Beehive, an L.A. sister duo transplanted to England and teamed up with a couple of Madness alumni. A dreamy rock waltz laden with guitars and harmonies, it calls to mind the romantic side of the Pretenders. The flip sides are noteworthy, too—“I Walk The Earth” is sort of Banglesmeet-the-Kinks (“You Really Got Me” era), while “7 Shocks” has a bit of the B52s sound the band’s name suggests, but much more mainstream.

The Prlmltlveo’ “Stop Killing Me” is a blithe bubblegummy female vocal rocker with buzzsaw feedback, which turns out to be a highly workable combination—a peppier, poppier Jesus & Mary Chain.

Julian Cope’s “Trampoline” is no match for the sublime “World Shut Your Mouth,” but the more I hear it, the more it stands on its own as a primegrade rocker. Rip side “Disaster” is almost a sea chantey, and a weird one at that.

In the last couple of months, Tom Verlaine has had two UK 12” singles, each with a pair of non-LP B-sides. Both A-sides are first rate, “A Town Called Walker” featuring Verlaine’s paradoxical mixture of jagged vocals and stunning guitar sounds vocally like Lloyd Cole in spots, which is certainly ironic enough. (Also check out the wild guitar on B-side “Call Me The.”)

Billy Preston says outa space. More next month.