Bronski Beat - The Rhythm of Pride

You and me together, fighting for our love

A train moving along the tracks, fleeing a provincial small town in search of who knows what. When talking about an artist, people usually start out by slapping a label on them, to find them a worthy place within our hierarchies. As time goes by, it can happen that the definition chosen no longer fits, dictated as it was by a passing weakness or the whim of a moment. But never as in the case of Bronski Beat does the idea of a band, an album or a song capable of "changing your life" remain, for so many, the most fitting and eternally valid one.

From Glasgow to Soho: being Jimmy Somerville

Protestants in Scotland aren't known for their tolerance, and being gay was part of my chromosomes before I was even able to say the word

(Jimmy Somerville)

In the 1970s Glasgow had the unenviable reputation of being one of the most dangerous cities in the world, due to a high crime rate also fuelled by unemployment. The journey of James William "Jimmy" Somerville begins here, in Ruchill, a residential estate in the north of the city where he was born on 22 June 1961. He has a difficult adolescence because of his red hair and gentle nature, which make him a target for local skinheads and bullies. "They mocked me, calling me a sissy, and it's not nice when you know you're simply gay," the singer would later vent in an interview; yet despite his slight build, he was never one to be pushed around. He goes about with a perm and tight trousers, has no interest in university, and to pay off his debt at the hairdresser's he takes a job selling wallpaper. When Margaret Thatcher is elected prime minister in May 1979, the situation for gay people in the UK gets even harder, convincing him that the time has come to get out; the day before his eighteenth birthday he treats himself to a one-way ticket to London, with a few coins and a load of hope packed in his suitcase.

In the big city he will get the revenge he craved, but his first impact with it isn't great. "I got off at Euston, in the Camden area, and from there I headed towards Piccadilly Circus," Somerville continues, scraping by at times as a kitchen hand and baker's apprentice, at times as a shop assistant in furniture and hardware stores, and when needed even as a bookmaker. He hangs around the Pink Panther, the Compton and other underground haunts in Soho until one afternoon, at Spats, "four strangers pinned us against the wall, threatening to smash our heads in if they ever saw us in their neighbourhood again. But Soho will always stay with me, it's about food, sex, drugs and culture - people like us come here not to watch, but to become part of it."

Life as a squatter is a constant wandering: first he lives in NW5 Hampstead, then on Coptic Street on the corner of the British Museum, where he squats in a house together with Constantine Giannaris (known as "Connie"), an aspiring Greek film-maker studying editing and photography. "We wanted to create something global: in London most gay people aren't locals but come from elsewhere, so we took over a pub in Islington and set up a club in the basement called Movement, where people danced to Talking Heads, Simple Minds, David Bowie and Brian Eno. It was a lifeline for the people who came there, because only there were they free to discuss sexuality and politics." As well as music, of course, which for Jimmy effectively becomes his main occupation once he and Connie are evicted and move in with their mutual friend Gill Whisson.

Twists of fate: the birth of Bronski Beat

Both with the Young Labour crowd and with the Anti-Nazi League I've always spoken with my heart on my sleeve, never mincing words. I was an angry young gay man who wanted to set the world straight: I believed that was possible, and I still firmly believe it today

(Jimmy Somerville)

Gill puts them up in his flat at Lancaster House in Brixton, where he has three bedrooms that he shares with Anthony Kawalski (the band's future manager, ed.) and a couple, Steve William Forrest and Larry Steinbachek. Steve is a former worker who, like Gill, had emigrated from Glasgow's Castlemilk district, while Larry grew up in Southend and is a British Telecom engineer with a passion for synthesizers. The gang gathers on Monday evenings for seminars at the London Gay Teenage Group, an organisation set up to protect English and Welsh minors, established under the umbrella of the Campaign For Homosexual Equality.

Members of the community make, for educational purposes, the documentary "Framed Youth: The Revenge Of The Teenage Perverts", filming people on the street and gathering their opinions on homosexuality: for Jimmy the experience proves doubly crucial, both because in the film he performs one of his own songs for the first time ("Screaming", accompanied on the drum machine by Richard Coles, with whom he would later reunite), and because Larry and Steve, hearing it, are so struck that they picture a future for him on stage. The group takes shape within a few weeks: at the time, the Greater London Council is headed by the left-wing Ken Livingstone, a staunch supporter of minorities and trade unions, who in 1983 funds the "September In Pink" arts festival. The three spot the call for entries in the magazine Capital Gay, and with the help of Pete Townshend of the Who (who grants participants the use of the equipment at Eel Pie Studios in Twickenham), they put together a demo that makes it through the pre-selections at the Oval House, going on to appear on the festival's bill alongside Steve Swindles, Protein, Toby Jug, Sheila Smith and Abandon Your Tutu.

In their embryonic stage they use the name God Forbid, but then settle on Bronski Beat as a tongue-in-cheek pun in response to Roxy Music, a band everyone liked: the suggestion comes from Steve, who at the time is finishing reading "The Tin Drum" and adopts the surname of its protagonist, Oskar Matzerath-Bronski, as his own personal stage name (from then on, everyone calls him Steve Bronski). Their official live debut takes place at The Bell in King's Cross, where they appear as a quartet and play six songs ("Screaming", "Cadillac Car", "Red Dance", "Run From Love", "Junk" and "Walking"). Already by their second gig at The Fridge, though, they sense they'd work better as a trio and decide to let go of bassist Fred, in line with the avant-garde trends of the time that favoured voice and keyboards over traditional instruments. Aside from the odd mishap (at the Brilliance Books Christmas Party, Larry is roughed up by some thugs after the show), audience response is consistently strong everywhere: it's true that other strongly outspoken alternative figures are emerging on the left at the same time (for instance, Shamen, Redskins, or the then up-and-coming Style Council and Billy Bragg), but ideologically Bronski Beat's approach is even more radical, since no one had ever tied their work to the demands of the gay community in such a forceful, politicised way.

