V.A. Saturday

There are several Factory Records various artist compilations worth writing about in this series- the 1991 box set Palatine is the motherlode, there are several post- bankruptcy compilations, a very good compilation of Be Music productions (the name used by members of New Order for productions done outside the group, often done along with ACR's Don Johnson) and the very first Factory release, Fac 2, was a four track various artists sampler called A Factory Sample. I'll probably deal with all of them before the year is over. For today though, I offer you a Factory compilation from 1987, released on Factory US (catalogue number FACT US 17), a ten track compilation for the American listener from a time when New Order were making some serious inroads into touring the USA but just before Factory and the Hacienda went supernova. In typical Factory fashion, this Factory compilation, has no New Order on it, their biggest act missing. It is also titled Young Popular And Sexy- the least Factory sounding title on any Factory album. Wilson must have been having a laugh at someone's expense (and if it was at someone's financial expense it was probably New Order's). 

Young Popular And Sexy has ten tracks/ songs by ten Factory artists that the label must have hoped might make some headway into the US, maybe via college radio. Happy Mondays kick off side one with the chaotic, lysergic indie- funk of Kuff Dam (Mad Fuck spelt backwards) followed by the beautiful guitar playing of Vini Reilly on Durutti Column's Our Lady Of The Morning. Factory's mid- 80s line up of artists that hardly sold a record anywhere outside the Manchester postcode areas then follows- Stanton Miranda, Stockholm Monsters,  Shark Vegas (the band formed by Factory's man in Berlin Mark Reeder), The Railway Children (from Wigan, signed to Virgin and didn't really hit the heights expected of them. The drummer from The Railway Children sold my wife her first car back in the 1990s), The Wake, Kalima, and Miaow. A Certain Ratio are also present with And Then She Smiles, a pop song from 1986's Force album that should have been massive- ACR also left for a major label within a year or two, an experience that they didn't find particularly fulfilling either.

Here's some songs from it. Stockholm Monster's were from Burnage, just up the road from where I grew up. This single came out in 1987, the same year the group broke up, a swirling, dense, off kilter song with lyrics attacking politicians and those who tow the party line. 

Partyline (Partylive Mix)

Miaow was Cath Carroll's band. They signed to Factory and released two singles in '87- When It All Comes Down and Break The Code. When It All Comes Down closes Young Popular  And Sexy, sparkling indie guitar pop, and would have sounded great blaring out of mid- 80s ghetto blasters. Cath Carroll went onto release a solo album on Factory, 1991's England Made Me, a lost gem. In fact, Young Popular And Sexy is stuffed full of lost gems. 

When It All Comes Down

It's a curious compilation, a Factory curio, but one that despite being a little uneven is a good snapshot of the label, its approach and its artists, songs which should have been much more widely heard than they were. I don't know how many copies it sold in the US or whether it turned a generation of young Americans onto the wider Factory catalogue. I suspect not. 

As a bonus this is Happy Mondays performing Kuff Dam live at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in November 1989, by which time they were arguably and briefly the best live band in the country- there was definitely no- one else like them.