True (Spandau Ballet album)

Background, development and recording

When Spandau Ballet first formed, their guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp had been aware of how previous generations of Britain's youth culture had bands representing them, such as the Mods having the Who and the Small Faces. He wanted people to associate Spandau with the fashion-wise clientele of a popular Tuesday night London gathering called the Blitz,{{efn|"Every seminal moment in British youth culture had had a band or artist that represented it: skiffle – Lonnie Donegan… punk – the Sex Pistols. We knew, even then, that Blitz and all it entailed and encouraged was going to be an important chapter in the story of London youth and their street-found fashions; and so, in a basement studio on Islington's Holloway Road, the Angel boys were busily trying to create a band who'd embody this latest twist in the tale."{{efn|"…our future sound had to be like the one we heard every Tuesday night. If we were to attempt to be the band that represented this new cult, then we had to be absolutely ready."

Their first album, Journeys to Glory, was a successful culmination of this style of material that Kemp had written at his own pace and that had been tested in front of the Blitz crowd over an extended period of time, but coming up with songs for their second effort, Diamond, was more challenging.{{efn|"Unlike second marriages, second albums are notoriously difficult. Journeys had been developed over some time and played live before we went into the recording studio, with some songs being discarded at the last minute. It was a mission statement, cohesive and tight, with none of the indulgence that often plagues follow-ups." gave them a number 3 UK hit with its first single, "Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)", the writer's block Kemp suffered as it climbed the UK Singles Chart resulted in his mimicking its use of horns and group vocals for the next single, "Paint Me Down", which had a number 30 showing in the UK, the lowest peak position there of any of their singles to date.{{efn|"'Look, Diamond has just come out; it can't survive without another single from it.'… 'I'm worried it won’t be enough just to release "Instinction". We need something else. A remix maybe.' Remix was a business euphemism for SOS. But Dagger was right – the song had more pop in it than anything we'd ever done…" which reached number ten in the UK{{efn|"At the end of the second album there was a feeling, you know, there were some of the kids we were hanging out with at the time who were going, 'We can't follow these guys anymore. They've been on Top of the Pops six times.' It's not really cult, is it? And I sort of realized that I didn't have to keep chasing 'What's the latest rhythm that I need to write to? What sound are all my friends wanting to dance to in that club?' I could just actually breathe and write a song, and it would not be written from the beat upwards or the riff."

Because of the rebound the band experienced with Horn's reworking of "Instinction", the plan was to have him produce the next album. He was especially impressed with one of Kemp's recent compositions, "Pleasure", and wanted to start working with the band on it immediately. The rehearsal went well, and they began recording it at AIR Studios with the mindset that it would be the first single from the new album, which was initially called The Pleasure Project. On the first day of recording, however, Horn had drummer John Keeble redo the track repeatedly over the course of the ten-hour day to try to get it perfect and called Kemp that evening to offer to programme the drums and suggest that they get a new drummer. Kemp was stunned by the suggestion: "I heard myself saying that programming the drums would not just be psychologically wrong for our team spirit, but it would also undermine John as a player." He refused Horn, who decided not to continue working with them.

The band's manager, Steve Dagger, suggested producers Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, who recently had success with Bananarama, and Kemp performed some of the songs he had just written for the duo with the plan of having them produce the first single from the new album to see if they had a good working relationship with the band. While Swain was leaning toward "Communication" as the best choice for their next hit song, Jolley insisted that they work on the "up-tempo, more obvious pop sing-along" "Lifeline". The band was credited alongside Jolley and Swain as producers of "Lifeline" and would be on the album as well.

"Lifeline" was recorded at Red Bus Studios in Paddington as Spandau Ballet got a feel for their new producers, but they worked on the rest of the album at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas because of the soul music that had been recorded there and because Kemp felt that the tropical surroundings would help give the music the feeling he was trying to achieve.

Songs

Main article: Gold (Spandau Ballet song), True (Spandau Ballet song)

In a Mastertapes interview with John Wilson in 2013, Kemp contrasted the anti-establishment, anticommercial stance of the punk scene with the plan that Spandau Ballet initially had of having similar attitudes in their dress and style of music but selling enough records to make the pop charts at the same time.

In 1981 the band recorded "Chant No. 1" with the British jazz-funk group Beggar and Co acting as their horn section, and Steve Norman, who had been the band's guitarist and percussionist on its first two albums, subsequently felt inspired to take up the saxophone.{{efn|"…the sax, an inspiration from the Beggar & Co. sessions, fell easily into his hands."

"True"

In 1981, Kemp met Altered Images lead singer Clare Grogan and, despite already having a girlfriend, found himself infatuated with her because of their common interests. By the time he started writing songs for the album, he was primarily listening to music by Marvin Gaye and Al Green and wanted to write a blue-eyed soul version of their style of music{{efn|"I think I wanted to write a song that was a bit like a Marvin Gaye, Al Green song, a blue-eyed soul song."