1984: The Age Of Consent

I had never dreamed of becoming famous and I didn't want money to mess with my head. I came from the working class and from Trotskyist ideals, so I used fame as a political platform

(Jimmy Somerville)

They're not drag queens, they dress like punks and they love disco music: curiosity grows around Bronski Beat, and word of mouth draws the attention of record labels, who now compete to offer them a deal. In the running are Rca, Virgin, Motown and, above all, Paul Morley and Trevor Horn's Ztt, who is considering turning them into an explosive marketing machine along the lines of the recent Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Holly Johnson and co. are smashing every record with the bomb-single "Relax", but our trio aren't keen on the idea of endorsing T-shirts printed with "Queer" or "Poof", so, surprisingly, they say yes to the less prominent London Records, which, after a long courtship, convinces the band to sign by guaranteeing something probably more valuable to a musician than money: full creative control over their future work.

The deal struck translates into complete creative freedom, of which the 1984 debut album The Age Of Consent stands as the unrivalled manifesto. The title refers to the law prohibiting same-sex relations with anyone under the age of twenty-one, the minimum age below which an individual is to be considered a victim and the adult guilty of rape or abuse. The subject, already tackled by New Order in a song of the same name from their landmark "Power, Corruption And Lies", becomes burningly topical again in an era when the spectre of Aids is upending ordinary life: it's a disease still little understood, and the spread of the virus is immediately linked to gay and bisexual men, fuelling prejudice against them.

The age limit (in England it's one of the highest, while elsewhere it's usually set at around sixteen, as for heterosexuals) isn't the same everywhere but varies according to jurisdiction, as can be seen by leafing through the inner sleeve included with the vinyl, which lists the rulings made by various countries on the matter along with the corresponding penalties for offenders: these range from imprisonment to the death penalty, and it's clear there's little room for joking in such a witch-hunt climate. ID card in hand, even once the fateful threshold is crossed, a thousand obstacles remain, sanctioned by the reticence of the Conservative government.

It's no coincidence that many mainstream stars play with ambiguity rather than risk a coming out that could jeopardise their careers. George Michael surrounds himself with gorgeous supermodels (just look at "I Want Your Sex", "Freedom" or "Father Figure"), Elton John even stages a wedding in Australia with Renate Blauel, while Freddie Mercury will only come out once he learns he is HIV-positive. Something is needed to shake things up and bring visibility to the cause, and in that sense "Smalltown Boy" stands as a point of no return. Recorded at The Garden studios, owned by John Foxx, the single is released on 25 May 1984 and reaches number three at home as well as number one in several European countries (Italy included), while in the United States it peaks at forty-eight but still earns heavy airplay that gradually propels it to the top of the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.

The answers you seek will never be found at home,

the love that you need will never be found at home

("Smalltown Boy")

It's the semi-autobiographical story of a young man from the suburbs, forced to leave his hometown to carve out a refuge away from abuse and intimidation. The video is directed by Bernard Rose – fresh off the much-discussed direction of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax" – who puts homosexuality at the heart of the narrative, relying on realistic, raw imagery, unlike others who instead exploit flashy costumes and innuendo without ever getting to the heart of the matter. The opening scene shows the tracks from the front of the locomotive, dusting off an old cinematic technique still in use today (the Cure also use it in "Jumping Someone Else's Train", as do the Chemical Brothers in “Star Guitar“, solo per citarne un paio), poi la telecamera inquadra il protagonista Somerville che durante il tragitto ripercorre mentalmente i motivi della partenza attraverso flashback montati alla lettera sui contenuti del testo. “Te ne vai una mattina con tutto ciò che hai in una piccola borsa nera/ da solo sulla banchina della stazione, il vento e la pioggia su un viso triste e solitario/ Mamma non capirà mai perché lo hai fatto, ma le risposte che cerchi e l’amore di cui hai bisogno non li troverai mai a casa/ respinto e preso a calci, sempre da solo, eri quello di cui parlavano tutti in città mentre ti umiliavano/ e per quanto ci provassero a farti del male non hai mai pianto davanti a loro, ma solo dentro di te”.

From the train carriages the setting shifts to the edge of a swimming pool: the singer eyes a handsome diver in swim briefs who, judging by his smile, seems to like what he sees, and then, egged on by his friends, tries to pick him up in the changing rooms. A little later he is chased and attacked in a dark alley by a gang of bikers led by that very same muscular athlete, and a policeman then takes Jimmy home with his face bruised: it's at that exact moment that his shocked parents learn of his homosexuality – his mother embraces him tenderly, his father hands him a banknote to buy a train ticket but pulls his hand back when Jimmy tries to shake it.

On MTV the video becomes a huge hit and the debate heats up, thanks to a multitude of themes that shake viewers' consciences to the core. Gay or straight, adult or teenager, it makes little difference: anyone who watches it can say they've helped write a small part of the story. On screen we see desire, loneliness and emotion, anger and a will for emancipation, the victim who becomes the guilty party at home, a son's embarrassment in front of his family and the even greater embarrassment of a family in front of its own son. And then there's the pool macho man, who might really be gay too, but you never know, maybe it's better to hide it — hence the need to leave everything behind and run away to the strains of an era-defining chorus.

Run away, turn away, run away, turn away, run away…

("Smalltown Boy")

Musically, "Smalltown Boy" is an extremely catchy piece of synth-pop with an ace up its sleeve: the striking falsetto to which the singer would tie his fortunes from then on. Frankie Valli, Smokey Robinson, Eddie Kendricks and Philip Bailey had been forerunners of such acrobatic vocals, but coming to his contemporaries, the Gibb brothers, the early Prince ("For You", "Dirty Mind" and "Controversy"), Morten Harket, Paul Heaton on the Housemartins' "The World's On Fire" and Marian Gold of Alphaville on "Sounds Like A Melody" can also be counted among the habitués.

For Somerville, though, this wasn't some one-off party trick, but a genetic code all its own that would map, note by note, his entire repertoire — fittingly, just like Oskar, the boy in Günter Grass's novel whose scream was so shrill it could shatter glass. "I'm a child of the Sixties," he admits candidly on the subject, "I used to listen to the Beatles' 'Twist And Shout' and Bill Haley & His Comets' 'Rock Around The Clock', but I think women managed to express themselves emotionally far more than men did, especially through blues and jazz, so I tried to imitate them."

