Pop Goes Politics
In the history of music the year 1985 will be described as a year which provoked a radical change in the political and social awareness of our much loved popstar glamour elite. "Band Aid" was praised a lot and often torn into pieces, but no one can deny the impact this event had upon the thinking and acting of many personalities in the fast moving music industry like Sting, David Bowie, Bob Geldof - the list is rapidly getting longer.

But a long time from now, when looking back to this year's pop-music, one will remember a seven piece band from London, which already presented a classic debut album in terms of politically engaging chart-pop-music. Without big gestures of charity, without painstaking emotiveness Latin Quarter asks mankind to lend its ear - because the problems of this world don`t start in East Africa but in our backyard - like rascism in the United Kingdom, the U.S.A. and South Africa, and the limited chances people of lower classes have in the western world. Whoever thinks Latin Quarter calls for a revolution on "Modern Times" (based on Charles Chaplin`s legendary movie with the same title) in the tradition of old and set political preachers is wrong. The album is like a kaleidoscope with 11 shining songs representing different styles of music (Synthesizer-pop, Funk, Reggae) and every single song is an individual historical chapter.

Mike Jones, responsible for the lyrics and practically the eighth member of the band, has written the lyrics to the songs which are at present unparalleled in their clarity, uncompromising and strength. Unlike noisy "political droning" music which may sometimes be necessary as with Paul Weller`s Style Council, the music of Latin Quarter is easy to understand, socio-political defects are explained with punch-lines without any moral ambitions and without announcing dull and confusing sweeping statements and solutions. Latin Quarter produced an album combined with contemporary pop-music and managed to be the first after a long, long time who violate again the unwritten rule that pop-music can really set nothing else in motion but the record industry`s safes. Rarely does one stride through an emotional rollercoaster while listening to an album and experience: warmth, desperation, optimism, pain and anger.

"Modern Times" captures everyone and it is a statement in a daunting time where people don`t speak up. "Radio Africa" is a light, springy reggae song which is overwhelming in its fragility and emotionality and it comments on the apartheid in torn South Africa. In the face of the shootings in the "homelands" and a civil war which may start soon it is a song of great topicality and significance.

Special praise should be expressed here to the German RCA record company who added the German translations and explanations to the record. Undoubtedly Latin Quarter is one of the biggest musical hopes of the 80`s and with "Modern Times" they presented one of this year`s best records. Because of the song "Radio Africa": 9 out of 10

(Translated by Karen Hutz)
 

The lyric comes from a catchy exercise in light reggae called Radio Africa (included here), and any expectations it awakened that here was a band with not only a conscience but also political awareness are fulfilled by this album. The songs are literate, punchy and pertinent - this tour through the modern world takes in, for instance, South Africa, both Reagan's and McCarthy's America, the Falklands/Malvinas, and the Welsh coal-mining valleys. Musically the record doesn't burst any new frontiers but it's appealing and eclectic enough to take those words to an even wider audience.

The kind of songs NI readers (and editors) would write if they had the chance and the skill.

Politics 5/5, Entertainment 4/5 (New Internationalist - issue 159 - May 1986)
 

"... He's [Mike Jones] also a dab hand at those snappy one liners that the likes of a Costello or a Difford get regularly feted for." (NME)

"... the catchy hooks fly thick and fast." (The Hit)

"You've got to respect an English synth band that bothers to write real songs about real issues." (Playboy)

"... a really superb lyrical content throughout." (RM)