Forty Five Minutes Of The Beloved

The Beloved were a massive part of the sound of 1989- 1990, their album Happiness released in February 1990, a summation of the sound of the times. They started out as an indie guitar four piece but lost two members in 1987, with Jon Marsh and Steve Waddington now spending their nights soaking up the new music of acid house and rave and then writing songs in the day influenced by those sounds. Steve left in '91 and Jon came back in 1993 with his wife Helena as co- writer and the song Sweet Harmony and an album Conscience. The sound had been smoothed out and something of the spirit of 1990 had been lost- lots of things had changed by 1993. This mix focusses solely on those records Jon and Steve made in the period between 1988 and 1990, songs alive with the possibility and excitement of those years.

Forty Five Minutes Of The Beloved

• Found
• Hello 
• Pablo
• Your Love Takes Me Higher (Piano/ 303 Demo)
• Acid Love (Acid Dream)
• The Sun Rising (Evening Session Remix)
• The Sun Rising
• Scarlet Beautiful
• It's Alright Now

Found is the song that ended Happiness, as close to a New Order Technique outtake as anything Bernard, Hooky, Gillian and Stephen could have recorded, the end of an album that is all ups with a love song, bringing a blissed out, chilled out ending. So I thought I'd start with it. 

Hello was a single, released in early 1990 and taking The Beloved to Top of The Pops, Jon Marsh fully embracing the new decade, growing his hair out, in a poncho and doing the dance. The song is a list of saints and sinners, from Jeffrey Archer to John Paul Sartre. 

Pablo was the B-side to the 1990 single Time After Time single, a fantastic slice of wonky acid house, some dubby melodica, a house rhythm and piano with Jon's vocal spun inside out and round about. 

Your Love Takes Me Higher was a song originally released in '89 and re- released as a single in '90. The 303/ Piano Demo speaks for itself, a (presumably) earlier version of the track led by a very Detroit synth bassline, rattling hi hats and then that whooosh the song has as the piano riff hits. 'Baby, let tell you something about love...' Jon  sings, simmering, one of those songs that could be about a woman, could be about a drug. This version is thumpy and chopped up, not as obviously radio friendly as the final one that made Happiness. 

Acid Love was the new look Beloved's debut, a 1988 B-side to the song Loving Feeling. The A-side didn't do much but the B-side got them into some DJ's record boxes. Dark and insistent, heavily house influenced. 

The Sun Rising was The Beloved's breakthrough, an ambient house classic, a crossover hit (in November 1989). It sampled Emily Van Evera's vocal from an album called Gothic Voices, one of several hooks in the song. Jon wrote the song after a night at a club night put on by Danny Rampling, Joy. Jon and Steve then put it together on Steve's four track before recording it more fully. The Evening Session Version was recorded for Mark Goodier's, faster, less ambient and more made for the hours before the sun rises. The appearance of the chant from Walking On Sunshine by  Rocker's Revenge is a genuine flash of brilliance, 'everybody to the sun/ that's right/ you're there'.

Scarlet Beautiful is from Happiness, one of the songs that wasn't released as a single, a fantastic slice of dance music crossed with pop. Lyrically, it's about positivity. Or love. Or E. Or about feeling massive positivity while in love on E.

It's Alright Now was a follow up to Happiness, October 1990, a single to promote the remix album Blissed Out- four minutes of moody dance pop that should have been massive. The album Blissed Out had different tracklists across the three formats, vinyl, cassette and CD, a total of sixteen different mixes and versions. The Beloved appeared on BBC 2's early evening dance music programme Dance Energy, a Normski presented attempt to catch the zeitgeist. As ever for the period, the crowd are the stars as much as the band. 'It's alright now/ Don't you worry 'bout a thing/ 'Cos when the morning comes around/ I'm gonna make your heart sing'. 

