Review Summary: Synthpop for the thinking man…
Distinction is important. It’s all well and good performing a genre exercise but what’s the point in listening to something you’ve heard a million times before? To have a niche or a hook that separates your band from the others is nearly always a smart move (provided its pleasing in some way) and fortunately for Heaven 17, they had a couple of nice tricks up their synthpop sleeves to make the Sheffield lads stand out from the early 80s crowd.
Heaven 17 are a synthpop band with a slight but jarring difference - their lyrics are written with overt left-wing political values in place - different from countless other electro-pop units of the same time who wouldn’t think twice about jotting down lyrics for anything other than simple phonetic pleasantry. If the repetitive vocal chorus , “Brothers, Sisters, we don’t need this fascist groove thang” being belted out by Glenn Gregory on the opening track doesn’t give it away, then perhaps you’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself. The song (amongst others on the album) is undeniably left-wing - the opposite of the ideals of the Thatcher led Conservative party in power at the time. The song was banned on Radio 1 by disc jockey Mike Read for being ‘overtly political’ and whilst he was right to label it as such (to some degree) he missed the point somewhat. Sure the lyrics dealing with nuclear war, religious extremism and the rise of the ‘Yuppie’ have some thought provoking meat to them, but its the catchy electro hooks and funky basslines that command the most attention.
Its danceable synthpop with a message behind it, but its far from negligent on the music front. Consider the history of the band: the 2 musicians in the group were key members of defining synthpop outfit, The Human League up until 1980 whereupon they left (citing dissatisfaction with the direction the band was moving in) to form a short lived instrumental project, titled B.E.F. Both The Human League albums and B.E.F.’s debut have seen a fair amount of positive critique and influence over the years, and with good reason. Marsh and Ware knew exactly how to get interesting sounds out of the synthesisers they wholeheartedly adopted and it’s no different on ‘Penthouse and Pavement’. Aside from the groovy hooks on the title track and few other numbers, most of the album actually treads on more arty, experimental ground with the long bleep-bloop intro on ‘Geisha Boys and Temple Girls’ and the excruciating rumble and churn of the distorted electronics on ’We’re Going To Live For A Very Long Time’ being prime examples of the albums twists and surprises.
‘Penthouse and Pavement’ is a very self-assured debut from a band that want you to think almost as much they want you to dance, and with the 9 tracks on their debut (re-issues and re-masters have added a few more bonus tracks) they’ve done a rather stellar job. If Heaven 17 hadn’t quite hit their stride completely on ‘Penthouse and Pavement‘, they had at least picked the shoes in which they’d walk with total confidence just over year later in the follow-up, ‘The Luxury Gap’ in 1983.
[Side Note - The album also features in the book: ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die’. I haven’t read that book so I can’t comment on its objectivity, but each album has a short essay written by a professional music journalist explaining its inclusion on the list, so that might make the album more worthy of listen if you’re pondering it…]
