Monocled Alchemist

LP reviewed in Sounds, 8th May, 1982

Altered Images | Pinky Blue | (Epic) 1982 | IF THE jolly-jolly blancmange and Jellytot frills on the cover of “Happy Birthday” didn’t, like the kid at the party who stuffed all the eClares, turn your stomach, then its follow-up is guaranteed to do the job.

With “Pinky Blue” — Pinky Blue??? — Altered Images and the powers that goad and guide them into doing such terrible things have just gone too far.

Clare Grogan now stands revealed as a rather sad figure stuck mid-way between a new Shirley Temple and a Lena Zavaroni for child molesters, a young puppet whose image as a sexist caricature of a child star is both obscene and deliberately calculated for maximum commercial return.

“Her aim is not to please, all she wants to do is tease,” sings Clare on “See Those Eyes,” the group’s last single and a track included here. It’s a line that speaks volumes, putting its finger fair and square on the crux of the group’s current mass appeal.

Altered Images | Pinky Blue | (Epic) 1982

The heart of Altered Images‘ hop, skip and hump lies in the saliva that runs down the side of a wicked male’s mouth. It is extremely unpleasant. Of course, things haven’t always been this way.

Pre-teenyslop Images could, left to their own devices, cut a skin-burning swathe, take a lyric about “dead pop stars rotting in the studio” and spit it onto the floor with attractive and genuine venom. Post-teenyplop Images are as twee as can be, more sickly sweet than candy and treacle and as pretty as plastic tulips in a dentist’s waiting room.What went wrong?

The answer lies with those nasty old image alterers, those wolves-dressed-up-as-grandmas, the Record Industry. Quick to spot a fast buck, the dirty devils at Epic sensed the endearingly unforced, primitive naivety hanging around the early Images and zoomed in with contract and grin as wide as the warts on your chinny chin chin. Here was a marketable commodity, a perfect Little Red Riding Hood in the shape of the youthful Ms Grogan.

The group’s “progress” after this point was so clever it could have been planned by computer. OUT went the drab old Joy Division clothes that Johnny and the boys preferred; IN came bright, shiny fashion togs. OUT went Banshee Steve Severin as producer (not such a bad idea in the light of his plodding production of their debut album), IN came techno whizz-kid Martin Rushent.

Altered Images | Pinky Blue | (Epic) 1982

OUT went all semblance of nastiness and tough power in their music, IN came blithe playground bliss. And OUT went the old Clare, a naive figure in the raw, IN came the new Clare, a naive figure in the raw.

Clare Grogan was pure putty, material that just needed to be bent a bit further in the direction of her pre-teen looks (she is, in fact, 20) to achieve the desired affect. And on this album the child-like posturing reaches its utter nadir.

It’s very tempting to conclude that anybody who could agree to put their name to a song as pathetic as Neil Diamond‘s “Song Sung Blue” must be a complete tool, but insults don’t really get us anywhere. The track is, in fact, not far removed from Little Jimmy Osmond’s “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool” — this is no exaggeration — with Little Ms Grogan generally coming over like a lollipop stuck in the throat.

But then perhaps this is fitting. If, as current dominant music press ideology states, the “new pop” means that the superficial and disposable is not only acceptable but welcome, then music as wretched as “Song Sung Blue” may be the final, logical conclusion.

This scribe still believes that great pop is music that transcends its limited, humble origins, music that brushes hearts and spikes souls. By this token Altered Images fails miserably.

If, however, we nonchalantly treat Altered Images as is a passing pop group we are obliged to concede that there are sometimes a few positive points in their favour.

Altered Images | Pinky Blue | (Epic) 1982

We’ll forget for a moment “Song Sung Blue” and the similarly repulsive ballad “Goodnight And I Wish”. The track “Think That It Might” is what Altered Images might have become had their image not been cruelly altered — warm and intelligent with none of the nauseating oh-so-coy, look-don’t-touch sexuality that we’ve become so used to.

At other times there are pleasant touches of well-tuned pop sensibility — the barrel organ rifling of “Funny, Funny Me”, for example — and Rushent’s production unearths some interesting effects, particularly on the new “dub” mix of “I Could Be Happy”.

No doubt this record will spawn at least five more hit singles, but let us not bend over backwards to be fair. On the inner sleeve is the inscription “Special Thanks To All Our Parents”. Sad thing is, their parents will probably lap up every note. And yours too. — (Lynden Barber)

ALTERED IMAGES: ‘Pinky Blue’ (Epic EPC 85665)

HOW LONG can this nonsense last? How long Is Clare Grogan to be an overgrown kid at birthday parties – giggling to herself in the corner and being sick on too much lemonade and trifle?

Perhaps it’s her reaction to a tough upbringing in the backstreets of Glasgow, but that’s no reason for Altered Images to make other people suffer.

Nothing personal Clare, but I hate you. I loathe your lisping penetrating voice and cringe at your stupid dance routines. I hate your cute interviews. I scream at at your stupid songs that put my teeth on edge faster than a dentist’s drill. And if anybody mentions again how good you were in ‘Gregory’s Girl’, I shall scream and scream.

Altered Images | Pinky Blue | (Epic) 1982

‘Pinky Blue’ hah! ‘See Those Eyes’ eehhh! ‘Little Brown Head’ turn it off! My God, there’s even a Muppet Show version of ‘Song Sung Blue’ where Clare’s voice is really too much for ordinary flesh and blood to stand.

And could you ever find a more gutless pile of snotty nosed part time musicians than the rest of the little images, all limp wristed guitars and jangly notes.

It’s hard at times like that I wish Hardrian’s Wall was still standing. ‘Pinky Blue’ just makes me see red. (Record Mirror, May 1982)