Magazine – The Correct Use Of Soap | 1980 – 4

There are some times when the stars are in alignment and a band walks into the studio and out pours perfection. When Magazine convened for their make or break third album with Martin Hannett producing was one such time. Magazine were a band with very high standards. Howard Devoto wielded his lyrics like a scalpel as he performed a post-mortem on humankind, after their passing from this place. They also had a tight yet expansive rhythm section, a genuine post-punk guitar architect, and a keyboardist whose fingers dripped with melody and invention. What they had in particular on this outing were heaping bucketfuls of melodic hooks and insanely catchy arrangements. That it didn’t turn the band’s diminishing fortunes around is the stuff of tragedy.

The album opens with “Because You’re Frightened,” which easily could have been pulled as single material to join the four releases associated with this album. Following the perceived dominance of keyboards on the downbeat “Secondhand Daylight” album, guitarist John McGeoch fights to match the hyperactive fingers of keyboardist Dave Formula riff for riff. And the listener is the winner as this and all of the rest of the album is simply packed with dynamic and memorable arrangements and performances. It all  sounds so melodious that it’s easy to overlook the chorus, wherein Devoto simply intones “Look what fear’s done to my body” four times in  nervous succession.

Your clean-living, clear-eyed, clever, level-headed brother, says he’ll put all the screws, upon your newest lover. Buddha’s in the fireplace, the truth’s in drugs from Outer Space, maybe it’s right to be nervous now.

“Philadelphia” begins with the verse above and I can’t think of more memorable lyrics that I’ve ever heard in my life. The repetition of consonants and accompanying meter is simply riveting. What makes this album superior is that Devoto is easily matched by the caliber of his cohorts in the band.  This is an album I’ve been listening to frequently for 31 years and it shows no signs of leaving my consciousness any time soon. There’s not a single note or lyric out of place in it. It forms a coherent mandala of fear/desire as Devoto was involved with backing vocalist Laura Teresa in a romance that would last for several years subsequent to this release. It’s not for nothing that half of the songs here have “love” in the lyrics but as you may imagine, Devoto’s take isn’t one of easy bliss. He views everything with a questioning eye and seems innately distrustful, if not downright disbelieving of pleasure that isn’t neurotic in nature.

“I am angry, I am ill, and I’m as ugly as sin. My irritiability keeps me alive and kicking.”

Side two is top loaded with three of the four singles released at the time of the album. “A Song From Under The Floorboards” concludes the album, but was the lead off single. The first verse is a Magazine classic, cribbed from Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From The Underground.” The resulting song is a classic in every measure except sales.  Unusually, a cover song also got a single nod with their excellent version of Sly + The Family Stone’s “Thank You [Fallettinme Be Mice Elf Agin].” Barry Adamson capably fills the Larry Graham role in this reasonably faithful cover. Magazine prove that as Northerners, they have as much facility with funk as with soul.

“I want to be there on the far side of sin. I’ve been putting myself through hell waiting for hell to begin.”

My favorite of the singles on side two is “Sweetheart Contract,” a song that glides effortlessly on a bed of Formula’s polysynths and the propulsive rhythms of drummer John Doyle.  It’s so smoothly executed that the refrain of “I was dominant for hours” can potentially pass unnoticed. There was a fourth single released with this batch from “The Correct Use of Soap,” but “Upside Down” was a non-LP single from the sessions produced by Martin Hannett, so it will be discussed later, where appropriate.

More than anything, this is an album of perfect balance. One can listen specifically to the music, or shift to the lyrics if preferable, with absolute ease. The music’s playing and arrangement is of an extremely high caliber. The lyrics are more direct than on previous Magazine albums, yet don’t lack for panache for their greater immediacy. After all of this, the band might have expected sales by the bucketload. Since we live in a fallen world this did not happen and after such a bravura attempt, following years of development, something had to give. Exit one John McGeoch, who’d had enough of this struggle. He had already moonlighted with Barry Adamson and Dave Formula on the first Visage album and not being the shy, retiring type, he accepted the offer of Siouxsie + The Banshees to join them in time for their breakthrough third album, “Kaleidoscope.” McGeoch would still be an inventive player defining Post-Punk guitar; he’d just be doing it in the charts now. Magazine may have suspected that their salad days were slowly being eaten away, but they soldiered on regardless.

Next: A temporary stopgap measure to appease the constabulary…