These and other influences converge on The Age Of Consent, released on 15 October, which, riding the wave of furore stirred up by "Smalltown Boy", definitively crowns Bronski Beat as champions of gay rights: against the black background of the geometric cover sit a blue circle, a yellow square and a pink triangle, the latter reproduced upside down on the back cover to denounce what the Nazis did in the concentration camps, forcing gay inmates to sew it onto their uniforms (a different fate befell lesbian women, who were instead branded with a yellow Star of David if they were of Jewish origin, a brown triangle if of Roma ethnicity, a black triangle if classified as "asocial", a red triangle if political prisoners, a green one if career criminals, and only in very rare cases a pink triangle identical to the men's, overprinted with the initials LL, standing for "lesbian love"). Not everyone grasped its symbolic weight, but after the second single, "Why?", everything became clearer.

Contempt in your eyes when I turn to kiss his lips

Broken I lied, all my feelings denied, blood on your fist.

Can you tell me why?

("Why?")

This time the recording sessions took place at RPM Studio in New York under the skilled guidance of Mike Thorne, already responsible for the sound of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" and other excellent work for Wire, Nina Hagen and Laurie Anderson. The verses dwell on homo themes with unambiguous words, while a trusty old LinnDrum 2 keeps the protest from tipping over into whining, turning the scandalous lyrics into sparkling Hi-NRG dancefloor fare.

“Voi e le vostre false insicurezze state distruggendo la mia vita, condannandomi/ mi definite un peccato e una malattia/ non sentirti mai in colpa, non arrenderti mai”. Dedicated to the memory of gay playwright Drew Griffiths, who was murdered that very year, the song actually took its cue from the controversial case of Martin, a friend of the group's crew who was being relentlessly hunted abroad by the parents of a minor with whom he had struck up a forbidden relationship: in short, another smalltown boy hounded and branded a paedophile. To avoid running into censorship, though, the video depicts something else entirely, unfolding in the aisles of a supermarket, where the band members steal miniature statuettes of the ultimate icon of manly virtue, Donatello's David (in the previous clip, too, any physical contact and the beating inflicted on Somerville were never shown outright but were subtly implied, so as not to traumatise children watching at home). Press reactions were mixed, but in the charts the phenomenon kept spreading: Morrissey reeled off learned metaphors and references ("I Want The One I Can't Have", "This Charming Man", "Hand In Glove"), Boy George offered masked nursery rhymes ("I'll Tumble 4 Ya", to name one) and Pete Burns dangled collagen-plumped bait (it was the year of "Sophisticated Boom Boom"); Bronski Beat, paradoxically, went for the least flamboyant image of them all, turning up on Top Of The Pops in short-sleeved t-shirts with schoolboy crew cuts.

The acronyms "LGBT", "LGBTQIA+" and the like hadn't even been coined yet, and they were already their designated heroes — though it's worth stressing that, first and foremost, we're dealing here with skilled, imaginative musicians, as proven by the astonishing third single "It Ain't Necessarily So", released over the Christmas holidays: written by the Gershwin brothers and DuBose Heyward for "Porgy And Bess" and originally given to John W. Bubbles, who in the 1935 opera played the Black drug dealer and gambler Sportin' Life. The lyrics cast doubt on the teachings of the Bible, and in a bigoted country like the United States, which has always counted religion among its unassailable certainties, such an attack on the establishment sounded like heresy.

David was small but oh my

he shot Goliath who lay down and dieth

("It Ain't Necessarily So")

The band offers a memorable pop-spiritual reinterpretation of it without upending the script too much, backed by the vocals of the London gay collective Pink Singers and a phenomenal clarinet solo by Arno Echt (of the Uptown Horns) lending extra shine to the intro: while Sportin' Life mocked those who judged him for his vices yet was dim-witted enough to believe Jonah could survive three days inside a whale's belly, Bronski Beat skewer morality itself, mocking those who think homosexuals are doomed to hell over those old stories about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament. And how is it possible, after all, that a scrawny, skinny Jew killed a giant with a sling? Or what about Moses, rescued from the waters of the Nile by the Pharaoh's daughter and who went on to become the leader of the people of Israel? It needn't necessarily be true — and that's exactly the point of the mission undertaken by the Anglo-Scottish trio, who on the dancefloor want to educate minds while waving the flag of pride in difference (the allegorical artwork, with Dorothy from "The Wizard Of Oz" transfigured into a devil, is wonderfully effective).

"I Feel Love/Johnny Remember Me" (with the Pink Singers once again on backing vocals) is a venomous double cover of Donna Summer and John Leyton, fired back in response to the disco queen's outburst at a 1983 concert in Atlantic City, where she'd declared "in the beginning it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve": the American star would clumsily try to walk it back, but the damage was already done, and the even more overwhelming medley version, performed as a duet with Marc Almond (it also folds in "Love To Love You, Baby" and was released in April '85 as a non-album single) is a spectacular way of flipping her the middle finger.

"It was all tremendously exciting," Jimmy recalls with enthusiasm, "suddenly we had Moroder's world within our reach, something we could previously only brush up against through the record player. We were becoming, in every corner of the planet, the soundtrack for gay people living in secrecy."

But beyond the core sexual themes, the tracklist also offers plenty more, testament to a formidable ability to range across subjects and genres with the pronoun always declined in the masculine: "No More War" is a sophisticated piece of smooth jazz à-la Sade that calls for an end to conflict (“No more war, please/ no more destruction of innocent life”), "Love And Money" deplores capitalism and exploitation (“Money is the the roots of all evil”), the swung "Heatwave" apes Peggy Lee with Caroline O’Connor's tap-dancing and fun finger-snaps, while "Screaming" (resurrected from the soundtrack of “Framed Youth”) is rearranged as teenage blues, with rhymes about isolation and domestic violence.

