Ian Wade's new book 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer is many things - not least an endless source of delightful facts.
Did you know, for instance, that the tiger in the infamous video for Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Relax' was the same one that featured in the Esso ads?
Or that when Frankie first appeared on Top Of The Pops in January 1984 to promote 'Relax', also on the show was Frank Kelly, later better known as Father Jack in Father Ted, performing a song called 'Christmas Countdown'?
Or that Bobby Orlando, NYC-based high-energy pioneer and producer of the Pet Shop Boys' first songs, wrote a book called Darwin Destroyed trashing the theory of evolution?
Or that in 1987 the Sun claimed that Elton John had "had his pet rottweilers' barks removed"?
Throw in pithy profiles, astute analysis, honest appraisals and a memorable turn of phrase (the members of Bronski Beat, who all moved to London, are described as "three Dick Whittingtons of cock") and you have a romp of a read. Buzz review here.
I can't quite decide whether it's unfortunate or serendipitous for Wade that heavyweight music author Jon Savage has just published The Secret Public, which tackles similar subject matter but effectively concludes where Wade's book concentrates all of its attention. Hopefully, The Secret Public's much broader focus means that both can exist comfortably, each a companion-piece to the other.
Savage's England's Dreaming - on the Sex Pistols and the first wave of punk in the UK - is regularly (and rightly) cited as a titan among music-themed tomes, and he's taken a similar approach to Wade in the past, identifying a single year as a critical point/watershed in pop culture. This latest publication is a reminder that 1966 is still sitting on my shelves waiting to be devoured.
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