"Gold"

Once Kemp decided to start writing pop songs, the first idea he chose to explore was paying homage to film scores as he had attempted on "She Loved Like Diamond", only this time focusing specifically on John Barry and his work on the James Bond series. The title of the song, "Gold", was inspired by Shirley Bassey's 1964 hit Bond theme "Goldfinger". Because he and his brother, Martin, who was the bassist for the band, were still living with their parents as he began writing songs for the album, it was convenient to have his brother listen to what he had just written and play it with him on his bass to see if it sounded like what he intended, and this song was one Martin loved.

Cover art

Kemp was competing for Grogan's attention with Altered Images cover artist David Band and asked him to work with Spandau Ballet on the design for the new album. Because they were both seeing their careers take off during their attempts to court Grogan, they went camping together a few times in the English Lake District as a way of escaping their success. Band later added alongside it the outline of a man's head with a brimmed hat, which the band loved; a variation was used for the sleeve of the "True" single. His work was described as "a marker for the look of the time, a jazz-influenced style that could also be seen in an exaggerated fashion in the New Romantic look." Kemp credits him with having "the skill of coming up with simple, figurative graphics that would set a visual tone for the decade." In 2012 he told The Herald:

Release and commercial performance

True was released on 4 March 1983 and received silver certification from the British Phonographic Industry on 9 March for reaching the 60,000 units of shipment threshold. It entered the UK Albums Chart on 12 March to begin a chart run of 90 weeks, one of which was at number 1. Gold certification for reaching 100,000 units was issued on 11 April, and platinum (300,000 units) came the following month on 23 May. It also reached the top spot in the Netherlands and New Zealand and performed well in other countries. In the US, the album debuted on Billboard magazine's Top LPs & Tapes chart in the issue dated 14 May 1983 and peaked at number 19 during a 37-week run.

To commemorate its 20th anniversary, a remastered version of "True" was released on 29 April 2003 as a single CD with the original eight tracks along with the music video for "Gold" and some home video footage of the band. The original 8-track album was also issued in 2003 on the high-resolution super audio CD format as a Hybrid SACD (in stereo only). In 2008, the album was given away free with copies of the Daily Mail newspaper.{{efn|"In September 2008 the Daily Mail came up with the ultimate promotion. On twelve consecutive days they gave away an original 80s album. It started off with Spandau Ballet's True…"

Critical reception

Billboard magazine gave the album a positive review upon its release in the US, noting that "Pleasure" and "Code of Love" "linger with the fresh feel of new music while owing to swing era rhythms, even MOR." Most reviewers at the time, however, qualified their praise. Parke Puterbaugh of Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "You can shut your eyes while listening to True and almost imagine that Spandau Ballet has had nothing to do with clothes, makeup or any fashion-show pseudoevents" and concluded that the album was "a sleekly executed, surprisingly affecting record, and welcome proof that bunch of clotheshorses can place high in the musical stakes, too." Don Mackay of Rip It Up also summed up his comments with a reference to their vestiary history: "While still some distance short of profundity, the result is generally pleasant enough with tracks like 'Communication', 'Lifeline' and 'Foundation' at least proving that the Ballet really can dance. Perhaps there's life in the old clotheshorses yet." Trouser Press magazine's Ira Robbins also counted "Communication" and "Lifeline" as album highlights, adding, "The remaining six cuts aren't as noteworthy, but at least aren't objectionable or off-putting." Dave Rimmer of Smash Hits conceded that "there's nothing here as awful as, say, '[She Loved Like] Diamond', but on the other hand nothing as brilliant as 'Chant No. 1'. True is less interesting than previous Spandau LPs, but much more enjoyable." *Record Mirror'''s Betty Page warned,Enter into *True'' with a mind truly free of preconceptions, and you'll wallow in a chunk of creamy, dreamy funk with satisfyingly rounded edges. Turn a cynical eye to who you're dealing with and where they've come from and you'll find plenty of cannon fodder.

Gavin Martin of the New Musical Express wrote a long, scathing review of the album, which he opened by describing the band as "slimy" and "ingratiating" with "opportunist, vaguely plagiaristic whims and indulgences". He called the album "milksop funk pap", "bland feckless goo" and "doleful emasculation". Regarding Kemp's songwriting, he wrote,Despite all the talk of inner strength and celebrations of the highlife elsewhere, the music is stale and rigid with a backline that fairly grinds along where it should be bright and alert. As a pop band Spandau are too pedestrian, too tied up in their own self-important world to provide a sharp/indignant/imaginative insight to the times; and as a "soul" band, well, they're fooling no one.

