Cherry Red | UK | 4xCD | 2020 | CDXRED821
Sigue Sigue Sputnik: Flaunt It DLX RM – 4xCD – UK [2020]
Disc 1 – Flaunt It
- Love Missile F1-11 (Re-recording Part IiI)
- Atari Baby
- Sex-bomb-boogie
- Rockit Miss U.S.A.
- Advertisement: The Sputnik Corporation
- 21st Century Boy
- Massive Retaliation
- Advertisement: The Sigue Sigue Sputnik Computer Game
- Teenage Thunder
- She’s My Man
- Advertisement: EMI Records
- From The Gutter To The Stars
Disc 2- Remixes
- Trailer Mix
- Love Missile F1-11 (7” Single Mix)
- Love Missile F1-11 (The Bangkok Remix)
- Love Missile F1-11 (Dance Mix)
- Love Missile F1-11 (Extended Ultra Violence Version)
- Love Missile F1-11 (Video Mix)
- Love Missile F1-11 (Japanese Remix)
- Love Missile F 1-11 (Westbam Remix Short Version)
- Massive Retaliation (The Super Massive Uk Remix)
- Massive Retaliation (Shut Up Dub Remix)
- Sex Bomb Boogie (Magic Flute)
- Sex Bomb Dance
Disc 3 – Remixes, Rarities And B-sides
- Hack Attack
- Buy EMI
- Dancerama (1986 Version)
- Suicide (Live In London Sept’ ’86)
- 21st Century Boy (Extended T.V. Mix)
- 21st Century Boy (German Remix)
- 21st Century Boy (Dance Mix)
- Buy Emi (£4,000,000 Mix)
- She’s My Man (Remix)
Disc 4- Live At Abbey Road
- Sex Bomb Boogie
- 21st Century Boy
- Twist & Shout
- She’s My Man
- Shoot It Up
- Jayne Mansfield
- Rockit Miss U.S.A.
You have to hand it to Tony James. He saw it coming like a freight train and deftly hopped aboard and took the ride. The “it” in question being our ultracaptialistic future where all stimuli is amped up to a permanent state of “11” and the almighty dollar is the only measure of anything worth measuring. And now that history has proven him more correct than anyone else in the doldrums of the mid-80s, we heard see that Cherry Red have announced a 4xCD DLX RM of their incomparable manifesto, “Flaunt It” due on October 9, 2020.
I can’t help but notice that the real ads that were originally inserted between have all been removed from the album. Legally understandable, but their absence makes this album all the flatter for their loss. The conceit of selling ad space on an album in between tracks, was a brilliant apotheosis of the whole vibe the album was reaching for. Only having the place holder ads the band filled the unsold slots with is a comedown. But the plethora of remixes that accompanied the media blitz of the album was immense. Having them in once handy place is optimal.
As commenter negative1ne has mentioned in the comments to this earlier look at the album in depth, The full complement of mixes is not here. The band interview from a promo EP/cassette has been appended to the album and discs two and three contain 21 tracks. What seems to be missing?
Love Missile F1-11 & ‘Actuality’ Sound
Hack-Attack (Dub)
From this release.
Sex Bomb Boogie
From this release.
Rockit Miss U.S.A (Death Wish IV)
Commercial Break
Teenage Thunder (Sputstyle)
From this release.
Massive Retaliation (The Massive Edit)
From this release.
21st Century Boy [7″ mix 1]
From this release.
21st Century Boy [7″ mix 2]
From this release.
Love Missile F1-11 US 7″ version (with remade samples)
Love Missile F1-11 US 12″ extended version (remade samples)
Love Missile F1-11 US Dance mix (remade samples)
From this release.
And since they went there with the Westbam Remix Short Version…
Love Missile F1-11 (Westbam Remix)
Love Missile F1-11 (Westbam Remix Dub Version)
From this release. But personally, as Post-Modern as this band was, the notion of po-mo remixes like these just give off a stench to me I’d rather not detect.
That’s 14 more tracks, and given that many of them are 7″ remixes, maybe that would have represented a 5th disc. Where this edition really falls down is in not having a 6th disc featuring as much of the critical SSS video that they could have crammed on it all! I daresay that music video was where the project reached its ultimate culmination! That amazing video for “Love Missile F-111” belongs in an internet time capsule so that all future generations would be able to view it, regardless of location. But that’s not in the cards.
