MY BACK PAGES Swing Out Sister mix and match old and new and beat the nostalgia bin rut

By Karlo C. Cleto

Published in Sugar Sugar—July 2008

When Corinne Drewery, singer for British crossover pop duo Swing Out Sister, walks into the room, it’s amazing how she looks pretty much just like she did in the band’s video for their first hit Breakout in 1986. Sure, she now has those little crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes that come with age but everything else was the same- she was tall and lean with the trademark pageboy-like bob, still stylish in a nicely-cut black dress. She spoke and moved with zest and enthusiasm, with little trace of weariness. She looked young and cool and current and yet appropriate for her age at the same time- a balance that many older performers fail to achieve. It’s a personal balance that translates equally well in the band’s music, much of the more recent of which has been woefully unheard and underappreciated. Many musical acts that were most successful in the 80’s have either faded into obscurity or become caricatures of their past selves. Some groups become so closely and definitively associated with a certain hit that that one song eclipses everything else the band might have done in their career (think of A-Ha’s Take On Me for example). It’s a fate that any band would want to avoid. It’s unfortunate (and unfair) then that for most people, Swing Out Sister could very well be one of those bands. Formed in Manchester in 1985 by Andy Connell and ex-Magazine drummer Martin Jackson (they were joined by Drewery later that year after her graduation from St. Martin’s School of Art in London where she took up fashion design; Jackson has since left the group), Swing Out Sister are probably best known for their effervescent hit single Breakout, released in 1986 and now a staple of adult contemporary and crossover/”easy-listening” radio. It’s a now- instantly recognizable tune, defined in large part by its bouncing horns and bass, and Drewery’s distinctive vocal delivery (Don’t stop to ask/ now you’ve found a way to make it last/ you’ve got to find your way/ say what you want to say/ breakout). They would follow this with other moderate hits over the next few years including Surrender and Waiting Game, as well as popular covers of Am I The Same Girl and La La I Love You. Then sometime in the first part of the nineties, Swing Out Sister slipped from the public radar. They remained popular in Japan, where they would continue to release albums, but for most, the newer music of Swing Out Sister would remain unheard. I wasn’t surprised then when people were talking about their recent concert here as if it were a comeback. It’s funny though because the truth was that the band has never stopped recording new songs or performing (Connell stopped touring with Dewery sometime around 2004; “Performing to an audience isn’t his favorite thing, so he likes to just send us off on our way,” explains Dewery). Earlier this year, the duo released their 17th album (including two live albums and two compilations), Beautiful Mess¸ and like the people in the band, it confidently and playfully dances around and unites the bounding charm of the new with the gracefulness and maturity of a lived life. In many ways, Beautiful Mess, the title track off Swing Out Sister’s new album and probably the best track on it, is a perfect summer song. Light horns skip in and out of a slow, booming hip-hop beat. Shimmering piano chords frame singer Corinne Drewery’s rich and now- familiar alto. It sounds warm and bubbly and young- playing like a soft-focused home video of you and your friends sitting on the grass on a summer afternoon, the sun piercing the shade of trees, bathing everything in yellow and ochre. In sound, it’s more like me and you than a person in her forties. It’s a pocket-sized ditty, the kind that one discovers and keeps as a little treasure to herself. 1

The song’s lyrics, however, offer an interesting counterpoint to the sonic youthfulness of the music. “Dreams that we were searching for/ they don’t matter anymore/ there’s no more for the road/ but I’ll be fine” intones Drewery in a voice that’s obviously gone through a lot. Drewery’s words are wistful and wise rather than starry-eyed and hopeful. Twenty years into their career, Swing Out Sister can speak from the vantage point of earned perspective- and it’s in this dialectic between experience and adolescence that the band now offer the most rewards. Still prevalent in Swing Out Sister’s sound are vocal arrangements that hark back to the golden age of melody. Drewery’s vocal touchstones have always been Bacarach, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, and the like. Connell meanwhile retains his interest in old movie soundtrack composers like Ennio Morricone and jazz artists like Stan Getz (the main genres played on his Internet radio show). Entering the mix also are sounds from more recent strands of music- electro embellishments, flourishes of jazz fusion, and hip-hop beats all find equal space on the album. It is this dynamic between the old and new that is managed so well by the duo, as it feels completely natural and never forced. It’s a sound that at once knows itself and is comfortable in its own skin, and that is confident and interested enough to explore fresh ideas. It’s music that references the past but that doesn’t feel redundant or dated. I’ve always found it unfortunate that many bands from “the old days” (i.e., the 80’s) seem to have resigned themselves to the nostalgia back bin: endlessly playing their past hits to aging audiences, stuck in yesterday but getting no younger themselves and earning no new fans. Many of these bands fall into a holding pattern, simply repeating themselves ad infinitum while getting grayer and inelegant and cartoon-ish. This is a trap that Swing Out Sister have successfully avoided by staying creatively active- consistently releasing albums and touring over the last twenty years, embracing new developments in music while keeping in touch with the touchstones of yesterday, reconciling the bubbling, inquisitive joy of youth with the wisdom and quiet elegance that only years can bring.

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