Now experiencing a cult renaissance, Britain’s weekly chart rundown show Top of The Pops offered up many iconic moments during it’s forty two year history. Who for instance could forget Nirvana’s subversive live rendering of Smells Like Teen Spirit, but for the Fine Young Cannibals it was their performance of Johnny Come Home which got tongues wagging.
Part of the reaction was due to Andy Cox and David Steele’s Bambi-like dancing, whilst the rest applied to singer Roland Gift’s voice, which even though he was miming as per production rules was clearly something to admire. Having left The Beat Cox and Steele sifted through hundreds of audition tapes before hearing Gift’s they knew they had a singular talent – and the Fine Young Cannibals were born.
After a modestly successful debut album, few though would’ve predicted what came next. Asked about a producer for it’s follow up Steele cheekily suggested Prince, only to have one of his entourage David Z come forward, with which the trio worked at the Purple One’s newly finished Paisley Park studio complex.
What followed was The Raw & The Cooked a second album that made them trans-Atlantic stars courtesy of Good Thing and especially She Drives Me Crazy. From humble beginnings Gift and co. found themselves having dinner with Madonna and Warren Beatty.
FYC: 40 tells their story, one of songwriters who began out of step with the eighties brash, production heavy values and then having embraced them with caution, became famous as a result. It’s particularly good to hear the jazzy, heartbroken Funny How Love Is and an inspired cover of Suspicious Minds again, whilst a clutch of old and new remixes includes work by the likes of Frankie Knuckles and Carl Craig. Top of The Pops is no more, but the Fine Young Cannibals dine on.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 