Orlando "Passive Soul" (1997)

Tracklist:
1. Introduction
2. Furthest Point Away
3. Just For A Second
4. Natures Hated
5. On Dry Land
6. Contained
7. Afraid Again
8. Happily Unhappy
9. Don't Sleep Alone
10. Save Yourself
11. Three Letters
12. Here (So Find Me)/ Hero

This album clearly has lapsed into some sort of obscurity - I couldn't find a decent shot of the cover on Google's Image search. Time to get the digital camera out again...

As was the case with InAura, this album came out looooooong after the Romo bubble had burst. This was released in the summer of 1997, by which time I'd almost completely forgotten about Orlando. They had released a single, "The Magic EP" in 1996 which was slagged off quite mercilessly in Select Magazine by guest reviewers The Future Sound of London. I still haven't forgiven FSOL for that. Being the loyal chap that I am, I bought this LP as soon as it appeared, and privately hoped that its tardy appearance on the Blanco Y Negro label was a sign that Orlando had outlived Romo and could do well despite their connection to the much-ridiculed scene. Yeah, right...

Ok, this album is not brilliant, but it has its moments. As was the case with the Romo scene that spawned them, I wanted to like it more than I ever actually could like it. Like, the CD case carried a list of Orlando's inspirations and they were all stupendously laudable; Dexys "Let's Make This Precious", Shena Mackay, The Style Council, Shoot 'N' Surf Internet Cafe, Stanislavski, "God Is In The Details", My So-Called Life, The Supremes, The Night of May 1st 1997..." The sleeve art contained reproductions of the duo's school reports and photos by PSB zapper Eric Watson. The best track on the album was produced by Alan Tarney, the man behind brilliant singles by A-ha, Cliff Richard ("We Don't Talk Anymore", "Carrie"), Pulp ("Disco 2000") and even Barbara Dixon ("January"). So one senses that this could have been so much better, if it had had a bigger budget maybe, or if they had struck while the iron was hot.

A quick history lesson for those that don't know... Orlando were Tim Chipping and Dickon Edwards. For a brief time they were the kind of band who got mentioned in the lonely hearts/pen pal column in Select ("19 year old wallflower seeks like-minded types for gigs and drinks, into Manics, Pulp, Orlando, Kenickie..."), and they still seem to be held in fond regard by sentimental music fans on messageboards here and there. Since the end of Orlando, Tim has appeared as a cameo in "Shaun Of The Dead" and Dickon has written about pop culture on the Tangents.co.uk website (don't look for it, it's not there anymore). But it is perhaps for "Passive Soul", that they are best remembered.

It starts off with a short excerpt from socialist anthem "The Red Flag", before hurtling into the stomping Northern sounding "Furthest Point Away". It's part Dexys and part Style Council but I must admit that I think now, as I did then, that it sounds a bit rushed and shoddy. It's with the Tarney-aided "Just For A Second" that my ears really prick up - the track is an absolute stormer. Some great lyrics too: "Deep down I fear I might actually be...unremarkable!" - they're clearly aiming for a Kevin Rowland-esque mixture of ambition and insecurity there. A great single and it's a bit of a tragedy that it wasn't a hit. As for the rest of the album...well the best bits sound like Orlando's attempts at recreating their heroes' best bits. The Style Council's "Changing of the Guard" on "On Dry Land", Culture Club-meet-The Associates on "Happily Unhappy", Jimmy Webb's work for Glen Campbell on "Don't Sleep Alone". It's all ok, but difficult to rave about. That said, it's a shame they didn't get a second crack at the whip. Worth a listen.

Wherefore Art Thou, Romo?

For about five seconds towards the end of 1995, Romo flourished. It was, in effect, a revival of New Romantic or New Pop ideas but its advocates preferred to talk of it as a renaissance (as "revival" had connotations of grey lad-rock and fag-end britpop: things which Romo was very much supposed to be the antidote to). I wanted Romo to succeed, believe me. Certainly by 1996 the occasionally brilliant indie-pop explosion of the previous three years had turned into something much more pedestrian, much duller and more in thrall to the history of rawk. Bands like Ocean Colour Scene and Cast epitomised this dish-water dull attitude towards pop. It was conservative, priggish and earnest. Awful rockist notions of authenticity and soul held sway and it was from this point on that brit-pop's more open-minded tendencies started to have less and less influence over chart pop. The panoramic, widescreen pop of "The Great Escape", "Different Class" and "Giant Steps" showed that at its best mid 90s English pop could scale the heights set in the early 80s by people like ABC, The Associates and Scritti Politti. The best of the Romos understood that. Orlando for example loved Richey Edwards period Manic Street Preachers as much as they did the Human League. They wanted to be the biggest pop group of the late 90s, one which fused literate, (dare-I-say-it) intellectual references with the pure rush of classic Motown, disco and synth pop. So yes, towards the end of 1995 I would have been a willing convert to this happening, gloriously witty scene.

