Where bought? Got it really cheap from Kaleidoscope in St. Helens. I went up for a particular 7" (Three Wise Men EP by Trout) but couldn't resist.
I've always felt reasonably confident that I am a heterosexual man (or at least, if I have any other tendencies, I am happy enough in my self-repression!) but I have always found a huge inspiration in the resistance of uplifting, positive, angry, hi-NRG gay pop music. It seems lost on generations now how ridiculously hard it was just to exist back when this was made, with a Conservative government that were literally making legislation that forbade teaching about your existence and experience.
The intertwining of sexuality and class - Pride as an intersection of economic marginalism as much as sexual outsiderness - is irresistable to me, and the work of Bronski Beat and the Communards belongs at the apex of that discussion alongside (not beneath) Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Erasure.
The two singles from this are gigantic and, to be fair, they slightly overshadow the existence of everything else. 'Why?' kicks off Side A and smothers it, while the titanic 'Smalltown Boy' carries enough charge to light up a small city. The melancholy that flows through the energy is pure catharsis, provincial dread being left behind and embracing the new sights and sounds and feelings in a city that can hide you in its streets.
The album is interesting because it isn't just pop bangers; if anything, they possibly calculated a stab at longevity through slower songs a little too heavily. Nonetheless, just hearing a pop band in the public eye repeatedly sing 'money is the root of all evil' without a shred of irony feels completely refreshing. It may go without saying that Steinbachek and Bronski were card-carrying Communists.
Each side has a slightly naff jazzy track but 'Junk' has a cool third single energy. The album closer - a strange and excellent medley of Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' (which sounds positively rampant) with John Layton's 'Johnny Remember Me' (one of my all-time favourite songs) - rounds things off in this way that fuses all the rage and power in a hat-tipping move of respect. Powerful!
Yeah this is a keeper.
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