Evil, wicked or angel just give me a man

(“Need A Man Blues”)

Worthy of special mention, finally, are “Need A Man Blues” (another Donna Summer original) and “Junk”, the two tracks most focused on fashionable wave sonorities: the first is a harrowing homoerotic ride over swarms of synths, its closing apotheosis “the sweetest thing of all is a man loving man” reading like an open-air coming out; the second throws television slogans, nightlife, drugs and processed food into the mixer over martial rhythms and dark atmospheres (Somerville singing in his lower register is a wonderful exception here, and there will be a few other sporadic ones, but you can count them on one hand).

Many took it to heart and felt encouraged to come out of the closet, celebrities and ordinary people alike: The Age Of Consent is a masterpiece of the counter-culture of its time and a call to arms, yet the less attentive still remember the Bronski Beat today as mere shooting stars or fleeting one-shots, since it was right at their peak that the toy broke.

The band performs at London's Electric Ballroom for “Pits And Perverts”, a benefit night for the miners organised by the “Gays And Lesbians Support The Miners” association, where they manage to raise eleven thousand pounds for the cause in defence of the right to strike. To hamper their plans, Thatcher had the funds of the National Union Of Mineworkers seized, blocking private donations to the union, so various charitable bodies sprang up spontaneously in parallel (the episode is documented in detail in the 2014 film “Pride” by Matthew Warchus). Right afterwards they go back into the studio to work on new material, which is however temporarily shelved due to insurmountable internal disagreements: rumour has it that Steve voted Tory, and Labour-supporting Jimmy didn't like that, since it went against the very reasons they were making music. From the ballot box the querelle moves onto professional ground, and culminates in a split when the singer, thrown off balance by unexpected fame and increasingly reluctant to embrace showbiz, turns down the plum opportunity to serve as opening act for Madonna on the “Like A Virgin” tour, which would probably have helped the Bronski Beat break through in the States as well.

“Everything started to go a bit wrong, and we realised that to stay together under these conditions our friendship needed to be even stronger, but it wasn't”. The trio then falls apart, but in 1985 they still manage to release the mini-compilation Hundreds And Thousands, which exhumes some unfinished sketches and yields two more gems, the apocalyptic “Hard Rain”, about the collapse of democracy, and the sentimental “Run From Love”, another pyrotechnic performance with which Somerville takes his leave of the group.

There are many reissues of Hundreds And Thousands, the richest of which is certainly the 2012 CD edition, which adds to the roster various B-sides (“Infatuation/Memories”, the rock'n'roll “Cadillac Car” and the instrumental jungle-techno “Signs/And Wonders”), a couple of early rarities (the new-age-flavoured “The Potato Fields” and the otherwise unfindable “Red Dance”), the lovely minute-and-a-half a cappella piece “Puit D’Amour” and “Close To The Edge”, which captures live the tensions within the band (“Look at me, I'm falling/ would you come and rescue me?”), a song already released months earlier as a free single by the New Musical Express. Also worth appreciating are four remixes from The Age Of Consent, in particular “Junk”, on which Mike Thorne inserts a spoken word passage by Wendy Wild, in an operation identical to what he had already done with Cindy Ecstacy's spoken dialogue on “Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing” by Soft Cell.

Truth and consequences: the Jon Jon era

At this point Steve and Larry, sole owners of the brand, opt for a stopgap solution and recruit John Foster, a former hardcore punk from Basildon who had in the past crossed paths during his apprenticeship with Dave Gahan and Alison Moyet. But it isn't the same thing: his deep timbre lacks the warm, vibrant animosity that his predecessor's high notes had been able to convey, even though it fits perfectly with the cheerful dance melodies of the new direction, so much so that in November 1985 the single “Hit That Perfect Beat” reaches number three at home and the Top Ten in various European countries, Australia and South Africa. The video is set in Liverpool among the docks on the River Mersey, and shows Jon Jon (the stage name of the new vocalist, sometimes credited as John Jøn) who, after passing an audition, joins the group and lets loose alongside the others at the club “The State”, while in the background run some images from the working-class comedy “Letter To Brezhnev”, of which the song is the soundtrack.

This is the prelude to Truthdare Doubledare, released in April 1986 on Mca Records: the sound picks up the tempo and heads towards a peppier, less uncompromising techno-pop, while still not shying away from occasional forays into serious themes, such as “Dr. John”, which returns to the drama of Aids (“I can't love you, until the cure is here”) – these being the days when Rock Hudson's death is sending mass hysteria through the roof – “Punishment For Love” (“Locked up until you're twenty-one/ is this the punishment for loving?”), the self-celebratory “This Heart”, which quotes the smalltown boys verbatim (“You small-town boys, you've got everything to fight for/ pack your bags and get out that door!”), or the title track itself, which still pokes at the Church with the cry of “dare to be different” (“Why won't you listen to me, preacher/ would Jesus like what you've done?”).

The rest is pure Eighties-flavoured divertissement without too much intellectual pretension, with rubbery arrangements and neon synthesisers (the Depeche-Mode-ish “Do It” sounds as if lifted straight from “Speak And Spell”, while “We Know How It Feels” echoes in its incipit the “I Could Give You A Mirror” by Eurythmics). A notch above the rest is the closing ballad “In My Dreams”, close to the torments of Yazoo's “You And Me Both”. The feeling, though, is that the best shots have already been fired, and the disappointing twentieth place of the second single “C’Mon! C’Mon!” (with its Caribbean feel) is a sign that inspiration is running low on supplies. A cover of David Bowie's “Heroes” by David Bowie provides one last flicker of notoriety: recorded in forty-eight hours alongside various artists under the pseudonym The County Line, it is donated to BBC One, which channels the proceeds to children in need through the television marathon “Children In Need”, similar to our “Telethon”. A laudable initiative, no doubt, but Foster loses the long-distance comparison with Jimmy Somerville, who is meanwhile busy with projects of a very different calibre.

