Electronic - Get the Message: The Best of Electronic (EMI)
2/5
By: Chris O'Toole
After driving the legacy of Joy Division into the ground and permanently damaging the course of electronic popular music for a generation, Bernard Sumner naturally felt uneasy. With New Order's artistic credibility hanging by the thinnest sinews (only a few months away from the release of 'World in Motion' lest we forget), Sumner looked elsewhere for musical delight. Finding an unemployed Johnny Marr hanging around the pawn shops and snooker halls of Manchester's seedier suburbs Sumner decided the best course of action would be to united with the former Smiths guitarist in a new, progressive acid house outfit; Electronic.
As Marr explains in the liner notes, Electronic was supposed to be a low key adventure based around the release of a few 12" releases for clubs and fans. Perhaps if this had been the case Electronic could have been forgiven and eventually forgotten. But alas, this was not to be the case. Three albums and 15 years later EMI have taken the audacious step of releasing a so called 'Best of...' package - the result, replete with a DVD of the outfit's videos, stands as a tribute to misjudgement, failure and mediocrity. A shining example of musicians struggling to adapt and maintain credibility as the musical styles that had partially been responsible for creating evolved to a level at which they were no longer able to compete.
'Get the Message' is a product of its time, that is to say it is now utterly dated. Perhaps during the late eighties this was an in joke - anything goes as long as the crowd is high enough not to notice. Though even if this is viewed through the lens of self deprecation, pastiche or irony, it still makes no sense whatsoever in any conceivable context. Make no mistake, this is a proper hatchet job; a group of fading musicians wildly grabbing at anything to hand in an attempt to hanging onto fame for a few more hideous moments.
The collection presented here consists of 11 strikingly similar electro pop ballads. Each grows increasingly inane, as trite lyrics are layered over flaccid electronic snippets to create mid-tempo drivel dedicated the muse of mediocrity. It is evident that Sumner, no longer content with singing ersatz covers of Joy Division numbers, has decided to plumb new depths in recorded sound, even attempting a rap on 'Feel Every Beat' and creating perhaps one of the greatest musical abortions ever committed to tape.
Elsewhere similarly spectacular car crashes unfold with worrying frequency. Not content with utterly destroying the reputation of Johnny Marr, Sumner calls in Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant who obligingly brings along some left over snippets of electro garbage for inclusion in the musical landfill site. Crudely hacking together these contributions only further damages Electronic sound; leading to the exponentially increasing levels of absurd self indulgence.
The less said about the DVD of the bands videos the better. Each is filled with dramatic slow motion and A-level standards of production. With the band looking like embryonic East 17 or Take That performers, and set in a context reminiscent of primary school education programmes, the videos complement the appalling music. Shots are seemingly randomly combined in a vague attempt to emphasise the emption which characterise each track. This strategy, however, falls down when it becomes apparent that each track is a vapid wasteland devoid of musical creativity leaving the videos to wander aimlessly into obscurity. The one highlight is the knowledge that the Gallagher brothers lifted their entire style from Marr.
'Get the Message' is career suicide on a par with Diana's chauffer, a perfect example of why musicians should be turned into Solent Green as their careers decline and fade. Ian Curtis obviously made the correct decision and I assume is turning in his grave.
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