{"id":10036,"date":"2023-07-27T01:43:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T00:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roglacup.com\/klaus62\/?p=10036"},"modified":"2023-07-22T20:50:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T19:50:16","slug":"morning-song-bronski-beat-smalltown-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roglacup.com\/klaus62\/2023\/07\/27\/morning-song-bronski-beat-smalltown-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"#Morning song #Bronski beat #Smalltown boy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To watch Britain\u2019s music program \u201cTop of the Pops\u201d in 1984 was to witness masculinity wipe off the last of the spit and sawdust. You had blond, black-gloved geeks like Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones, bouffy matriarchs Queen and Ozzy Osbourne, white-teethed go-go boys Wham!, leathered-up imps Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and slinky queen Boy George\u2014not a\u00a0donkey jacket<\/a>\u00a0between them. When Bronski Beat made their\u00a0\u201cTOTP\u201d debut<\/a>\u00a0on June 7, 1984, they were radical because they looked so normal\u2014behold 22-year-old singer Jimmy Somerville\u2019s green polo shirt and severe army-issue haircut. The last thing anyone would have expected from Somerville\u2019s cartoon good-boy face was a diva-strength lament for runaway gay youth. Add in Steve Bronski and Larry Steinbachek\u2019s HI-NRG rhythms and desperately forlorn keyboard motif, and their debut single \u201cSmalltown Boy\u201d was kissed with the melancholy transcendence of its disco forebears: Sylvester in suburbia. It was perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dSmalltown Boy\u201d remains a perfect song. It is nimble and crushing, forlorn and relieved, frail yet determined. In just a few lines, Somerville sketches the plight of the young queer kid in suburbia, beaten up by bullies but refusing to cry in front of them; concerned about how his mother will respond to his disappearance, but certain that he has to save himself first. Steinbachek and Bronski briefly slow the tempo, trapping the listener in the sense of purgatory that Somerville distills, but then add a hand-slapped congo that hits like a rush of adrenaline as a new life comes into view. Although Somerville\u2019s liberation is palpable, he\u2019s not interested in happy endings: The song ends with him repeating the line about leaving in the morning \u201cwith everything you own in a little black case,\u201d acknowledging the thousands of young people who would make the very same journey. The inner groove of the 12-inch was etched with the number of the London Gay Switchboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Posted from: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/bronski-beat-the-age-of-consent\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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