Retrospective reviews were mixed. Paul Evans wrote a brief summary review of most of their album discography in The Rolling Stone Album Guide and gave True three stars out of five without much to recommend. At his most complimentary, he opined, "Tony Hadley developed a way of vocalizing that joined the heavy dramatics of Bryan Ferry to the lounge act 'feeling' of a Gary Puckett or a bad Bobby Darin." Of all their albums, he concluded, "True remains creepily fascinating." Dan LeRoy of AllMusic complimented "the growing skill of guitarist Gary Kemp, the band's primary songwriter, who crafted a set of tunes aimed squarely at the charts." Like Rimmer, however, he did not find anything as interesting as their previous UK hits:Some listeners at the time called the album an MOR sellout, but its slick surfaces remain tough to resist, and while none of the cuts generate the excitement of past singles like "To Cut a Long Story Short" or "Chant No. 1," True remains Spandau Ballet's most consistent and best all-around album.

Singles and videos

Swain and Jolley's selection for their tryout as producers, "Lifeline", became the first single released from the album and debuted on the UK Singles Chart dated 2 October 1982. It peaked at number 7 during its 9 weeks there and number 33 in New Zealand.}} In the US it "bubbled under" Billboard magazine's Hot 100 to number 108, and it was paired with "Communication" when it appeared on their Dance/Disco Top 80 chart. The US chart appearances coincided with the airing of the music video on MTV in the spring of 1983. Critics were divided, with some finding it bland and others appreciating the R&B-style vocals.

The title song began 15 weeks on the UK Singles Chart in April 1983 and spent four weeks at number one. and Ireland and made the top ten in several other countries, including the US, where it got as high as number four on the Hot 100 It received a variety of responses from critics, with some finding it flawless and others disliking it. Hadley felt that their choice to wear suits for the music video had given their US audience a misleading first impression since "True" was very different from the hits they had elsewhere.

"Gold" was the fourth UK single from the album and spent nine weeks on the pop chart there, two of which were at number two. number 4 in Ireland and number 9 in Australia. others contempt.

Chrysalis wanted to release "Heaven Is a Secret" as a fifth single in the UK; however the band refused this. In limited European release at the end of 1983, "Pleasure" reached number 27 in the Netherlands, number 32 in Belgium, and number 61 in West Germany. In reviews of the album, "Pleasure" elicited the same divided response as some of the previous singles. Page described it as "smoothly mournful", but Martin used the song's lyrics as an example of Kemp "attempting to present characters that are strong and noble with dignity and high moral purpose", concluding, "Even [Spandau Ballet's] leisure time becomes a virtual religious experience."

Aftermath

The number 29 showing by "Gold" in the US was the first signal to Kemp that Chrysalis America was not promoting them.{{efn|"America was not going to plan. 'Gold' had been a hit, although not as big as 'True'... While we were selling large amounts in Europe and the rest of the world, Chrysalis America were not pulling their weight." The disappointing chart performance in the US led Spandau Ballet to leave Chrysalis for CBS Records, which released their Parade follow-up, Through the Barricades, in 1986.

Chant No. 1]]", except on a kind of club, cult-y level… on the coasts. So in mainstream America the first thing they saw were five really smart-looking young guys who every mother loved... they didn't get the gritty bit before, so [the success of 'True' there] was a blessing and it was a curse.

Hadley

In retrospect, however, Hadley felt they needed to spend several months touring the US so that more audiences could hear that back catalogue and not doing so also hurt their record sales there. Hadley felt Dagger was inexperienced, but whenever he suggested getting a manager with more knowledge about the business, the rest of the band balked.

Kemp told Creem in 1984 that he would continue to write for the larger audience Spandau Ballet had acquired with "True" but it would not be making albums that sounded like the last just because it did well. But, just as he had developed writer's block in 1981 after "Chant No. 1" became their highest-charting single, having a UK number one put pressure on Kemp to churn out more chart-topping hits and left him feeling that the band would always judge his future output against "True".{{efn|"With 'True' I'd created my own competition, setting a personal benchmark almost impossible to reach again. A hit song of that nature takes on a legend of its own: people's lives become personally involved in it; they fall in love and get married to it; and a hungry band wants more of it. That kind of iconic status needs time. But whatever I brought to the rehearsal table would only be judged by 'True'."

Track listing

Personnel

Spandau Ballet

• Tony Hadley – lead and backing vocals
• Gary Kemp – guitars, backing vocals
• Martin Kemp – bass
• John Keeble – drums
• Steve Norman – percussion, saxophone

Additional musician

• Jess Bailey – keyboards

Technical

• Spandau Ballet – production
• Steve Jolley – production
• Tony Swain – production, engineering
• Richard Lengyel – engineering assistance
• Tim Young – mastering
• David Band – art direction, illustration
• Lynn Goldsmith – photography
• Stephen Horsfall – typography
• Mixed at Red Bus Studios (London)
• Mastered at CBS Studios (London)

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Notes

References

Bibliography

References

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6. {{Harvnb. Kemp. 2009
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