1986-'87: Red Communards

“We wanted to bring down Thatcher by covering 70s disco classics. We grew up in a world hostile to gay people, for us it was a matter of life and death: our liberation would only be achieved by liberating others” (Richard Coles)

The split from his former bandmates gives new energy to the Scottish singer, who alongside his old friend Richard Coles, whom he'd met, as already mentioned, back in the days of the London Gay Teenage Group, seems to be living a second youth. Richard is a classically trained pianist born in Northampton, where he cut his teeth as a chorister at Wellingborough School before honing his skills as a multi-instrumentalist at the Department Of Drama And Liberal Arts, where he took lessons in organ and violin. His coming out to his mother is a rather turbulent affair and leads to frequent crises, until he is admitted to a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide with an overdose of medication. He is diagnosed with clinical depression, and fortunately music offers him something to hold on to; together with Somerville he creates another hugely appealing gay pop partnership. They want to call themselves “Committee”, but when another band claims the name, they choose “Communards” in homage to the Parisian revolutionaries who took control of the city in 1871. “They were our model, freedom and self-determination should be everyone's right and not a privilege. We believed in human rights then, and we still believe in them now”. The intentions, as is easy to guess, are highly combative, and the songs are split evenly between sparkling Hi-NRG numbers and piano ballads, so as to showcase Jimmy's prodigious falsetto without taking the spotlight away from his partner. In September '85 the debut single “You Are My World”, in disco style, reaches the Top Thirty in the UK, once again well produced by Mike Thorne, who leans heavily on drum machines and synthesisers while the two trade virtuoso flourishes.

No future, no hopes, just broken dreams (“Disenchanted”)

A few months later came “Disenchanted”, a more traditional piece of electro-pop in which the ghosts of the past resurface. “While I was writing it, I was chatting with friends about Bronski Beat, and I started wondering why they alone should have the right to carry that kind of sound forward, when after all there was so much of me in it too,” explains Somerville, who shapes the new album along the same lines as the previous productions. Pathos, flawless harmonies and an overflowing communicative urgency. “The difference,” adds Coles, “lies in the arrival of physical instruments, which make it more acoustic and dynamic.”

Recorded at Sigma Sound Studios in New York, the eponymous Communards is released on 12 July 1986 and opens with a bang: “Don't Leave Me This Way” climbs to the top of the UK chart, where it stays for four weeks, becoming the best-selling single of that year. It's a cover of a 1975 soul classic by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass; this time the winning card is the talented Sarah Jane Morris (the group's unofficial third member), whose husky voice blends wonderfully with Somerville's countertenor, tempering his exuberance. The result is a spirited duet destined to remain long in the collective memory, buoyed by an epic overture that alone is worth a whole career: “we met in 1985 at a Miners Benefit in Brixton, where I was performing with Happy End, a mixed ensemble of twenty-five men and women who sang political songs from all over the world,” recounts Sarah, who in her hometown of Southampton had specialised in rock, soul and r'n'b. “My brother was studying acting at college with Richard Coles, and they introduced me to Jimmy; one evening at the Fridge we sang Billie Holiday's Billie Holiday's “Lover Man” together as if we'd fallen in love with the same man. In the front row were the people from London Records, and seeing how in sync we were, they went wild on the spot, so we decided to put it on the tracklist.” It's a jazz standard composed in 1941 by Jimmy Davis, Roger Ramirez and James Sherman, but the Communards' real strength lies in the original songs featuring Coles's piano, which plays a leading role in a songwriting style that grows steadily more mature and assured.

The despondent “Reprise” and “Breadline Britain”, both for piano and voice alone, lament the state of affairs in Britain, described as a “promised land where the rich don't give a damn and poor people go hungry”, while “Forbidden Love” mourns heartache while wiping away its tears with a hopeful message (“our love is forbidden fruit/ let's taste every bite with pride, not shame”). The tempo picks up again with the fourth single “So Cold The Night” (about sex and voyeurism), which skilfully fuses dance with Balkan folk, and “Heavens Above”, where the singer juggles, like a seasoned illusionist, between muted notes and angelic ecstasy. The cabaret diversion “Don't Slip Away” and the aching flamenco-theatre piece “La Dolarosa” are the icing on the cake of a bold, desperate LP that disguises the seriousness of its lyrics within upbeat, emphatic arrangements.

The cover in Cyrillic lettering and the logo overlapping the two men's silhouettes attest to a symbiosis of rare alchemy: both Somerville and Coles are gay and socialist, and on the second album, Red, from October 1987, the former's genuine self-taught wildness finds a natural counterbalance in the latter's expertise, the product of rigorous academic study. This time at the controls is Stephen Hague, producer of Pet Shop Boys and Erasure, who that very year were smashing the charts with “It's A Sin” and “A Little Respect”: the sound shifts towards a cleaner, more immediate electronic style, without betraying the distinctiveness of a project that nonetheless remains fundamentally different. The line-up expands to ten members: joining Sarah Jane Morris are Junes Miles Kingston on drums, Caroline Buckley on backing vocals, saxophonist Jo Pretzel and a string quartet (made up of Jocelyn Pook, Sonja Slany, Sally Herbert and Audrey Riley). The centrepiece is the over-the-top “Never Can Say Goodbye”, which hits the Top Five almost everywhere, repeating the exploit of “Don't Leave Me This Way”. It's a classic Motown tune written by Clifton Davis for the Jackson 5 and made a hit by Gloria Gaynor, but the best moments are hidden within the folds of a tracklist that, despite the formula's repetitiveness, still manages to surprise.

You may break the skin but you can’t kill the soul (“Tomorrow”)

The first half has a more danceable, less orchestral feel, with the opening synth-pop of “Tomorrow”, about a woman beaten by her husband, and the chorus of “Victims”, which obsessively dwells on the theme of abuse by relocating the crime scene inside a factory, while the soft “There's More To Love Than Boy Meets Girl” shifts the focus to civil unions, with the title's slogan standing as a candidate for an anthem. The disco-soul of “Hold On Tight” winks at Barry White, while “Lovers And Friends” and the sparkling horn-driven big beat of “A Matter Of Opinion” (“won't you try to understand my point of view?”) thrive instead on dazzling vocal surges. But it's the moving piano ballad “For A Friend” that stands as the emotional peak of the album, and perhaps of Somerville's entire career: with a performance of tremendous impact, he pays tribute here to his friend Mark Ashton, co-founder of Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners, who had just died of Aids. Also noteworthy are “If I Could Tell You”, marked by an ominous tolling of bells set to verses by the Anglo-American poet Wystan Hugh Auden, and the torch song “C Minor”, which prematurely writes the final word on a trajectory as brief as it was gripping, sealed by a triumphant tour that also stopped in Italy, in Turin. “Live, we had a truly unique line-up, three queers and seven straight women,” they laugh about it now. “Honestly, we can guarantee you those were the most fun shows ever put on, a shame it all ended so soon.” Less than two years after founding Communards, Jimmy and Richard amicably went their separate ways to pursue two diametrically opposite paths: Coles turned to religion and is today a vicar in the Anglican Church as well as a well-regarded writer and radio host, while Jimmy rolled up his sleeves and threw himself headlong into a solo career.

