Rhythm Of Life - Paul Haig

The name Paul Haig is almost always absent from any eighties hall of fame ,certainly from the electro pop perspective which prevailed at the time of this release in July 83,but for those in the know who might have spent some of their hard squandered student grant on the perennial and seemingly eternal N>M>E the name Paul Haig held a god like status for fans of Scottish indie legends Josef .K of whom Paul Haig was lead singer and founding member,this ...
...full two years after the demise of Josef K.

To the untrained or indeed uninterested ear "Rhythm of Life" on first listen sounds standard fayre for its time ,with nothing to distinguish it from its then comtemporaries,the references and similarities abound,from Heaven 17 to the Associates from Gang of Four to the Thompson Twins ,Howard Jones,Grace Jones ,Blancmange and yes ,many many more .
The songs are almost entirely ... more

The name Paul Haig is almost always absent from any eighties hall of fame ,certainly from the electro pop perspective which prevailed at the time of this release in July 83,but for those in the know who might have spent some of their hard squandered student grant on the perennial and seemingly eternal N>M>E the name Paul Haig held a god like status for fans of Scottish indie legends Josef .K of whom Paul Haig was lead singer and founding member,this unique and groundbreaking record was Haigs first solo release, a full two years after the demise of Josef K.

To the untrained or indeed uninterested ear "Rhythm of Life" on first listen sounds standard fayre for its time ,with nothing to distinguish it from its then comtemporaries,the references and similarities abound,from Heaven 17 to the Associates from Gang of Four to the Thompson Twins ,Howard Jones,Grace Jones ,Blancmange and yes ,many many more .
The songs are almost entirely syntheticand programmed,and what today could sound very old hat or even cliched ,was, in 1983 ,way ahead of the crowd(many of which ive just mentioned),it was obvious from the off set that Haig was not after instant commercial success although many of the tracks such as" Never Give Up(party party)"could ealy have been sizeable hits if the stage had been less crowded,it would seem some of Haigs indie ethos remained and prevailed in his new sound which was aimed at the dance floor as most pop at that time was,funk and soul had permeated the previously rock dominated ethic of white middle class males and plodding funk driven dance tracks dominated the charts and the clubs from New York to Dundee.
Haig had travelled musically,a very long way in a short space of time,this album contains virtually no guitars and is lyrically very upbeat which presents a small problem in retrospect ,a problem borne of the glib and somewhat empty sloganeering of early eighties pop,grand gestures of "Make it Big" and "Go for It"took the place of anything real to say, and this album is on the cusp of a time when substance gave way to style .

This aspirational quality is typified by the choice of producer,Alex Sadkin who had worked with Grace Jones and Robert Palmer and went on to produce coffee table /dinner party stalwarts Sade and Simply Red,his knowledge of beats and rhythms give the whole record a smooth polished New york feelwhich still sounds very fresh,possibly because it was the first of its kind and we have not been subjected to mind numbing ,repeated exposure.
This is not an immediate record and requires repeated listens to fully get what was going on in pop music in 1983,but for the curious it is an excellent example of electronic pop music searching for a new direction.

The album contains ten tracks from the original and a further five remixes of these tracks ,which pointed the way that the pop/dance format would go for the rest of the decade and beyond,almost the birth of the remix,but not quite,in fact it is a "not quite "kind of record ,not realising its grand pop vision and not selling particulary well ,but if you are bored with endless 100 hits of the 80,s and want to know what was going on away from Smash Hits and TOTP then this could be a little bit of buried treasure . 

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