I did have another Malcom McClaren album pencilled in for when I get to the end of the Eighties and give my suggestions for albums that I think were overlooked (Waltz Darling, with Bootsy Collins). It’s okay, and an interesting mix of styles, but listening recently some tracks were perhaps not up to scratch, so it didn't make the cut..
However, we have an official McClaren album on the list anyway. This is very much a collaboration of impresario types, including Trevor Horn, Thomas Dolby and various other members of what would become The Art Of Noise. Horn did some solo work as Buggles, but is perhaps better known as the man behind Frankie Goes To Hollywood and other Eighties production, while Thomas Dolby came out with She Blinded Me With Science and the Nokia ringtone. With such a pedigree, a strange mix of musical experimentation and hard capitalism, they do form something quintessentially Eighties, but what kind of music comes out of such apparently dry intellectualism?
A mix of all kinds of sounds, mostly rooted in either African music or hip-hop, framed with a recurring device of radio-phone in DJ chatter. Obatala is a chill-out track with an African drum beat. Double Dutch marries a skipping chant to the South African mbqanga music that Paul Simon will come to in about three years time. McClaren acts like a square-dance caller, returning to this in Soweto which is more mbqanga music with a bit of country fiddle added at the start. Since “mbqanga” comes from a term for a type of porridge, implying music that is mixed up and blended into a whole new form, the addition of even more musical styles is probably in keeping with the ethos even though it does feel a little like cultural appropriation (not least because the South African artists originally went uncredited).
Merengue suddenly jumps from the streets of New York to South America with some frenetic salsa beats. Duck For The Oyster is a hoe-down complete with comedy noises to round out the album, but it does lead to the whole affair having a strange patchwork feel. It would have been better, I think, to have stuck with the Afro-beat and hip-hop blend, kind of highlighting two ends of the African-American experience. But then, I’m not a famous music impresario and auteur, so what do I know?
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