well, you've got to take the proverbial rough with the proverbial smooth, and here in my dubstar web garden the dung sits happily alongside the roses.. so here it is, the first of some slightly unpleasant seeds that have been trained up the dubstar trellis.. (dammit, those feeble 'gardening' references just keep on 'crop'ping up.. oh dear..) Anyway, seems to me that the reviewer is both completely uninformed (notice Sarah's new surname and general songwriting credit) and has a mighty big chip on his shoulder.. but judge for yourself..
Melody Maker, November 16, 1996
ERASURE/DUBSTAR, CITY HALL, NEWCASTLE
"And the stars are going out..."
There's a different light up here. It feels like the edge of the world - one step to the east, and you'd fall off. Why anyone in their right mind decided to build a city here... There's a town nearby called Wide Open, and that's how it feels. (There's also a part of Newcastle called Spital Tongues, which sounds disgusting.)
And this is how DUBSTAR should feel - fireworks exploding over the Tyne against a dark sky. Famous Grouse in the veins with some old friends... but there's work to be done. The spectacular undermined by the humdrum. Et voila, Dubstar.
"And the stage is full of nothing..."
Well now, that's not fair. Sarah Blackmore's (sic) growing more confident in this pop star game nowadays, prowling the stage lika a Pink Panther, giving someone who's been consistently staring up her skirt a smart kick without even glancing down to aim. Then she drops that line about a guy who's "more Morrison than Morrissey" in that disturbingly Dolores-esque folk warble, and the spell is shattered.
Dubstar are intelligent in the same, ultimately unhelpful middling way that, say, Jo Brand and Neneh Cherry are "intelligent" - they've seen through the dominant (male) culture, but can't see far enough to envision anything else. Yes, everything's superficial and banal. Yes, men objectify women. AND?!
"I'm a person who speaks, I'm a person who thinks, but you hope I'll forget as you ply me with drinks," she complains on the Cocteaus-Christmassy "Just A Girl She Said". "Yeah?" snorts the devil on my shoulder, "well buy your own drinks, then."
Once again, I return to "Stars", their defining moment, a song of opulent transcendence which is guy-roped to earth by a lyric about Sarah's dissatisfaction at the lot of a pop performer. Nice lashes, nice flashes, but a pop group who are embarrassed about being a pop group is no thing to be.
SIMON PRICE