I always found it odd that a musical style tailor made for our generation is both a) little-known (outside of Anglophile circles) and b) devoid of noted umbrella genre. Sophisti-Pop is a made-up termed coined after the fact. Musicians like Paul Weller, Sade, Paul Buchanan, Green Gartside, Roddy Frame, and Paddy McAloon, might have (in a different era) been slotted alongside Goffin/King, McCartney, or Donald Fagen, as pop maestros with decidedly offbeat, yet catchy ideas.
Pop music that’s genuinely interested in “adult” themes, smoother sounds, and minimal embellishment (albeit with the meticulousness and perfectionism snuck in deeply, elsewhere) seems to align far closer with our “look at me”, Instagram generation. That kind of Pop music created by those, new masters had to traffic in a new world laid bare by technology, excess, and selfishness. In the ’80s, the first, overt generation to reject self-reflection for self-promotion, we had a whole slew of musicians who both had the smarts to understand how “Pop” music worked but attempted to use it to subversively poke the fabric it was birthed from, to get at the uncertainty laying underneath.
Somewhere, down the line, we were able to really take a step beck and second-guess what we thought of as “music for the Harrod’s crowd”, to appreciate the quality material behind the sheen. Behind the suit, there was something genuinely classy (a dreaded word, we tend to better understand as we too grow up), and quite self-aware, being under it all.
Giving you the warm and luxury you deserve, here’s my hour long dive into the world of sophisticated pop music (aka Sophisti-Pop). Moving on from the template created by Roxy Music’s Avalon, it is in the music of Prefab Sprout, Swing Out Sister, The Blue Nile (who I’ll save for a future mix) and other lesser known, but still as sparkling, sophisticates, we’ll revisit the suits, the cars, the aching blues of ’80s, upward mobility. Fashionable musical gems, designed to last for a lifetime, all fit together for an hour. And, oh yes, there will be sax (lots of it)…
(Love Is) Stronger Than Pride.
1. The Blow Monkeys: Digging Your Scene
2. The Style Council: The Lodgers (Or She Was Only A Shopkeeper’s Daughter)
3. China Crisis: Bigger The Punch I’m Feeling
4. Basia: New Day For You
5. Hidemi Ishikawa: LOVE COMES QUICKLY ～霧の都の異邦人～
6. Ice House: The Flame
7. Colourfield: Monkey In Winter
8. Prefab Sprout: Wild Horses
9. The Lotus Eaters: German Girl
10. Brett Raymond: Only Love
11. Sade: Clean Heart
12. Mecano: Cruz De Navajas
13. Wham!: Careless Whisper
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