Matt Bianco
Whose Side Are You On?

THE REVIEW

Damned eighties! The more you try to get rid of them, the more they come back to you like a boomerang. The more you despise them, the more your shoulder pads grow. As for me, I’ve given up. For a while now, I've stopped spitting in the Burghy tray (God bless it) where I ate in unsuspecting times. The little voice inside that until a few years ago persevered in wanting to convince me that it was all to be thrown away is dead for good.

Take for example "Whose side are you on?" (1984). To paraphrase an epic line from a movie: he who saves a summer saves an entire year, I am forced to prostrate myself a thousand times before the audacity, the cheek of an LP that throws its eighties at you without ifs and buts, enjoying, decade after decade, the best summers of my life. Yes, because for some time now, in a certain sense, I don't wait for summer... I fear it! Since an entire season was ruined for me by a so-called Swiss dogsitter, I have decided that nothing could catch me or my well-equipped convertible unprepared anymore.

So now this record joyfully, year after year, sits alongside other more or less recent knick-knacks inside my dashboard, basking in its ever-green sophisticpop (this is the name of the English scene of which the early Ebtg, Sade, Working Week, Style Council were also part), ready to rescue me when the storm (or hit, if you will) approaches. Because it is precisely under the sun, without tricks and without deceptions, that the bizarre trio surprised the English audience with the perfect balance with which they mixed Latin music, jazz, and synthetic pop.

Through a barrage of hit tracks, the group formed by Mark Reilly, Danny White and Polish singer Basia Trzetrzelewska churned out an album that was more than sparkling and gave the universe at least four evergreens ("Sneaking Out The Backdoor", "More Than I Can Bear", "Half A Minute", "Whose Side Are You On").

Too bad the magic did not repeat. Due to personalities that were too self-centered, due to too little foresight, Matt Bianco got lost and the enchantment that emanated from the splendid vocal harmonies of Basia, the warm voice of Mark, and the sunny rhythms of the backing group vanished in the course of a season and an album. Even today, the project is entangled in useless acrobatics, between agreements and disagreements, reunions and flights: Basia and Danny on one side, Mark on the other, leaving us the choice of deciding whose side we are on.

Whose side are you on? Indeed.