And then I heard the records. Seriously, the disappointment of hearing the free cover-mounted Romo tape which Melody Maker gave away in March 1996 stays with me to this day. I'm listening to it now; Holywood, Dexdexter, Plastic Fantastic...the names are great, but the music is utterly abysmal. Cheap-sounding, badly recorded, predictable and tuneless nonsense the lot of it. Romo really died with it. Within weeks Simon Price - who up to this point had been (along with Taylor Parkes) Romo's biggest champion - wrote the movement's obituary in the "Viewpoint" section on MM's letters page. But the Romo issue of Melody Maker is a riot. Many people, including myself, believe that this represented another nail in that music weekly's coffin. It is a pity things worked out that way because it was a brave thing to do, to put the motley crew you see above on the front of Melody Maker at the height of Britpop, in a week when Blur, PJ Harvey and David Bowie were vying for space in its inner pages. Among the highlights of the issue's 8 page Romo extravaganza are the interviews with Sexus ("I stood behind Jason Orange [out of Take That] in Holland & Barrett recently. For quite a while. It's kept me going for months."), Plastic Fantastic ("You can tell if a place is the right place, if you've got a free cocktail in either hand...") and best of all Orlando ("Our attitude towards other groups isn't one of malice. It's one of disappointment"). The movement's manifesto - or Romanifesto - is full of great throwaway lines too. Here are some of my favourites:

"Romo is, correct, élitist. But we are talking about a particularly democratic form of élitisim. Anyone can reinvent themselves. We can't help it if most are too dull to try."

"Romo is always believing you are gold."

"Romo is tearing open the map of Europa, our frontierless homeland, and gazing with romantic fascination at the place names: Valencia, Sorrento, Praha, Hammerfest, Zurich, Sarajevo, Arkhangelsk, London."

"Romo is the word, and shall be. Like 'dada': two simple syllables. Ro-mo. Romantic, Modernist."

"Romo is la nouvelle belle époque. Romo is hurtling into this fin of the siécle to fin all siecles with but one imperative: dance, for tomorrow, we die."

The main groups who feature in the piece are (in order of appearance); Orlando, Minty, Viva, Hollywood, Plastic Fantastic, Sexus, Add N To X, Boutique, Nancy Boy, Elizabeth Bunny, Factor Max, Brattish, InAura, Romania, Six Finger Satellite, Sin With Sebastian and System Addict. There follows a list of bands they suggest they didn't have room to include, but I'm convinced most of these are made-up; Universe, Ballroom, Crescendo, Glamour, Lucy Can Can, Glasshouse, Pleasurehead, Nightporter, The Heart That Glows, Port Sunlight, De Milo, I Dream Of Wires, White Trash, Designer, Synth SFX, Subaqwa, Silky and Aura. I mean, come on - "The Heart That Glows"? For fuck's sake...

Romo was of course largely the brainchild of Simon Price (author of a brilliant Manic Street Preachers biog and who now writes for The Independent) and Taylor Parkes who were always my favourite Melody Maker journos. Week in, week out, Parkes and Price would champion only the most NOW pop groups; TLC, Earl Brutus, Tricky, Kenickie, Pulp for example. It is because of them that for a brief time in the mid to late 90s Melody Maker was actually far better than NME (really after Danny Kelly, Stuart Maconie, Andrew Collins, Steve Lamacq and David Quantick had jumped ship). Romo - far from launching a new wave of freakish, effeminate, plastic pop stars to stardom - was really their big moment.

It is almost all complete and utter piffle. And I love(d) it.

My friend 23 Daves has a great post about InAura on his blog "Left and to the Back". InAura were lumped in with the Romo crowd and the infamous MM Romo article has this to say about them: "Impertinently young, indecently pretty, InAura swagger with potential. Hardly surprising, given their cold-glittering cocktail of Suede/Bowie flashboyisms, lavish Depeche/Duran sweep, PSB undercurrents, cocksure riffola and plain old greed. Factor in singer Matt Carey's petulant, feline charisma and the mutant keyboard scapes of Magazine vet Dave Formula, and you'll be gagging for it." Their album "One Million Smiles" does contain a couple of great tracks in singles "Coma Aroma", the grandiose "This Month's Epic" (which sounds like Primal Scream on a good day) and the brill Duran-esque "Soap Opera". I saw the vid for that on The Chart Show at the time, and you can find it here now. So some Romo music was good. I should also mention Sexus' single "The Official End Of It All" which was just ace. A post about Orlando follows...