The Nineties: farewell to dreams

Just when everything seemed to have fallen silent, Bronski Beat surprisingly stir once more. Having parted ways with John Foster, they shut themselves away in the Berry Street studios with keyboardist and sound engineer Brian Pugsley to work on a new album that, however, would never see the light of day. It was meant to be called “Out And About”, but it was never recorded, as London Records withdrew its backing, showing little interest in “The Final Spin”, “Peace And Love” (featuring Rose McDowall of Strawberry Switchblade on vocals) and a handful of other unreleased tracks that were nonetheless aired live on tour. Left without a contract, in 1989 Larry and Steve hired English singer Jonathan Hellyer, with whom they completed a US and European tour (Annie Conway also joined them), then collaborated with American diva Eartha Kitt on the provocative “Cha Cha Heels”, which achieves a modest chart showing and reignites Zomba Records' interest. But it's a flash in the pan: the ill-fated single “I'm Gonna Run Away From You” passes completely unnoticed, while “One More Chance”, graced by a soft pop-soul melody à la Charles & Eddie, fares only slightly better. Too little to suggest any kind of rebirth, and the insipid Rainbow Nation from 1995, again with Jonathan Hellyer, stands as the dreary epitaph to the group's rainbow ambitions.

Glaswegian DJ and programmer Ian Donaldson (better known as Sordid Soundz) joins the fold, but the tracklist gets bogged down in a coarse brand of eurodance, of which the grating “Be Serious”, “Eastern Eyes” and “Tell Me Your Name” represent the sorry low point. The guitar-driven ballad “No Difference”, which is genuinely well judged, is a flower in the desert; the rest blurs together in carbon-copy fashion between strobe-lit banalities (“I Luv The Nightlife”, “Slow Down” and “Kicking Up The Rain”) and cheap gimmicks (the remakes of “Smalltown Boy”, “Why?” and “Hit That Perfect Beat” are all too predictable, and over time dozens more would follow). Donaldson then jumps ship and returns to the decks, Steinbacheck reinvents himself as musical director for the theatre company Remote Control Productions, under Belgian director Michael Laub, while Steve busies himself with a host of scattered parallel releases, including the remix of All Living In Fear's “Stranger To None” and the digital completion of “Out and About”.

Mighty Real: Jimmy Somerville again

The most enterprising of them all, however, remains the ever-resilient Somerville, who hasn't lost his touch and has in the meantime moved to San Francisco to indulge his solo instincts. Outside the bands that made him famous, he had already tried his hand at Fine Young Cannibals' “Suspicious Minds” back in 1985; then, after a brief reunion with Bronski Beat in 1987 for International Aids Day and the end of his run with Communards, he launches his solo debut Read My Lips (October 1989), which reflects his unrelenting commitment to the international organisation Act Up (literally “Aids Coalition To Unleash The Power”). Now he has himself photographed for magazines wearing a T-shirt reading “Action=Life/Silence=Death”, keeping the torch of attention burning at all times. “It was a moment of great political fervour but also one of mourning for me, as I watched so many people fall ill and die because of Aids. The stars weren't doing enough, and misinformation reigned, so I decided to channel my anger and frustration into the microphone; direct action and civil disobedience seemed by then the only viable path.” It's in this light that the first single, “Comment Te Dire Adieu”, a duet with Junes Miles-Kingston, should be read: it dusts off a 1968 translation by Serge Gainsbourg written for Françoise Hardy, redirecting its meaning from a farewell to a lover into a far more tragic parting. The second single, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, is instead a fitting tribute to Sylvester (who had also fallen victim to the disease early on), to whom Somerville had often been compared because of his remarkably similar vocal register: here too it's an unrestrained piece of Hi-Nrg-pop that breaks into the UK Top Five, though sadly it's also the last flicker of a certain kind of magic, since the usual flawless performances are now offset by arrangements that feel rather familiar.

There's still no shortage of inspired moments, though: the lovely chorus of “Perfect Day”, the jazzy arrangements of “Rain” (with trumpet by Simon Elms), and Luke Tunney's flugelhorn, which on the melancholy “Don't Know What To Do (Without You)” reworks an old Burt Bacharach trope, while the title track “Read My Lips” (subtitled “Enough Is Enough”) nods, in a modern key, to a classic disco tune by Donna Summer and Barbara Streisand. “And You Never Thought This Could Happen To You” is yet another call to fight back (“there's a power we command/if united we resist”), while “Control” (“take control of your life!”) and the danceable bonus track “Adieu! (Madame Tata Mix)” spice up a record that, in its more essentially romantic moments, even manages to move the listener — “Heaven Here On Heart (With Your Love)” and “My Heart Is In Your Hands”. Having returned to live in Europe six months later, he records a reggae cover of the Bee Gees' “To Love Somebody”, which serves as the launch for The Singles Collection 1984/1990, a compilation of all the singles released up to that point (including those with Bronski Beat and Communards) plus a new version of “Run From Love” with Claudia Brücken of Propaganda. “On the cover are my magical rosy cheeks, my grandmother would have been thrilled!” the singer jokes about it, and fans evidently appreciated it too, judging by the decent haul the best of picked up across Europe. Also in 1990, he lends “From This Moment On” to the Cole Porter tribute album “Red Hot + Blue”, commissioned by the Red Hot Organization for an Hiv-awareness campaign; the following year he appears on backing vocals on “Why Aren't You In Love With Me” by Banderas, a duo formed by his new flatmate Sally Herbert and Caroline Buckley, with whom he had worked back in the days of Red.

