VIPs and royalty get treated like they’re special see
But the trick is there for all to see
They’re people just like you and me
Roll over Bob Dylan and tell Leonard Cohen the news! Oh yes, tonight we’re looking at an LP from 1987 that I used to love, mostly because no-one else I knew had it* and that I probably haven’t spun since 1992* an album that was, tonight, greeted by no less a rock authority than Mrs 1537 as ‘That was utter shit’; The Cross Shove It**.
16 year-old me despaired at ever being able to get hold of everything Queen had ever done, all the albums, singles, foreign picture sleeves etc – I’d have to find a better way of earning cash than charging my folks for putting the goats out every morning and bringing them in every day, the problem being that if I tried to charge any more I’d run up against the convenience/cost utility arc and my dad would just do it himself, leaving this nascent teenage capitalist effectively unemployed – it was the 80’s, harsh economic realities abounded. So, I decided to set my sights elsewhere and find a band I liked where I could get on the train at the first station. I settled on The Cross.
Okay, okay so this wasn’t quite the dramatic departure it may have been as basically the Cross was Roger Taylor’s solo band and he had recorded the whole of Shove It by himself with a couple minor interludes from Freddie Mercury and Brian May, whoever those bozos were. Now Roger was my favourite member of Queen and demonstrably the coolest one of them by far, the term bromance hadn’t been coined yet but it would have fitted my feelings for him – hell, I wanted to be him.
Anyway, let’s put the needle on the record. ‘Shove It’ careens in, borne aloft on a drum machine and what sounds like synthesized bass and quite possibly the worst rapping ever committed to vinyl. Let’s be fair to Roger, it’s all so very much of its time when the idea of a dance/pop/rap/rock hybrid must have been an alluring one and when you can suspend your critical faculties, or just turn the nostalgia dial up to 10, then it’s all good clean fun; as long as you leave the banalometer in the garage. ‘Cowboys and Indians’ even has a touch of INXS’ white-boy funky popism about it, surely no accident as Taylor was on record as being a big admirer of them by this time. The lightweight ‘Contact’, a song that seemingly exists solely in order to make the ‘I contact/Eye contact’ smartarseism, despite having a surprisingly lively bit of sax on it, fares a lot worse.
For Queen scholars the next track ‘Heaven For Everyone’ is interesting, featuring a Freddie Mercury vocal I hadn’t twigged it was the same track they put out as a Queen one after Freddie had snuffed it. I tend to recoil from those Frankenstein tracks put out after someone interesting dies, old vocals worked into some music by band mates and producer, I’m looking at you ‘Free As A Bird’! Nevertheless this is definitely one of the better tracks on Shove It, much as I like Mr Taylor singing the odd track on a Queen album, a whole LP’s worth can be a bit much sometimes and Freddie gives it some serious warmth. If you can ignore the usual gadzillionaire platitudes-passing-as-profundity lyrics, then this is a bit of a highlight here.
My favourite track is next up, the white soul go-go beating ‘Stand Up For Love’ which is, surprisingly a bit of a belter, it’s no tree-uprooter but it definitely has something, basically a really good gruff vocal and a fast beat.
I have a weakness for songs who have titles in brackets, don’t ask – it’s just the way God made me. The Cross volley a mixed pair over to me, ‘Love On A Tightrope (Like An Animal)’^, which is totally pants and ‘Love Lies Bleeding (She Was A Wicked Wily Waitress)’, which is much better courtesy of some squealing guitar from Brian May. The latter always used to be my fave track on Shove It as it described just the kind of dangerous, mean, sexpots that I was just itching to be done wrong by when I got a bit older. Listened to now, it’s a bit juvenile but no-one can deny the Awesome Power of the Brackets (A.P.O.T.B), ‘she was a wicked, wily waitress’ is great,
She was a waitress she looked real fine
The little temptress was so divine
A symphony of cheap perfume and pretty stale red wine
She can wait upon my table any time
She was poetry in motion
Stiletto heels and nylons she moved up to the table
I could see she had for me a burger with my fries on
What that doesn’t show in written form is my favourite moment on the whole LP, the fact that Roger Taylor rhymes ‘nylons‘ with ‘fries on’, in the way he sings it, that is pure unadulterated genius as far as I’m concerned.
So was this all a rich man’s folly? in the end possibly, because this was effectively a third Taylor solo LP and he wrote and played nearly all of it himself. Whether they did become more of a full band later on, I don’t know because I got clobbered by heavy metal before their second LP came out and I deserted them. It’s far too much of its time to hit home now and neither the songs, or the playing are strong enough overall. But, I really liked it at the time and Shove It always really sounded great to me in the sunshine played on a cheap Sony Walkman and there are enough good touches to keep it in the 1537.
Of course I sent off the newsletter/fan thing and here it is in all its’ glory. It makes me very nostalgic reading it again actually. Of course pre-internet, voracious capitalist goatherds in far-flung locales feasted on raw information like this (click to enlarge)
638 Down.
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*in retrospect there may have been some perfectly valid reasons for that fact.
