Johnny Boy - Johnny Boy

Genre pop Publisher Wild Kingdom Records External Links Official Website Wild Kingdom Records

And I was frightened.

Frightened because back in the summer of 2004, I heard Johnny Boy's debut single, "You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get You What Deserve." Setting about to live up to that majestic title, Johnny Boy opened with the drumbeat from "Be My Baby," fireworks firing overhead in the mix. Out of nowhere (but if it was somewhere, it would be the cold streets of a British city that combine the the profane and the beautiful every Friday night), a voice rings out, singing "And I just can't help believing / though believing sees me cursed." Taking Phil Spector's "wall of sound" and projecting it against Infinity, they make a sound that stretches all the way from the 1960s to 2010, and use it to rail against today's consumerism, clinging to the hope, the hope against hope, that somehow we can change before it's too late. It's a song that screams "Yeah! Yeah!," a love song, a call for revolution, a song for killing your boyfriend, a reflection of all that Pop has to offer and shining it back in a new set of angles.

And I was frightened.

Not by its failure in the chart. Number 50 with a bullet, but everybody who heard it was turned into a believer. No, I was frightened because there was no way that the promised album could ever live up to that perfect three minutes. I was almost relieved when the band seemed to disappear off the face of the planet. Almost. For at the beginning of this year, the Johnny Boy album surfaced in Sweden, wrapped behind IAEA seals like a terrifying secret that would tear the world apart if it ever made it out into the wide world. A few brave Swedes saw the world's plight, applied a delicate and deliberate series of sine and cosine transforms to the raw, laser-etched work, and began broadcasting it out in small packets of light across the world. And so, as if by some twist of fate, or blind chance, or pure luck, the album found its way into this reviewer's hands.

And I was frightened. But I just can't help believing, so I clicked play.

The album could only begin with a reprise of "You Are The Generation...," and it's just as brilliant as you remember, a manifesto scrawled in tears and Superdrug's own-brand mascara, tension building as the song approaches its end and the transition to the second, unknown song, "Wall Street"...

...It's completely different than what I expected. The resurrected sound of the British dreambabes of the 1960s. Jackie Lee, The Three Belles, Tammy St. John and all the others as Lolly coos "300 million down the drain." And then the horrific moment in the middle, signalled by a sampled "goddammit!" where the song flashes like lightning, breaking up into a Godspeed You Black Emperor! country-and-western hoe-down, the light being cast on the Dreambabes. And they're animated zombies, coming back to make us repent for the forgetting about them and the failure of the 1960s.

I'm in love. Again.

Amazingly, it gets better. "Fifteen Minutes" is The Go-Gos backed up by Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, mixed in with a little Althea and Donna just for kicks. A non-stop roller-coaster ride of a song, sonic flares popping out the sides of your speakers like friction sparks as it picks up steam, Lolly singing "What you gonna do-ooo?" in a voice that would make The Supremes break down in bitter envious tears. None of which prepares you for "Livin' In The City," an amalgam of every band on Factory Records, stirred with The Human League's "Love Action," and hints of Tom Tom Club and Quincy Jones thrown in for good measure, sloganeering taken to absurd, dadaist heights with lyrics like "16,000 Sony beatboxes just tuned into rock and roll." It's simply staggering.

Perhaps understanding that a rest is needed at this point, the album abruptly slows down; vaguely reminiscent of a film with a kidnapping where the philosophy of the villains is explained while they douse the building in kerosene. Thus we have "War on Want," a snarling, feral denunciation of today's world. "I don't want to buy now, and pay in Sept-em-ber" Lolly hisses, as they walk out, throwing their lighters behind them. "Springer" can only be described as what 8mm film sounds like when put to music; over-saturated colours, shaky vocals and camerawork, and the sense of an innocence long shattered, burnt away with the band watching "Jerry Springer until we cry."

Naming a song "Bonnie Parker's 115th Dream" is something of a courageous, or stupid act. Johnny Boy go left when you expect them to go right, and even at this late stage in the album, what happens thirty seconds into this song will still surprise you. That, and "Well I'm back, and I've got my boots on / I'm here to rob the bank of love!" coupled with the final cries of "'Cause I'm a believer, you need a receiver?" will make you swoon. And then, finally, "Johnny Boy Theme." A homage to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, yes, but also Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid; you can hear the sound of Johnny Boy being blasted into history as "Be My Baby" returns for a second appearance, fireworks once again bouncing off infinity. "Johnny Boy what the hell you gonna do? / We're your friends, Johnny, what's got into you?" sounding like the most essential lyric the world has ever heard.

It's over. Ten tracks, and thirty minutes have passed. Bitter, cynical misanthropy mixed in with a romantic optimism in a way that only the British can deliver. It's an album that sees the challenge of "You Are The Generation..." meets it, and creates one of the most wonderfully fucked-up albums of the past decade. I was afraid, but not anymore. Johnny Boy is Karl Marx produced by Trevor Horn, Xenomania with C4 strapped to their chests, a Molotov cocktail delivered to the beat.

Yeah! Yeah!