Jimmy Somerville, The Communards and Bronski Beat Rule the Gay 80s

DJ Bifford Michael rocks the words once more. Glad he's here for us wanting the real story. He knows music and especially UKs top of the charts. Here he goes...

Who remembers The 80s?

There was nothing on TV like "Queer As Folk" no "Will and Grace" to show us we weren't freaks. No Gaga or Kylie out there to champion us. No gay/straight alliances in school to turn to, no chat rooms, no apps to help us meet. No Obama to say we were normal. We were all by ourselves... Well, we had Boy George but let's remember, he wasn’t talking. And we had Steven Carrington from Dynasty but he was always back and forth between some boyfriend that would eventually be killed and Heather Locklear. Pretty much, we were on our own!

I often try to remember how I first heard about gay pop stars or where the idea of pride came from and it all seems to aim straight back to Jimmy Somerville.

THE BEST OF

SMASH HITS MAGAZINE!

I remember buying a copy of Smash Hits Magazine at Cat’s Records in Nashville, Tennessee. I was used to the covers being glamour pin-up boys like Spandau Ballet or Duran Duran but this issue had three guys on it. Three very normal and average looking guys called Bronski Beat. At some point sitting at the bar in my kitchen under a fluorescent light very late at night while snacking on some peanut butter and crackers I got around to the article about these new pop stars from the UK and learned they were gay. There was no playing around. They said it.


A quick run to the record shop for the vinyl 45 they had out "Smalltown Boy" made it even more true. They were SO gay and SO singing about gay things. The song and video were stunning, stark, real, raw and honest. The video hurts to watch. Why can't boys admire or speak to other boys like a boy would a girl it made me ask. Why was the punishment for this so-called crime to be beaten (there was no term like hate crime or fag bashing even back then) and to be tossed out of your home by your parents. This was real. This was heart-breaking. It was honest. To this day the song gives me chills and the video is near impossible to sit through.

RARE IMPORT!

SO FABULOUS

The album seemed to take its sweet time coming out. The Age Of Consent. It was near perfect. A blending of Jimmy Somerville's falsetto crying out against an electro-pop dance backbeat and it was UNAPOLOGETIC in its homosexuality down to the inlay that laid out the actual ages of consent for gay sex in every country in the world. The cover featured a pink triangle. The songs were about men loving men. The opening line of second single "Why?" was “Contempt in your eyes when I turn to kiss his lips." I remember dancing wildly about my bedroom to the feelings that this track set free in me. The anger, the passion, the anguish, the fear. Had I been old enough to get to a gay bar I assume that the floor was packed with like minded people experiencing the same things.

A door was open. Finally.

This album wasn't all dead seriousness though. I first learned what camp was when I heard its amazing medley of "I Feel Love/Johnny Remember Me." If there is a more gay collaboration than this on record I haven't found it. Soft Cell's Marc Almond and Jimmy Somerville go insane in the most fabulous over the top piece I had ever heard. I would play it for friends who were at times both frightened and put off by it. But I understood it and that made me feel part of the club!

Sadly, Bronski Beat and Somerville weren't to stay together. A remix album followed by a non-Jimmy CD was up next for the group, meanwhile Jimmy was about to take the work he started in Bronski Beat to new levels with his new collective The Communards. Primarily a duo of himself and Richard Coles, but featuring a wide variety of female vocalists and band members. First release was the orchestra heavy love song "You Are My World." To this day one of the happiest songs of all time. If you’ve been in love you can relate to every word. It's just a true joy and there's boy pronouns in it!

The group's self-titled debut album was classically leaning gorgeous full-bodied pop with a danceable edge. It's videos were full of gay images. It was all about men who loved men. It's members were out and proud. Nowhere was this pride displayed better than on their number one cover of disco queen Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way," a ten minute plus EPIC that shook dance floors and smashed all chart walls. Some of the earlier singles had stalled in the mid-charts perhaps due to the 'gay thing' but this track was kicking the closet open. What made it even better was that nothing had changed. The video's images and storyline were still hard-hitting and asked you to think. The band was gay and on top of the world's charts without having to sell out. Pride? For sure.

The band's second CD Red was next and was previewed by the single "Tomorrow," a powerful hard-hitting track about gay relationship violence. With Bronksi Beat the explorations had always been straight vs. gay attacks but this time Somerville was turning the mirror on us. "You once turned me on, now it all seems so remote" was the line that always stuck with me from this one. Its chorus is near impossible to ignore. "You may break the skin but you can't kill the soul." Another single "For A Friend" took on the sadness of AIDS head on with its lyrics to a lost companion. Like "Tomorrow," time hasn't taken any of this song's power. "Another man has lost a friend," he sang, so many of us knew these feelings and now there was a song written for us about it.

Like the first Communards CD there were joyous love songs as well. "There's More To Love Than Boy Meets Girl" is probably my favourite track by them. Its video the most fun they put out. The song is about exactly what the title says. The albums biggest hit was another cover version this time of "Never Can Say Goodbye," another Hi-NRG club stomper. I remember hearing it on New Year's Eve the year it came out and looking around at all of my friends and my date and thinking life couldn't get any better. The song is stuck in that place for me always.

FOR A FRIEND

THE VERY BEST OF JIMMY!

The band broke barriers and did things none had done before it, Somerville would go on to a still-successful solo career and become a pioneer in the Act-Up movement. He's an amazing talent and a true hero and one who went there first. Plus if you ever catch his videos from that era he was quite the dancer. I bit a few of his moves on dancefloors round Atlanta and Nashville!

Edsel Records has just re-issued three CDs in expanded remastered double CD sets that come complete with detailed liner notes featuring new interviews with Jimmy Somerville, and all the remixes you can handle, the sets also include b-sides, tracks never before on CD, and live versions. You owe it to yourselves to check out these if you've never heard them. Anyone who has the original copies will want to replace those with these lovingly produced beauties as well.