I first heard Scritti on NME's C81 cassette, where The "Sweetest Girl" opened proceedings, and was immediately hooked by the electronic sound and the smooth, even wimpy, voice of Green Gartside.
I bought the first album, as well as the single from it Asylums In Jerusalem, as well as the two which followed, but it's only now (Music Magpie) that I've picked up one of these on CD.
As the 1980s proceeded, Scritti became more produced, electronic based, more commercial, and definitely more funky and less indie rock, as gartside teamed up with US producer / keyboard wizard, David Gamson.
Provision was the final eighties album, on which the sugar-coated tunes reached their acme, and the band retreated for a decade after a top ten album.
Yet it's a sound that both makes me shudder with its tweeness, and drags me in at the same time.
Boom! There She Was (one of three singles on the album), is upbeat, funky and toe-tappingly infectious, full of 80s synth horns, followed by the slower Overnite, a gently lovely song, with a slightly cringeworthy call and response bit (...tell us about it, Green...). Back to uptempo funk for First Boy In This Town (another single) and again, it feels comfortably eighties. All That We Are is more gently electropop with Gartside's grinning voice bouncing through, but by Best Thing Ever, it's beginning to sound a bit samey, and you almost wonder if this one hasn't already been on the album.
Biggest hit single was Oh Patti, slower and frankly a little bland, not even saved by a Miles Davis solo, which is so brief, you wonder why? And that seems to be the pattern for the second half. Bam Salute waders aimlessly towards an engaging chorus, and Sugar And Spice goes nowhere after a catchy intro. But there's a cheerfully funky conclusion in Philosophy Now, for me easily the brightest song in the second half.
This CD reissue contains a couple of added tracks - both alternative mixes. The extended version of Oh Patti contains a longer version of the Miles Davis solo, and there's a 'dub' version of Boom! There She Was, which adds nothing.
There's plenty of tunes to enjoy here, but for me the over-processed sound has by now become formulaic and repetitive. I didn't buy the next Scritti album, like I'd rushed out for the first three, despite the ten year wait.
3* - This sounds very dated and bland at times, but there is much to enjoy here.
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