As someone who has the US album, I’m most interested in finding out whether this new edition would have all of the samples that were deleted/replaced in the US edition that I have. That might make for some real fun to finally hear 34 years later, but the lack of the real ads in the album flow are still a grievous omission. So I’m sort of on the fence about this one. But the price is a decent £19.95 for the 4-pak edition coming in October. If this calls out to you, by all means click the button.
– 30 –
Post-Punk Monk 
Am I missing something with this act? When it was released I felt like it was overhyped nonsense, like someone trying to market themselves in Frankie Goes to Hollywood style but without the quality to back it up.
And today it still sounds like that to me…
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Mathmandan – Uh, that was the whole idea.
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Mathmandan: Like most good art, it is several things at once, and at least one of those things may “unlock” SSS for you (many is the time this has happened to me!). You might think of Flaunt It as literal performance art presenting a vision of the future where resampling kitsch, ads in-between songs, and an obvious attempt at branding yourselves becomes the point, and the songs are at best incidental (and hey, two out of three came true!), or you might consider it a piece of absurdo ad reductum whose only real promise is that the entertainment business will further consolidate until everything is crap going forward. Oh look!
The one approach I don’t recommend is to take as a serious attempt to be an serious group; The only thing James is serious as a heart attack about is making a big PR splash, grabbing the cash, and then running; mission accomplished, with a hat tip to the Sex Pistols on the way to the bank! It is both a parody of how to create a hit out of thin air and an exercise in instant fame that proved James’ point.
Sure, SSS would have milked that cow some more if demand was there, but once everyone’s in on the joke, it’s over — until the inevitable reunion tour, where they become their own tribute band (another aspect of the business we call “music” that has become even more part of the whole scam — of which this SDLX is a perfect example).
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Chas – I appreciate the insight! I can appreciate the concept on some level. So maybe if I already had the record, I would keep it as an artifact. I have a hard time seeing the appeal of a super deluxe reissue, but hey, to each his/her own! I never cared for the Sex Pistols either so at least I’m consistent there :)
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I think the best way to understand what SSS is about is to watch the superb documentary “South of Watford”,which appeared on TV just before they had their first hit.I think it is on YouTube.
It is simultaneously tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious,brutally honest about their intentions yet endearingly naive.
I loved them them from the start-though at that time and age I was not yet familiar with Suicide,Clockwork Orange and many of the other cultural totems alluded to in their work,which is often multi-layered and far cleverer than the average Joe would give them credit for.
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Gavin – Above all else a sense of irony and a love for Suicide are keys to unlocking SSS. It’s no wonder that Tony James ended up playing bass in an incarnation of Sisters Of Mercy, another band beholden to Suicide.
Sure they were repetitive and samey. The same arguments that were used
against Rock itself in the 50s. His vision was a multimedia Suicide In Dub and he certainly achieved that.
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Nobody liked them at the time, the more serious po faced music press hated them. But if it’s deliberate cynical manufactured pop you want then at least they were honest about it. Much rather this than any “pop idol” garbage of today. The 12″ singles I can usually pick up now for 50p or £1, they sound great, loud, exciting , a bit on the repetitive side, but they do sound great. But I wouldn’t buy this SDLX.
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Ade.W – I admired them at the time but thought that I would be exploited by buying the records… But I eventually got over that! There was too much being communicated on various levels not to be impressed at least on an intellectual level. They were so transparently crass as to be critic-proof. Their only problem was a big one. They were almost redundant following that first, crucial, single. But the album managed to work and extend the themes with the conceit of those ads!
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Great hype with irony and hints but musically too flat for me. Even nowadays. Never ever would start to buy all the mixes and versions. Anyway, picked up the Record cheap a long time ago and kept it for the value of curiosity and pure Pop appeal but never manage to listen to both sides in a row ; )
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Oh yes I would love this, thank you! 😁
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Jon Chaisson – Put into perspective, this is four CDs for £19.95. I’m paying over twice that for 5 discs of “Vienna.” But you have to tell us if the mix on the album is the same as the US EMI edition! If you are familiar with the US CD and hear massively different samples, I must be the first to know.
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This is on my shopping list to I will report back in a few months! I’m going to assume they’ll have the UK samples as later CD editions had them, but we shall see.
As for some of the missing tracks, I know most of them showed up on 1998’s ‘The Ultimate 12″ Collection’ and 2001’s ’21st Century Boys (Best of)’ (including all the $ci-Fi $ex $tars tracks), but yeah…would have been cool to have the complete collection here.
At the same time, I kind of see all the SSS remixes on par with the Art of Noise remixes: far, FAR too many floating around and most of them are more like random sample collages than songs.
