7″ single | alucidnation acapellas
A | Golden Brown
Then | 1982
It was 1982, and I was a rapturous fan of chart music.
I look back at my extensive collection of singles and there’s a fair proportion hailing from that very year. Let’s face it, the early eighties were a glistening goldmine of classic, timeless pop, and the Top 20 was littered with a huge variety of styles and individuality, something that I feel we’re missing these days, but hey; I’m sounding like my Dad, circa 1982, so it’s probably best I shut up.
Having been collecting 7″ singles since late 1977, I already owned a couple of singles by The Stranglers in my burgeoning collection; ‘Something Better Change’ and ‘Get A Grip On Yourself’ were firm favourites, and bore repeated plays, but when the band released ‘Golden Brown’ in the January of 1982, it totally blew me away. It was a radical departure from the sound and style that the band were known for – and it had a crazy time signature… almost akin to a waltz.
There was simply nothing quite like it at the time; whilst their chart contemporaries were embracing new technologies and synthesizers to create their music, The Stranglers were using a fucking harpsichord! Far out!
Now | 2025
Fast forward… it’s Boxing Day, 2022… and with a couple of weeks of holiday away from my day job stretching out before me and not a whole lot planned, I rather hap-hazardly decided to embark on a radical rework of this timeless classic.
Such is its enduring gravitas, it’s been covered by a whole multitude of other artists numerous times, but to the best of my knowledge, I’d not stumbled across an acapella version that almost verged on the ‘barber shop’ treatment.
So, I spent a very enjoyable week or so layering up my voice to create every aspect of the track, being mindful not to desecrate or sully the original and best version. Having undertaken a few choice covers in the dim and distant past, I’m of the mind that one should attempt to put one’s own spin on something – there seems little point in attempting to replicate note-for-note something that’s already very good. What’s the point in that?
I worked up the bass parts first, underpinning the piece. Then, over the following few days, it was a case of adding in the harpsichord ‘replacement’ parts, a little subtle beatbox work to add movement with a ‘hi-hat’ sound, then finally the multitracked lead vocals. I double-tracked the lead and then tagged on three part harmonies. The dilemma was the middle section, where Hugh Cornwell ad libs a beautiful and rather tripped-out vocal melody.
At this point, I asked Nina if she’d be up for getting involved, so thankfully, she provided the top line harmony in this section and also appears in ‘the round’, towards the end of the song.
Finally, sorting the arrangement was top fun as well! Having recorded all of the vocals, it was an equally enjoyable process deciding what to leave in – and what to remove – to keep the track buoyant and interesting.
Dunno about you, but I feel I’ve made a pretty reasonable job of things, and this is my homage to a track that is, primarily, a paean to heroin.
And you know what..? I love the fact that a song about ingesting class A drugs slipped under the radar and made a very respectable number two on the British charts, only being kept off the top spot by another classic track about working-class political unrest penned by Paul Weller; The Jam’s ‘A Town Called Malice’.
They don’t make ’em like they used to.
The Credits
Golden Brown
Written by The Stranglers.
© 1981.
Published by EMI Music.
Reinterpreted and arranged for voice by Bruce Bickerton.
All vocals by Bruce & Nina Holland.
Recorded between 26/12/22 and 02/01/23 at Fool on the Hill.
Mastering by Chris Bagust at Marmalade Mastering.
Listen | Stream
Click here to take a listen on BandCamp.
You can also now order a copy of the limited edition 7″ single here.
First come, first served!
The single will be released on Spotify and all other streaming platforms during April/May 2025.
AA | The Model
Then | 1982
As I’ve already mentioned above, it was 1982, I was 14 years of age and was already a pop music obsessive, spending all of my pocket money and earnings from a local newspaper round on vinyl each and every week.
Electronic music had been making a vague dent in the charts at the tail-end of the 1970s, with the likes of Gary Numan releasing synth-heavy tracks such as ‘Cars’, but 1980 seemed to be ground zero when all and sundry waded in, armed with affordable, vaguely portable synthesizers, crafting music that genuinely sounded different.
Of course, Kraftwerk were pioneers of their genre, releasing LPs since the dawn of the 1970s. Early Kraftwerk was proper ‘head music’, but with their 1974 LP ‘Autobahn’, the use of modular synthesis was employed, along with infant sequencer technology, which shaped their sound and cast a die for everything that followed.
Even though ‘The Model’ had been released originally in 1978, it only started getting serious airplay on the likes of Radio 1 and Capital 194 at the back end of 1981. I couldn’t get enough of it and there was no doubt – I was in awe. OK, a simple song structure, sure, but played on instruments that seriously embellished the melodies.
Both ‘Golden Brown’ and this ‘The Model’ were battling for the top of the UK charts at the same time and I think this represents the diversity of the Top 30 in the early 80’s – truly a golden era for pop music. Needless to say, I bought it before its ascent to #1 on the UK chart and it’s been a firm favourite ever since.
I think it’s the sentiment of the lyric and the delivery of the piece that resonates. That final note always gives me frisson.
Now | 2025
After the enjoyment of working up ‘Golden Brown’ as an acapella, I was keen to do something similar with another eighties classic, and I guess the tricky translation of a purely electronic song to a purely vocal song appealed to me. Add to this the fact that both tracks regularly appear in ‘best of’ playlists and this one seemed like the right challenge to take up.
I guess I structured the recording of this in a similar fashion to Golden Brown, inasmuch as I laid down the ‘bass’ parts first and then it grew from there. This was a little harder to produce and arrange, perhaps because it’s fresher in the mind, having only recently completed the track at the time of writing this [December 2024].
Either way, damned good fun to do, all the same.
I recorded most of it ‘in the box’ but once I was happy with the vocal parts and the arrangement, I moved it all onto my big old Mackie 32 track board and started separating everything up there, carefully EQing the parts and adding sparse reverbs which gave the whole thing a little more ‘breathing space’.
But after working on this for approximately three weeks, my ears had had enough. The stereo mix was recorded rather hastily, but upon listening to it, the lead vocal was simply too ‘in your face’, so a further mixing session was called for. Second time around, I think I got the balance just about right.
I think The Model is a worthy bedfellow to Golden Brown, and I’m quite proud of both pieces!
The Credits
The Model
Written by Karl Bartos, Ralf Hütter & Emil Schult.
© 1978.
Published by EMI Music.
Reinterpreted and arranged for voice by Bruce Bickerton.
All noises by Bruce.
Recorded between 23/10/24 and 02/12/24 at Fool on the Hill.
Mastering by Chris Bagust at Marmalade Mastering.
