587 Hello Pop Will Eat Itself - There Is No Love Between Us Anymore

Chart  entered : 30  January  1988

Chart  peak  : 66

Number  of  hits : 15

None  of  these  guys'  hits  spent  more  than  four  weeks  on  the  charts  and  few  bettered  their  entry  position  so  I  only  really  heard  their  music  in  fleeting  snatches  and  it  never  prompted  me  to  investigate  them  further.

Pop  Will  Eat  Itself  had  their  roots  in  a  sub  genre  called  grebo  which  was  largely  confined  to  the  East  Midlands. The  word  originated  there  in  the  seventies  to  describe  metal-loving  bikers. By  the  eighties, aided  by  music  press  coverage,  the  term  described  a  more  specific  scene  where  elements  from  anarcho-punk  such  as  dreadlocks  and  partially shaved  heads  were  present  in  the  fashion  and  the  music  peddled  by  the  bands  was  closer  to  garage  rock  than  metal. Grebo  was  very  politically  suspect  with   figures  like  Zodiac  Mindwarp  taking  the  gross  sexism  of  traditional  metal  one  step  further.

Singer  Clint  Mansell   ( born  1963 )  and  bassist  Adam  Mole   came  together  in  1981  in  a  band  called  From  Eden  which  included  two  members  of  another  Midlands  band  we'll  be  discussing  shortly. Graham  Crabb   ( born  1964 )  joined  on  drums  some  time   afterwards.  The  trio   stayed  together  after  From  Eden  broke  up  and  recruited  guitarist  Richard  March   for  their  new  band  Wild  and  Wandering.

Wild  and  Wandering  released  an  EP  locally  called  "2, 000  Light  Ales  From  Home"  before  renaming  themselves  Pop  Will  Eat  Itself  , a  phrase  picked  up  from  an  NME  article  by  David  Quantick, in  1986. Their  first  single  under  that  name  was  another  EP  "The  Poppies  Say  Grrr" in  May  1986  which  was  championed  by  the  NME  (unsurprisingly )  and  Janice  Long. I  doubt  she  played  the  fifth   track "Candydiosis"  , a  throw  away  expletive-laden  ditty  about  the  use  of  candy  metaphors  in  pop  that  doesn't  last  a  minute.In  fact  the  most  substantial  song  on  the  EP  is  "Sick  Little  Girl" a  breezy  slice  of  C86  pop  halfway  between  Buzzcocks  and  The  Undertones, which  would  be  quite  pleasant  were  it  not  for  the  deliberately  unpleasant  lyrics.  All  five  songs  were  credited  to  their  collective  pseudonym  Vestan  Pance. The  EP  was  issued  by  two  minor  independent  labels  in  quick  succession.

By  the  autumn  they'd  signed  with  the  more  substantial Chapter  22. Their  next  recording  "Poppiecock"  was  another EP  of  five  short  songs , none  of  them  reaching  two  minutes  in  length. It's  not  bad, a  bit  like  JAMC  at  a  faster  pace and  without  the  smothering  feedback."Oh  Grebo  I  Think  I  Love  You"  is  endearingly  daft. However,  it  was  around  this  time  that  The  Soup  Dragons  accused  them  of  sending  a  racist  postcard  to  their  Asian  bass  player.

At  the  beginning  of  1987  they  released  their  third  single  "Sweet  Sweet  Pie "  and  started  appearing  in  the  "Bubbling  under"  section. "Sweet  Sweet  Pie"  is  a  revenge  song  which  sounds  like  a  sped  up  Lloyd  Cole  and  the  Commotions  with  added  psychedelic  organ  for  the  instrumental  breaks  which  serve  as  a  chorus.

Their  next  single  seemed  like  a  baffling  move  at  the  time, a  cover  of  Sigue  Sigue  Sputnik's  debut  hit  "Love  Missile  F1-11". The  Sputniks  had  crashed  and  burned  in  less  than  a  year but  in  common  with  most  of  the   C86   generation  ,PWEI  had  realised  that  lo-fi  indie  guitar  rock  was  never  going  to  break  out  to  the  masses  and  some  stylistic  shift  was  required. Silly  as  they  were  ,SSS  might  have  been  on  to  something  with  their  samples  and  eschewing  of  verse- chorus  songwriting. So  the  single's  a  sort  of  tribute to  them.  The  band  replace  the  synth  line  with  an  Eddie  Cochran  riff  and  replace  most  of  the  lyrics  with  self-referential  boasting. Robert  Gordon  did  a  remix  incorporating  actual  Eddie  Cochran  samples  and   hip  hop  drum  breaks. The  band  liked  what  he  did  and  hired  him  as  producer  for  their  debut  album  "Box  Frenzy". It  was  at  this  point  that  Graham  decided  to  abandon  his  kit  in  favour  of  using  a  drum  machine  called  Dr  Nightmare  and  go  out  front  with  Clint  as  a  co-vocalist.

The  band  had  not  lost  its  desire  to  antagonise  and  their  next  single  "Beaver  Patrol"  in  September  did  just  that  although  it's  actually  a  cover   of  a  song  by  obscure  US  garage  band  The  Wilde  Knights. from  the  late  sixties. PWEI  give  it  the  Beastie  Boys  treatment  with  Clint  and  Graham  trading  the  lines  and  a  hip  hop  break  in  the  middle. It  missed  the  chart  by,  ahem , a  whisker.

The  album  "Box  Frenzy"  followed  shortly  afterwards  and  is  interesting  if  nothing  else  with  the  eclectic  mix  of  styles  on  display. "She's  Surreal"  goes  even  further  in  trying  to  imitate  the  Beasties  while  "Evelyn"  strives  for  the  mid-point  between  Arnold  Layne  and     Waltzinblack.

The  key  track  though  is  the  five  minute  "Hit  The  Hi-Tech  Groove"  , a  five  minute  manifesto  championing  their  new  cut-up  aesthetic   -"You  don't  have  to  have  integrity, you  don't  have  to  have  ability" -  with  the  aid  of  Mel  and  Kim  ( Respectable )  and   Adam  and  the  Ants  ( Stand  And  Deliver ).

"There  Is  No  Love  Between  Us  Anymore"  was  the  third  and  final  single  from  the  album. It  was  written  by  Graham  and  is  a  largely  instrumental  track  with  a  repeated  reiteration  of  the title  the  only non-sampled  lyric. The  music  looks  forward  to  Depeche  Mode's  industrial  rock  of  the  nineties  which , coupled  with  the  Speaking  clock  repetition  of  "He  loves me, he  loves  me  not",  gives  the  track  a  sinister  edge. On  first  listen  it  sounds  like  a  hook  waiting  for  a song  but  given  time  its  hypnotic appeal  becomes  more  apparent.