Matt Goss
The Key

"You're getting fat and losing your hair". This is what Matt Goss heard after the Bros broke up, an unprecedented disaster in the international pop scene, from the new manager at the time Michael Lipman, chosen for the relaunch. Not exactly a motivational boost.

"I landed in Los Angeles the day after Christmas in 1991. The record label decided that the only way to regain credibility and start a solo career was to leave England" (Matt Goss).

The last two years for Bros were a nightmare. They lost everything: money, credibility, fans, the scene. It was the twin, Luke, who put an end to the project, completely devastated by the current scenario.

Goss started working on the new album in an alien environment. "I had to sell a watch every month, watches I had collected over time and with great expense, to get by. I had lost the daily job with the Bros, the partnership with my brother, and was lightyears away from my loved ones. Shortly after, I had to let go of my assistant too. He couldn't accept that in America they didn't know who I was; he had become arrogant. I asked him to return to London".

The urgency was to translate into music the torment of the past years, the disappointment, the sense of frustration, the feeling of powerlessness and injustice. It took three years. Three years of blood and sweat.

"One evening at dinner, the manager insisted on introducing me to a local guru, a tough producer. He started with a lecture like 'Ah! You want to make music? Eh, man, you know when you'll really be someone, when you've made it? When they start calling you to play live! It's there on stage that you gain experience, that you grow and mature'. There was embarrassment, my manager blushed. I had had enough, and I got up to go to the bathroom. When I came back: 'Damn, man, you played the friggin' Wembley Arena? Why didn't you tell me?' 'Because you didn't ask....'".

Similar episodes marked the difficult three years during which "The Key" (1995) took shape. To this day, with Matt Goss about to become a celebrity again thanks to the imminent reunion with Bros, it remains his most anguished album. Hence, the best. Noteworthy. The album is raw, essential, performed and almost entirely programmed by the artist (except the drums, where Abe Laboriel Junior and Senior alternate, editor's note) and, for a 25-year-old who had already gone through enough to be able to write: "My body's young but my mind is old, my life is like a story that needs to be told" ("The House Of Accused"), capturing the essence of the entire album, is no small feat. Indeed: because the track that opens the album, "The Key", is a breath of optimism, an attempt to convey serenity that succeeds only partially: "Don't try the patience of a patient man...". Not surprisingly, what follows, "Peace Of Mind", is a cry of pain ("I try to find my peace of mind, turning through the pages of time. People learn by what people do, but the lesson's harder when it's learned by you"), musically well-structured, just like "Believe" which returns to embrace "The Key" in content, so? Then "Can't You Be Blind" takes us back down ("Can't you be blind for a minute? So he can take the money that you hand him") and the most delightful and gentle "Winter Rose" still sounds like swallows in autumn. And we're back up: "I feel strong today...smooth like a feline....". A rollercoaster, indeed.

"Colour Blue" ("Have you ever created a place that feels safe to hide......When I'm sleeping, I get healing...") is a sophisticated tale of the peace that sleep can grant to those whose lives are filled with torment, just in time to flush out the demons and immediately be reborn in "Take The Demon" ("Groove on, extend your dreams, revenge is what Illness needs. Groove on, and feel the soul. Take your hate, revenge your fears and....let it go"). And love? Finally, it is addressed in the turbulent "Hard Being Friends" ("It's hard being friends when the flame of love still burns..."). Yes, because just not to miss out on anything, amid the chaos, his girlfriend had also left him.

Finally, two covers gracefully support a tormented and overly mature project in some respects, the delicate "Heaven Is Ten Zillion Light Years Away" by idol Steve Wonder and "If You Were Here Tonight" by Alexander O'neill which guaranteed a new entry in the British top 20.

But not all that glitters is gold. Torments attract more torments. In 1995 at Polydor, the reference record label, there was a small upheaval. And what about Matt Goss, with all due respect? "Three years of work wasted. The album had a very soft release, few copies, moreover only in America where I was semi-unknown. I would have given my soul to let the world know what I had inside. But unfortunately, for the overwhelming majority of people, the album never reached them".

It's a shame, because the record is good. It's somewhat coarse pop, but impactful. The lyrics are relevant, they demonstrate uncommon sensitivity and intelligence. As partial compensation for him, the following year the Italian dance music guru Joe T Vannelli remixed "The Key", the single, which reached number one in the dance charts of the beautiful country. The two would then also make an album, "One", which, as they say, we may cover separately one day (I can hear your murmurs) under the pseudonym Co*bra.

In recent years, Matt Goss shows an uncommon peace of mind and reserve. Once, on a social platform, I asked him: "Matt, I am surrounded by arrogant people. Sometimes I just want to throw everything away. What can I do?" Answer: "Brother, focus on your horizons. Don't let arrogant people line you up, they simply believe; instead, you can come to have the power to command them".