**The 28th LP I ever bought and the first one in the C section. Normal folk don’t know things like that*.
^do they mean ‘like an animal on a tightrope?’ surely that’d be wayyy cruel, depending on the animal? I mean less so for a mouse, more so for a walrus.
At first glance I thought this was Mr. Mister. Then, when I realized it was Roger Taylor I got a little sad. “A symphony of cheap perfume”…wordsmith Roger is not.
Your collection spans light years.
Put it down as an 80s folly – much like my record collection!
Ha! You definitely represent more than your share of the 80s in that 1537 collection. You’ve got stuff that even I’ve never heard of…and I was a regular Metal Edge reader.
Percentage wise I had way more disposable income back when I washed dishes in a restaurant at the weekend.
That’s what happens when we grow up and acquire a family.
… oh yeah, and both my kids were C-sections. It didn’t occur to me to do any record shopping during the procedures however…
I see what you did there.
I enjoyed reading the words you wrote here. I wouldn’t mind having Roger’s hair and cool sunglasses. Um, Dream Theater do a nice cover of Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding” on their A Change of Seasons album, but no mention of waitressing there. (Sorry, best I can do; mom taught me not to comment if I can’t say something nice.)
Quite right too!
Wow, talk about a deep discography slab. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have known this existed.
Makes me wonder, though. Maybe they knew it was a stinker when they titled the record?
I suspect it was the product of overindulgence. That’s my theory.
The bumblebee Lego girl almost made me think this was a Blind Melon review.
It’s too bad The Cross’ bassist wasn’t Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits.
I know – imagine the joy that would have brought us all!
Oooft. I honestly don’t know what to say about this one. I’ll have a go, though … sounds dreadful?
I did like the write-up and the pictures, though.
I like how Roger Taylor drafted in a bunch of 80’s looking fellas for some photos. They all look like they could be England’s answer to INXS, don’t they?
I think they are genuinely the most 80’s looking fellas there ever were – blouson jackets, the works.
It only takes about 10 seconds for me to realize why no one else you knew had this album.
That it would have been too mind-blowingly awesome for their pleasure centres to process?
I think it broke my pleasure center. I hope someday I’ll be able to feel joy again after hearing this.
Why, Roger Taylor!? Why! !
Roger Taylor’s album opens with a drum machine? Boy, I almost stopped reading there.
PS.
Hadn’t realised Mrs 1537 was a reviewer for the NME.
Yup, the irony of it. At best it was a nice trip down Nostalgia Avenue.
No they fired her for being too soft on European prog rock.
Wow…what a story…I am so full of thoughts, I’m sure I’m forgetting something here, but here goes.
So this is a THIRD ROger Taylor solo album? What else am I missing then?
I’m sorry to hear that this sounds so shit. Mrs. 1537 sounds like she might be right on the money. This does not read well. And the lyrics? Holy shit. I get why you would never get rid of it, lord knows I have enough albums like that too. But I don’t have the nostalgia for this, so for me, I think I can give it a miss.
I like your Roger Taylor Lego figure incidentally. Nice quiff.
I may have the order wrong but there was Fun In Space and Strange Frontier under his own name.
I think Mrs 1537 is a meanie, this does have a few moments for me, but overall it sounds like a few throwaway B-sides from the Works and Kind of Magic.
Thanks Mike – you always notice my Lego and that is appreciated.
I always notice your Lego, but what does that say about me??
How different is this version of Heaven for Everyone from the ’95 version?
It just means you’re a fellow toyhead, Mike.
They recorded two vocal tracks in 1987, the one on this album where he sang back-up for Taylor and the complete vocal that they welded back together for the 95 version. The Cross version has a talkie intro, but the same basic feel – I think I prefer this version overall.
I have to admit that I was disappointed when I learned that much of Made in Heaven was made up of solo material. Having said that, I love Too Much Love Will Kill You. Just incredible.
I genuinely hadn’t connected the two songs until yesterday.
Then you hadn’t bought Queen Greatest Hits III. That doesn’t surprise me as it is one of those silver shiny things! Anyway that CDs liner notes detailed the origins of a lot of those songs. That was disappointing to me. But I should just go ahead and give’r and try to review Made in Heaven because I do love that album.
No I stopped at 1, but I was given a copy of 2 by someone who was throwing a load of records away (!!!!!!!!!).
Go on, do it Mike.
I think I will! I’m curious what you think of it.
(Said sheepishly) I’ve never heard it.
Dang!!
Well like I said I leaned a lot of it was solo material re-worked. But, it’s also really dramatic and good Queen music if you asked me. And on CD there was a weird 20 minute ambient bonus track…very Pink Floydian. But Queen.
I like the sound of the ambience.
Most people hit “stop” within the first minute. But don’t do that. It has bits of Freddie talking in the studio. “Are we running?” echo echo…it’s like Freddie ascending.
That’s right up my street.
Holy shit. This is the one I don’t have. I only have Mad:Bad:And Dangerous to know. OK, time to read this bad boy of a review….
I still haven’t heard that one.
I haven’t played it in ages. I’ll have to dust it off. They looked like The Cult on that one.