Standing in the Shadows…

Occasional Albums Thing 080 - Purple Hearts “Beat That!”

I’ve told you all previously that I was fully on board with the Mod Revival that flared brightly in 1979 and 1980, more for the Sixties element than the Revival bands but there were some that caught my ear. The furious Punk rush of 1977 was fading and becoming what we now know as Post-Punk, my favourite band at the time was absolutely The Jam who introduced us to the idea of Mod on their third album “All Mod Cons” in 1978. In their wake came a slew of bands forged in The Jam’s image via support slots with their heroes and the Mod-ish crowd developing at the Canning Town venue the Bridge House, home of the Mods MayDay events, Secret Affair (and their previous incarnation New Hearts), The Chords, the Merton Parkas and Purple Hearts et al.

Purple Hearts (street slang for Drinamyl, a prescription combination of amphetamine and barbiturate, one of the drugs of choice for 1960s Mods) formed in 1977 as The Sockets, a Punk band who couldn’t yet play their instruments. They formed to try and get a support gig with Buzzcocks to debut their wry Rock opera, “Reg”. They moved toward a more Mod Revival style under the influence of The Jam who they must have crossed paths with as their publishers were And Son Music, Paul and his Dad John Weller’s publishing company, and they were signed by Polydor (The Jam’s record label) offshoot Fiction Records which was overseen by Chris Parry who had signed The Jam (and Siouxsie & The Banshees) and been involved in producing their first 3 albums. We first encountered them when John Peel started playing their blistering debut single “Millions Like Us” in 1979, something they arguably never bettered. This debut album followed the next year.

There is, however, nothing on this album that even approaches that glorious debut single. It’s two follow ups, “Jimmy” and “Frustration”, are included, and are admirable examples of the Mod Revival style, the latter featuring the simile laden lyrical observation…

I get frustration ! I wear it like a suit
But the jacket fits too tightly
And there’s lead inside my boots

…but none of the other originals, other than perhaps the spirited title track, get close to the singles. 

The album includes a couple of cover versions, a frankly bloody awful attempt at Wilson Pickett’s “If You Need Me” that I’m genuinely shocked ever saw the light of day and that producer Chris Parry let slip through. The other cover is much more interesting, a spirited romp through the first single released by its writer under his new identity in 1966, David Bowie. The Purple Hearts cover was the first time I ever heard “I Can’t Help Thinking About Me” and I liked it as much back then as I do still. It’s a spiky Power-Poppish blast through one of Bowie’s better songs from his mid 60’s Moddy period.

Other than that songs like “Something You Can't Have”, “Nothing’s Left” and “Can’t Stay Here” sound awkward and under-developed, which may be as much to do with the bands relative infancy (they’d only been together for around two years and don’t forget at the beginning they couldn’t play) as it was to do with the rush to get product out to catch the Mod Revival wave. The slightly Psychy “Slay It With Flowers” is interesting but wasn’t gonna wow enough ears to markedly improve interest in the album,

I know some of this sounds like me not really liking this record, but I do. Purple Hearts deserve their place in the Mod Revival pantheon for “Millions Like Us” if nothing else (just a shame it’s not on here) and “Beat That!” does have 4 or 5 pretty good tracks. It is definitely a time and place record for me, I was 17 going on 18 when it was released, dressing sharp and bopping around Birmingham with my dear old mate Micky (now sadly my late mate Micky) and this album was most certainly a big part of our soundtrack of that time.   

I Can’t Help Thinking About Me - https://youtu.be/DI6G2dzvxus?si=tC9JN22oIfwYj0Z7