Various Artists – More Sin: Box Of Sin 2 (Demon)
★★★★½
Disco Discharge’s second round-up of the tracks that rocked the gay clubs of the 80s is a delight – and an education
Gay clubs have long been the laboratories for pop’s future. From 60s mod and 70s disco to the SAW sound, the LGTBQ+ community heard it all first and, as we saw in Disco Discharge’s first Sin boxset, the 80s were blessed with a particularly good soundtrack. So much so, that there’s easily enough material for a second edition of that decade’s best 12 inches.
As per Volume One, its five CDs are themed. So CD One features the divas: Donna Summer, Gwens McCrae and Guthrie and, erm, Adeva. Full marks for including Carol Jiani’s cowbell-tastic Hit N’ Run Lover and Jeane Carne’s cool and laconic Was That All It Was. The Hi-NRG disc also digs a bit better than the first volume so you get forgotten nuggets like Lana Pellay’s Pistol In My Pocket, a reminder that Carry On-style humour has always had a place in gay pop.
Most intriguing is Disc Three which traces the effect the queer dancefloor had on chart pop. Whilst the Pet Shop Boys and Bronski Beat are here as you’d expect, there’s also New Order – Subculture was directly inspired by nights the band spent at the Skin Two club. The Big Spender mix of Siouxsie & The Banshees’ Peek-A-Boo is a reminder of what an imperious presence Siouxsie Sioux was during this era and why she’s so badly missed now. And when isn’t it a pleasure to hear Propaganda’s Duel?
Box Of Delights
There’s a ‘Global Pop’ disc too, whose tracklist confusingly contains plenty of US and UK artists alongside the good (Voyage Voyage by Desireless – yes!), cheesy (Fancy’s Get Lost Tonight) and very silly (Modern Talking’s godawful Brother Louie). The final disc is reserved for the hip house and acid house of the late 80s and before you know it we’re at 1989, the Berlin Wall has come down and pop and the world outside is brimming with ‘positivity’ (remember that?).
Many of us were too young to experience these tracks in the environments they were meant to be heard. So if you spent the mid-80s fretting over O-Levels rather than sniffing poppers at Heaven, there’s plenty here to catch up on. Vince Clarke-related groups and Madonna may be missing from the tracklist, no doubt for licensing reasons, but there’s surely plenty of other artists still to be explored. Another boxset’s worth in a year or so? Let’s hope so.
Review by Beth Simpson
Order Disco Discharge’s More Sin: Box Of Sin 2 here
Subscribe to Classic Pop magazine here
The post Various Artists – More Sin: Box Of Sin 2 appeared first on Classic Pop Magazine.