WAS's Awesome New Wave Song Of The Week #34: Heaven 17 - Let Me Go and We Live So Fast, & Billy Idol - White Wedding

Taking their name from the brief record shop scene in “A Clockwork Orange”, Heaven 17 were one of those New Wave bands that I always respected and found intriguing … but never really loved.  In my world they were kinda like the Boston of New Wave … a moment or two of greatness in a career of output that generally all sounded the same.  That said, the first two songs I ever heard from H17 amazed me and I listen to them with joy to this day. Both were from their second album “The Luxury Gap” released in 1981.   “Let Me Go” was a slow-burning masterpiece of unrequited love, with a spectacular slow groove and wonderful vocal work.  It was voted “Screamer of the Week” by listeners on trend-setting FM radio pioneer WDRE on December 3, 1982.  

H17’s “We Live So Fast” on the other hand is a paean to the manic pace of today’s life with wonderfully tense drumming ... the very appropriate video has the lads jet-setting and working the phones on a private jet… it was good to be an up & coming New Waver back in the Big 80s!  To me, the rest of the H17 catalog is all very similar … odd songs about politics & economics … with basically the same rhythm track and overly aggressive vocals.  Meh.

 

In a similar vein at the same time, a fellow named William Michael Albert Broad released his own second LP, a self-titled one, also in 1982 - one you may be more familiar with when it’s called “Billy Idol”.  Similar to H17, in my opinion the bulk of Mr. Broad’s work was not very listenable, basically consisting of low-IQ, arena-ready anthems for drunken frat boys.  Not a big fan of his work, although I will admit that as a guilty pleasure I do sneak in a listen of “Dancing With Myself” on occasion… but that one I give more credit to the golden touch of Tony James of Gen X (and later Sigue Sigue Sputnik) fame.  The one big exception in the Idol catalog was strangely found in between the mindless "Mony Mony" of his first LP and the even more emetic “Hot in the City" of his second.  “White Wedding (Part 1)” was a dark, gothic near-dirge with a driving beat and an equally intense video … that quite possibly features the debut of Goth Twerking, decades ahead of its time!  The song is totally unlike the rest of his catalog in that it was both interesting and listenable….  it’s an outlier song that remains a great pioneering New Wave classic that has stood the test of time.

-WAS