Marc Almond, ‘The Days of Pearly Spencer’: The war against boring guitar guys

Marc Almond
‘The Days of Pearly Spencer’

Highest UK Top 40 position:
Number 4 on April 26, 1992

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Naming things is an incredibly powerful act.

When you name something, you change the way people see that thing. It’s why we fight so much over language, why we prohibit some words and try to reclaim others.

Names have power.

For instance, consider the person who plays songs for an intimate audience. These people have had many names over the centuries. Bard. Balladeer. Troubador. Minstrel. All of these names reflect a slightly different social function.

In the 20th century, these artists acquired a new title: singer-songwriter. This name emphasised the craft and hard work of such musicians, while highlighting the contrast with manufactured popstars.

But in recent years, this type of person has acquired a new name. And it is devastating.

That name is: Guys With Guitars At Parties.

(The exact taxonomy on Urban Dictionary is “That dude with the guitar at a party”.)

Men with acoustic guitars now have a very toxic brand. And honestly? They kind of brought it on themselves. They can be super annoying.

I remember the first time I became keenly aware of the Guys With Guitars At Parties type.

I was dating someone who dragged me along to their mate’s gig in the back room of some pub. Around 100 people were there, all of whom were all friends (or friends of friends) of the guy onstage.

His plan was to play a one-hour set of self-penned songs. Quiet, whispery songs on an acoustic guitar.

But you know what happens when you get 100 friends into a bar? They talk. They catch up. They have a terrific time.

What they do not do is sit silently and reflect on your gentle songs about heartbreak.

But the singer didn’t give up. Eyes screwed tight, he kept playing. He kept raising his voice a little louder, so we would step up the volume of our conversation. Then he would play a little louder, so we would talk louder still.

And then he would turn beetroot-red and scream, “everyone just shut up!”

Which we would do. For thirty seconds. And then we’d start talking, and the cycle would start again.

I wanted to go up there, put my arm around him, and say, “There is only one way for you to escape this situation with any dignity. You have to play ‘Sweet Caroline’.”

The problem with the contemporary Guy With Guitar At Party type is that they want to elevate themselves above the crowd. They have a Bob Dylan fantasy where the sheer power of their poetry can stun an audience into silence.

But this is a new thing. Performing musicians used to be very different.

A few years back, I was at my uncle’s 70th birthday. There were around 30-40 Irish people in his living room, all of whom were also in their 70s and upwards.

These people had been attending social gatherings since World War II. They were party professionals.

My uncle had arranged for two musicians to come in and provide a bit of entertainment. And I watched in fascination as these guys went about their job in a very old-fashioned way.

They didn’t demand attention from the crowd. They never sushed anyone—they wouldn’t have dared.

Instead, they worked in harmony with the conversation. When the chat was flowing, they sat back and played softly. When the crowd wanted music, they cranked it up. The whole evening flowed like one long melody.

It was what Irish people call a session.

The vast majority of Irish music emerges from this session atmosphere. Artists have no choice—if you try to fight the session, you end up like the first guy I mentioned, screaming at your friends to shut up.

One of the people that emerged from this scene was Belfast singer-songwriter David McWilliams.

McWilliams’ biography almost feels like a broadly drawn Irish stereotype. He was born poor, got expelled for drinking at school, worked in a factory, cut his teeth on the local showband scene, and then jumped a boat to London at the start of the Troubles.

His career was blighted by bad luck, mismanagement and drinking, plus an association with pirate radio that earned him a lifelong blacklisting by the BBC. In spite of this, he created one massive international hit single: ‘The Days of Pearly Spencer’

‘Pearly Spencer’ clearly has its roots in the world of traditional, folky songwriting. But, like much of McWilliams’ 60s output, it has a rich orchestral arrangement that sounds like Scott Walker during his Jacques Brel era.

Walker (and Brel) worked in a very different tradition, a mode that we might call cabaret.

Cabaret artists are also attention-seekers, but there’s a difference in how they court attention. Whereas singer-songwriters want people to be wowed by genius, cabaret types work to earn attention by being big, theatrical, and flamboyant.

Being boring is the worst thing you can do in cabaret.

And you know who’s never been boring in his life? Marc Almond.

Marc Almond first broke through as one half of Soft Cell, whose Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret combined electro beats with vivid lyrics about gay life in early-80s London. The biggest hit from that was a cover: Gloria Jones’ Northern Soul anthem, ‘Tainted Love’.

In 1991, Almond released the record album Tenement Symphony, which had some fine original songs. But again, the biggest hits were covers, including this version of ‘Pearly Spencer’.

In Almond’s hands, the track becomes a full-on melodrama. It’s snappier, smoother, and it includes an extra verse where Pearly gets some redemption.

The cabaret singer can add a little pizzazz to any Guitar Guy song.

But in the topsy-turvy world of the early 90s, Marc Almond didn’t get quite as much credit and respect as Guitar Guy songwriters.

In fact, the people of the 90s applauded for what is one of the most egregious covers in pop music.

David Grey, the undisputed king of Guys With Guitars At Parties, covered the best song Almond ever wrote, ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’. It’s the final track on Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret and it’s a very touching tale of queer heartbreak.

Grey lives up to his name by sucking all the life out of it, processing it into a bland soup that says nothing of interest.

Plus, the lyrics just sound really weird when a straight guy sings them. There’s a verse that goes:

I’ll find someone who’s not going cheap in the sales
A nice little housewife
Who’ll give me a steady life
And won’t keep going off the rails

Which is a killer line when it’s spoken between two men. It acquires a very different meaning when it’s a bloke shouting it at his ex-girlfriend.

This is perhaps why the singer-songwriter has evolved into the Guy With Guitar At A Party stereotype.

This subgenre is overloaded with straight white men, and ultimately there are only so many things you can say about the experience of being a straight white man before it gets really tedious for everyone.

Today, there are some successful singer-songwriters in the charts, like Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers, but they offer a more diverse perspective. And Ed Sheeran sells buckets of records, but even he tries to mix it up a bit. He knows that, in 2022, it’s better to be a terrible rapper than a full-on Guy With Guitar At A Party.

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