Here, in 1977, savagely behind the times, a group I never even heard of: a late glam / artpop outfit called Contempt.
I suspect the influence palette includes Queen, Sparks, Roxy, possibly 10cc, possibly Cockney Rebel, possibly Bebop Deluxe, maybe even Sailor
Cynical wordliness meets a clean frilly guitar sound and a dapper non-rock image.... and a bit of pomo too (the song "Money Makes The World Go Around" from Cabaret with "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend"
"Never even heard of" .... that might be because they only ever released a single single
Here's a funny thing, though - look closely, and this was produced by Martin Rushent. At roughly the same time he would have been producing The Stranglers and then a little later, Buzzcocks and 999.
The name of the productions company is funny: Atit.
As in "at it".
Or "a tit"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Another late-glam group, caught out by New Wave, rendered therefore untimely: Metro
I think these adverts were printed in this sequence, teased out over weeks.... or maybe it was within a single issue.
Fop rock!
Metro described their sound as “English rock music, but influenced by a hundred years of European culture… Baudelaire and Kurt Weill”
One of their songs was later covered by David Bowie - "Criminal World" (on Let's Dance)
Duncan Browne was one of those figures who just cropped up repeatedly, slightly style-adjusted, in different phases of the rock dialectic
Donovan-ish in the Sixties
(lovely song I think)
Then folk-tinged singer-songwriter (Murray Head on the moors)
Then glammy-aristo in the Seventies, with Metro
Lotta nostril energy in this band portait
Then there's a later version where it's yacht rock, more or less
I do like this thing where artists keep moving with the times, adjusting their basic thing according to the new style - whether through desperation to finally score a hit, or simply their taste changing in alignment with everybody else. And why not? Fans do it, critics do it too.
Still Duncan B had the integrity* at least not to go "New Wave" - he couldn't move that far from his basic debonair mode.
(Actually Metro did go "New Wave" but without Browne's involvement)
* Actually I am wrong - Metro, with Browne involved still, did a very short-lived alter-ego as Public Zone, with Stewart Copeland on drums, and it's totally New Wave.