He was twenty-five, his lover sixteen

they locked him away because he dared to love” (“Dare to Love”)

In the early Nineties Somerville takes a long sabbatical, broken in 1995 by his second solo album, Dare To Love, which doesn't stray far from his tried-and-tested guiding lines. Production duties go to Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard, who at the same time were the architects behind the Spice Girls' global boom: together they write the lead single “Heartbeat”, which reaches number one on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart thanks to its catchy retro sound and the excellent support of Carol Kenyon, who had made her mark on the wave scene with Heaven 17's “Temptation”, Ultravox's “Same Old Story” and Nik Kershaw's “Radio Musicola” (some in Italy will also remember her for the backing vocals on Eros Ramazzotti's “In Ogni Senso”). As ever, the tracklist roams freely across genres, a sign of an inexhaustible creative drive that, even when not at its sharpest (“Lovething” and the flat cover of the Supremes' “Someday We'll Be Together”), still earns credit for its versatility: the title-track “Dare To Love” treads gospel territory, railing against the harsh legal discrimination suffered by gay people; “A Dream Gone Wrong” combines black-music roots with intricate harmonic探索 — rather, with demanding harmonic exploration — while the cover of Millie Jackson's “Hurt So Good” and the ode to the pleasures of sex “Alright” (co-written with Gary Butcher) sway along to exotic, almost-ska rhythms. Special mention goes to “Cry” and to the little gem “By Your Side”, which dissolves into minimalist, ethereal atmospheres: released as the third single, its sleeve features artwork by Donald Christie, the Scottish photography guru whom the trendiest fashion labels of the time (Levi's, Converse, Diesel) were commissioning for their ad campaigns, while the cover art itself depicts Somerville standing at night on the grass, arms thrown wide open to the sky.

A not exactly transcendent but enjoyable work, though it doesn't fully win over London Records, and the partnership comes to an end. "The people at the label got on my nerves. They said I couldn't do certain songs because they were too gay, yet anyone in the northern hemisphere knew about my orientation. I deserved far better treatment," Jimmy complains, and his response in 1997 is to self-produce the single "Dark Sky" and collaborate with Sparks on "The Number One Song In Heaven", before signing a new deal with the independent Gut Records. Freed from the shackles of the majors, he's able to write songs that are honest and experimental at once, moving away for the first time from well-worn disco sounds. Commercially it will flop due to woefully poor promotion, but if the solo Somerville's biggest flaw is a chronic inability to reinvent himself, then Manage The Damage (1999) is worth repeated listens, if only to realize what he could have achieved had he dared give himself a real chance. "I laughed and drank plenty with my friend Sally Herbert, who I live with. We made the album at our place, there's no better spot to be creative than somewhere you feel safe. We didn't have to pay for overpriced studio time, the only downside being the neighbours banging a broom against the wall whenever they heard us!" The result is a seductive mix that repeatedly flirts with house music, finding three of its most enticing alternative shades in "Something To Live For" (written by Ed Monaghan), "Someday Soon" and the delightful "Rolling". "Girl Falling Down" (which blends electronics and acoustic guitar) was written after reading a horrifying newspaper article about a girl who'd been a victim of violence, "My Life" and "This Must Be Love" idle along on clockwork trip-hop machinery, while "Lay Down (Contact)", again from Serge Gainsbourg, is a provocative celebration of oral sex. The standout moment, though, is the ecstatic "Here I Am", a noir-tinged track about death that sits close to the contemporary chart-topping pop-trance of Sonique (remember "Sky" and "It Feels So Good"?). "Eve" and the techno-gospel "Stone" are the last two pieces of a mosaic unjustly left to fade into obscurity, together with its twin Root Beer, which in August 2000 tries to restore it in remix form for the American market.

Back home: the 2000s

We went pretty hard with drugs, my favourites were amphetamines but anything would do. Once I started I couldn't stop, so I chose abstinence, and life

(Jimmy Somerville)

The new millennium opens in stand-by mode, and the singer takes the chance to act in an episode of the TV series "Lexx": it's not his first acting experience, since back in 1992 he'd had a small part in Sally Potter's fantasy film "Orlando" (an adaptation of the Virginia Woolf novel starring Tilda Swinton, for which he also contributed the OST track "Eliza") and in 1998 he'd appeared in Isaac Julien's "Looking For Langston". His recording silence is broken by a cover of "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You", included on the soundtrack to "Queer As Folk", and in 2004 by Home Again, a sort of return to base built on predominantly dance sounds, put together between Hamburg and Stuttgart with a formidable crew of experts, including Italy's own Mauro Picotto, Paul Sparkes, Rolf Emer of Jam & Spoon and Tillman Uhrmacher. The opener "Could It Be Love" and "Come On" (a collaboration with Peter Plate of Rosenstolz) make things clear straight away, with that unmistakable falsetto front and centre over Moroder-esque sequencers fit for a 2.0 party, while "I Will Always Be Around" is the usual, peaceable dip into reggae.

Moving on to the inevitable covers section, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (originally by Marvin Gaye) doesn't quite work, having been recorded reluctantly under pressure from Bmg International ("they threatened not to distribute the album if I didn't do it, it was a big mistake"), while the cover of Depeche Mode's "But Not Tonight" stumbles over a few too many hard-style ambitions. Better, then, to stay in the comfort zone with "It's So Good", "Under A Lover Sky" and the hypnotic "What's Your Game?", which keeps the political fire burning. Here too the real coups de théâtre lie, against the odds, in the more cerebral tracks: "Amnesia" is dedicated to the singer's longest relationship, despite having repeatedly declared himself against monogamy, "Selfish Days" feeds on gentle violin arpeggios, while "Stay" is a gorgeous, sui generis ballad built on clanging industrial scaffolding. Finally "It Still Hurts" and "Burn" close out, without much fuss, an album that in turn sells very little but still deserves at least one spin.