Still, Flaunt It still holds a place in my heart as one of my favorite records of ’86 when I’d just discovered college radio and dove headlong in to what ended up being alt rock. It’s a really stupid record but it’s so much fun to listen to! :)
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I’m gonna squeeze one more comment in… loss of the ads that I know and love from the original US release (originally cassette in my case, ugh) verges on being a deal-breaker. They were ABSOLUTELY part of the whole package. And necessary!
“i-D magazine is the sound of tomorrow calling…are you brave enough to answer?”
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bpdp3 – I used to read I-D magazine in my young and trendy days.
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Its not too hard to find the CD with the commercials.
Just buy that and insert here. Problem solved.
later
-1
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I know most didn’t like them and it was easy not to. Any band that gets the huge exposure they did always faces an uphill battle as the majority tend to want to seem them fail.
However back in the day they were extraordinarily good. I saw them live many times and they were as good as any band around and better than most. The number of people I dragged along to their shows who were totally converted after seeing them. They had great songs, they acted like proper stars who weren’t afraid to have a good time, they knew how to deliver onstage. Remember this was the 80s and their look reflected the era. Everyone had big hair and big shoulder pads and they just took it to the logical extreme and looked incredible. Glam rock n roll to the max! For me the key to SSS is the first two videos. Take a look at those and compare them with 99% of the other pop videos of the time and you can clearly see the difference in the packages being offered. They were like nothing else around.
I’m pleased for those who got “it” and it’s still a shame they get dismissed so easily. A bit like The Damned who also suffered from not being taken seriously whilst delivering an amazing catalogue of work over the years.
Finally though the missing piece of the jigsaw for me is ‘Dress For Excess’. That was the album where they really delivered. I used to work in a record store and would play that regularly and people used to buy the copy I was playing off the CD player because they’d not heard it and like what they heard. The tunes on ‘…Excess’ are pure class, I LOVE Satellite, then there’s Jayne Mansfield, MAD, Rio Rocks. And the various mixes too. If anyone reading this has fond memories of SSS but didn’t stick with them into 1989 please listen to ‘…. Excess’. You will not be disappointed.
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Hugo Hall – You are not the first SSS fan who has said “Dress For Excess” was mandatory. I have to say that the first single did nothing for me and I was of the opinion that album number two was probably a redundancy for the band/concept. If I see a CD of “Dress For Excess” I’ll have to investigate.
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Hi
I agree that ‘Success’ wasn’t great. They had to start album 2 with a hit and at the time everything SAW touched turned to gold so why not? Plus there was the publicity angle of the biggest pop producers working with these rock n roll rebels. So I guess it worked on some levels but not the greatest song. When the single was released apparently (according to SSS) EMI underestimated the demand and hadn’t pressed enough copies.
Aside from that though for me personally ‘….Excess’ sounds like a band who have really developed that initial idea and taken it to the next level after ‘Flaunt It’.
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Hugh Hall – Sputnik/Aitken/Waterman was some sort of conceptual tour-de-force that just fizzled upon delivery. I was way into Mel + Kim at the time and “Success” was anything but. I had never seen this copy of the UK 12″ and the cover is brilliant. Shame about the single.
![Sputnik Aitken Waterman Success [at any cost] covrer art](https://img.discogs.com/qEGFwy-lCnChugmuJDJCp_Mo88c=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4381470-1597053620-4232.jpeg.jpg)
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Hmmm… I really want to put this on my want list, but the lack of commercials really squelches it for me. The LP felt impossibly futuristic when I was 16, and the commercials were a big part of that.
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Christopher Merritt – When you think about it, nothing else is more futuristic than a plethora of commercials!
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This album is like something you’d find in the Blade Runner movie.
“felt impossibly futuristic” is a great way to put it.
I love the ads and it’s a big loss to the concept to lose ’em. The original ed. is great, but I wanna hear the extras too.
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Chaz – Welcome to the comments and join us in our angst! I guess we need to have both and make our own personal CD. I do it all the time.
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Disc 4- Live At Abbey Road
Sex Bomb Boogie
21st Century Boy
Twist & Shout
She’s My Man
Shoot It Up
Jayne Mansfield
Rockit Miss U.S.A.
see there changed the original tracklist roundfrom the actual gig:
tracklist from the gig:
intro.
sex bomb boogie.
21st century boy.
shes my man.
love missile f1/11.
jayne mansfield.
rock it miss usa.
twist and shout.
i was at this gig and got the sounddesk recording of it.
shame full gig video isnt being released as well.
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