Queer (Thompson Twins album)

Queer
Studio album by Thompson Twins
Released 24 September 1991
Recorded The Sugar Shack, London[1]
Genre Alternative, Post-punk
Length 47:48[2]
Label Warner Bros.
Producer Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie, Keith Fernley
Thompson Twins chronology
Big Trash
(1989)		 Queer
(1991)		 Thompson Twins - Greatest Hits
(1996)

Queer is the eighth and final studio album by the British pop group Thompson Twins.

Queer was the second album for the Warner Bros. label, following the 1989 album Big Trash. Although the previous album was not a major commercial success, it did spawn the Top 30 hit "Sugar Daddy" in the US. Before the release of Queer, it appeared as if the band was on the verge of commercial rebirth. Tom Bailey and engineer Keith Fernley had been experimenting with making dance music under the moniker "Feedback Max." As such, the group slipped several white-label 12-inch singles to London disc jockeys, the most successful of which was a track called Come Inside. The rave-style record became massively popular, and charted high on the playlists of influential DJs. Most of the Feedback Max records, including "Come Inside", were actually remixes of tracks that had been intended for the next Thompson Twins album. When "Come Inside" was issued as an official Thompson Twins release, the record was immediately ignored, as it stalled at number 56 on the UK Top 75 chart. Consequently, the British release of Queer was cancelled.

The album was released in the United States and Germany in September 1991. Warner Bros. tried a similar marketing approach in the US: Pre-release radio singles were shipped to station programmers in a paper zip-apart sleeve that said simply "Come Inside." A question mark appeared in place of the artist's name. The official single was released, but it was only successful on the Billboard dance charts. It was also popular within gay clubs. This modest success prompted Warner Bros. to issue a second single, "Groove On", despite the fact that remixes already existed for another album track, "Flower Girl". The former failed to make an impact. However, in the UK, "The Saint" was released as the second single from the album; it reached number 53.

In 1992, the Thompson Twins appeared on the soundtrack of the Ralph Bakshi film Cool World with a mostly-instrumental piece titled "Play With Me"; it was actually a remix of the song "Strange Jane" from Queer. Warner Bros. then released the track as an official Thompson Twins single, now called "Play With Me (Jane)", but the Cool World version of the song wasn't released as a single, even on the maxi-single format. Although "Play With Me (Jane)" did not make the UK Top 75, as with the other UK releases, it was a modest hit on the UK Dance Chart, reaching number 15.

Following the release of Queer, the band dropped the name Thompson Twins altogether and moved deeper into electronica with a new group called Babble, released by Warner Bros.' sister label Reprise. The group released two subsequent albums: The Stone and Ether.

Background

The album was recorded by the Twins at their own Sugar Shack Studio in London during a seven-month period beginning in the summer of 1990.[3] The name of the album, and the title track, was suggested by Bailey to "prove a point" and is based on the Famous Edith Sitwell ode "Waltz". The title caused some objection from the duo's record label, however Bailey revealed that he found the controversy "quite refreshing."[4]

In the Advocate magazine in October 1991,[5] Bailey explained the idea behind the title: "Are the Thompson Twins passionate and sexual? Sort of. Are we queer? Yes. Alannah and I are taking the word back. It's not the same point Boy George was proving with album Absolute Queer; but, it's close. Its amazing how many buttons this title has pushed, we were kind of hoping that would happen. Queer is such a powerful word. And yet it still shocks me how people get so uptight over it. There's an obsession with what is normal and what isn't. Sitwell and our song say, 'The hell with what you think is right.' Queer is not a gay word. It's a political word, a word people use to call someone who isn't normal. I am trying to say that it's a word about freedom. It should not be a pejorative."[4]

The album attempted to be a departure from what Bailey described as "safe pop music". For the Advocate, Bailey described the meaning of the lead single "Come Inside": "It's about a breakthrough between two people, the act of penetration. But the song is inspired by William Blake's poem "The Doors of Deception," which, as Blake wrote are hard to open wide. It's amazing how people are not willing to open their minds, but are more than ready to open their legs."[4]

In the official Warner Bros. press kit release for the album, Queer was described as "a dazzling exercise in the fine art of the unexpected, the eleven cuts that comprise the Twins latest outing offer no signposts, pigeon holes or traditional comforts to guide you through its maze of whims, obsessions and prismatic fantasies. Mystifying, mercurial, purely magical, "Queer" is the reward that awaits those for whom mere explanation is never quite enough."[3]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[2]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992 Edition)[6]

Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Queer "an ambitious effort, but it isn't entirely successful", noting that "you can hear the group work to re-establish themselves as artists."[2] Writing for Rovi, Erlewine noted that Queer "was ignored in both the U.S. and the U.K."[7]

Track listing

  1. "Come Inside" - 3:58
  2. "Flower Girl" - 4:16
  3. "My Funky Valentine" - 3:22
  4. "Queer" - 3:19
  5. "Groove On" - 3:54
  6. "Strange Jane" - 4:00
  7. "Shake It Down" - 3:31
  8. "Wind It Up" - 4:17
  9. "Flesh And Blood" - 3:47
  10. "The Invisible Man" - 2:33
  11. "The Saint" - 4:33
  12. "Come Inside (Feedback Max Remix)" - 6:27

Personnel

Thompson Twins
Additional Personnel

References

  1. ↑ "Thompson Twins - Queer (CD, Album)". Discogs. Retrieved 2010-10-18.
  2. 1 2 3 Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Queer - Thompson Twins". Allmusic. Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-10-18.
  3. 1 2 "Unofficial Thompson Twins Home Page". Web.archive.org. 2000-06-11. Archived from the original on 11 June 2000. Retrieved 2014-04-30.
  4. 1 2 3 "Unofficial Thompson Twins Home Page". Web.archive.org. 2000-06-06. Archived from the original on 6 June 2000. Retrieved 2014-04-30.
  5. ↑ "Unofficial Thompson Twins Home Page - ARTICLES Section". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on 5 June 2000. Retrieved 2014-04-30.
  6. ↑ "The Rolling stone album guide: completely new reviews : every essential ... - Anthony DeCurtis, James Henke, Holly George-Warren - Google Books". Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-04-30.
  7. ↑ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Thompson Twins". Pandora Internet Radio. Pandora Media. Retrieved 2010-10-18.
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