Another break of almost five years follows, and in 2009 Suddenly Last Summer arrives, featuring delightful acoustic interpretations of more or less well-known songs: not the usual 70s-tribute record, but an album substantially different from all the others, more intimate and introspective. "The title comes from the actual situation I found myself in one summer at Mangrove Mountain, in Australia. I had a studio at my disposal for six days and a hugely talented crew at my service, so I pulled out my iPod and we sat down at the piano." The songs range across the pantheon of music from every era, with a selection less obvious than one might expect: Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" becomes a jaunty folk tune, "Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair" gives a tune-up to a Nina Simone traditional, while "Hangin' On The Telephone" takes on a veil of sadness absent from the Blondie hit (originally by the Nerves) but it shines brightly in the soulful tones of the singer from Ruchill. "It's just a feeling, they say us Scots have melancholy running through our veins. As a vocalist I have plenty of doubts and anxieties, but I know my tone and power have changed." Alongside numerous jazz oldies (Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs To Daddy", "It's Love" by the Green/Comden/Bernstein trio and Patsy Cline's smoky "Walking After Midnight") there are curious reinterpretations closer to rock, such as Deep Purple's "Hush", which keeps a charming country gait, the Doors' "People Are Strange" with its Bryan Ferry-style crooning, and the delicate "Sweet Unknown" by Cranes, which here shines in an illuminated piano-only guise, tailored especially by the album's producer and co-writer Andrew Worboys. A learned, refined work initially available only as a download, followed by the EPs "Bright Thing", "Momentum" and "Solent", which would form the backbone of the sixth studio album Homage, a 2015 nostalgia-trip that returns to the golden years of disco music with lush orchestration and a wide range of instruments (brass, guitar, strings) at least good enough to raise the fun factor a notch.

"I'm talking about liberation and celebration: in the end we won, and with Homage I'm trying to give listeners an excuse to shake off, even just for an hour, the worries that hold them back day to day," he explains at the album's launch, when asked about the eccentric cover artwork. "It's a statue of Atlas, who in Greek mythology was forced by Zeus to hold up the entire sky. Music and dance can save the world, which is why I wanted to put a strobe ball on his shoulders." Out of the hazy, phosphorescent magma created by producer John Winfield emerge the sinuous grooves of "Travesty" and "Lights Are Shining", while the rest unfolds, truth be told, without too many surprises between uptempo disco-funk ("Freak", "Some Wonder", "Strong Enough") and pleasant filler ("Overload" and the slower "The Core" and "Learned To Talk"), doubled up in extended form on the superfluous Club Homage. 2016 brings his first and, so far, only live album, Live And Acoustic At Stella Polaris, recorded at a chill-out festival held every year near Copenhagen. The setlist includes all the heavy hitters of his thirty-year songbook, offered in a heartfelt acoustic rearrangement (from "Why?" to "Don't Leave Me This Way", via "Smalltown Boy"), plus a couple of the standout tracks from his more recent catalogue, but this rather prolific period is soon overshadowed by tragic news.

The age of reason: the Bronski Beat legacy

On 16 December 2016, Larry Steinbachek dies at just fifty-six, defeated by a brief battle with cancer. His former bandmate and lifelong friend Steve Bronski, who had meanwhile retired first to Bangkok and then to Amsterdam, isn't ready to hang up his hat, and tries to ride the emotional wave of the loss by releasing, the following July, The Age Of Reason, a questionable reworking of the 1980s masterpiece through which he attempts to keep pace with new generations, but the pallid techno-dance hybrids of "Love And Money", "Junk" and "No More War/It Ain't Necessarily So" (the latter two merged into a lukewarm medley we could gladly have done without) end up having the exact opposite effect, alienating even the most devoted fans. At least worth appreciating is the undying zeal with which the previously unreleased "A Flower For Dandara" denounces the lynching of Dandara Dos Santos, a forty-two-year-old Brazilian trans woman tortured and killed in broad daylight in Fortaleza, while the other new track "I'll Be Gone" and the cover of Sylvester's "Stars" offer little in the way of inventiveness. Ian Donaldson and the album's vocalist, Stephen Granville, fail to bring any real appeal, and, almost mockingly, "I Feel Love" is left off the tracklist for copyright reasons — the song that, in terms of provocative style, lyrical meaning and sheer success, perhaps embodied the quintessence of Bronski Beat better than any other: The Age Of Reason is the last flutter of wings from a legendary, one-of-a-kind band, though thankfully the calls to arms made during their heyday weren't entirely in vain.

The social transition of homosexuality from "illegal" to "legal but not always accepted" had found a timid opening in 1967, with the age of consent set at twenty-one, but by 1984, the year The Age Of Consent came out, very little had actually changed in practice, and a key part of this regressive culture was the plight of young people who felt penalized by their peers' inability to accept them for who they were. "Smalltown Boy" was a decisive step in the right direction, sparking a serious debate that highlighted the difficult situation faced by thousands of people. The song's sincere, liberal message reaching the charts signalled that not just Britain but the rest of the world was waking up and taking note, coming together in a shared sense of identity that pushed a great many people to come out. The age of consent in England was lowered to sixteen in 2001, while it would take until 2003 for the notorious "Section 28" to be repealed — introduced in 1988 under the Local Government Act, it banned local authorities from "intentionally promoting homosexuality" or teaching, in any state-funded school, "the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". Sadly, on 7 December 2021, Steve Bronski also passed away, overcome by smoke from a fire at his home in Soho, unable to escape as he had been left semi-paralysed by a stroke some time earlier: the sad announcement was made on Facebook by none other than Jimmy Somerville, the sole survivor of a magical era that managed to speak warmly to anyone willing to listen. The Scottish singer, who has never gotten a driving licence and swears he has no intention of doing so, now spends most of his time in Brighton, cycling his mountain bike along the cliffs, while keeping his voice warm with the occasional charity single and other impromptu collaborations: the 2021 charity single "Everything Must Change" is a Nina Simone cover for End Youth Homelessness, while his most recent single to date is "What Makes Us Wonderful" from 2022, a collaboration with Bosnian-Swedish DJ Salvatore Ganacci. He hopes to bounce back commercially too in the future, but "don't count on it too much," he warns with his usual irony: after all, that was never really the main goal for him or for Bronski Beat, and for many, it's just as well things turned out that way.

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