Love Is Just A State Of Mind

Happiness by The Beloved is yet another album that has turned thirty years old this year and is about to be re- issued on double vinyl. Happiness and its singles sound like a big part of 1990 when I hear them now, a record perfectly in tune with the times. Reduced to a duo, Jon Marsh and Steve Waddington wanted to leave the indie guitar scene behind, fired up by the new music they were hearing. Marsh had been to Shoom and Spectrum in 1988 and has spoken of the experiences as being life- changing. With a few new pieces of equipment they set about making an album fusing dance music and pop and the songs they created succeeded massively. Up, Up And Away is 1990 positivity and optimism bottled- 'up, up and away/ hello new day... just look around you/ well it ain't no lie/ H A P P Y'. Your Love Takes Me Higher is the same but for hedonism and love. Don't You Worry, Wake Up Soon, Time After Time... these are the songs of and for people with wide eyes and big smiles and living in the moment. Album closer Found was 1990's most New Order sounding song.

The Sun Rising was their breakthrough single in '89, an ambient house classic with the goosebump bassline kicking in from the off, backwards guitar, an instantly recognisable madrigal sample, and Jon's whispered vocal, a song describing the end of the night, the walk home at dawn, spent but euphoric.

The Sun Rising

The songs on Happiness encapsulate the period as much as many others do, and are probably heard best on a car cassette player or your late teens/ early 20s bedroom stereo, an album reflecting what was going on in clubs and the wider culture. A year later The Beloved released Blissed Out, an album of remixes of songs from Happiness plus a new single It's Alright Now, different versions and tracklists across different formats of lp, cassette and CD. I've posted this clip before, The Beloved promoting It's Alright Now on BBC 2's Dance Energy programme. It's Alright Now is a perfectly judged piece of dance- pop. Why it wasn't a bigger hit is a mystery to me.

Down To Earth

I've posted nothing but 90s dance music for the last week and I was going to get out of that groove but then I watched some of Hip Hop At The BBC on Friday night and Monie Love came on. I'd forgotten about Monie. I had part shares in a copy of her debut album that went elsewhere at some point. Down To Earth is a totally infectious and funky piece of UK rap, with Monie's irrepressible South London vocal and in this clip the song is being performed at BBC 2's Dance Energy show. And the crowd love it.

I Think It's Time To Make The Floor Burn

I've been having some fun watching these clips on Youtube recently. Dance Energy was BBC 2's attempt to capture early 90s youth culture. To be far to the Beeb Snub TV was an excellent half hour weekly look at the indie scene with some essential live clips and interviews. For Dance Energy they got Normski in as presenter. Normski may be best described as an acquired taste (although many internet commenters seem to prefer the word bellend). Dance Energy ran on a Monday evening, straight after The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air and had 'live' performances in the studio from dance and hip hop acts. Unlike the majority of 1960s TV music programmes, where there's no doubt that the groups are better dressed and better coiffured than the audience, on Dance Energy the crowd are the real stars. here's a few I've picked out...

Steve Cobby's band from this time was Ashley and Jackson (they played Cities In The Park which is why I think I came across this on Youtube while looking for clips of that event for my post a couple of weeks ago). Solid Gold was going to be Ashley and Jackson's breakthrough single but it never really happened for them in terms of having a hit. This clip from 1991 starts with the titles and theme music which will push all kinds of buttons for some of you of a certain age...



Bassomatic's Fascinating Rhythm was a top ten hit in 1990 and still sounds pretty good today although that style of rapping has dated. This song aside Bassomatic are also known for having a pre-Madonna/All Saints William Orbit on board.



Yo! Here comes Normski again! This is Bizarre Inc, hugely popular up here in the north, with Playing With Knives. I love this record, it's crunching keyboard riffs, repetitive, cyclical vocals and breakbeat- and the on stage dancers.



And this is a beauty, The Beloved's It's Alright Now, a properly blissful, house tune, all positivity and optimism. Again this should have been a massive hit and wasn't.



Lastly for the moment The Shamen. Like The Beloved they started as an indie guitar band and then moved into dance music when it hit them. This performance of Hyperreal is pretty smart, the best version of this song, and has Will Sin in the group, before his untimely death in Tenerife in May 1991.



There's loads more of this on Youtube if you want more. And why wouldn't you?