Colin Newman
Commercial Suicide

A couple of months ago, a spark of love ignited between me and this album by Colin Newman. I reflected, on the side, about the need for some artists to shake off the Seventies as quickly as possible and wink at the following decade—less aggressive and more elegant, romantic, abstract, ethereal. Newman is the frontman of Wire, one of the most interesting bands, embedded like a jewel in that "late Seventies" which soon, from a revolutionary movement ready to change everything, changes again itself. I think of Partridge’s Xtc, Sylvian, and Newman himself discovering the discreet charm of the elegant suit and a few swirls of mascara, some more, some less.
I could also mention the notorious Spandau Ballet, because after all, they too wanted to go heavy, only to then realize that a couple of strokes of gel and the look of charmers was more in tune with To cut a long story short.

The Eighties had new sounds, synthesizers were back in vogue, no longer considered a baroque and cumbersome stylistic habit typical of that "prog," intense and mannered. The Synth becomes sexy, becomes a carpet; it presents itself in the face of the digital revolution as a sort of seal of guarantee on the sound aesthetic that will characterize, quite a bit, that decade. Newman’s solo albums were not an indescribable success, nothing compared to the excellent feedback of David Sylvian, probably more focused, more "slick," in expressing his talent.

Commercial Suicide is dated 1986, the year in which Mark Hollis’s Talk Talk introduced The colour of Spring, to match the setback of the previous album marred by that overblown "Such a shame." Newman sets aside much of the typical sound aesthetic of Wire, although it’s easy to sense some whispered idea in Chairs Missing that still hinted at other stylistic needs to be capitalized on in other contexts.

After all, not everyone is the Talking Heads, who, with a cry of all for one, one for all, moved from Brian Eno’s abstruse productions to intelligent Marimba ballads, Calypso, advertising spot harmonies, and cheerfulness.

Commercial Suicide is a beautiful production, with a care for sounds that deserves to be known and appreciated, while Colin Newman’s voice, at times, retains that "dirty" and atonal singing of the past, delivering itself in softer tracks to a cleaner and more elegant voice, enriched by strings and counterpoints; something that, in songs like "But I..." may remind you of what XTC’s Apple Venus will be.

I don’t know what the most fervent admirers of Wire think of Newman’s solo period, fascinated by this ambient-synthesized sound, with fretless bass and "stellar" pianos that you could also hear in a Lena Biolcati song at Sanremo during that time.
I myself waited many years before opening this door, enticed by "Feigned Hearing" which I consider the most beautiful track of the album; others like "Can I Explain the Delay" even risked becoming chart-catchers.

The fact remains that the Eighties left behind small great masterpieces, hidden or little told. Commercial Suicide, undoubtedly, is one of them. When you listen to it, you’ll revisit that decade, with all its good and even some aesthetic slip-ups, perhaps less narrative than some wrong chord in the years of the fuckin’ away.